Archive | What’s the Drill RSS feed for this section

What’s the drill – May 30: A break from the routine

29 May

Hello dear blog readers and faithful spam trolls, it’s nice to see you again. Despite best intentions and dozens of saved blog drafts, it’s been a few weeks since my last posting.

In learning how to balance grad school, life in a big city, and work, something had to fall away – and truthfully, I don’t know how The Hungry Toolkit does it. If you are not reading this blog, written by the wonderful and inspiring Julie Huffaker — you are missing out! Meeting her in 2010 changed my life in many ways, I hope that reading her work will change yours even in some small way.

Julie wistfully combines her grad school learnings, vast vats of knowledge, and anecdotes into perfect pairings and easy reads.  Her work lies at the intersection of the arts, business, and human behavior — ya know, if you’re into that sort of thing!

I’d also like to introduce you to more bloggers and friends that have influenced me over the past year… Each has a distinct point of view that I greatly admire.

1. Phil O’Brien - founder of Climbing Fish, a social actualizer passionate about building capacity for human connection.

2. Carol Ross - coach extraordinaire, boundary crosser (and one heck of an Improviser…shhh, don’t tell her!)

3.Mark Guay - a passionate teacher changing the face of education and personalized learning

4. Charlie Todd - creating joyful, spontaneous “scenes”, founder of Improv Everywhere.

I’d love for you to check out these sites and take a break from your usual blog and web reading routine.

This summer I’m taking a cue from Ms. Huffaker and testing assumptions  with a learning experience that’s taking me far outside my comfort zone (grad school was just the beginning of that experiment). I hope to report on the experience via this blog, but if it’s less often than I’d like, I hope you’ll take these next few months as an opportunity to spend some time outside your comfort zone – whether it means on an Improv stage, in a new city or country, or “yes, anding” an experience or offer you normally wouldn’t.

Then, come back and tell me how it went!

Tags: , ,

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)

 

 

Tags: , ,

What’s the drill – February 26: Controlling the outcome

25 Feb

Try as we might, we can never really know the outcome of anything. My book might not sell, I may not get hired for a job, the group project may actually exceed expectations.

The more we try to exert influence over circumstances we can’t and don’t actually control, the more frustrated we can become.

Beginning Improvisers are often fearful their first time taking the stage. Neurologically they feel threatened, and this fear shows up in different behaviors. Often times the feeling of threat or lack of safety makes us want to control the scene because we think we can control the outcome.

In spite of what we think, we never know the outcome of anything.

When the stakes are high, our task to not control the outcome gets tougher. We feel that we have something to lose. When money, pride, reputation are on the line, the job gets even tougher – especially if you are a leader.

Teaching others to let go, accept offers, and say “yes, and” means controlling less and supporting more. It can be a fundamental shift to our psychological and neurological safety.

In tough, stressful and threatening situations, we revert back to our natural instincts and habits. If we are to help others lead through change and high-stakes, it will take practice and it will take work but the outcome will be worth it…of that we are certain.

Tags: , , ,

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.

 

 

 

Tags: ,

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?

Tags: ,

What’s the drill – September 12: And because of that…

12 Sep

Remember the Story Spine? The fantastic tool we use to apply elements of storytelling to a plethora of organizational situations and cases?

  • Once upon a time …
  • 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 ..

Today specifically we can talk about the Story Spine as a means of discussing risk and reward.

Take the phrase, “And because of that…”

Improvisers are taught, and become more comfortable with taking risks. They feel on stage, experientially, what it’s like to get out of their comfort zone. And because of that, they stretch, grow, and so much more.

Sometimes, off-stage, we take a risk (“until one day”) and wait for the reward (“because of that”). We see risk taking as a means to an end. It’s got to be something tangible, right?

“Where is my ‘because of that‘ already?”, we ask. Show me the reward! Let’s flip to the end of the story.

In truth, the other, “because of that’s” might not have been written yet. We often can’t see them coming although we hope they appear. It may take months, years for you to recognize what they are. You might find there are more than 3, perhaps dozens of “because of that” phrases. All we know sometimes is that the risk moves us forward, certainly in learning, and hopefully in tangible results.

