Archive | June, 2012

Censor got you silent? Try this exercise for your next brainstorming warm-up

29 Jun

When you hear the word ‘brainstorming’ you might instantly tense up.

What if my answer isn’t correct? I can’t think on my feet. What if my answer is judged?

All of these concerns (which can be lessened based on your office culture and reinforcement of values) are common and because of them, we tend to censor ourselves and become more inhibited with our ideas and contributions.

We filter out our “crazy” ideas, pre-judging them before they’re even spoken.

To fool our filters and train our brains to be more spontaneous, one trick, per this article in Fast Company is to focus on speed. When you’re going this fast, there’s no time to judge ideas.

We know it’s hard to brainstorm cold. So here’s my favorite 3-minute warmup to quiet your censor and get you primed for better brainstorming.

  1. Walk around the room, pointing out what you see and naming it out loud (60 seconds)
  2. Walk around the room again, point out what you see, but name it the item you previously pointed at (60 seconds)
  3. Walk around the room, point at things and purposefully call it by the wrong name. Anything you want! (60 seconds).

What did you notice?

 

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Getting the head nod of understanding

28 Jun

My former co-worker is an amazing artist. For him it is the ultimate form of human expression. He is skilled at teaching others how to draw, and enjoys nothing more than sharing his passion with others.

Well, then there’s me. I don’t draw. I’ve never really considered myself artistic in that way, and it’s not something I’m motivated to try to learn.

Over the course of our years working together, he attended a few of my improv classes, and I received a lesson from him in drawing.

He appreciated the class, but wasn’t interested in furthering his learning. I had the same response to learning his art form.

The lesson is – not everyone will feel as passionately about what you want to teach them. You may believe you have something to offer that can change the world – if only people will give it a try.

So what to do?

Meet them where they are.  Speak their language. Build up your empathy muscle. What motivates and inspires the people you teach? If it’s not Improv – what is it? Understand that people learn at their own pace, respect the differences and do your best to find a commonality.

Pull instead of push. Let learners come to you at their own pace. The “head nod” of understanding is a powerful thing – and it can come while sitting on the sidelines.

May I have a suggestion for….presentation tips from an Improviser

27 Jun

Practicing how we say one small phrase can do wonders for enhancing presentation skills.

“May I have a suggestion for… ” is something we hear at Improv shows. In fact, it fuels audience participation and reminds us (lest we forget!) that everything is fully Improvised.

Beginning Improvisers practice this opening and many of their learned habits spill over into presentation skills and confidence building. Here are some tips:

1. Ask for what you want

  • May I have a suggestion for a location – is straightforward and clear. Ask for what you want – be specific and commit as much as possible.

2. Pay attention to status 

  • How much space are you taking up when you ask for a suggestion? Are you focusing your energy inward, or outward?
  • Non-verbal communication – engage the audience, smile, make eye contact, use your non-verbal communication to exude confidence and presence even though you may be shaking on the inside.
  • Volume – more important than we remember. The back of the house needs to hear you, so, sing out, Louise!

3. Make your partner look good

  • In this case, your partner may be the audience, and/or your fellow players – you can make them look good by complimenting their suggestions, ideas and when a suggestion doesn’t inspire you, go back to asking for what you want. Of course no one wants to see someone linger for 3 minutes deciding which suggestion to take.
  • There is a delicate art to saying “yes, and” to an idea that you’re not on board with. Don’t let it mess up your mojo.
  • Use what’s in the room – if the only suggestion you receive is one you really want to avoid (i.e something blue) how can you politely accept the offer without sacrificing the quality of the scene and your presentation?

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What’s the drill – June 26: “Yes, and” instead of a “yes man”

26 Jun

What’s the drill for June 26th seeks to clear up a misconception about the phrase, “yes, and”.

When I first started improvising, I tried to apply the phrase, “yes, and” everywhere off-stage.

I can’t say no, I thought. I must “yes, and” everything. It pushed me to take more risks, to increase my learning and experiences and to learn more about myself. But it also made me feel a bit off-center and frankly…tired.

As one of my most favorite Improvisers and mentors likes to say, “saying YES, AND” to everything results in a messy life.

Instead, we as leaders, employees, friends, and people can see the phrase, “yes, and” as a mindset that allows us to more confidently trust our instincts and gut reactions. It allows us to withhold judgement, to be more accepting, open, patient, appreciative, collaborative, and even kinder.

We can practice the “yes, and” mindset to turn it into a habit – where we say yes to the things and ideas that fuel and inspire us, and become more accepting and supportive of the things that don’t. You get to choose.

