“Due to the uncertain nature of the current economic atmosphere, we are immediately cancelling all training in communications and interviewing skills.”

This is shortsighted, timid, short-term thinking. Certainly, killing the budget line for training people in HR to facilitate more efficient, revealing interviews of new potential hires may seem to make sense right now, especially since the firm may be freezing hiring. Why pay for enhancing the skill of conducting a savvy interview on the hiring side when this skill will not be utilized any time soon?

Part of the reason lies in the overly targeted nature of how we coaches and training consultants market training as a product. If the training is sold as “specifically for X department in Z situation,” then the bean-counters on the client side are justified in advocating for eliminating this highly specialized training when it seems not called for.

The problem is that good communications training for one scenario is usually good communications training, period. It is always a worthwhile investment to train teams and associates to be more articulate and impactful in what and how they communicate. Indeed, crisp, clear communication is prudent and efficient–cheaper than opaque, waffling, muddled communication. Similarly, poor listening is also expensive, as meetings and memos must be re-sent, reiterated, and careless mistakes fixed. Lousy communication costs real money and wastes real-time. So even if we are not making Pitch #6 anymore because of poor current sales, we shouldn’t allow the refined pitch-making skills and follow-up communications skills to wither.

The economy will rebound, clients will return, the pitches and products can again roll out, and the markets will reignite. It will be immensely more expensive, however, by any reasonable comparison, to rebuild and retrain everybody’s languishing communication skills at that point.

Communication training is a worthwhile ongoing (if judiciously reduced) expense. Companies would do well to protect it, even when making other unpleasant choices like cancelling products, closing factories, and freezing hiring.

This morning, our friend Kate Grace posted an interview with Jay on her terrific blog  A Bit of Grace. Part of her “Artists I Admire and You Should Know About” series, Kate’s interview takes a in-depth look at Jay’s artistic background, his creative process as an improv performer and the inspiration for Biprov. Want to learn what makes Jay tick? This is a great place to start! Here’s just a brief excerpt:

Tell us about Bizprov – where did the inspiration for Bizprov come from?

Bizprov emerged from requests I kept getting from former students to come and lead improv workshops with their office teams–often just for holiday parties and such. I’d done corporate improv-based training work for years, and I’d always wanted to be a consultant on my own, so  things seemed to fall into place. My partner Chip is an MBA and he had some terrific ideas about strategy and marketing, and it was off to the races. We became obsessed with using improv to stimulate creativity, collaboration, and communication skills. When it clicks with clients, it’s as fun and rewarding for me as performing a strong, funny show. I’ve also discovered that I’m a pretty ambitious businessman, though running this business remains highly improvisational!

You can read the entire post here:   “Artists I Admire and You Should Know About” Series – Jay Rhoderick « a bit of grace.

Thanks to Kate for a job well done!

Improvisation is the art of acting and reacting without a rigid plan, exploring without judgment and discovering creative solutions to unanticipated challenges. It encourages risk-taking and rewards discovery. When you improvise in the workplace, you jump in with both feet, promote innovative ideas, make decisions with confidence, defuse conflict, react nimbly to surprises – and have fun!

This is seriously strong stuff!  Here are 6 ways you can immediately use improvisational techniques to make a more fun, collaborative and creative workplace.

1. Take yourself less seriously!
Improvisation is an art form all about throwing out preconceived notions and trying on new things.  How about starting with yourself?  Set aside your “profile” and the stuffy trappings of rank.  Gain perspective and release tension at work by laughing at yourself.  It may involve telling a funny self-deprecating story about your early days at the company.  Maybe it’s including a joke or humorous quote in an email.  Others will notice and feel more open with you.  Nobody has all the answers so celebrate what you don’t know and make yourself more approachable.

2. Relax & flow.
Yes, things are tense in this uncertain economy right now, but tough times were never made better with more stress.  Improvisation teaches active listening and keen observation.  An improviser at work takes the time to breathe, allow silences, and realizes that important thinking and reactions don’t always get blurted out right away.  Take the time to pause, stretch, take a stroll to get some air, or juggle staplers – whatever! Gain some perspective and set the stage for creative thinking!

3. Curiosity.
Active curiosity is what drives genuine creativity and discovery.   The more curious the mind, the bolder the imagination.  The more actively curious (the more we actually taste new flavors in the buffet), the more useful and applicable the imaginative notions are.  It may be that the conversation you have about someone’s new desk toy or vacation photo may trigger a eureka moment or lead to a new business relationship. Perhaps the new store opening next door is offering something useful to your firm.  Find out what’s behind the smiles on everyone’s faces at the water cooler.  Getting curious, investigating the unknown, brings us to the opportunity much faster than waiting for the opportunity to come find us.

