A great piece from Peter Bregman via HBR. When not able to speak, listening becomes your mode of communication.
But what happens when the ability to speak is restored? Here’s what mindfulness and presence can teach us about about strategic speaking.
How to Speak More Strategically – Peter Bregman – Harvard Business Review.
It’s no secret everyone wants to innovate and to be innovative, and you can propel it forward by adding a lot more of the word”yes” into your vocabulary.
I don’t mean saying yes to more meetings, more red tape, and more hierarchy -but instead, saying yes to more PLAY.
“The truth about big innovation is that you get what you play for. If that looks like a typo — if it’s jarring to see “innovation” and “play” in the same sentence or to hear anyone suggest that you, a manager, should play at anything — then this blog post is for you”, write Mark Sebell and Vijay Govindarajan in this latest post from the Harvard Business review.
Everyone – leadership included, should come to play.
What it means to play is to be more open to new ideas and to have the ability to test out, and toy around with products or inventions you may have scoffed at in the past. Innovation could leave you feeling vulnerable, and risking failure – and you’ll need to asses the level of risk that’s right for you and your organization. But, when everyone comes to play, and it’s easier to get on the field instead of sitting on the sidelines, you’re at least putting more ideas on the field than watching them go by, judging them as they pass. Playing, in this case means removing the barriers that were once in place so that you can say “yes, and” where you used to say, “yes, but”, and letting teams run with an idea for a little while so that they fail faster and better instead of never trying at all.
The secret to successful human interactions is hopefully not a secret, but a way of life.
On a stage, Improvisers drill and practice this “secret”, to form a new habit and a way of interacting on stage that builds support and trust amongst individuals and teams.
The secret? Make your partner look good.
From customers to clients, friends, co-workers, hiring managers, and partners your job on stage and off is to make the other person look good – especially when you are interacting with someone new.
It’s a fundamental switch from ‘what’s in it for me’ to, ‘what can I do to help and support you’ because those who know this secret also realize that if I make you look good, we all look good, and that the efforts of a team are more important than the individual.
This post from Seth Godin skillfully highlights the hierarchy of business to business needs. Whether you are trying to help someone avoid risk, avoid hassle, or gain praise in business interactions, the focus remains on helping to make them look good.
To understand their needs is to empathize, listen, and help make them look not just good…but spectacular. For, when your number one job, on stage or off, is to support your fellow team members, well, you’ve got the secret to a winning team.
The cardinal rule of Improvisation is to say, “Yes, and” – to accept and add-on to whatever is happening in front of you on stage.
Saying “Yes, and” instead of other things, such as “heck no”, or “you’ve got to be kidding me”, or perhaps just stunned silence is a way to keep us moving forward when we have no idea where the scene will go.
Saying “Yes, and” on stage becomes habitual, if you practice it enough.
But, saying, “Yes, and” off the stage, sometimes in life’s most trying moments can take a stronger set of muscles and mindset.
Comedian and Actress Jane Lynch delivered a powerful speech on this very topic to the Smith College class of 2012 – and the idea, the habit of greeting life with a big “Yes, And” is truly a reminder that never gets old.
Lately I’ve noticed my “Yes, and” muscle weakening a bit.
If they say Improv is the creative equivalent of jumping off a cliff, then leaving your job to pursue your passion is the professional equivalent. Both jumps have so many similarities, and this Improvisers skill-set is what I rely on to navigate the unknown and to teach others to do the same.
When you notice your “Yes, and” muscle weakening it may be because what’s happening in front of you doesn’t look or feel exactly the way you imagined it.
It’s easy to say “Yes, and” when you’re totally on-board with the scene. But when you’re in a scene that’s not unfolding the way you want it to — remember you always have a choice. I advocate the choice to step up to the experience, face the fear, and accept what’s in front of you, even what you can’t control, with a big “yes, and”. It doesn’t mean we have to like our circumstances – but it does mean we have to keep moving forward and do something productive with it.
Putting the principles of Improvisation into action in real life, especially when the stage we’re on feels most vulnerable (entrepreneurship, new experiences, cliff-jumping) is where the opportunity for growth really lies.
True happiness comes from being less attached to the outcome, and more in tune with the present, the journey unfolding right in front of us….and it starts by greeting life with a big “Yes, and”.
The organization of the future may be one trying to be everything to everyone.
Seems a bit daunting, doesn’t it?
Discussions of the emerging workplace include considerations for wellness, innovation, collaboration, spontaneous interaction, open spaces vs. non open spaces, brainstorming or group think, room for extroverts, room for introverts, room for creatives, room for left-brain-ers, training and learning opportunities, and snacks. Must have snacks.
When we have so many factors to consider, can we keep our singular focus on decreasing internal competition and increasing cooperation? I hope so.
Call it positive psychology, or a hopeless fantasy, but I believe a workplace where we can only thrive at the expense of others is a tired model.