If we are taking risks solely in pursuit of the reward we might never be satisfied with our story spine.

The point is that we as organizations and the people who run them have a responsibility to keep the story moving forward. Choosing to take risks and to use the call to action of “until one day” moves us forward, compared to the glacial, steady, predictable pace of “and every day”.

 

Tags: , , , ,

What’s the drill – August 21: Find the ending

21 Aug

And, in conclusion…

Sometimes as presenters, communicators and improvisers we spend so much time learning how to start our speech, conversation, or scene that we forget to brush up on how to finish them.

Here are some tips, pulled straight from the world of Improvisation and storytelling to help you find the elusive ending.

1. Know your objective – What do you want your speech to accomplish? Build in tie-back to your objective, and once you’ve achieved it, it’s a key sign it’s time to end.

2. What has changed? - Kenn Adams’ story spine gives us a wonderful framework to think about communication and storytelling. “And ever since that day…”, what changed, for the character or for the world you described? Help paint the picture with emotional resolution.

3.  Re-incorporation - Reincorporation is comedy gold. To help find your ending, look to the beginning. What can you reincorporate?

4.  Button it up - Improvisers tend to end scenes on the biggest laugh – they like to go out on top. Once their objective has been achieved, and they have been changed, ending on a big laugh (otherwise known as a “button”) is always a good feeling.

5.  Have you solved the problem? If the problem you’ve established has been solved, your work is done. Be careful not to introduce new problems, or re-hash the same one. Simplicity is key.

6.  Did you answer the audiences questions? The audience has a circle of expectations: with the information you’ve given them, they have questions they expect to answered. Once you’ve done that for them, you can expect to have come to the end. 

Tags: , ,

What’s the drill – August 15: Failing on purpose

15 Aug

What’s your focus?

Competence, and being right? Or a focus on always moving forward?

Can you focus on “getting it right”, being okay with failure and moving forward? It may depend what “getting it right” means to you, but I believe you can have your cake and eat it too (and rhyme!).

The truth is, we can still move forward when we don’t get it right, and we can move forward faster, quicker, and hopefully cheaper than when our singular focus is just on being correct. 

No one wants to fail.

But, there are some times when we need failure to keep us moving forward – it is often where our best learning and growth (i.e. innovation) comes from.  We can choose to manage our reaction to failure, to greet it with a smile and use it to our advantage.

We may end up preferring failure to get us closer to where we want to go.

You can build competence by creating a safe place to make mistakes and fail.

Getting it right versus getting it completely wrong may just be in how you view failure.

Yes, and you failed. Keep moving forward. 

 

 

 

Tags: , ,

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/

 

 

Tags: , , , ,

What’s the drill – July 17: Put this brainstorming trick into action

17 Jul

Did you know, IBM’s 2010 Global CEO Study cited “creativity” as the most important leadership quality for the future.

Bolster your toolkit to include strategies for creative problem solving… like this one:

A two-minute brainstorming session… it might just be the efficient tool you’ve been looking for and a go-to trick when you’re stuck in a creative rut.

Here are the rules:

1. Two minutes

2. No judgement of ideas

3. Write down everything

4. Quantity over quality

Then, take a look at your results.

Pick 3 of your ideas (trust your instincts on this one) to do another 2 minute brainstorming session, extrapolating on each idea.

Dig deeper into your creative well by asking yourself questions like — what would happen if the opposite were true? What would this idea look like a year from now? How would our competition execute this idea?

Start with the phrase… “What if” and see where it takes you. By role-playing scenarios and ideas without any fear of judgement (and just a little bit of time and energy) you’re pumping up your creative muscle by asking the  curious questions that promote self-reflection, resilience, flexibility, empathy, and sometimes… more questions.

 

 

Tags: , ,

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!

Tags: , , , , ,

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.

 

 

Tags: , , ,

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.

Tags: , , , ,

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?

 

Tags: , , ,

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.

Tags: , , , , ,

What’s the drill – May 23: What’s your listening ratio?

23 May

What’s your listening ratio?

With the increased reliance in social media, emails, texts, etc we’re taking in more information with our eyes, than perhaps with our ears.

