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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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What’s the drill – March 21: StorySlam’s 5 minute storytelling challenge

21 Mar

In January I accepted the challenge to talk about what matters to me, in 140 seconds.

Tonight, I ventured downtown to check out another public storytelling test-kitchen… the Moth StorySLAM — an open-mic storytelling competition held weekly in NYC and across the country. Here, the rules were a bit different. Brave participants had 5 minutes to tell a true story related to the night’s theme.

What happened in the room tonight was simply inspiring and beautiful. Not only were the 10 stories remarkably polished and moving, but the support, engagement, and positivity emanating from the 200+ people in the crowd was an incredibly special feeling.

The event got me thinking about learning communities, trust, tribes, and the power of story, vulnerability, empathy, and theme to inspire positive change — not just in a 5 minute story, but in a lifetime.

StorySlam events are held in big cities across the USA. Check out the calendar, here.

 

photo (16) photo (17)

 

 

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How to listen like an Improviser

29 Jan

Think about your favorite scene from a movie, television show, or a play. If you will, think of a scene free of visual effects and one that just focuses on the people in the story.

Why is it your favorite scene?

If you are like me, favorite scenes emerge because the characters were changed by what someone else said.

When I coach Improvisation teams, I stress the importance of focusing on the relationship between the characters, above all else. The advice can be somewhat vague so I ask students to take it one step further. I ask them to:

“Be changed by what your partner said”.  ”Be changed by what you hear”.

Humans find change to be fascinating, even if we go out of our way to avoid it ourselves. I’d argue that we want and root for change when we watch our favorite shows or movies. It is that evolution of a character, and their ability to be changed by what they hear that keeps the character growing and learning, but also quite vulnerable.

The ability to let ourselves be changed by a conversation or an encounter is the key to listening like an improviser. It takes us a step beyond head nods and eye contact, and connects us more deeply to our scene partner because they know they’ve been heard.

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TOOL: The Failure Bow

10 Oct

Last year I had the privilege of meeting Ted DesMaisons – a fellow Improviser, also a blogger, Stanford Business School Graduate, and a very gifted man and teacher.

His latest blog post, The Transformative Failure Bow , talks about one of the greatest resources in an improviser’s toolkit: the ability to transform failure and a mistake into a celebration of boldness. It is a learned skill worth practicing. Here he describes the history of this great tool, how he teaches it, and how it creates transformation by shifting our reaction and definition of “failure”.

He asks the question we all could be asking – what are we rewarding? The effort, the result, or both? How do you define the result?

“As Matt Smith affirmed in a recent conversation, “The Failure Bow isn’t designed to reward or focus on the failure. It’s designed to reward the willingness to be transparent, the capacity to remain available in the present moment, and the ability to get back on the horse without residing in shame.” It’s that awesome eagerness that leads an athlete to say “Hit me another, Coach” or a student to insist “Let me try again.” We get knocked down, but we get up again.”

The Transformative Failure Bow 

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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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What makes people more creative on some days and not others…

7 Aug

The million, okay, billion-dollar question: How do you create a culture of creativity, and make it last?

Harvard University Professor Teresa Amabile wanted to find out.

Discussing her research into the topic with Bloomberg Television, Amabile and her team compiled over 12,000 individual daily diaries over 5 months, from professionals who were working on creative projects within their company.

What she found, “People do their most creative work on days when they’re feeling most positive emotions, most pleasant thoughts about their organization and their co-workers and strongest intrinsic motivation in their work”.

To put it simply: inner-work life drives performance, and allows teams and individuals to come up with better, creative ideas.

Every area in business requires coming up with creative solutions – and to foster that kind of creative thinking takes more than waving a magic wand:

  1. create an atmosphere of trust and collaboration
  2. tap into those favorite intrinsic motivators of autonomy, purpose, and mastery
  3. Remember that “small wins”, making progress on meaningful work (Amabile’s Progress Principle) matters.

For more: http://www.bloomberg.com/video/what-inspires-creativity-in-the-workplace-xLy2z9V~TGKtienzTsGryQ.html

 

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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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Innovation is…putting the obscure to work for something useful

10 May

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!

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How to fix your most common brainstorming problems

8 May

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.

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How to foster a culture of courage and creativity – the results

3 Apr

The improv-based learning initiatives at Ask.com have received wonderful praise and publicity, and most recently this write-up in Fast Company.

Management wanted innovation and big ideas. The question was, how to jump-start it?

CEO Doug Leeds took a cue from Tina Fey’s Bossypants, which points out how improvisation can lead to more creative thinking and innovation. “[Leeds had} seen it sprinkled in other management books, but that was the tipping point to really investigate.”