4.  Say “Yes, and…”
This is a fundamental tenet of improvisation, essential for moving ideas along and building funny situations.  At work, find ways to validate people and ideas by saying “yes!”  Entertain others’ ideas in meetings, and agree to proposals you might otherwise ignore or dismiss.  Follow “yes” with “and”—by adding on and furthering the original idea.  Too often we hear and think, “no, but…”  Enthusiastically second even small points and suggestions others make (e.g. where we should go to lunch) and pitch in tweaks of your own (“yes, we can eat at Sardi’s, AND we can invite the client and show them a classic New York spot!”)  Become an active participant in and shaper of conversations.  It shows you are ready to collaborate and it’s optimistic.  Say “yes, and…”, and see productivity blossom!  

5. Connect!
Improvisation shows us how to connect and pick up on each other’s tiniest cues, even the unconscious, non-verbal ones.   The better you are at empathizing with co-workers and customers, the better you be will at quickly and accurately meeting their needs.  Verbally remark on facial expressions during meetings, match the tone in room by non-mockingly adopting the physical positions of others.  Share candidly how you may feel emotionally the same as others about some idea.  They’ll notice how close the attention is that you’re paying, and reflect it back at you.   In no time, there’s huge trust and instant collaboration!

6. Invitations
Invitation is a strong business tool.  Pitches, proposals, meetings, promotions, and 6-month evaluations are all invitations to do something.  Pull people into improvised moments of brainstorming, sampling, unplanned conversations, and good old-fashioned goofy fun.  Put forth lots of “what if…?” and “tell me about…” statements.  Once you’ve invited colleagues to improvise with you, you can coax them toward steps 1 – 6 and spread the benefits of professional improvisation throughout the firm!

Improvisation is a system of living, thinking and relating. And when used with intent in the workplace, it becomes a powerful platform for creative thinking, collaboration, value creation and in-the-moment, personal connection.  And the more connected we are to each other, the more bravely we can break old patterns and enhance our business.  Who knows? –Someone may applaud!

“I am Odysseus son of Laertes,

known before all men for the study of crafty designs,

and my fame goes up to the heavens.” –The Odyssey

“Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
… Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world …”

(from Tennyson’s Ulysses)

Bizprov recently presented a leadership workshop using the tool of improvisation to sharpen skills of seeing, hearing, and responding in the moment.  In these workshops, we drew on some ancient truths and heroic virtues, using models from mythology to connect with essential attributes of leadership.   These stories also provided larger-than-life examples of the importance of uniting around a common purpose.

Business theorist Mary Parker Follett believed that a modern leader is required to have a thorough knowledge of the job, the ability to grasp the total situation, and the power to make disparate forces serve a common purpose.   Leaders should have a vision of the future and followers keep a leader in control of the situation by informing her of the situation as it changes, on the ground, in the moment.  It is essentially improvisational give-and-take.

Business leaders must be learners and guides, invoking their own personal virtues and knowledge as well as those of their people in order to recognize and articulate that common purpose, a vision that is subscribed to emotionally, psychologically and actively by the entire unified team in order for the business to move forward.  Leaders must develop a common purpose as a rallying point for the team in order to ultimately grow the business.  It’s something possible, achievable through dedication, faith, leadership and collaboration.  This is true of all leaders, modern and mythological.

In the myth of Jason and the Argonauts, Jason and his team of superheroes face the Clashing Rocks, huge rocks in the sea that crash together at regular interval and then separate again to trap and crush ships. To get past the rocks without sinking, they had to combine the special powers of those on the boat.  They followed the seer prophecy of the blind Phineas, who told them of the gods’ advice to release a dove and see if it could fly past the rocks without being crushed in between.  They caught a live dove through the hunting skills of Atalanta, and let it fly between the great rocks.  The sharp-eyed mapmaker Zetes was able to use his incredible eyesight to see the dove’s fate.  The dove survived, and the Argonauts set about to sail through the Clashing Rocks as they parted.  To do this, they had to row at superhuman speed.  Luckily the mighty Hercules was on board.  They all banded together, and with a little push from Athena as well, the Argo safely sailed into the Black Sea.  The Rocks never clashed again.  The Argonauts under Jason’s leadership pursued a common purpose and utilized their combined group power.

