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The art of feedback – why we should serve more than a “praise” sandwich

5 Apr

A couple of days ago, my good friend and classmate Kendalle Harrell sent me a link  to the latest research article on Performance Feedback… I know what you’re thinking…quite a sexy topic for an Organizational Psychology grad student.

Yes, gosh darnit, it is! We’ve all been given feedback – welcome or unwelcome, formal or informal, yearly or monthly.

Performance feedback is an art. So let’s draw some connections to the art of Improvisation, shall we?

Peter Sims gets us thinking about how, and compares this art to the artsiest folk of all, Pixar animators.

  1. Make it personal – no cookie cutter feedback here. Not everyone likes a praise sandwich, in fact, some people will throw away what’s inside and just focus on the praise, or visa-versa. Strong performance feedback has…
  2. A narrative – a journey, a co-created one at that… between the feedback giver and receiver. Decide on a vision that you can co-create. To help you write this narrative focus on…
  3. Agreement – what can the feedback receiver agree to (and come up with themselves) to improve? Utilize the power of give and take (Thanks, Adam Grant!).
  4. Be specific – focus on specific behaviors, action items, and examples.

Pixar utilizes “plussing” as a developmental tool (you may call this “Yes, And…as you wish).

“The point, he said, is to “build and improve on ideas without using judgmental language.

Here’s an example he offers in his book. An animator working on “Toy Story 3” shares her rough sketches and ideas with the director. “Instead of criticizing the sketch or saying ‘no,’ the director will build on the starting point by saying something like, ‘I like Woody’s eyes, and what if his eyes rolled left?”

Using words like “and” or “what if,” rather than “but” is a way to offer suggestions and allow for the creative juices to flow without fear, Mr. Sims said.”

Performance feedback is a muscle that can be developed with practice.  I’d argue that many of us inherently know this already, but don’t always put it into practice. If we want to improve, we can think about it as we would our own performance feedback. Focus on the specific behaviors we can improve on tomorrow, and who can help keep us accountable as we learn and grow?

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The Secret to Getting Ahead, via the NY Times

31 Mar

It would be easy to read yesterday’s NY Times profile of Professor Adam Grant and his book “Give and Take” and conclude the secret to success is to give more and take less.

We could come to similar, easily digestible conclusions with other, recent management development offerings. We could “lean in” more, “be more mindful”, or say yes or say no more often. But would this stick, or just make us more resentful, anxious, paranoid, or busy?

One thing is certain, I completely agree and appreciate Grant’s work and his message:

“The greatest untapped source of motivation, he argues, is a sense of service to others; focusing on the contribution of our work to other peoples’ lives has the potential to make us more productive than thinking about helping ourselves.”

As I see it, the key to encouraging more giving is by focusing on the feeling it brings.  In essence, we follow the feeling. Sometimes it is indescribable, but it sticks with us. 

If giving more, leaning in, taking more time for yourself, or saying no more often makes you feel better, more whole, more on purpose, then that is reason enough to do more of it. Perhaps it will allow you to give with more gusto, to listen in a way that offers the support your friend or co-worker needs.

We can save the quantity vs. quality of giving debate for another time. I feel better when I give help, advice, support, encouragement, and that is a powerful, potent, push to do more of it.

Mixing motivation and giving isn’t easy. If we view giving as a means to an end, (“matchers”, as Grant calls them in his research) than we’re missing the point.

Improvisers give in the form of making their partner look good. We give because it is the Improvisers credo. It builds trust. And it fuels creativity by opening us up to more possibilities and points of view.

But we are also good at saying no when we need to, when it feels instinctively wrong.  We are skilled at the polite, “NOPE!”. Guilt or pushing doesn’t motivate giving, that is certain.

“The most successful givers, Grant explains, are those who rate high in concern for others but also in self-interest. And they are strategic in their giving — they give to other givers and matchers, so that their work has the maximum desired effect; they are cautious about giving to takers; they give in ways that reinforce their social ties; and they consolidate their giving into chunks, so that the impact is intense enough to be gratifying.”

The impact of this work is profound if we give it and share it with others. It is the foundation of a learning organization, of a company of shared social capital and support. And it is sustained not because your boss told you to give more, or because you read about it in an article in the NY Times, but because you know how it feels when someone gave selflessly to you, and you want to pay it forward.