He admits, there was some initial concern and fear – but quickly learned Improvisation was not about teaching people to be funny, or jump on stage a la “Whose Line is It Anyway”. Instead, Improvisation lays a foundation for a trusting, supportive, engaged and creative work environment by teaching the basic Improv principles and applying them to their specific work environment.

The result:  “Folks said it was the most impactful training session in their entire career…The bonds of trust and common skill set and language of improv allow us to come together … There’s a sense of trust and when you feel safe all kinds of amazing things emerge.”

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How to appreciate “Appreciative Inquiry”

30 Mar

At the end of a project, milestone, or quarter many companies incorporate a “post-mortem” into their wrap process. All too often, the post-mortem shifts from a summary of events to a discussion of what went wrong.

An organizational development method called Appreciative Inquiry (AI, for short) – which has similar roots to Positive Psychology and Applied Improvisation,  seeks to turn this notion on its head.

At its core, Appreciative Inquiry focuses on what an organization does well, instead of what it does poorly.  

This process seeks out and inquires the positive (what the Heath Brothers call, bright spots), which in turn helps to engage and rally an organization. What is done well is identified, developed, and built upon for the future.

This model was formed based on the assumption that the types of questions we ask (negative or positive in nature) will focus our attention in that direction.

Examples of AI-type questions would include:

1. What is working well?

2. What should we do more of?

AI brings with it the belief that every organization and every person in the organization has positive aspects and contributions that can be built upon.

Appreciative Inquiry, Positive Psychology and Applied Improvisation are solution-focused and strength-based mindsets and methods that move organizations forward instead of keeping them stuck and frozen in the problems of the past.

What can you do to adopt an Appreciative-Inquiry methodology at your next meeting?


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Creating a culture of gratitude

28 Mar

From the smart and considerate folks at SoulPancake – here is a creative and fun tool for instant spirit building:

A compliment booth! Take a look for yourself:

SoulPancake / Activities / Listen Up!.

We know, unexpected kindness can turn a day around. Compliments, praise, validation – it’s not just for the millennials. Studies from the Department of Labor show one of the top reasons people leave organizations is because they don’t feel appreciated.

Consider how often you offer a compliment, a kind gesture, a thank you, or specific praise.

Increasing the recognition and praise in organizations can lead to lower turnover, higher customer loyalty, productivity and employee satisfaction. 

Most of all, consider how you feel when you give and receive compliments. What can you do to make this an active and considerate part of your company culture?

Improvisers make it a habit to practice gratitude, it’s built into our studies  - in fact, one of my favorite exercises I learned in my first improv class was a “gratitude circle”.

Rules for Improv (and Life)

24 Mar

Rules for Improv (and Life).

“It dawned on me that although the intent of the skills and games taught in these classes was to make me and my classmates better improvisers, the same rules can be applied to the real world. To paraphrase Robert Fulghum’s bestseller, “All I really need to know I learned in improv class.”

TOOL: Choosing how to play the “scene”

20 Mar

When we think about a basic framework for how and why to apply the tenants of Improvisation to life off of the Improv stage, we can start by discussing the word “performance”.

Whether or not we are used to thinking of it this way…the truth is, we are all performing every moment of our lives.

If this seems daunting or strangely unsettling, you’re not alone.

Luckily, we can use the tools of Improvisation to create more conscious performance choices, (tailored for each stage or scene) to achieve more authentic, successful and meaningful interactions.

Learning and acquiring these skills allow each of us to build a toolkit of performance choices – that we can use to become more adaptable, flexible and aware in the moment.

Here are some basic tips that can help you when thinking about the performance choices we make all the time:

  1. Be present – practicing mindfulness, and the ability to read a room and pick up on non-verbal cues allows us to tailor our performances for the appropriate stage
  2. Remember the power of “status” – be aware that the choices we make in our behavior, our tone, or words, and our non-verbal communication can elicit powerful shifts in status dynamics between people.
  3. Make your performance partner look good – remember that we are often not alone on the stage. Being able to effectively communicate and collaborate with others has an obviously large effect on the overall performance of the team. Use active listening, a “yes,and” mindset and a give-and-take approach to allow space for others to achieve their performance goals.
  4. Know your objective - in each scene, we want to know what our characters objective is. Knowing our objective, “our want”, allows us to adjust and adapt our choices on stage depending on how close we are to achieving that goal.

If this blog post was beneficial to you, who can you share it with to continue the conversation?

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The Hard Science of Teamwork – Harvard Business Review

20 Mar

The Hard Science of Teamwork  - Harvard Business Review.

Fascinating research from Alex Pentland at MIT provides data on how to predict the productivity, performance and perhaps creativity of a team.