Big Moments of leadership and decision-making bring together knowledge and personal virtues to create buy-in and inspiration on everyone’s part.  Leadership is a collaborative practice, finds common purpose which inspires action.  It involves the ever-present improvisational ability to see, hear, reflect and adapt to the situation.  Let’s call this process of grasping the Big Moments and Common Purpose the “4 G’s”: gleaning, grounding context, galvanizing and guiding:

• Gleaning information (knowing the self and learning about and from others)
• Grounding the situation, articulating the context AT A CRITICAL JUNCTURE
• Galvanizing the team in A MOMENT OF TRUTH; modeling and inspiring action
• Guiding them onward as they take on more leadership themselves.

So what do we already know about ourselves and our leadership qualities?  What qualities are essential?  What can we learn from myth about inspiring common purpose?  How do the 4 G’s and improvisation provide new ways of being a passionate, visionary leader of leaders?  The myth models such as the Jason story as well as speeches and turning points in the Iliad and Odyssey provide us with vivid examples of collaborative leadership qualities and rich, evocative imagery.  For instance, in one of his moments of truth, Trojan hero Prince Hector articulates the critical juncture, employs the 4 G’s, and identifies common purpose: to rally the men of Troy to defeat the Greeks.  As a leader, he is modeling honor, bravery, focus, patriotism.

“Come, now for attack! We’ll set all this to rights, someday, if Zeus will ever let us raise the wine bowl of freedom high in our halls, high to the gods of cloud and sky who live forever–once we drive these Greeks geared for battle out of Troy! …Aren’t you sick of being caged inside those walls?”

There is no established pathway or map for these heroic men and women.  That’s the point, and it’s the essential nature of the adventure and the challenge—in myth and in business—finding the way through, drawing on personal virtues and group power focused on a compelling common purpose.

Leaders in ancient myth and modern business contextualize the critical juncture to inspire other perhaps newly promoted leaders to emotionally buy-in, and step up.  This recent workshop’s participants vividly experienced moments of truth and leadership in a critical juncture, going home with a clear sense of how to get focused in the moment, model and apply these 4 G leadership practices, and articulate a common purpose for their people at work.

I’ve just returned from a trip to the UK, where I facilitated a series of improv workshops in the seaside funky-town of Brighton and in London.  I met some wonderful people and saw some great moments of improvisation (on stage and in rehearsal).   The scene in Brighton is lively and ambitious, and in a town of about 250,000, there’s lots of activity and buzz.  The folks I met were intent on building a stronger community there, establishing a central improv theatre, raising the “impro” profile, and attracting more audience attention.

London’s scene is varied, but mostly, I’m told, still focused on short-form, rather than Chicago or New York-style Harolds or long forms.  The group I worked a bit with, Hoopla, is a smart, fast, funny and outrageous troupe of actors who are genuinely curious about exploring new styles, especially physical styles.  They blew me away with the substance and vocal technique they brought to their characters and their bold explorations of Commedia dell’Arte and other more physical styles.  They made the work their own.

I was told several times by British improvisers that there is sometimes more verbal than physical in improv shows, and that is case in lots of performances everywhere, but what surprised me was how free and physical much of the scenes were.  There was a lot of gusto in the entrances, exits, and turning points!  Maybe it was because the UK was in the thick of the World Cup euphoria (and then despair) and there was a lot of excitement everywhere.  My improviser friends brought huge energy to their performance work, even while clearly yearning to join the roaring crowds of football fanatics and partiers.

The UK seems to have a performance style focused on smart dialogue, character and scene games.  I was especially stuck by how subtle much of the work was.   Like British sitcoms, plays, and even Monty Python’s zany material, some of the biggest laughs came from tiny yet outrageous revelations in words, subtle shifts in status and mannerisms.

This is what I love about English humor—the attention paid to outrage, embarrassment, social cues and breaking the norms.  This is a beautifully structured and hilarious theory of comedy ever since the days of Jane Austen and Jonathan Swift (ok, he was Irish-born) and before.   It reverberates in the work of Peter Cook, Steve Coogan, and Little Britain.  The characters say, do, and see appalling, selfish, obnoxious things; and yet there’s a vulnerability and struggle to contain the damage which is ridiculous and wonderful.

Yes, there was plenty of broad, bawdy characters and potty humor, as in the States, but somehow, low-status characters and moments of humiliation play funnier in the UK.  The master improvisers I saw and worked with embraced the power of silence and tension to milk belly laughs out of the tiniest moments of embarrassment, transgression, and awkwardness.  When they played more with some of the physical stuff I love, it was comedy gold.

Some bosses micromanage plans and people.

