How to Run Your Company Like an Improv Group, by Twitter CEO Dick Costolo

When I first got to Chicago and was doing improvisational comedy, there was a group of folks from Ivy League schools, like Rachel Dratch, who graduated from Dartmouth. There was another group from Midwestern universities, the Chris Farley types, who were like, “We are going to swear onstage and take our shirts off.” There was a fascinating balance there. It created a great blend of intellectual comedy and slapstick.

That’s exactly the mix you want to foster in a company. On one hand, you have your innovators. These are your dropouts and visionaries. They say, “I need the freedom to think about this problem outside the limits of whatever constraints other people might operate under.” They tend to think holistically about solutions. Then there are your Stanford graduates with a 4.0 grade point average. They’re disciplined. They think in terms of measuring themselves and everyone around them with data. You want both to make it all work.