e-liz

While I think this CNN article about using improv to improve (har, har) business skills misses many important points, I did find one quote in it that speaks very directly to a subject I've been mushing around in my own mindgrapes recently, which will be the subject of a future post.

The quote comes from Robert Kulhan, a Duke business professor and CEO of Business Improvisations, and it goes like this:

"There's a misconception in business that you have to be 100 percent correct 100 percent of the time, whereas the truth is you have to be 100 percent correct about 10 percent of the time -- the rest of the time you have to just make decisions."

More on this idea soon... but for now - point, Kulhan.

I've been meaning to post a crucial follow-up to my earlier discussion of improv at the office, inspired by Nick's first comment on that post. He pointed out something so fundamental (both on stage and at work) that I neglected to mention it - listening:

I feel it would be worth noting the flip-side of the "great public speaker" coin: being a "great public listener." Though this idea is implied by "trust," I feel it's worth it to mention just how important listening is in improv and how good a listener you become through practicing the art.

Of course. Listening is good, right? Everyone loves a good listener. But what makes someone a good listener instead of a bad one? When improvisers talk about listening, what are we really talking about?

It's about not not listening.
Most of us can easily spot the absence of listening by its etiquette-related hallmarks: someone interrupts another arbitrarily, offers a response that isn't relevant to what was just said, or diverts their gaze away from the speaker for a prolonged period. I think the majority of people, when accused of being a 'bad listener,' focus on fixing this part. They learn to put away their cell phones during a conversation, make eye contact, stay quiet until it's their turn to speak, and then call it a day. This doesn't make them good listeners, but everybody has to start somewhere.

It's about awareness.
Here's where improv really comes in. When a scene starts, how do two people reach a mutual understanding of what's going on? Part of it is strictly verbal. One scene partner initiates with the line, "Clarence, I brought you a sack of potatoes for the stew." The other partner now knows that he is named Clarence, and that he is either in the process of making - or about to make - a stew (see? Improv is so easy!). But if he's a good improviser, he's also probably intuited several other things based on his partner's tone of voice, facial expression, and physical stance: how big the sack is, whether the two characters are a married couple or just friends, whose kitchen they're in right now, what time of day it is, whether making stew is something they do every day or have never done before, what historical era they're living in... or countless other pieces of shared information. From just eleven words uttered over the course of a few seconds.

What improvisers are doing when they build scenes together is practicing the type of "whole" listening that people use with each other all of the time, to varying degrees of success. In improv, you can tell pretty quickly when you've done a good job of picking up on the things that were suggested or implied by your partner - the scene will feel effortless and smooth, as opposed to strange and clunking. In the real world, it's not always immediately apparent whether you've been successful at listening to what isn't being said. Which makes there less of an incentive to try, if you're not used to doing so. Because improvisers exercise this type of listening every time they step on stage, they are able to apply it with ease in their working relationships.

It's about making others feel heard.
The idea of reflective listening is probably familiar to anyone who has ever read a self-help book, or watched any movie or TV show in which a therapist takes a deep breath and then says, "What I hear you saying is..." In fact, if you search for that exact phrase, in quotes, Google will return over 12 million hits, most of them discussing exactly how much people hate that phrase!

No, compulsively restating everything someone else says does not count as 'good listening.' But the idea here, and in fact the reason reflective listening is so widely taught and broadly attempted, is that people want to feel heard. They want to feel like those around them are interested, paying attention, and understanding what they've just said. Unsurprisingly, "what I hear you saying is..." is not the best way to get this across. It sounds like what it is: a shortcut. A prescription. A form letter.

So what is the best way to communicate that you've heard someone? Obviously... to respond to them in a way that acknowledges the nuances of the information they've just given you. Our scene partner, "Clarence," might do this in a number of ways. He can accept the mimed sack of potatoes, giving the imaginary object the same shape, size, and weight that his partner endowed it with. He can address her by a nickname in accordance to the relationship she implied that they have. He can acknowledge the attitude given by her tone, by either mirroring it himself, or adopting a tone in intentionally sharp contrast.