They summon their subordinates (junior as well as senior-level) into their offices to pore over the employee’s tiniest bits of work–fonts on documents, footnotes, greetings in letters, the width of spreadsheet cells—no matter how experienced, intelligent, or capable the employee.  This is maddening, capricious and insulting, of course, and it’s an example of micromanagement.  It shows no trust, and it reveals a good deal of fear on the part of the boss. In this case there is no open improvisational approach to management.

“Follow the Fear”.

One of improv guru Del Close‘s famous sayings is “follow the fear”. If we let fear grip us, we extend that confining grip into anything we do.  We do not trust that we are actually competent in our choice-making.  Improvisation instead reminds us that while we won’t always be right, we are qualified to make choices, even wrong ones.  Thus the problem posed by the micromanaging boss:  at a very basic emotional level he or she is fearful and doesn’t trust in his or her own wisdom to have chosen an able staff.  Thus he must check everything, review everything, parse everything.   This isn’t “following the fear” openly into innovative territory.  This is succumbing to fear, gripping tight, and shutting down.

Other bosses over-delegate plans to people.

These bosses allow underlings to handle and oversee even the most important functions of the firm—senior hiring, high-level legal compliance, annual meetings and retreats, etc.  While not everything is within the boss’s purview, of course, certain “bucks” must be passed up to a certain level.  It’s a boss’s job to make sure everyone else is performing well, starting with their own direct reports.  Too often in the news we see stories of bosses who are “unaware” of criminal, negligent, or just plain sloppy work done by their employees.  As with oil spills, accounting scandals, and derivatives trading, fingers get pointed and bucks get passed.  It also reveals a good deal of fear on the part of the boss (in this case, fear of accountability).

With over-delegation there is no connected improvisational approach.

The laissez-faire model may seem easygoing, but in fact it leaves subordinates abandoned and exposed, and refuses to enter into a mutually supportive relationship. Or, as improvisers like to say, this disconnected approach says “no” to playing the game of work.  Instead of being present and coaxing the office toward a relaxed collaborative atmosphere, this boss allows resentment and confusion to reign, because no one has any direction.

Improvisation shows how to constructively let go when managing and planning.

Improv technique helps everyone be more aware, of course, but for a boss it’s even more specific and more political.  A boss who’s also a powerful improviser is someone who plans a culture of engagement, curiosity, empowerment and exploration.  This boss creates a clear and rigorous tone of approachability, vision, and creative involvement.  And this boss empowers subordinates to emerge with brainstorms and strong choices of their own.  Being a boss means being a planner and a visionary and a nurturer of others’ planning and vision.  An improviser-boss’s plans are invitations for everyone to participate using their own strengths and creativity, not templates.

Leading is neither micromanaging nor over-delegating, but is choice-making.

It has a plan, but it is also improvisational, since all stakeholders–bosses and subordinates alike–are following the fear and trying new things out for the first time, together.  The fear loses its grip.

So much is unknown. They say this situation is unprecedented, and that no one has ever encountered a rupture this large from a well this deep.  The rig blew up and then sank onto the damaged well.   Very, very scary, and the highest of stakes:  the economy and ecology of the entire Gulf region, its way of life, and millions of lives will be disrupted for decades. Not to mention jobs, the food supply, and oil prices.  And, whatever affects the Gulf region also affects the rest of our country. BP, the government, the oil workers, environmentalists and everyone else committed to saving the Gulf from this calamity are now forced to improvise. Anything they try will require a commitment to collaboration, instant reflexes and resilience, coordination and trust on an epic scale.

The situation requires quick thinking and decisive action. All the solutions on the table are untried, and some proposals sound like science fiction.  BP may send robots down to try to repair the valve, because it’s too deep for divers.  Another proposed solution involves sucking the oil up into colossal tanks and then onto a ship. Maybe oil-eating microbes?  Chemical dispersants? All of these answers are as yet unknown.  Immediate action is required, but what? No one has ever attempted such a feat on this scale.

Improvisational ingenuity is a instinctual response to unknowable situations. It comes from the same inventive part of the brain as stage-show improv work (although there’s no equating this catastrophe to the pressure of performing comedy or participating in workshops). Intrepid exploration, flexibility and maneuverability, willingness to gamble, courage, and pure trial and error – these and much more will be demanded of those struggling to create and effective, lasting solution for an unimaginable disaster.

This oil spill will have long-ranging effects on all of us; the stakes couldn’t be higher. YES, the oil is approaching, AND the solution waits for us to find it. There is no choice and no certainty.  The solution MUST be improvised.