Luckily, if you find your team lacking in any of the below attributes, the “how” of communication can be highly trainable:

His data shows great teams:

 

  • Communicate frequently. In a typical project team a dozen or so communication exchanges per working hour may turn out to be optimum; but more or less than that and team performance can decline.
  • Talk and listen in equal measure, equally among members. Lower performing teams have dominant members, teams within teams, and members who talk or listen but don’t do both.
  • Engage in frequent informal communication. The best teams spend about half their time communicating outside of formal meetings or as “asides” during team meetings, and increasing opportunities for informal communication tends to increase team performance.
  • Explore for ideas and information outside the group. The best teams periodically connect with many different outside sources and bring what they learn back to the team.

Often teams fast forward to focus on what is communicated rather than how we communicate. This data (and others) suggest we need to spend more time and energy focusing on how we communicate (and learn to adjust our non-verbal communication skills) to develop the connection, collaboration and trust necessary to produce the “what” (product) that helps your business succeed.

Understanding the science behind buzz-worthy teams is the first step.

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How to foster a culture of courage and creativity

19 Mar

“Innovation requires courage and creativity, which can be difficult to foster and maintain in a culture“, says Ask.com’s Chief Product and Technology Officer, Lisa Kavanaugh.

Ask.com’s innovation strategy is one many companies are adopting:  to teach Improv skills to every member of their company.

These Improv skills are used as tools to build a safe work environment where ideas are encouraged, shared and built upon.

Hear from the ask.com team about the success of this important initiative here.

 

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What’s the drill – March 13: A team building quick-win

13 Mar

Even the strongest teams need an occasional energy jolt.

Here’s a quick tip for instant team-building, inspired by an Improv workshop.

Count how many scenarios you can apply this to.

12 Improvisers from different backgrounds, with different styles and different perspectives on the art form recently came together to form a new troupe. We’ve had minimal rehearsal time, and are attempting a brand new format. Talk about a team-building challenge.

At the end of our final rehearsal, the week before our first show – it seemed we needed a quick and positive way to develop connection, empathy and a bit more trust.

I asked, can we all answer this one question….?

“What inspires and delights you on-stage? What makes you happiest?”

We each took turns answering this question, and in the process developed insights into our team members that allowed us to connect on a more personal level.

Understanding what makes us tick and feel inspired at work is imperative to bringing out the best in each other.

Try this, or something similar for a quick jolt. Even being asked this question by a colleague does wonders to open the lines of communication.

 

 

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Ask.com endorses Improvisation as a tool to solve their biggest challenge

9 Mar

What does a company do when it feels fresh out of ideas? Lacking some spirit and encouragement for innovation?

In the case of popular internet company Ask.com, they bring Improvisation to their entire workforce, including software engineers.

Watch here to see Ask.com CEO Doug Leeds’ overwhelming endorsement of Improvisation as a tool that builds skills needed for innovation and creativity.

Congratulations to my Applied Improv Network colleague Sue Walden! Let’s keep it going!

http://pressheretv.com/?p=2488

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Two words that kill innovation and creativity

7 Mar

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 responses are habitual, instinctive, and we aren’t even aware of the mindset that’s ingrained in us or our companies. 

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? It 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”

In doing so, are you rejecting innovation and creativity?

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.

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!

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TOOL: Listening

28 Feb

So far we’ve added these important tools to our toolbox:

1. Empathy

2. Connection

3. Play

4. Strong Offers

5. Obvious instead of clever statements

What happens when you don’t feel listened to? What are the consequences?

One of the greatest tools an Improviser possesses and a tool that builds empathy, connection, along with trust and support is the ability to really, truly, listen.

To listen as an Improviser means to be fully present, in the moment, and to pay attention and observe everything that is being said and done on stage. It means to take care and support our partner because what they have to say is crucial to making sense of the unknown, and to co-creating a scene together.

Professional development training which infuses experiential training allows participants to build their listening muscles and increase these skills through habit-building and tie-back to real-world scenarios.

An improviser is also skilled at active listening = not merely hearing, but being affected by what they hear.  Improvisation guru and famed instructor and performer Rebecca Stockley teaches this mantra:  ”everything my partner says is fascinating”. Repeating this mantra reminds us to be affected by what our partner says and to not let any offer or idea pass us by or be easily dismissed.

It’s true that for many of us, we listen better once we’ve said what’s on our mind. Unfortunately, if we are concentrating on what we’re going to say, we’re not listening as actively as we could. Adding some Improvisational tools to our training toolbox helps us to stay present in our conversations, add an element of give-and-take, relinquish control and to build listening muscles that extend beyond roles of customer service, sales, and leadership.

Listening is a skill that directly affects our ability to communicate and collaborate.

Not only are these tools must-haves for our toolboxes, but they can also be applied and “built upon” in a myriad of ways.

Begin with a strong offer, and then listen actively to build connection and empathy.

Now… what did you say?

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