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Learning design for the questioning mind

26 Mar

Tonight over dinner with two very talented and successful organizational psychology peers, I realized the level of my own hypocrisy. If this is yet to sound intriguing, pretend the rest of the blog post is narrated by Matt Damon. There, all better?!

It is an interesting experience to go through a Graduate level program as a training professional. As I learn, I’m not only thinking about the material, but how the material is presented. I am often very active in these discussions.

I left a Grad school class extremely frustrated tonight. I was given the “what” and the “why” without the “how”. Some days it’s just the “what”. I constantly seek practical application for what I am learning, specific answers and grounded, real-world comparisons. I am your typical adult learner, someone who wants relevance, application, and clarity. It’s not that I want to pump out the ambiguity – I am intensely interested in the material and just not clear on how to ground the learning. If it’s too high in the sky I get frustrated.

Tonight at dinner, my friend recounted an experiential learning experience where the facilitator told the students the answer (the ah-ha they should experience) AND how they should be feeling. “No no, they shouldn’t be told the answer”, I said. To me, experiential learning succeeds when the students uncover their own answers. I felt discomfort in another workshop I attended where we were told there was only one correct answer for a given exercise. It seemed to de-personalize the experience, I remembered. In workshops and training sessions that I lead, I hardly provide the answers…the students do.

So, why the discrepancy?

I recognize the differences between a graduate level seminar and a professional development workshop but the question still remains… how do you reconcile expectations with reality in a learning experience? How do you balance real-world application with self-discovery?

How do you weigh what the participant needs in the room (short-term) versus long-term?

The solution (remember, I want answers) perhaps, is to find a happy place between student expectations and reality and to recognize the different needs in the room. Maybe it’s to go one step further and uncover why these specific expectations exist.

As with any tough question, perhaps there isn’t a single answer. But when the costs of learning are high, I sure am looking for one.

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When failure is part of the rules

19 Mar

A few weeks ago, a woman in one of my workshops raised her hand and asked a very important question: “Are you telling us that it’s okay to fail?”

A group of incredibly smart, focused, and skilled future leaders was confused. No one had ever given them permission to fail before.

I told her what one of my mentors, Randy Nelson told me: life is not about error avoidance, it’s about error recovery.

I wasn’t actually encouraging them to fail, I simply encouraged this group to change their reaction to failure.

Most of us fail inward – meaning, our bodies tense up, we get smaller and we let the world know that we are ashamed.

Improvisers practice what same may see as a silly exercise called the “Failure Bow” – we turn failure from an inward defeat to an outward celebration. This small practice helps us act the way we want to feel.

Seth Godin speaks brilliantly about failure, here in this interview. Some of the highlights:

  • those who fail more often, win – The people who don’t win are the ones that don’t fail at all and get stuck, or the ones that fail so big that they don’t get to play again.
  • What are the risks that you can take that keep you in the game even if you fail?
  •  Following the rules can lead to a fear of initiation and a fear of failure. Where can you work where failing is part of the rules?

The concept of embracing failure is broad and confusing for some – depending on your profession, and your past experience. This concept is also juicy and full of connection to vulnerability, innovation, creativity, you name it.

Simply put…error recovery builds resilience, it provides a new kind of reward…perhaps one that we aren’t teaching or recognizing enough.

 

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Why Our Brains are Hooked on Being Right – via HBR

14 Mar

I’m preparing for my “Summer O’ Conflict”, which basically means 5 weeks of Conflict Resolution training.

Conflict is fascinating, but as someone who watches and coaches Improvisers I have to say that the choice to start a scene with conflict is all too common. Some know it’s an Improv Pet Peeve of mine –  and I try to get at the root of why this is a common choice for so many of us.

I believe there is something about choosing conflict that keeps us safe. It gives us a problem to solve, but also keeps us from truly connecting and playing in the unknown. We can snap into ‘conflict mode’ quicker than ‘connection mode’.