The organization of the future is one that promotes interaction and connectivity, that creates opportunities for learning from each other, where cooperation is not confined by ones job description.
The organization of the future is one where we borrow a phrase from Improvisation: “we make our partner look good”.
This past week, I had the privilege of guest blogging for online leadership think tank, LeaderLab. A re-posting of my updated post is below and here. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Every moment and in every interaction we are capable of choosing our “performances” and how we act, behave, and respond in a given situation.
Often our performances, and our reactions are habitual, instinctive, and we aren’t even aware of the mindset that’s ingrained in us or our companies.
But is this mindset decreasing your organizational capacity for innovation?
It’s possible these two little words are killing the innovation and creativity of your team:
“Yes, But”.
Reflect on how you and your company respond to new or untested ideas. Do you “but” ideas to death? And in doing so, do you cast a negative light on risk-taking, failure, and openness.
The unconscious performance might look like this:
“Yes, but it won’t work”
“Yes, but we don’t have the time”
“Yes, but we tried something similar before and it didn’t work”
Researcher Shawn Achor from Harvard tells us 75% of or job successes at work come from optimism, our ability to see stress as a challenge instead of a threat, and social support at work.
When we are met with a “yes, but” attitude to our ideas and innovations, it can be difficult maintain the motivation to do our best work and to feel support for our contributions.
I’m not advocating a company full of just “yes” men. Instead, we can choose a performance that involves less judgement, more open-mindedness, acceptance of others ideas, and a willingness to build on ideas instead of rejecting them.
Luckily, research from Achor (and others) tells us we can train our brain to become more positive. Through practice and habit building, we can learn to scan the world through a lens of positivity, instead of negativity and to create more conscious performances that involve the words “Yes, and”, instead of “Yes, but”.
Think about all of the performance choices you have every day. How can your performance increase and not block the flow of ideas, open communication and an open mind.
“But….” , just give it a try!
As a tool for personal and professional development, Improvisation has the ability to affect both our cognitive and behavioral tendencies.
It puts into action real life scenarios where our tolerance for change, failure, acceptance, are tested – simply….it puts our thinking into action and works to build new habits.
It gives us a strategy (a set of skills) to make the best of any situation.
This article from Training Magazine highlights the 3 main categories of life-skills to fill our toolboxes with, as identified by The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO):
A Positive Approach to Modern Living | trainingmag.com.
http://blog.clomedia.com/2012/05/ld-and-all-that-jazz-at-astd/
“Jazz is a conversation that is comfortable with uncertainty and new knowledge,” said John Kao at the ASTD conference keynote session last week.
Jazz, he says, is a metaphor for innovation – where you need a combination of improvisation and discipline.
“If you play just to what’s on the sheet of music in front of you, you’re limiting your options. Jazz musicians have a different mission – to go new ways with the music and create new notes and moments.”
The freedom found in the limitations creates the magic.
Develop the basic skills needed to play the notes – build your capacity first, set the ground rules, set the target – but realize that the real innovation happens in the space between that structure and the unknown.
As the saying goes, everybody wants to buy, but no one wants to be sold.
We are all selling something every day – ideas, products, choices, points of view – persuading someone, somewhere to “buy”, varying our level of persuasion with each.
Aristotle gives us the 3 pillars of persuasion:
Together, these pillars are the essential qualities that your speech or presentation must have before your audience will buy in to your message.
Consider which of these 3 pillars is easier for you and which one you tend to rely on or start with.
Do you agree with the notion that we buy on emotion and justify with logic later?
Are you a detail or big-picture person? Do you describe or present information with all of your senses?
One simple exercise changed the way I look at presenting information – and its applications stretch from vision planning, leadership, presentation skills, story, learning retention and more.
It’s an exercise I first learned in an Improvisation class at BATS Improv, and then continued to read about in Kat Koppet’s book, “Training to Imagine”, and then applied to my workshops at DreamWorks Animation.
It’s called, Color/Advance.
Here is a basic example of how it works: Grab a partner and pick one of you to begin describing your day.
At any point, your partner can say, color… or, advance. Color means to add more description to your story – use all of your senses. When your partner says Advance, it is your job to then go back to advancing or continuing the story. Continue to switch back and forth, with the direction given by your partner.
Give your storytelling, imagination, creativity, and presentation skills a boost.
Also use this tool to learn what inspires or interests your audience – see what they want to learn or hear more about.
Color. Or Advance? Why not add both to your toolbox.
Inspired by the Wisdom 2.0 business conference, this week we’re focusing on the organization of the future.
The organization of the future is:
In this learning organization, the focus is on “pull” rather than push-driven learning experiences — learning is interactive, engaging, and full of connection, where processes are set up for employees to learn from each other as much as they are learning from leaders in the field.
Focusing on a pull methodology allows for greater learning experiences and a higher ROI – because the individual can control their motive and reasoning for learning.
