A coaching session for a person or team using Improv Skills for Better Communication and Belonging by Jessica Halem.

Description

We have to stop meeting like this: leaders wishing everyone would participate, some who feel free to speak their minds, and many thinking “I should have said...”

This online workshop will demonstrate how the rules of improv comedy can improve individual and group communication.

Improv in the workplace has been shown to increase innovation, team building, and resilience.

With training from Second City in Chicago, 15 years as a professional comic, and an MBA to boot, Jessica Halem is an agent of personal and systemic change who uplifts and connects people in the process.

Most recently, she was the Harvard Medical School LGBTQ Outreach and Engagement Director where she transformed the culture and climate to increase diversity and inclusion.

Jessica Halem is no ordinary Queer Jewish Femme from a small-town in Ohio. As the inaugural LGBTQ Outreach and Engagement Director at Harvard Medical School, she was unique in her role among medical schools. During her six year tenure, she grew the first-year class from 4% to 15% LGBTQ and the OutList to 350 faculty and staff. A long-time fundraiser, she secured a $1.5 million dollar grant to integrate sexual and gender minority health into the Harvard curricula.

Prior to joining Harvard, Jessica ran the Lesbian Community Cancer Project in Chicago where she implemented the nation’s first cultural competency trainings for the CDC and served on then-candidate Obama’s first LGBT Advisory Committee. Jessica has published on transgender health, optimism and organizational change, and mentoring across difference.

She uses her improv training to coach individuals and teams on dealing with difficult moments, remains committed to supporting LGBTQ medical students, and is a dynamic keynote speaker. She serves on the Board of the Tegan and Sara Foundation, Friends of Buck’s Rock, and lives with her partner Jen Manion, who is on faculty at Amherst College.