Our Berlin Adventure: Strategizing Workshops for International Teams
Berlin Workshop with eBay.
October 2025
Last month Alex and I had the amazing opportunity to lead a workshop in Berlin, Germany for the international legal team at eBay. Wow. Probably needless to say, but this was a big deal for us.
To prepare we not only had to purchase outlet adapters and brush up on key German phrases (“Informieren Sie die Polizei, er hat meinen Strudel gestohlen!”), we also needed to strategize our session for a large international audience.
Now, strategic and creative thinking goes into every single workshop we design because Alex and I customize workshops to our client audience. Our workshops are like fingerprints or snowflakes. No two are the same. We shape them according to each team’s learning objectives, culture, values, and dynamics.
That said, this eBay gig had some additional factors for us to consider..
Consideration 1: ESL Teammates
Our client shared that a large portion of the group spoke English as a second language (ESL). Snaps for our multilingual smarties! For Alex and I, this meant we needed to choose games that relied less heavily on native level fluency. Thankfully improv in general is already structured to be a supportive and collaborative art form, so we really didn't have to stray very far from our typical agenda selection strategy to account for the language element.
Here's how we adapted:
We chose games that allowed players to see the speaker's lips while they spoke. This is a big help for second-language comprehension (something I learned firsthand while becoming fluent in a second language 🇧🇷).
We selected activities in small groups (2-6 people) so that if clarification was needed for a teammate, they'd have someone there to support. Intimate group sizes make it less likely that someone gets left behind.
For complex exercises, we created slides which also listed the directions to complement our verbal explanations. Ultimately this was helpful to everyone!
Consideration 2: Culture
With about half the audience from outside the U.S., we were intentional about avoiding exercises that relied on American pop culture or idioms to succeed. We found ourselves asking questions like, “Would everyone here recognize ‘peas and carrots’ as a famous duo?” (Yes, that was a real chat Alex and I had.)
Consideration 3: A Big ‘Ol Group.
Lastly, for this international dream gig, Alex and I had to strategize for the large group (a few hundred people). Keeping that many participants engaged for two hours is no small feat. (Can I get an amen from anyone who’s ever led a meeting longer than five minutes?)
To make it work:
We selected games where people could manage themselves (simple, intuitive, inclusive, fun). Exercises that required constant hands-on facilitation from me or Alex for each group wouldn't work at this scale.
We adapted traditional improv structures to accommodate group size, using pre-made envelopes of prompts for a certain core exercise instead of collecting live suggestions.
We designed a flow that started and ended with the full group, with a breakout middle section to allow for more intimate collaboration and deeper learning.
So how did we do? I am happy to report that we slayed…we executed…we killed. (Why does success have to be so violent?).
We did good! And more importantly our eBay friends did too. But don't take my word for it. Here's what just some of them had to say.