 

 

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To embrace uncertainty, start with this strategy

25 Jun

Paul B. Brown, Leonard A. Schlesinger and Charles F. Kiefer (authors of  Just Start: Take Action; Embrace Uncertainty and Create the Future ) give us a secret to a happier, more successful life:

“The thing to remember is this: Successful people work with what they have at hand— whatever comes along—and try to use everything at their disposal in achieving their goals. And that is why they are grateful for surprises, obstacles, and even disappointments. It gives them more information and resources to draw upon.”

Life is unpredictable and uneven. The strategies we use to embrace uncertainty in our everyday life can be no different from the strategies we as Improvisers use on stage.

To embrace uncertainty is to:

1. View mistakes as gifts

2. Accept whatever is in front of you

This weekend I led an improv workshop in the wilderness for a group of 50 adults and kids.  At one point, we were speaking about failure and what Improvisers do when we “mess up”. To improvisers, mistakes are gifts. Actually…

To Improvisers, everything is a gift. 

One participant chimed in, “well, not all mistakes are okay, it depends on the situation”. True, I responded.  But to accept a mistake as a gift, to be more tuned into what is happening around us, to stay focused on the positive and in the present moment are all strategies that help us thrive and grow in times of failure. It’s a mindset. And, if this mindset makes us more successful (however you define success), it’s a mindset worth working towards.

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What’s the drill – June 24: One quote, many applications

24 Jun

“Speak to me in a language I understand and it goes to my head—speak to me in my language and it goes to my heart.”—Nelson Mandela

The Three Ingredients of a Successful Team

21 Jun

Is there a secret recipe for a successful team? A little of this, a little of that and BOOM! Can it be that easy?

The latest HBR post suggests these 3 must-have ingredients in your recipe for a successful team. And, well…how much you add of each gives something for leadership to chew on.

1. A big challenge: How big is the goal you are chasing? Is it big, a bit scary but abundantly clear what the mission is? Do you have the support you need?

2. People with a passion to perform: Do you have passion to find answers to the big problems and challenges? It’s the passion and excitement that keeps your team pushing through and keeps you engaged during the frustrating times.

3. Space to excel, space to create and innovate: The freedom to fail, room for experimentation to help ignite the power of passion and kick around the big problems.

These ingredients (challenge, passion, and space to create) nicely compliment Daniel Pink’s research on workplace motivation. His 3 ingredients: autonomy, mastery and purpose.

These food analogies are making me hungry. What is your recipe?

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What’s the drill – June 20: Tips on marketing people-skills classes

20 Jun

By reading this article you will come away with tips and lessons learned on marketing people skills classes.

Tip #1:

Make it clear what people will come away with because of your class/lecture/session. Sure business jargon has its place, but in my experience, key in getting butts in the seats for your people-skill classes is being clear on what they will get out of this class. Make it easy for them and take away the guesswork.

Tip #2:

Word of mouth is your strongest marketing tool. This is no different from marketing the coolest gadget or hottest restaurant. Start small if you need to by building buzz, but nothing says “this is worth your time” than a wait list, people buzzing on the message boards, or excited energy. The number of emails you send does not equal important or must-attend. Make it easy for them and pull them in to investigate more.

Tip #3:

The people skills classes at your organization may not be voluntary. But, if they are, how can you eliminate the risk (i.e. fear) many feel in signing up for these types of classes. Find ambassadors at their level who have participated in similar classes, start with an introductory class to ease fears of commitment. Start small.

Make it easy for them to say yes.

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How to act the way you want to feel – a lesson in status

19 Jun

Act the way you want to feel. Fake it til you make it. Maybe you’ve heard these phrases before and shook your head with skepticism.

I’ve been coaching a new client on bringing more conscious awareness to his everyday behaviors – teaching him new tools that align mind and body to increase confidence.

Acting the way you want to feel, can start with awareness of your non-verbal behaviors. To improvisers, and comedians we often come back to STATUS.

Status is a combination of body language, reaction, tone of voice, and intent. Our status is in constant flux – and can be lowered or raised by other people, places, or even objects.

We all have a default status. But to be flexible, adaptable, and growth-oriented is to realize that status is a choice, it’s a performance, and a learnable skill – and we can work to make these performance choices more conscious to help us achieve our goals whether it’s a sale, a job interview or even a date.

In this great presentation from Pop Tech, Professor and researcher Amy Cuddy breaks down scientific research on status power poses. How much space do you take up? And what if there was a simple trick you could do before interviews or important presentations that would help you act the way you want to feel.

Take a look:

http://www.anderson-sabourin.com/leadership/wp-content/uploads/Amy_Cuddy_Power_Poses_PopTech.mp4

 

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How a willingness to change makes the impossible possible

18 Jun

Below is an excerpt from “If It’s Not Impossible, It’s Not Interesting—Leveraging Personal Experience to Create a High Performance Team” by Guy L. Smith IV, and the Diageo North America Corporate Relations Team. 

Mission Impossible | trainingmag.com.

“…..Is achieving the impossible just a mindset, a belief the football coach instills in his players during halftime in the locker room? Yes, that’s part of it. The impossible we are talking about here holds back successful companies, entire industries, sometimes even societies. In part, the impossible is defined by a fear of change. Being afraid of change stymies progress.

It won’t take you long to recall the last time at work somebody resisted changing something. From the mundane and unimportant like changing the stationery, the look of the bulletin board, the type of coffee in the coffee machine, or the traditional venue for the office holiday party to the much more serious like changing the company name, dropping a product line, merging to survive, or closing regional offices.

But we forget that change also brings about the impossible—a new life, a new family, a new career, a new person. Change can be a friend. Change can be harnessed to achieve beyond one’s wildest expectations. The impossible can only be achieved with change.”

Achieving the impossible requires openness to change. Achieving the impossible requires taking risks. Achieving the impossible requires a journey into the unknown. Ask Columbus. Was Columbus scared as he sailed into the unknown? You bet. Ask any astronaut. Ask Lincoln. Was

Lincoln scared when he set out from Springfield for Washington, the United States of America at war with itself? Certainly. But also ask the athletes who won the game against all odds. Ask those heroes who are celebrated in the news media everyday when they help the disadvantaged, the homeless, the single mom, the wounded soldier. For each one, the journey began without a final destination. The journey began with an objective, yet the final destination was unknown. And the unknown is inherently scary, at least when you are by yourself and on your own.

An open mind makes change a friend. It is exhilarating and exciting. It can make the hair on your neck stand up sometimes, but just like the rush of adrenaline the athlete feels course through her body, so can be taking on change and embarking on that journey into the unknown. But it takes a mind that is open to ideas, to looking at things from a different angle, to thinking thoughts that are different, heretical maybe, forgotten sometimes, foolhardy to less intrepid souls. But that is what it takes.

So let’s go back to that ever-repeated comment so often made in offices everywhere: “You can’t do that; it’s impossible.” Maybe you don’t want to try for the impossible because you will fail. And for sure you don’t want to be seen as a failure. There are myriad examples of not taking a risk at the office, as any regular viewer of The Office on TV knows. And there are certainly a zillion examples of someone who got promoted because he or she never took a risk, always took the safe path. These are the “successful” people we spoke of earlier. But it takes more than success to achieve the impossible.

What does the impossible look like? How does it feel? Impossible is different to each of us. It can mean many things. We have seen this with the personal stories of my colleagues. And we have seen how these experiences, each one deeply personal and unique to each individual, were incredibly empowering.

The next time somebody says to you “You can’t,” just smile and think to yourself, “Yes, I can. If it’s not impossible, it’s not interesting.”

Our corporate story has given voice to this remarkable team that repeatedly accomplishes the impossible. How do they do this? Why do they do this? These pages lay out seven simple guideposts for achieving the impossible. Remember them. Commit them to memory. Believe them. Practice them. And achieve things you never even dreamed! How hard could that be? It is not hard at all if you decide that it is not.

The Seven Guideposts to Achieving the Impossible

  1. Believe in yourself.
  2. Believe in the mission.
  3. Be willing to change the rules of the game to achieve your goal.
  4. Have the humility to ask for and use help from others.
  5. Focus all available assets against a single objective.
  6. Have the tenacity to relentlessly, tirelessly persist in the mission until it is accomplished.
  7. Use your own (and others’) knowledge, skills, experience, and training to confidently say, “I can handle whatever they throw at me today!”


What’s the drill – June 14: Five questions to get you listening differently

14 Jun

Listen up (said with a friendly, have a comfy seat tone!)… here are five questions to get you thinking about HOW you listen.

To me, active listening means more than paying attention. What we choose to pay attention to when we listen is just as important.

1. Are you listening for potential? If not – what is it you are listening for?

2. Are you planning your response while the other person is still talking?

3. Are you listening with more than just your ears – are you paying attention to non-verbal communication?

4. When someone is talking about something they are really passionate about, or feel strongly towards – how can you listen for more than just the facts – listen in a way that focuses on their values, and what matters to them. What does this person care about, and how can you help? After all, it feels wonderful to know that someone understands you.