This article from HBR sheds light on the neurological responses involved in conflict:

“In situations of high stress, fear or distrust, the hormone and neurotransmitter cortisol floods the brain. Executive functions that help us with advanced thought processes like strategy, trust building, and compassion shut down. And the amygdala, our instinctive brain, takes over. The body makes a chemical choice about how best to protect itself — in this case from the shame and loss of power associated with being wrong — and as a result is unable to regulate its emotions or handle the gaps between expectations and reality. So we default to one of four responses: fight (keep arguing the point), flight (revert to, and hide behind, group consensus), freeze (disengage from the argument by shutting up) or appease (make nice with your adversary by simply agreeing with him).”

More More More…

Further more, when we argue, and we win, we want to keep winning and keep arguing.

“That’s partly due to another neurochemical process. When you argue and win, your brain floods with different hormones: adrenaline and dopamine, which makes you feel good, dominant, even invincible. It’s a the feeling any of us would want to replicate. So the next time we’re in a tense situation, we fight again. We get addicted to being right.”

We run the risk of conflict not only being a choice, but a habit…one that we are neurologically rewarded for doing well in.

When Improvisers introduce conflict just for the sake of having something to do on stage, I stop and ask them to tell me what the conflict is really about. Often times they don’t know.

From competition to conversation

Improv is a team sport, just like so many businesses. Similarly, conflict is not necessarily a bad thing, it can be productive and important.

What worries me is the instinctual choice to fight instead of doing the harder work…listening.

If we can view conflict as a conversation instead of a competition, remove the idea of winner versus loser, right versus wrong and instead push towards agreement and the notion of being changed by the other person, then I’m more interested in your dynamics, and your scene. Our brains would like that too:

“Luckily, there’s another hormone that can feel just as good as adrenaline: oxytocin. It’s activated by human connection and it opens up the networks in our executive brain, or prefrontal cortex, further increasing our ability to trust and open ourselves to sharing. Your goal as a leader should be to spur the production of oxytocin in yourself and others, while avoiding (at least in the context of communication) those spikes of cortisol and adrenaline.”

 

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I Have a Great Idea – via Harvard Business Review

8 Mar

Bear with me for a couple hundred words, can you? I have a “great idea”.

There is an HBR Article floating around that got me fired up. Really fired up.

It was sent over by my friend Phil O’ Brien of Climbing Fish.

The article, written by Umair Haque, argues that the rise of “TED-style thinking” is one cause for our broken relationship with great ideas. He argues that the rise of bite-sized, easily digestible, talks, blogs, learning opportunities are…easy solutions. Here:

We’ve come to look at these quick, easy “solutions” as the very point of “ideas worth spreading. But this seems to me to miss the point and power of ideas entirely. Einstein’s great equation is not a “solution”; it is a theory — whose explanations unravel only greater mysteries and questions. It offers no immediate easy, quick “application” in the “real world,” but challenges us to reimagine what the “real world” is; it is a Great Idea because it offers us something bigger, more lasting, and more vital than a painless, disposable “solution.”

It’s true – audiences (especially adult audiences) want to know: how can I utilize this information now, how is this relevant to me, and what is the ANSWER?! I’ve seen it in the workshops I teach, the consultants I work with, and in my own experience.

I am not unlike the audiences of today. As I sit through each Graduate school class in my Master’s program I find myself struggling with classes that don’t provide immediate utility, relevance and answers. I worry about the cost, both opportunity and financial.

But what Haque is arguing, is for these learning experiences to encourage more questions than answers. To give us space to reflect and the time to transform these great ideas into more great ideas of our own. The learning I receive in graduate school makes me uncomfortable, far more than I’d argue a TED talk ever could. It is me at my most vulnerable self.

Why? It’s because I’m not given the simple, quick solution and immediate utility. But, I have the space to ruminate on it, share with my learning community and make the process relevant and meaningful for myself.

It’s a hard lesson to learn – especially when you are impatient, passionate, excited, and anxious.

“That is precisely how Great Ideas change us: not merely by pleasing us, but by challenging us. That is precisely how they elevate us: not merely by pandering to us, or by provoking us, but by enlightening the whole of us. That is precisely what makes Great Ideas truly worthy — not just easily palatable, and commercially profitable.”

I think of this often as I design and deliver corporate workshops and engage in many others. I remember that when I was first learning how to Improvise (which, I consider the “Great Idea” that changed my life), it wasn’t boiled down into one class or one 18-minute talk. Improv teaches you there is no right answer, or one solution. Sure, it’s also relevant and applicable, but not just in one clear way.

This “Great Idea” keeps me constantly off-center. This sort of learning helps a person truly come into their own, the learning isn’t spoon-fed, it’s up to them to grab the spoon. And, it’s stuck with me longer than any TED Talk, blog post, article ever could. It didn’t just spew knowledge, it fueled reflection and a desire for more experience.

Not all great ideas are intended for the masses or for digestible consumption, but that also means the ideas don’t have to be perfect or fully-formed to start to spread.

Learning is personal. Learning is meaningful. Learning is powerful. How can we as educators help keep this alive with the boundaries that technology, time, money, have set? I want to hear your great ideas.

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What’s the drill – February 22: Know your objective

22 Feb

‎”Whenever someone comes to me for help, I listen very hard and ask myself, ‘What does this person really want? And what will they do to keep from getting it?” – William Perry, Harvard Professor of Education

Navigating life without a script means finding the balance between freedom and structure. For Improvisers, it means getting clear on the basics of the scene, feeling grounded in the structure so that we can move and build new ideas with complete freedom.

A trick we use to keep us centered, motivated, and able to navigate ambiguity is to know our objective in the scene. What is it that my character wants, and why?

Once we get clear on these answers, a scene can really flow.

But, how often do we go into a scene, a meeting, a phone call, a class, an opportunity and truly know what our objective is?

Getting clear on our objective does more than just help you – it helps your partner in crime. If I don’t know what it is you want, how can I support you?

For me, the most memorable Improv scenes to watch and to play in are those where characters have a clear objective that comes from a very truthful, sometimes vulnerable place. For example, they don’t just want to win the science fair, but they want someone to tell them how great they are… for the very first time.

Having a clear objective is a way to measure change. Did we get what we wanted? Did it mean something to us? What’s my temperature reading before and after? How am I progressing?

When I’m coaching Improvisers or those in a professional development setting, it’s common for people to either not have an objective or to not verbalize it.

We can’t always think of the objective spontaneously, but we can tune into the character, or ourselves to think about what is it that I really want? Sometimes it takes some work, and some encouragement:

  1. Know the “why”, not only the “what” – figure out why your objective matters to you. Sometimes asking “The Five Why’s” can help with this. 
  2. Be open to your objective changing. Don’t hold so fast to it that you close yourself off.
  3. Finally – don’t be afraid to ask for help.

 

 

 

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The Presentation Mistake You Don’t Know You’re Making, via HBR

7 Jan

If your New Years resolutions include improving your presentation skills, you’ll want to check out this recent study and article from Harvard Business Review. Has this happened to you…?

“During an interview, your potential new boss asks you to briefly describe your qualifications. At this moment, you have a single objective: be impressive. So you begin to rattle off your list of accomplishments…”

…and before you know it, 5 minutes have gone by. Fear kicks in, the clock is running, and we resort to lists instead of the big picture.

Getting clear, concise and specific in an interview, presentation, or meeting isn’t always easy, especially if we are focusing on the quantity of our material as opposed to the quality.

Naturally, our instincts tell us so because of a phenomenon called “Presenter’s Paradox”… the assumption that more is better.

“More is actually not better, if what you are adding is of lesser quality than the rest of your offerings. Highly favorable or positive things are diminished or diluted in the eye of the beholder when they are presented in the company of only moderately favorable or positive things.”

So if more is not the answer, what do we do? 

  1. Consider choosing a new objective – “be impressive” sounds fine, but we owe it ourselves to really understand and get clear on our objective, and work backwards from there. Improvisers choose every action based on their character’s objective and it does wonders to help them inform the scene and navigate the unknown.
  2. Less lists, more stories – use storytelling to help focus on the big picture. Turn your bullet-point accomplishments into key story points with a beginning, middle and end. Look to the Story Spine for help on this one.
  3. Ask yourself “The 5 Why’s” to help you get clear and specific.
  4. Remember that even though you’re in the hot seat, the interview or presentation isn’t all about you. Follow the improviser guideline of “making your partner look good” by finding opportunities for connection, commonality and interaction.

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The year of Daniel Pink

31 Dec

Little did he know it, but in January of 2012 famed author Daniel Pink was already applying some of the tools he talks about in his latest book (out today!), “To Sell is Human“.

I’ll explain. It was December of 2011 when I finished reading his earlier work, “A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future” . I was enamored with the material, and overjoyed that his words seemed to validate my career path, and passion.

On a whim I sent Mr. Pink an email. I complimented him, pointed out our mutual connection (Go ‘Cats!), and…well, asked if he had some time to talk. I may have even quoted Oprah?! Silly me, I thought. But, I had nothing to lose.

I was sitting in a quiet cafe on Polk Street in San Francisco when I received his prompt response:

“hi, lindsey. thanks for the note.

i’m happy to talk, but only on the condition you share with me one or two tips for getting better at improvisation. (as it happens, i’m doing some research that’s kinda, sorta on that topic right now.)”

I screamed. There were some odd looks. I didn’t care – to me, Daniel Pink is a rock star and this was the equivalent of a backstage pass.

Almost a year later Daniel Pink finished the project he alluded to and released “To Sell is Human”. It is a fascinating, thought-provoking read that I highly recommend.

Pink devotes an entire chapter to Improvisation and the tools we use as Improvisers to improve communication, presentation and even, authenticity. Just like in “A Whole New Mind”, Pink has validated, supported, and encouraged the use and application of these tools to a broader base and signals the growth of this field for years to come.

Our conversation in January was one of the highlights of my year. Daniel Pink said “Yes, and” to my request to talk and it is something I will never forget.

In December of 2012 I was chosen to be a part of a small group that would serve as a launch team for “To Sell is Human”.

Small actions (to say “Yes, And”, to help make someone else look good, to practice generosity and taking risks) help to create memories and connections that we don’t soon forget.

Here’s to a new year of saying “Yes, And”,  and to being uncertain but taking a risk anyway. You never know where it will lead.

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It’s not me, it’s you

11 Dec

“If there’s one thing we know for sure, it’s that life is a virtuous cycle — when you keep on giving, eventually you get”…

These are the words of Jodi Glickman from her latest HBR piece on networking. The idea of pure generosity, of “it’s not about me, it’s about you”, isn’t something that comes naturally to all of us, but it’s a skill that improvisers hone again and again.

For an improviser, it isn’t about you at all (it, meaning the scene, the game, the moment)…. it is all in support of the other person.

The mantra we adopt is: Make Your Partner Look Good.

What does this do and how does it help us? Well it’s not dissimilar from how we would network at a party or social event.

Focusing on offering support of the other person takes away some of the worry of self-scrutiny, and carrying a conversation. By being curious and generous we find new ways to connect with people, listen for what matters to someone and try to find ways to offer support, understanding, or assistance by “yes, and’ing” their thoughts and answers.

We can learn from anyone and everyone.

And we have something to offer anyone and everyone – it may not be there in that moment but perhaps in the future.

If you can approach a conversation this way, instead of “what can you do for me?”, you’ll find the ease of networking. It just takes some practice.

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Save Us From Our Strengths – via The Energy Project

7 Oct

Save Us From Our Strengths – The Energy Project.

I can see it now. Like in a dream. In the not so distant future, workplaces will be more efficient than ever.

Imagine a scenario when newly hired employees are pre-assessed, assessed again and then surveyed about their strengths before their very first day.

When they pull their hybrid hovercraft into the parking lot and shuffle through the doors, perhaps they’ll be handed t-shirts to wear that display their pre-determined strengths… “Superb Listener”, one organic shirt might say.

Okay, maybe this is overkill…besides, hovercrafts are SO 2050… but Tony Schwartz and The Energy Project make a serious case that spending so much time and effort on building “strength-based” organizations “narrow[s] attention to the preferred aspects of ourselves [and] vastly oversimplifies who we are, what stands in our way, and what it takes to operate at our best.”

“So, too, for strengths. The missteps we make and the damage we inflict on others is less the result of failing to fully utilize our strengths and more the consequence of overvaluing and over-relying on them — precisely because they come more easily to us.”

Are we afraid to let weaknesses enter the picture, for fear that no one will take the time and effort to change? 

The challenge in developing strengths is not to over-emphasize them or to use them to pigeon-hole your workforce. Instead, as The Energy Project indicates  it’s to learn flexibility, adaptability, balance, and empathy so then we can dial up or down our strengths at appropriate times and moments.

“No strength is reliably a strength by itself. Too much passion eventually becomes overbearing, but too much sober moderation leads to boring blandness. Too much introspection devolves into self-absorption, but too little results in superficiality. Confidence untempered by humility turns into arrogance. Tenacity unbalanced by flexibility congeals into rigidity. Courage without prudence becomes recklessness. Charm ungrounded in authenticity is simply disingenuousness.

To make the most of what we’ve got, we must instead take on the messy whole of who we are. That means making the best possible use of our strengths, but also slogging away at the weaknesses they can serve to reveal.

We don’t need leaders who’ve got it figured out. Rather, we need ones who feel confident in and clear about their strengths, but are also courageous enough to recognize and take on their shortcomings. It’s a paradoxical challenge we all face: to hold ourselves fiercely accountable for becoming more of what we’re capable of being, but to simultaneously accept ourselves exactly as we are.”

 

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What’s the drill – October 2: What job do you need done?

2 Oct

FutureThink and The Energy Project are two brilliant consulting and training companies that are on my mind this week. Their value is clear, their brand is unique, and the ROI? Obvious… at least to me.

What they offer fills a need, and not just a want. It’s not just a “oh, that sounds nice”.  Every company wants to be more innovative and to harness the energy of their employees for a more productive and focused workforce.

It begs the question – how do you market your services – whether you are a job candidate, or a consultancy looking to increase your client base. How do you clearly and effectively communicate what you have to offer?

Author and distinguished Harvard Professor Clayton M. Christensen urges us to ask this question:

What job do you need done? 

For example, I need a way to quickly establish trust in a new group. Or, I need my team to develop their presentation skills.

If they don’t know that you can get the job done, why would they hire you? Make it simple –  take away the guesswork, and connect the dots for them.

No one is buying “Improv” – they are buying the result, the outcome.  We can’t assume that everyone needs Improvisation – but they do need teams that communicate more efficiently, and collaborate more effectively.

Turns out, everyone needs that.

So. Start with this: what job do you need done?

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Ready, set, socialization!

16 Sep

The blog has been quieter than normal lately — I’m chalking it up to an unintentional side-effect of lots of self-induced change.

For me that has meant a new city, a new social environment, and a new academic home. I’m smack-dab in the middle of a socialization bonanza. And it’s got me thinking about how we as teams, and organizations make sense of, and orientate around “what’s new”, and “what’s changed” in a new environment.

As adults, is this something we want to discover for ourselves, and/or at what point in the process would we rather learn the ropes with an instructional guide and a buddy by our side?

Socialization as a process goes both ways, from person to organization and visa-versa. But, as we age, and add more experience to our belts, do we want or need to rely on our organizations for the lay of the land?

We all go through some sort of formal on-boarding process. It can last an hour, a week, 6 months even. My graduate school orientation lasted for just a few hours. There, a new cohort of 100 people who would be spending the greater part of the next two years together walked out of orientation not having formally learned anyone else’s name.  I have to say, it bothered me.

How much mandated socialization is too much socialization? I don’t have the answers, yet.

But a diversity of experiences helps us tune in to how much socialization we need to feel comfortable, especially when we feel like the stakes are raised. Maybe there is no secret formula, but if there is, I envision successful socialization as having these elements:

1. Differences are a commodity, not a liability

2. Socialization is personal

3. It starts before you arrive on campus

4. We are given time to reflect on the change

What would you add to this list and why?

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Leadership as Jazz: Becoming an Improvisational Leader

19 Aug

Sometimes articles pass through your news feed that, when you read them, make you nod your head so consistently you fear you’ll give yourself a headache.

If Miles Davis Taught your Company to Improvise

“Nurturing spontaneity, creativity, experimentation, and dynamic synchronization is no longer an optional approach to leadership. It’s the only approach. The current velocity of change demands nothing less. It demands paying attention to the mental models, the cultural beliefs and values, the practices and structures that support improvisation.”

How do we as individuals, leaders and organizations prepare to Improvise? It can be done. In fact, here are 5 tips.

