Becca Barish

Becca Barish, LCSW, is a learning designer who uses her background in social work and improvisation to motivate connection, empathy, vulnerability and resilience in the workplace. She believes that success can be boiled down to the everyday interactions that may seem small, but set the tone for the entire organizational culture.

As a licensed clinical social worker with a masters degree in social service administration from the University of Chicago, Becca has worked to apply improv in clinical and business settings through her work as a designer and facilitator for Second City Works, the professional development arm of the iconic Second City theater, as well as serving as program head for Second City’s wellness department.

She has helped develop programs such as Improv for Anxiety, Improv for Autism, Humor Doesn’t Retire, Improv for Veterans, Improv for Clinicians and Improv for Parkinson’s. Most recently, she helped design Improvising Radical Candor’s live experience. A collaboration between Second City Works and Radical Candor, Improvising Radical Candor incorporates improv performance and exercises to explore how to best manage Radically Candid feedback conversations.

She is also grateful to design and facilitate with Nova Collective, a company that trains across all levels of an organization to comprehend and operationalize core diversity, equity and inclusion concepts. Becca spends most of her time wondering if you’re gonna finish those fries, and if not, hoping she can have them.