Once in my pre-teen years, my dad and I found ourselves with a rare “guys’ weekend.” We could do whatever we wanted. We could eat whatever we wanted. We could watch whatever we wanted (with appropriate parental limitations).

As part of our “guys’ weekend” we went to Movie Gallery to rent some videos. (We didn’t even have a Blockbuster yet.) 

He let me pick out three videos for us that would end up changing my life right then: SNL – The Best of John Belushi, SNL – The Best of Dan Aykroyd, SNL – The Best of Chevy Chase.

From that point I was hooked on Saturday Night Live and all things sketch comedy. I couldn’t get enough. In school when other kids were studying Calculus, Physics and A.P. History, I was studying SNL, Monty Python, The Kids In The Hall and The State. Apparently, all that studying actually did help me later in my career.

Now fast forward 30+ years.

I was recently checking in with a client. He had just finished up a series of meetings with his company’s board of directors. As the CEO, he set and facilitated the agenda to showcase himself, his officers and the company’s future in a positive light. I helped him prepare for employee culture discussions he knew would happen so I was anxious to hear how the meetings went.

Apparently the meetings DID NOT go well at all. 

I believe the term he used was “s*** show.”

Now it turned out that the meetings didn’t really go thaaaaaat badly. Luckily they had prepared beforehand, and he was able to readjust and improvise by sharing data and results that weren’t related to the original meeting agenda but were related to the impromptu discussions. And this information helped the board members feel more comfortable with the company’s direction.

But what does this have to do with SNL?

In your career, you’re going to find yourself in a number of meetings, experiences or situations that aren’t going how you planned. And you’ll have to figure out how to salvage them. One of the best ways to learn how to do that is to look to comedians like John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Tina Fey, Jason Sudeikis, Will Ferrell, Amy Poehler, Kate McKinnon and LOTS of other successful SNL alumni.

No, this doesn’t mean you should turn any high-stakes meeting into a joke. But when you think of how these actors became successful, it came with a lot of practice and training in improv.  

And it turns out, improv can help you, and your team, become a lot more effective. Leadership, influence, listening, presentations, storytelling, reading your customers, negotiations, persuasion, relationship management, sales calls, crucial conversations with your leadership – all of these will benefit from you honing your improv skills.

The late improv guru, Del Close, developed 11 commandments of improv. And a number of them are perfectly suited to help you maintain composure and be flexible, no matter the situation.

1. Listen

Everyone wants to be understood. The best way to actually understand someone is to actively listen to what they’re saying (sometimes even to what they’re not saying). You can even “listen” by simply observing someone. If you’re too busy thinking about what you want to say next, you’re not going to be listening, and you’re not going to understand others in the room. When that happens, it’s difficult to collaborate effectively.

2. Always check your impulses

When we’re impulsive, we tend to focus only on ourselves and what we want, not what others around us want. Having an internal “check” on your impulses allows you to be flexible and flow with the group and where the agenda is going. So if you feel an impulse to react, pause for a moment and make sure your reaction will be one that actually helps “move the plot forward.”

3. Save your fellow actor; don’t worry about the piece. 

When you’re with your team, remember that you’re all members of the same team, and you should all support each other. If you find yourself in a situation where you feel like you can save yourself by throwing someone “under the bus,” don’t do it. Actions like that may save you in the moment, but will hurt your personal brand and career. Save yourselves as a team.

4. Your prime responsibility is to support.

Not one person is greater than your team’s collective goals, or even your collective goals with your customer. In any meeting, you’re there to support a successful meeting outcome. Sometimes that means readjusting what you intend to get out of the meeting and figuring out what you can do to ensure the meeting is successful for everyone.

5. Trust 

To be truly effective, you need to always be collaborative. And you’re only truly collaborative if you, and your team, trust each other. That means being able to let others share ideas that may counter your own ideas. That means being able to trust others to give feedback and criticism to your ideas without feeling that they’re criticizing you as a person. 

When you follow these “rules,” especially when you follow them together with your team, you’ll be flexible enough to salvage any situation that doesn’t go the way you originally planned.

And if you ever get tired of your current role, maybe you can try your hand at improv and sketch comedy.