On Your Feet began by mistake. On a wet November Saturday in 1996, two unsuspecting bald guys with glasses met at a bakery in Portland, Oregon, to talk about a t-shirt, and instead, by complete accident, formed a consultancy that uses improvisation and other experiential techniques to help organizations create, relate, and communicate... all while having a ridiculously good time.
Almost two decades later, we have created a collaboration that includes an ex-ad planner, an anthropologist, two yoga teachers, a filmmaker, a handful of improvisers, marketing execs, a snow cone baron, and a former mail carrier/biochemist. We live in a few curious places: Portland, New York City, London, and Arenas de San Pedro (a Spanish town about two hours from Madrid), and we work all over the globe with organizations such as Nike, Xerox, Disney, GE, Intel, McKinsey, Procter & Gamble, the British Ministry of Defense, and a non-profit that brings yoga into prisons. Itβs amazing what mistakes can yield.
Our work is based on a few well-tested beliefs.
1. You can only get so far sitting down.
2. Learning is often emotional and experiential before it is intellectual.
3. You shouldn't have to pay extra for the emergency-exit row.
4. More heads are better than one (under the right conditions).
5. Actions speak louder than mission statements.
6. Giant Post-It sticky-backed notes are the greatest invention in world.