It’s why Improvisers rehearse, warm-up, and spend a lot of time building trust. We learn the structure first, and then find the freedom within the safety we’ve created.

1.  Approach leadership tasks as experiments – Be open to what emerges by suspending a defensive attitude. Improvisers are skilled at withholding judgement – with both our own ideas and the ideas of others.

“An experimental approach favors testing and learning as you go. It means presenting ideas, then observing how others pick up and build on them. This is leadership with a mind-set of discovery”

Being more open and receptive to the ideas of those around you also helps to break up a routine or automatic habits that may be weighing you, and your team down.

2. Expand the vocabulary of yes to overcome the glamour of no - Saying “no” is a habit for many of us, for many different reasons. To use what’s in the room, and accept all offers is to heighten and find the positive in what is already available to us. In improvisation, wishing things were different is truly a useless game.

“Too often, in established cultures, cynicism is a way to attain status, and cynical responses to ideas seem justified because they are more “realistic.” It is much easier to critique than to build. Yet equating cynicism with realism shrinks the imagination.”

3. Everyone gets a chance to solo - Learn the give and take. And, at the same time, if you’re passionate about an idea, do you have the freedom to go solo and experiment beyond your comfort zone?

4. Encourage serious play. Too much control inhibits flow.

5. Cultivate provocative competence: create expansive promises as occasions for stretching out into unfamiliar territory. - Competence versus a learning and growth mindset? Is there a happy medium?

“The need of leadership in a distributed age has never been greater. Instead of imposing competence–a virtual impossibility–leaders provoke it by designing the conditions that nurture strategic improvisation and continuous learning, and thus help their organizations break out of competency traps. Great leaders like Miles Davis are able to see people’s potential, disrupt their habits, and demand that they pay attention in new ways.”

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The genius of the “and”…

1 Aug

 

“Collaborative innovation involves the genius of the “and” versus the tyranny of the “or.” It’s not that brainstorming must always turn into “Groupthink” or that introverts or individuals have the best ideas. In good brainstorming, one feeds off the other and the end result is significantly more powerful than either approach alone.” – Harvard Business Review 

The need, space, and time for “Passionate Champions” to “and” an idea is the often missing step in the brainstorming process, says this latest article from HBR. 

Step One: Collaborate on ideas as a group. Make sure everyone is heard, help individuals improve their own thinking and be exposed to ideas they may not have thought of on their own.

Step Two: Open up the session to passionate, individual champions:

“Anyone, alone or with other people if they need or want help, can pick any idea and develop it further. Even if the idea has already been developed in one direction, a Passionate Champion may see it very differently and develop it in a totally different manner. Or, they can pick an idea that was not advocated by the group or selected by the client, and develop it as they see fit.

In our work, we find that Passionate Champion ideas often account for 50% of those that make it through internal and external vetting, and 20-30% of the ideas that make it into final concepts. What’s more, they are often the most breakthrough in terms of truly new, game-changing concepts.”

Create the safe environment for ideas to flow, allow those who want to “yes, and” an idea to do so. Who can say yes to an idea in your organization? 

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A new way to think of change

26 Jul

In an Improv scene, a movie, a story, or a great presentation we find resolution by completing this sentence,

 “and ever since that day”…

What changed?

This change is brought about by what we call a tilt. Something a character says, does, expresses, and admits to, etc in a scene.

It is our goal in an Improv scene to be open to change and to actively seek it. This change then answers the question, “what was different about this day”.

As innovators, creative problem-solvers, leadership coaches, managers, trainers, and facilitators we push positive change.

“And ever since that day”….

The tilt, the catalyst for change, comes from being hyper-aware to what offers and ideas have already been expressed. What is around us that we can use? What are our characters feeling, expressing, and wanting and what honest reactions and desires can we pull from to help our characters organically grow and evolve?

We can think of it this way:

Once there was…
And every day…
Until one day…
And because of that…
And because of that…
And because of that…
Until finally…
And ever since that day…

Improvisers want to be changed. The static scene and character that stays the same from beginning to end is not our friend.

To embrace change is to ask… “and ever since that day”… and to see the world of possibilities that appear when we making even one small tilt pushes us in a direction we couldn’t have predicted.

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What’s the drill – July 20: Fifteen seconds to better listening

20 Jul

15 seconds to better listening – can it be true?

