It all began in 2018 with a fun team-building format I developed called Culture Games Amsterdam. Participants had to compete to become as Dutch as possible, and it was aimed at international companies based in the Netherlands.
The format arose from a commingling of my main interests: corporate coaching, theatrical improvisation and comedy, and cultural exploration. That last bit came about after I moved to the Netherlands in 2014 and fell in love with Dutch culture. While growing my professional network in my early days in Holland, I also started a little sideline giving backroads tours of the Netherlands.
An early insight I garnered from guiding is that visitors to a country always want to feel as local as possible, and so Culture Games Amsterdam was born.
One of our first clients had to cancel the conference that they booked us for and asked me if we offered any remote events. I quickly said yes and then went and protoyped and developed a remote version of Culture Games Amsterdam. Luckily it worked and the client was very happy.
When the pandemic hit, we were fortunate to have a service we could offer remotely. We were able to keep quite busy, and clients often asked if we could offer Culture Games with themes other than Dutch culture.
Over a the course of a coupe of months, I deconstructed the format and was able to adapt it for a whole host of new subect areas such as other cultures, sports and hobbies, and professions.
Though the agile coaching formats are not identical to team-building Culture Games, they both very much spring from the same place: a love of expression and interpersonal bonding, and a background in theatrical improvisation.
Before the pandemic, I had been planning on launching a small consultancy specialising in agile development. With lockdown, we all collectively made that jump into remote work and remote communications, and it seemed like there was an opportunity to use this newly-established trend as a way to help companies engender agile skills in their people.
Rory Brosnan
Founder
Born and raised in Ireland, I hold a B.A. (English & Spanish) from University College Cork, and an M.F.A. (Film & TV Production) from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
I worked as a director of Creative Content for Buena Vista Pictures Marketing (Disney), and also sold two screenplays during my time in LA – alas unproduced, a common tale!
I have been based in Amsterdam for six years and prior to starting Culture Games I was a freelance corporate coach / facilitator specialising in applied improvisation. I am a regular guest coach at the Vrij Universiteit where I help Masters students in the Health & Life Sciences Dept improve their field interviewing techniques.
Culture Games is based on my experience as an improvisor, a passion that I stumbled upon in 2006. I went on to complete the conservatory training programs in two of LA’s most prestigious improv schools, Bang! Comedy Theatre, and IO West. I have performed extensively in LA, Dublin, and Amsterdam – more than 200 live shows I would guess, but I never did keep count!
The Power of Play
Culture Games is based on the idea that fun is a serious business. To use an old aphorism – all work and no play makes Jack a bull day. Nobody wants to be around Jack!
The agile coaching modules we provide draw directly from the practices of theatrical improvisation – learning to be in the moment, to embrace other people’s ideas (and in turn, have your ideas embraced), to exercise one’s creative and collaborative muscles.
These are liberating practices.
Even for our team-building experiences, which are a bit looser, they are based on the sense that people who work together also need to have fun together. Game play as a basis for a corporate team-building is a way for colleagues to be themselves in a work setting and not have to calibrate an answer.
Rory Brosnan
Founder
Born and raised in Ireland, I hold a B.A. (English & Spanish) from University College Cork, and an M.F.A. (Film & TV Production) from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
I worked as a director of Creative Content for Buena Vista Pictures Marketing (Disney), and also sold two screenplays during my time in LA – alas unproduced, a common tale!
I have been based in Amsterdam for six years and prior to starting Culture Games I was a freelance corporate coach / facilitator specialising in applied improvisation. I am a regular guest coach at the Vrij Universiteit where I help Masters students in the Health & Life Sciences Dept improve their field interviewing techniques.
Culture Games is based on my experience as an improvisor, a passion that I stumbled upon in 2006. I went on to complete the conservatory training programs in two of LA’s most prestigious improv schools, Bang! Comedy Theatre, and IO West. I have performed extensively in LA, Dublin, and Amsterdam – more than 200 live shows I would guess, but I never did keep count!
The Power of Play
Culture Games is based on the idea that fun is a serious business. To use an old aphorism – all work and no play makes Jack a bull day. Nobody wants to be around Jack!
The agile coaching modules we provide draw directly from the practices of theatrical improvisation – learning to be in the moment, to embrace other people’s ideas (and in turn, have your ideas embraced), to exercise one’s creative and collaborative muscles.
These are liberating practices.
Even for our team-building experiences, which are a bit looser, they are based on the sense that people who work together also need to have fun together. Game play as a basis for a corporate team-building is a way for colleagues to be themselves in a work setting and not have to calibrate an answer.