All of these responses go a step further than "what I hear you saying is..."; they say, "I hear you. I understand the universe that you're living in... and I'm living in it, too." This is the message that radiates from an exceptional listener. "We're in this together." Which, yes, just like Nick says, is connected to the idea of trust.

I've had the pleasure of meeting dozens of people in various workplaces this year, in the context of job interviews - with me as the interviewee, that is. Most of them wanted to discuss the standard stuff: what I did at my last job, why I went into PR, what I think my worst quality is*, etc.

But I also had a handful of really interesting discussions in interviews. In particular, someone I interviewed with (at the company I eventually joined) asked me a series of questions about how my life as an improviser affects the way I work.

I've been doing improv for over ten years, and I've been in the workforce for almost as long... yet no one had ever asked me that before!

It seemed self-evident that the mindset one has to cultivate in order to become good at improv will also serve them well at work in certain ways - just as there are particular workplace advantages conferred by being an aerobics instructor, an Eagle Scout, or a Buddhist monk.

Here is what I came up with. If you're an improviser at work...

1. You trust your colleagues, and expect them to trust you.
   An improv scene will quickly go south if anyone in it is hanging back, skeptically observing what everyone else is doing, and silently thinking, "this scene sucks." If you're a halfway-decent improviser on stage, you don't do that to your scene partners. And if you're an improviser at work, you don't do that to your coworkers. You go into your working relationships with the unspoken agreement that everyone on your team is there for a reason, and everything they say could very well be the most brilliant idea ever. You always try first to "yes, and." And you probably wouldn't last long in a position where colleagues didn't afford you the same level of support.
2. You're a great public speaker.
   People tend to invite you to give presentations in front of groups, whether you like it or not. This is because your style is different from most people's - you don't adhere too tightly to a script, stumble over your words, or avoid eye contact. On stage, improvisers are trained to react and respond to things naturally, without thinking too hard or judging what they're about to say before they say it. If you're an improviser at work, you put people at ease with your ability to present material confidently and conversationally, and adapt to changes in the group's conversation with ease.
3. You don't discount the obvious.
   In knowledge work in general, and especially in creative fields, there is so much pressure to, well, "be creative!" It becomes easy to mistake novelty for quality. People start to think that only the most one-of-a-kind inventions and the most complicated plans qualify as "creative." Meanwhile, improvisers at the professional level strive for exactly the opposite ideal: being obvious.
   
   Don't know what I mean be "being obvious"? The best explanation I've seen recently comes from friend and former castmate Brett Johnson, who uses several Keith Johnstone passages to illustrate, including this one:
   
   The improviser has to realize that the more obvious he is, the more original he appears. I constantly point out how much the audience like someone who is direct, and how they always laugh with pleasure at a really 'obvious' idea. Ordinary people asked to improvise will search for some 'original' idea because they want to be thought clever...
   
   'What's for supper?' a bad improviser will desperately try to think up something original... he'll finally drag up some idea like 'fried mermaid.' If he'd just said 'fish' the audience would have been delighted. No two people are exactly alike, and the more obvious an improviser is, the more himself he appears.
   
   Entire schools of improv thought are built on the premise that truth is always the best choice - that is, the most compelling thing to watch in a scene is a person reacting honestly and authentically to what is happening around them, finding humor in what is commonplace and shared. Because of this, improvisers are perfectly conditioned to find simple, elegant, intuitive, obvious answers to problems, both on stage and at the office.

Since I know quite a few readers have substantial backgrounds in improv, I'd like to hear to what you think. Is this a good answer? Accurate? Incomplete? I know that even now having had a few weeks to think about it, I've still only uncovered the tip of the iceberg on this one.

Meanwhile, if you like books and are new to improv, I recommend Patricia Ryan Madson's Improv Wisdom, and this accompanying Q&A on Brand Autopsy.

* There is no possible right answer to this question. The next time someone asks me what my worst quality is, I'd love to reply, "Candor. What's yours?" and just see what they say.