5. How can you listen with a focus on the future, instead of hanging onto the past?

 

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Teaching is learning twice

13 Jun

To build and maintain a learning organization is to create and offer an atmosphere that encourages peer-to-peer teaching opportunities.

Formal or informal, virtual or stand-up in nature, providing opportunities for learning and development builds connection, can increase engagement, and develop empathy across teams.

Teaching is learning twice.

To understand a concept, is to explain it to someone else — and to not just explain it in your language, but to clearly and concisely teach for understanding and not just data dumping.

Take this article from Psychology Today as it applies to classroom learning:

Students enlisted to tutor others, these researchers have found, work harder to understand the material, recall it more accurately and apply it more effectively. In what scientists have dubbed “the protégé effect,” student teachers score higher on tests than pupils who are learning only for their own sake.

The questions posed by those we teach urge us to think through and explain material in different ways, and encourage deeper, evolved understanding.

How can you create opportunities for peer-to-peer learning? Consider starting small – with your internal communication platforms.

Do more with the people you have. And help those people grow in knowledge and confidence at the same time.

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Part 2: How to make learning relevant and personal in the emerging workplace

11 Jun

Last week I wrote of some ideas to help make your professional development offerings more relevant and personal. Key, is to allow learners to choose the content that resonates most with them and their leadership style. After all, we’ll retain more if we’re actually interested in what we’re learning.

Now there’s an innovative tool that leverages this concept, written about here in the latest blog from HBR.

The solution? An app… wouldya believe it?!!

Short, personalized, interactive, social and innovative. Sounds like a winning combination to me.

Read about the entire project here: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/06/how_to_give_every_employee_cus.html and then think about how you and your company can create social and personalized learning solutions that create jolts, interesting discussions, increased accountability and  peer-to-peer learning.

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What’s the drill – June 11: Silence is golden

11 Jun

Often, one of the most difficult presentation tools to master is one involving no words at all:

Silence.

In a heightened situation – whether on an improv stage or in a job interview, silence can feel dangerous, vulnerable, uncomfortable and intimidating.

What if we could magically alter our view of silence into something that made us feel powerful, confident, relaxed and observant?

Learning how to become comfortable with silence can add a powerful tool to your communication toolbox.

The truth is, we don’t always need to fill in the space – but we often do so anyway with non-words (the um’s or ah’s, or ands) – what we can call verbal clutter. Throw away the clutter and embrace the silence instead.

Silence can be effective because:

  • Brief silence cues people pay attention.
  • It raises expectation of what’s about to come.
  • Silence slows down learning, creating opportunities for active listening.
  • It guides us as presenters, encouraging clarity and brevity.

Marked by silence – we often assume the audience notices it as much as we do… when in fact, they barely notice the lack of noise. While we often have an exaggerated, or negative view of silence, an audience is much more relaxed and unaware.

One of the most challenging Improv exercises for me is to start a scene with 30 seconds of silence. It can be incredibly vulnerable to stand on a stage with nothing, no words or noises.

The more you practice brief pauses of silence, the easier it will get. How can you practice using this tool in your everyday conversations?

 

 

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Once upon a time…Integrating story tips into your organization

8 Jun

“But one day”… is what’s known in storytelling as the tilt. The moment everything changed and our characters, world, and story transformed.

It’s just one part of what’s known as The story spine, by Ken Adams.

As someone who studied screenwriting in college, I have always been fascinated by how the worlds of storytelling and human behavior collide — essentially, studying how screenwriters craft powerful narratives built on human emotion, connection and transformation, and using some of those same secrets to positively affect human and organizational development.

Today I came across this blog, which shares some story rules pulled directly from Pixar Animation. I’ve posted them below. Which ones resonate and connect most with you – whether it pertains to leadership, transformation, presentation skills, or more?

http://www.pixartouchbook.com/blog/2011/5/15/pixar-story-rules-one-version.html

#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

#2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.

#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.

#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?

#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.

#8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.

#9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.

#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.

#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.

#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.

#13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.

#14: Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.

#15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.

#16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.

#17: No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.

#18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.

#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.

#20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?

#21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?

#22: What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

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Closing the gap between knowing and doing

6 Jun

Mind the gap. Respected and internationally known training and educational provider, Crucial Conversations says:

“When it matters the most, we often do our worst”.

When we face interpersonal communication challenges (or any challenge, really), The gap between knowing what to do, and actually putting that knowledge into action is often profound.