When we are genuinely motivated to learn, and pulled to an event (perhaps even through word of mouth, excitement, buzz, rumors of a wait list, etc) we learn faster, retain the information longer and are more likely to apply this knowledge – all creating cognitive connection points in our brain for future learning experiences.
In a pull learning environment, learning is a choice, driven by the individual.
This learning environment encourages other students to interact, pulling content to each other, creating social, perhaps virtual learning communities to harness the collective intelligence of the company all while building connection and empathy along the way.
Last week, San Francisco hosted the Wisdom 2.0 Business conference – a gathering dedicated to harnessing the innovative mindset at work and creating the conditions for innovation to occur.
Key to this mindset is having the courage to fail.
The definition of failure is changing and innovative companies of the future believe failure is an option, a necessity.
Organizations of the future will focus on what failure builds, instead of what it destroys.
Organizations of the future believe you can train the courage to fail, and the ability to manage fear around that “failure”.
But it all starts with the organizational mindset.
Training the courage to fail is something I learned (and still actively practice) in Improv classes.
It was there I learned:
I was trained on how to fail. But, I was in an environment where failure was an option so my learning and development was accelerated.
Try again. Fail again. Fail better. But make sure the failure mindset you train extends outside the classroom.
To see things in a new way is the hallmark of creativity and innovation.
We know some of our personal and organizational roadblocks already – sometimes we don’t believe we are creative, we censor ourselves, we favor stress and deadlines instead of the mental relaxation that can be necessary to create… and perhaps we also suffer from functional fixedness.
Functional fixedness, says researcher Karl Duncker – happens when we fixate on the common use of an object. Especially under stress or pressure, our brains have trouble seeing alternative uses, or connections (solutions, perhaps) from things right in front of us.
We tend to see just an object’s use, not the object itself.
“When we see a common object, the motor cortex of our brain activates in anticipation of using the object in the common way. Part of the meaning of an object is getting ready to use it. If a type of feature is not important for its common use, then we are not cognizant of it. The result: our brain’s incredible inertia to move toward the common. Efficient for everyday life, this automatic neural response is the enemy of innovation.”
Thinking outside the box means thinking about what else that box can represent.
Researcher Tony McCaffrey suggests the “generic parts technique”, breaking each object into its parts, no matter how obscure, so that alternative uses more easily emerge.
One of my favorite improv exercises, object montage, asks participants to come up with alternative uses to everyday objects, with rapid-fire quickness.
Of course, the next step after we have these new ideas is to “yes, and” them as much as possible.
For if we were to block them, we’d never know where these alternative uses would lead.
Read the full article here: Why We Can’t See What’s Right in Front of Us – Tony McCaffrey – Harvard Business Review and also check out this recent post in Scientific American for some more great techniques!
“Good education has got to be good entertainment” - Nicholas Negroponte, founder of MIT Media Lab
Do you agree or disagree with this statement?
Do your brainstorming sessions need a jump-start?
To inspire more creative and innovative brainstorming sessions, it’s useful to consider shaking up your brainstorming process to inspire new connections, or a new way of looking at the same routine – to help encourage the kind of creativity you are looking for.
Have you been a part of brainstorming sessions like these….?
1. Our sessions fail because people find it difficult to avoid judging and evaluating ideas:
Asking people not to judge ideas is one thing, getting them to really adjust their behavior and create new habits (and an open mind) is another. Beyond teaching the “yes, and” mindset, consider starting a session with this jolt:
Research and then list out-loud the original idea for a few now-popular and successful products and services. Test your participant’s initial reaction. A good idea can start anywhere. What would have happened if these original ideas had been judged and shot down?
2. Not everyone gets to speak – personality differences affect our brainstorming sessions:
Creating a safe environment for all personality types to contribute is important beyond measure. Consider letting participants know the topic before-hand, also allow for more small group discussion, and work to create a safe environment where everyone passes the ball.
3. It takes too long to get people in brainstorming mode:
Brainstorming “cold” is a disadvantage. Add in a game or excercise before brainstorming starts to help participants become more alert, present, relaxed, and “brain-fried”!
Playfulness relaxes group tension, and in this state, individuals exhibit less rigidity in their thinking and fewer inhibitions around ideas.
4. The room is too stiff – my people aren’t relaxed
Research tells us an environment of playfulness and humor is conducive to creativity. If your office environment doesn’t support this, that is something to note.
In addition to providing a playful warm-up, take a good look at how your environment contributes to the creativity of your workforce.
I’ve received lots of wonderful advice the past few months as I have spent my days – and many nights – navigating the path from passion to purpose.
Some of the best advice I received included this phrase – “don’t forget to take out the trash”. No, not housework. Something much more important.
Two months ago, I wrote down some tips, and then some questions to ask yourself – to help others navigate through a transitional phase. Here are some additional lessons learned:
