The room's first instinct was to lift each other — a leadership cohort at a global chemical company

Quick answer

At a global chemical company, IMPROV Communication delivered a 5 Guiding Principles training to 23 leaders, built around one question: speed over perfection? The aim was to help the group move faster together by loosening self-judgement and strengthening how they collaborate across teams. In anonymous feedback, all 19 respondents said they would recommend the experience, and 18 of them chose to keep going with a 30-day follow-up.

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At a glance

• Client: A leadership cohort at a global chemical company
• Engagement: 5 Guiding Principles training, July 2026
• Scale: 23 participants, one experiential session, delivered with a leadership development partner
• 100% would recommend the experience (19 of 19 respondents)
• 5.9 / 7 confidence to apply the learning
• 6.3 / 7 said the training is worth continuing
• 95% joined the 30-day sprint (18 of 19 respondents)

Source: anonymous post-session survey completed by 19 of 23 participants (83%) on the day.

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Why they asked us in

A global chemical company, in the middle of a market that rewards moving quickly, wanted its leaders to stop waiting for perfect. The brief came with a title rather than a problem statement — "speed over perfection?" — and the question mark was the point. Where does caution protect the work, and where does it just slow good people down?

The people commissioning the session had a clear read on what was getting in the way. It was not capability. It was the quiet drag of perfectionism, the pull of working inside your own team rather than across, and the inner critic that keeps a good idea unspoken.

The challenges that shaped our design:

• Perfectionism as a brake. The instinct to polish before acting, and the hesitation that comes with it.
• Working across silos. Leaders who needed to reach beyond their own team to move anything of scale.
• Self-judgement. The internal voice that holds people back from speaking up when it matters.

What we delivered

One experiential session for 23 leaders, led by an experienced IMPROV facilitator. We ran it alongside a leadership development partner: they brought the inside-out foundation, and the Applied Improv work tested how people actually connect and collaborate when there is a little pressure in the room.

The session followed the three-phase architecture at the heart of our methodology:

• Pre-training activation. Framing the day around the client's own question, so people arrived ready to work rather than watch.
• The session itself. Experiential exercises grounded in emotional intelligence research and the 5 Guiding Principles of IMPROV. Participants do, then reflect, then commit.
• Post-training reinforcement. A 30-day sprint — a short prompt each Monday, a reflection each Friday — to keep the new behaviours alive in ordinary working weeks.

What the participants told us

Feedback was gathered through an anonymous survey on the day, completed by 19 of the 23 in the room.

Two principles carried almost the whole group. Asked which of the five principles spoke to them most, nine named Make Each Other Look Good and eight named Do Not Judge Yourself. The remaining three barely registered. For a group asked to move faster together, the instinct to lift the people around them — and to ease up on themselves — is a strong place to start.

Confidence and appetite to continue both sat high. Readiness to apply the learning came in at 5.9 out of 7, and belief that the work is worth continuing reached 6.3. Nobody scored either below the midpoint.

The inner critic was the clearest thing people saw in themselves. More than any other observation, participants noticed their own self-judgement — the voice that shows up before they have even acted. Naming it is where the "speed over perfection" shift begins.

In their own words

The Voice of judgement of myself in my head prevents me being more confident. — Participant

How difficult it is to turn the judge in me off. — Participant

I am not the only one who can't multitask. Others have the same limitations as myself. — Participant

Make others look good. I hope it can spread easily and inspire others. — Participant

What they committed to on Monday

• Open a meeting with a positive remark
• Ask at least one "why" question before rejecting an idea
• Reach out to five stakeholders for coffee chats
• Praise a colleague in front of others
• Put the phone away and stay fully present in meetings

Bring this to your organisation

Most leadership teams know a version of this question: how do you get capable, careful people to move faster together without losing the care that makes them good? What transfers is the shape of the work — a session people feel rather than sit through, built on the 5 Guiding Principles, and held in place by the three phases that turn a single day into behaviour that lasts past the thirty-day mark.

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