Earlier this month,
Nancy Lublin published an article in Fast Company titled “Do Something: Let’s Hear It for the Little Guys”. In it she expertly dissects our cultural obsession with leaders and champions the unsung role of the follower, going so far as to state that honoring them is “the sanest, smartest way to run” a company. I couldn’t agree more! And she need look no further than improvisational theater to see how honoring the follower creates value and cohesion.

One of improv’s holy of holies is ‘active listening’. People creating something together must attend to each others verbal and non-verbal “offers”– ideas for a scene or story. As active listeners, improvisers are obliged to engage with offers, explore them and follow them where they may lead. We become responsibly responsive to each other. Each of us has a mission to help develop offers, but an offer will originate in only one person’s mind at a time. Once it’s offered, we all must support and follow it and the player offering it forth.

“Follow the follower” is the advice given by the legendary improvisation guru Viola Spolin. This phrase means that leading involves remaining active as a listener, no matter what. The mantles of leadership and followership shift throughout the ensemble by means of willing, improvisational give-and-take. The offer is not a command or instruction from the boss-improviser to the other improvisers. Changes to the story often will emerge from the supporting characters. Thus even the “leader” is following the whole group’s moves. The group itself becomes a collective follower.

The same is true in business. Leadership thinkers Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner have long affirmed that great business leaders enable others to act, fostering collaboration by giving power away and offering visible support to their followers.  So, while a leader is charged with creating and communicating a galvanizing vision, or common purpose, of the firm,  business leaders can only lead if they are actively sharing with, or listening to, their followers and, just as importantly, if the followers are dynamically supporting and providing feedback to the leader. The same is true in improv. Just as a troupe of actors must follow each other and also react to the audience, the business leader and staff must remain actively in touch with each other as a symbiotic community if the firm is to move ahead.

Mary Parker Follett, the pioneering organizational behaviorist
whose concept of non-coercive power sharing ushered in a new age of management theory, states that followers have the very important and active role of keeping a leader in control of a situation and “govern by consent” by both serving the agreed upon common purpose and continually offering suggestions and direction from below. They also have the responsibility to be a leader in the areas in which they do have control – leadership, she adds, given and modeled for them by the capital L leader. Or, simply put, leaders always encourage leadership in those who follow.

This spirit of collaborative “power sharing” is just as important
on the stage as it is in the boardroom. If everyone were to suddenly claim focus (or leadership) at the same time, then there would be no active listening–no critical mass of improvisational energy driving one offer forward. If there’s no active listening and no shared focus, then there’s no community. With no community ensemble, then we have chaos. We would have (God forbid) a stage full of disparate one-man shows. Performance groups making stories up together need to make each other look good in order for the game, story, or scene to go anywhere coherent.

In the theatre, as in business, momentum and cohesion evaporate
if there is no single clear story being told at a time. That can only happen if the ensemble, the followers AND the leader, willingly and creatively serve a common purpose through clear and consistent collaboration.

Or: “What I Learned About Business as an Improv Coach.”

I’ve been a hired coach for improv performance groups for many years. Groups work really hard to figure out how to improvise well together.  One thing I’ve often noticed is that early on in the growth process they face a  dilemma:   Is this all worth it?   Are we enjoying this effort?   Do we trust each other?   Are we prepared to fail together?   Do we have the patience for this slow creation of a group “vibe”?

My response to this dilemma is, in the words of a long-time colleague: if you CAN leave this behind, you SHOULD!

Otherwise, it’s yours.

Creating an improv practice team is a surprisingly serious undertaking. There is the renting of rehearsal space, hiring show crews, bookings, publicity, etc.  It’s essentially the same as starting a business: there are overhead costs,  branding and marketing strategies, personnel, not to mention the development of the product itself (the improv show).

Your discoveries, games, mistakes, a-ha’s, and adjustments are all stuck with you. They are yours, so own them.  Successful groups I have coached develop a group mind-style connection when everyone has decided to OWN it, and to grow together.   It feels explorative, like play.  If it’s not fun building something together, then why continue?

Like an improv group, a business must make a fundamental decision to own the struggles as much as the excitement. The converse of the business maxim “get the right people on the bus” is “get off right here if you’re not staying on til we get where we’re going”.  A smart business looks for long-term value.  Mistakes and misfires are discoveries and opportunities to learn.  Savvy businesses, like great improv groups, build in an assumption that the struggles, the sweat equity of vision and passion, are part of the journey of discovery.

Brilliant improv groups I have coached always have equity ownership – the team members are in it for the long haul.  A business is like that, too–team players defining a shared mission, emotionally investing in the outcome and owning, committing to and learning from the challenging  – but oh so rewarding! – process of development.