How many of us have experienced this before – where the knowing exceeds the doing? We’ve been taught the right way to communicate (read a book or been through a training session) that promises to bring our game to the next level… but we just can’t execute.

In stressful and important situations science research tells us our adrenaline gland fires, our cognitive processes weaken. Forget about it, brain?! You’re not making any of it easier.

In addition, we’re often not doing our brain any favors when the time gap between learning what to do and actually being able to put it into practice is sometimes arbitrary.

I believe just recognizing this gap exists can be the first step to closing it. Additional steps:

  1. A desire to close the gap – we have to go beyond knowing it’s there, we have to want to close it.
  2. The ability to practice “doing”, to flex our communication muscles to build habit and to practice while we learn through role plays, self-reflection and self-assessment.
  3. The confidence and leanings gained from that practice.

We can teach the “knowing” all we want, but I’d argue training needs to provide more applicable and relevant opportunities for doing to help us all close the gap.

Crucial Skills » Putting Skills into Action.

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What’s the drill – June 5: To push or to yield?

5 Jun

Last night I enjoyed a get together with the wonderful community of Bay Area Improvisers that feels like home to me, and in conversation with one good friend I asked:

What is the one most important thing Improv has taught you?

Her answer was short and sweet: It taught her to push and to yield.

Pushing and yielding may also be defined as give and take, dominance and submission, saying yes or saying no…etc.

Improv taught her, and teaches many people what it means to push and yield, what your own tendency is, and how and when to play either role.

But I’ll give you a secret – knowing when to push or to yield isn’t really about you. It’s about the other person. If you put all your attention and focus on the other person in your meeting, presentation, conversation, or improv scene – well, then you’ll pick up on how much to push or to yield.

It’s important to know how to play each role, and to have the confidence and self-awareness to do either. But the other person (your partner) will give you the clues and signs you need along the communication highway.

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So you’ve failed. Now what?

4 Jun

So you’ve failed, now what?

We know the definition of failure is changing – but is your mindset changing as well?

Your failure mindset is important not just for you and your overall mental health, but for the health of your organization and those you lead.

Improvisers learn how to fail forward – using failure as a positive launching pad towards what we call gifts – unexpected learnings or outcomes that wouldn’t have occurred without failure. This mindset, combined with the utmost trust on stage, gives us the courage to take risks, and to potentially fail.

In doing so we don’t so much focus on the failure, but instead what comes next.

Scott Edinger over at the Harvard Business Review has written a fantastic piece about those “next steps”….

  • Acknowledge the failure/admit the mistake – don’t hide in shame, accept responsibility
  • Take steps  to fix the problem – focus on what’s next and keep moving forward
  • Look for lessons – Focus on the cause of the failure and not the blame. Remember what you can and can’t control.
  • Adopt a growth oriented mindset instead of a fixed mindset. One leaves us helpless, the other pushes us forward in a positive, healthy direction.
  • Be kind to yourself – take a mental or physical break when you need it. 
  • Talk  about it – Find someone you trust and seek out the help you need. 
  • What’s next? What small wins can you achieve now to keep you failing forward. How can you take back control?

Failure comes in all shapes and sizes, but one thing we know for sure is failure is inevitable – learning what part of the failure puzzle you can control helps you fail faster and fail forward. 

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How to make learning relevant and personal in the emerging workplace

1 Jun

I have a confession that might shock you.  This toolkit that I have here, well, it’s not all online and virtual.

In fact, here’s a picture of my real toolkit….er, toolkits.

It’s filled with articles, book chapters, my curriculum, notes, ideas. Truthfully, it sits in my house taking up space, until I need it. But I feel comfortable knowing it’s there because I created it.

It was a way for me to take a more active, reflective and personal role in my learning journey.  True it’s a lot of information, but to compile it I had to sift through and find what resonated, applied – what mattered to me.

Shouldn’t that be what all learning is about?

In this age of information overload – learning at work needs to be more relevant, personal and applicable than ever – otherwise how can we retain it all?

I often come across professional development opportunities where participants leave with a pre-made binder filled with articles chosen for them, answers filled out, and way too many case studies.

Companies seeking compliance may sleep better knowing the “tools” have been handed off.

But we can do more than just check learning off a list.

We can make learning relevant, personal, and applicable.

Make it easy to digest, give learners the opportunity to control their learning – even ask them to compile their own toolkits.

Information that sticks with you is information you seek out and have a general interest in.

Build the toolkit, feel safe knowing it’s always there to come back to, and give learners the opportunity for autonomy and mastery in order to help them be more engaged.

 

 

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