Today I want to share some great active listening tips from Applied Improvisation pioneer, the training firm “Performance of a Lifetime”.

As Improvisers our focus in a scene is on the other person. The tools in our toolbox teach us how to make our partner, colleague, audience member, etc look good.

In helping others to add to their communications toolbox, that same focus on the other person remains very strong.

Here are some listening tips to help you focus on making your partner look good:

1. Listening is not a transaction — it’s our job to listen actively with the intent to build on and co-create a conversation. We can only “yes, and” what our partner says if we are completely focused on what they are saying, without pre-planning our next sentence.

2. Let your partner know they’ve been heard – use re-incorporation, use their words, and the phrase, “what I heard you say is”, to increase empathy, connection and trust between you and your conversation partner. Work with what you heard, not what you wanted to hear. Doesn’t it feel great to know you’ve really been listened to?

3. Give them the space – in this case, we’re talking about 15 seconds. Wait 15 seconds to respond after your partner speaks. Practice this enough and it will become a habit. What did you notice? Can you try this in an especially heated, or crucial conversation?

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” – Viktor E. Frankl

Read the whole article here:

http://performanceofalifetime.com/blog/ceo-corner/art-of-listening/

 

 

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TOOL: It’s all about the debrief… six questions to spark informative answers

16 Jul

How does this relate – is often the debrief question we as facilitators go to, to spark some meaningful answers.

Yes, and we can delicately and deliberately lead our participants to more truthful, reflective and relevant conversation by asking them a series of questions that bring about the golden nuggets of learning – learning that moves you forward as a team, and individual or an organization.

Thanks to training guru Thiagi and a helpful refresher of his methodology last week at the Applied Improv Network San Francisco chapter meeting, here’s picture proof of my six favorite debrief questions.

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5 Things Great Presenters Know About People (Video)

9 Jul

Great presenters know how to inform, inspire, and motivate – they know how to reach an audience because they focus on their audience during all steps of the presentation process.

What makes a presentation resonate with you?

Here’s what we know:

  1. Research shows an audience enjoys, learns more and retains more of your presentation when it’s bite-sized. Keep your presentation to 20 minutes or less (TED talks, anyone?!) – or if it’s longer, be sure to change it up every 20 minutes.
  2. Take away the sensory channel  competition – an audience is learning and listening with their eyes and ears. A presentation with text-heavy slides distracts from your talk.  If the audience is reading they aren’t listening. A trick – prepare your presentation first without the help of slides – if you still need visuals, then opt for some power point back up. Slides should complement your talk, not replace it or mimic it.
  3. What you say is only part of your message – we unconsciously make 1 second or less decisions about others. Beware of your body language and tone. Non-verbal communication matters.
  4. You’ve motivated, inspired, and informed your audience to do … what again? Don’t forget a call to action. Get specific about what you want your audience to do next.
  5. Monkey see, monkey do – audiences imitate emotions and feel what you feel – so, lead with passion! Your body language will be a big give-away if you’re not feeling your topic.

For more tips, in fun-to-watch illustrated form, check out this video!

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What’s the drill – July 5: Three questions to help you know your audience

5 Jul

What’s in it for them?

Are you asking this question enough…and is this the first thing you lead with at the start of a program or a pitch?

To successfully market and reach your participants, and those who decide whether or not to give the go-ahead to your program, we have to not only say, but show what’s in it for them… all the while using their language to get the message across.

What does success look like for them?

How you market a program to an engineer will be different from a sales executive.  It can be a different language altogether. There will be biases and assumptions and expectations you can’t always control.  To help break through, seek out what success looks like for them, while being as specific as possible. Don’t be afraid to ask questions.

What is their objective?

Everyone has an objective. Is it just compliance – or something deeper? Let’s hope for the latter. Here, Seth Godin provides helpful reminders on learning the worldviews of your participants. Are they batman types or superman types?

It’s nearly impossible to sell an idea or a concept to everyone at the same time. Adjust your story and approach to fit your audience, speak their language and always focus on what’s in it for them.

But, says Godin… “Instead of trying to delight everyone in Gotham City, it pays to find people who already resonate with the story you want to tell”. Yes, AND to that!

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