We’re putting a lot of the focus of communication on what we read, and perhaps not enough on what people say in conversation.

Great cultures, great customer experiences, and great interactions grow from listening.

What’s your listening to talking ratio? Consider, is it 2-1, proportionate to having two ears and one mouth?

Sit down regularly with your team and find out what is going well and what isn’t.  Try to spend more time listening than talking. Listen with all of your senses.

Take an extra step and go beyond what you read. Be curious, ask questions, engage.

And, then listen.

 

Tags: ,

What’s the drill – May 17: The three pillars of persuasion

17 May

As the saying goes, everybody wants to buy, but no one wants to be sold.

We are all selling something every day – ideas, products, choices, points of view – persuading someone, somewhere to “buy”, varying our level of persuasion with each.

Aristotle gives us the 3 pillars of persuasion:

  • Ethos: credibility of the speaker
  • Pathos: emotional connection to the audience
  • Logos: The logic of our argument

Together, these pillars are the essential qualities that your speech or presentation must have before your audience will buy in to your message.

Consider which of these 3 pillars is easier for you and which one you tend to rely on or start with.

Do you agree with the notion that we buy on emotion and justify with logic later?

 

Tags: , , , , , ,

What’s the drill – May 9: an education soundbite worthy of debate

9 May

“Good education has got to be good entertainment” - Nicholas Negroponte, founder of MIT Media Lab

Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

Tags: , , , ,

TOOL: Make a strong choice

2 May

There’s a new dance craze sweeping the nation – maybe you’ve seen it where you work or in social interactions, or at a company presentation, or on an improv stage.

Let’s call it the “polite dance”.

It usually looks like this, “you go”, “no – you go”, “no, YOU go”, “oh please – no you, please. I insist”.

Politeness paralysis.

The polite dance is one we often revert to for many different reasons: we don’t want to offend, we are unsure of our own choices, are more comfortable following than leading, are unsure of a direction, etc.

One tool in the Improvisers toolbox is the ability to make a strong choice.

Making a strong choice means learning how to trust instincts, give and take, develop the confidence to speak for ourselves, to make a choice rather than waver in indecision-land — which also happen to be key skills leaders need.

Tags: , , , , ,

Replenish your toolkit – 6 training and facilitation soundbites for the week of April 30

30 Apr

One of the best parts of being in a community of educators is that there’s always something new to learn from other like-minded individuals. Call it, adding to your toolbox.

Colleagues, mentors and thought-makers are constantly swapping tips, tricks, and anecdotes to help craft our work to make it stronger, more meaningful and more relevant.

Here are some of my own reminders and learnings from the past week. I hope to make this a weekly feature you can use to replenish your own toolkit.

  1. Know your purpose – meaning, remember the purpose of each exercise/game/discussion you introduce. Does it tie back to your desired outcomes?
  2.  Don’t brainstorm cold – treat brainstorming like an athletic endeavor – to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your brainstorming sessions, prepare your team with an energizer or warmup that gets them in an alert, present, and slightly brain-fried state. You’ll get those ideas popping faster.
  3. Introverts have longer runways - remember that introverts often just need more time to process ideas and thoughts. Help them feel comfortable by giving them the topic before brainstorming sessions, and utilize more small-group discussion.
  4. Experiential learning and facilitation go hand-in-hand  – a facilitator’s job is to help lead your students to the answer (to the truth). Key to uncovering those answers is adding an experiential element to your session where participants are more active and in control of their learning. This leads to self-reflection which leads to participants finding the answers to the questions facilitators pose. What’s more rewarding – to be told the answer or to discover it yourself?
  5. Choose simplicity - key to retention (beyond adding an element of self-reflection and direct application to the work being done) is simplicity. Have you broken down your teaching points into easily digestible bites? Make sure you leave time for a wrap-up that covers key points.
  6. Observe by playing  – With just 10 minutes, you can learn and observe the dynamics of a team by playing one simple Improv-based game – key to applying an Improvisers approach to training and facilitation is recognizing that Improv is a teachable skill set, and not a comedy routine. Teach a team how to improvise, and watch their communication and collaboration soar.

Tags: , , , , ,

← Older Entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 165 other followers

%d bloggers like this: