As humans, we are natural storytellers. Much of how we communicate and think comes from telling stories to ourselves and others. Each story that we tell involves people, experiences and ideas that we have interacted with in our lives. (Sawyer, 2007) * In this way our stories are a collaboration with all of those elements that we have experienced. Bringing together the combined experiences of several people allow us to tell stories as a group with each person adding their own offers.
A team solving a business problem in a group meeting is a story that might look something like this:

Once upon a time our product was constantly in demand, but sales have been down for a year, because of that we are looking at our customer feedback, because of that we see that updates to the product are needed, and now we can create a plan to roll out the new features. This summary story might take place over several meetings with many different people adding pieces to the story based on their experiences and ideas.

Collaboration

Collaboration means listening for those offers and accepting them in a way that makes your partner look good and builds on them by “Yes, and”ing them.

*Sawyer, Keith 2007. Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration

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In the article What is Applied Improv? I discussed seven principles of improv that apply in the work environment. Here I expand on the concept of “Celebrate Failure and Survivable Risk”.

Improv and collaboration require constantly taking risks of varying degrees. Mistakes and failure are inevitable as we engage in taking risks and it is our reaction to those failures that define the collaborative environment. In improv, we celebrate the risk-taking and embrace the failure which is counter to our natural tendency. This means that we are free to move forward boldly and without hesitation, censorship of ideas, and critique of ourselves or others. Celebrating failure unlocks creativity and gives us the freedom to explore alternatives and find elegance that might have been otherwise discarded.

Survivable Risk

The idea of celebrating failure seems to be counter to success or, worse, endorse thoughtless, careless or reckless behavior. The key principle is that we deal with survivable risks – failure as a result of dedicated effort with the intention of success. The idea is celebrating the risks involved with innovation. The nature of risk taking in any group or organization can range from personal risks of sharing your ideas and building relationships to trying new products or processes.
It can be easy to discount, out of hand, the principle of celebrating failure with examples of reckless behavior such as betting all of the corporate assets on a game of roulette. Quick reactionary decisions without due care in the process may not be survivable risk for a company, leader or individual and therefore are not the intention behind this principle.

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Making your partner look good means listening, encouraging, and looking for ways to support what others are doing and is necessary for collaboration. It means suspending our tendency to make ourselves look good, and let go of competitive, adversarial and antagonistic behaviors that can be present in group dynamics. The good of the group is best served by everyone helping to push forward ideas.

Partner is a term that comes from acting and means your scene partner. When you apply the concept more widely in an applied improv setting it could be a co-worker, spouse, child, parent, boss, client, or the person who takes your ticket at the movies. In each case the way in which you can make them look good might be different, but the concept is the same. For here, I’ll just say partner.

What makes your partner look good? Pointing out their mistakes publicly, sarcastic remarks, or silently letting them go down in flames in a meeting are all examples you may have seen that do NOT accomplish the goal. Look for ways to help them, have compassion, be graceful, let them off the hook, empathize. Even more than that you could turn it around, improve, build, expand, transform, or celebrate what they have done or said.

In the chapter on saying Yes in Improv Wisdom * by Patricia Ryan Madson. She suggests an experiment of looking for any way to say yes and build on the ideas and desires of the people around you. This is an excellent way of making them look good. Find the goodness in everything they do and tell them! Don’t fake it – really search for the truth of the goodness. If you are open to it, you can find it.

* Madson, Patricia Ryan 2001. improv wisdom: Don’t Prepare, Just Show Up

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Yes, And… is as simple as the using the phrase “Yes, and…” in responding to others as a way to build on their ideas and expand them. It is also the term used to describe the concept of accepting what other say and enhancing, expanding, and building on that idea to move things forward. This is in contrast to “Yes, But” and “No” which stop collaboration and forward momentum.

Yes, And makes you more positive. It can filter into all aspects of your life. This is talked about extensively in the book Improv Wisdom * by Patricia Ryan Madson. She offers this experiment in the first chapter on Yes:

For one day say yes to everything that’s offered. Set your own preferences aside. Notice the results. See how often it may not be convenient or easy to do this.
Obviously, use common sense in executing this rule. If you are a diabetic and are offered a big piece of pie, you’ll need to find a way to protect your health. Perhaps you can say
boldly, “Yes, I’d love to have this pie to take home to my son who adores cherries.”

It’s good for everyone including to yourself. It can be surprising how often we tell ourselves NO once you become aware of it. Take notice of for the rest today how many times you say yes to yourself vs. how many times you say no.

* Madson, Patricia Ryan 2001. improv wisdom: Don’t Prepare, Just Show Up

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Improv, or Improvisational Theater, is a pure form of collaboration, creativity, and communication as a performance art. Applied Improv is the adaptation and use of improv games, exercises and activities in any context other than performance. There is a wide range of contexts that improv is applied including healthcare, wellness, therapy, training, communication, soft skills, K-12 education, and many others. Further, Applied Improv has a practical and sometimes specific outcome other than fun or entertainment.

Higher Engagement

Applied Improv uses games and exercises as the scaffold for learning. In some cases the game itself is a metaphor for the learning, in others the the game is a framework used to actively interact with the content.
The act of play keeps the players engaged with the material for a longer period. By keeping people engaged with material and concepts for a longer period, more learning can happen and it happens in an active way that increases retention and learning.

Reflection

Applied improv is based in experiential learning and intrinsic to that process is reflection. Daudelin* (1996, 39) defines reflection saying, “Reflection is the process of stepping back from an experience to ponder, carefully and persistently, its meaning to the self through the development of inferences; learning is the creation of meaning from past or current events that serves as a guide for future behavior.”
After each game or exercise the reflection process allows for the participants to find the meaning, extract the learning, and find their own understanding of the material.

* Daudelin, M. W. 1996. Learning from experience through reflection. Organizational Dynamics 24(3): 36-48.

Fundamental Principles

Theatrical and applied improv activities teach a set of fundamental principles that serve as a great model for using these techniques in other applications. There are several fundamental principles that underlie improv and have applicability in improv, work, and life in general* (Madson, 2001).

• Yes, And…
• Make your partner(s) look good
• Celebrate Failure (make mistakes boldly)
• Taking survivable risks
• Storytelling is Collaboration
• Listen
• Give and receive offers

* Madson, Patricia Ryan 2001. improv wisdom: Don’t Prepare, Just Show Up

How do you define it?

Let me know what I missed. How you frame it. Agree. Disagree. Add your voice with a comment below.

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“I have something I want to tell you”, she said.

“O-Kay”, he replied “I better fasten my seat belt.”

They talked about auto safety and traffic for a little while then a bell rang and the actors looked up at the rest of the class.

“That’s 20 seconds” I said.   “Take a few moments to discuss what you think the audience wants to know about this scene.”  The two actors started talking to each other and I gave the same instruction to the rest of the class, “find a partner and discuss what it is you want to know about this scene.”

At the end of a few moments I asked the actors to continue the scene.

The woman spoke first, “Steve, I’ve always liked you ever since you started dating my daughter.”

They continued for another 20 seconds, the bell rang again and I asked the audience if the actors had answered their question.  Most of the audience said ‘yes’.

We ran this exercise for 45 minutes so everyone would have a chance to see what it feels like from both the audience and actor position.  Here’s what we discovered:

The audience is a big guessing machine.

If their questions aren’t answered soon enough, they lose interest.

If the actors don’t know what the audience wants, how can they ‘play’ with them?

Here are the three things we kept hearing from the audience throughout the exercise:

1. 1. Names/relationships:  We want to know the names of the characters and their relationship to each other.
   2. Where they are:  We want to know the location of the interaction.  [Home, office, park or outer space]
   3. Why are we watching?  Trickier than the other two this one seems to involve commitment of the actors (“as if” they know where they are going) and following up on the elements of a scene.  (If you are driving in a car, you must be going somewhere that pertains to the scene…not just driving.)

What do they want exercise:

1. Two actors improvise a scene (not a game).
2. After 20 or 30 seconds ring a bell and stop the scene.
3. Ask everyone to pair up and discuss what it is that they want to know about the scene.
4. Resist the temptation to discuss this – and ask the actors to continue the scene and answer the question that they think the audience wants to know.
5. After 20 or 30 seconds stop the scene again and ask the audience/class if their question has been answered.
6. Stop and discuss or try it again.
7. And the workshop leader, I suggest you model curiosity about the outcome.**

If you try this exercise please write a note below and let us know how it goes.  Always learning….

Thanks.

*The class is a summer Improv class at a San Francisco Bay Area College that I am co-teaching with two wonderful improv instructors:  Paul Killam and Lisa Klein.

**There are more questions about improv than answers, aren’t there?

Image by:  ‘Kimberlee Kessler Design’

© 2010, Improv Notebook. All rights reserved. info@improvnotebook.comi

First, they were so well behaved as an audience. They came into the theater quietly and sat in the front ready to see the show. All of the students were attentive and enthusiastic each time they were asked for suggestions or to come up on stage and join the performers. Occasionally we have people in our audiences act out or heckle, but not this audience – they were awesome! I was already impressed with them but then, after the show, we asked them all to participate in learning improv and playing some of our games. Asking people to take a risk of learning, trying and then performing in front of their peers can be scary. You would never know it from seeing these kids. We taught them the warmup game “Pass the Clap”, storytelling with “Word-at-a-Time-Stories”, and even the performance game “String of Pearls”. They even got up with their group and performed their string of pearls stories on our stage in front of the rest of the students in the audience!

Everyone participated. Nobody showboated. They just jumped in, learned, and discovered that they are all improvisers and I, for one, am impressed.

© 2010, Improv Notebook. All rights reserved. info@improvnotebook.comi

The Bay Area AIN chapter has a speaker series I coordinate as the Bay Area champion. On June 15th, 2010 the local meeting has guest speakers from Pixar Animation Studios who are going to talk about how they use improv in work, life, and for some in performance.

Applied Improv Network Bay Area – June 15th

This event is free to register at http://ainbayarea.eventbrite.com/.

Also please feel free to join the Applied Improv Network. There is no membership fee and it gets you access to a business network of applied improv professionals around the world.

The AIN (Applied Improvisation Network) is a community of practitioners and clients who value the use of improvisation skills in organizations to:

• improve relationships
• increase authenticity
• promote spontaneity
• foster trust
• build communities of practice

You can join the Ning network site for the Applied Improv Network at

http://appliedimprov.ning.com/

© 2010, Improv Notebook. All rights reserved. info@improvnotebook.comi

Love can bloom.  Sometimes love ends when the actors walk off the stage….but sometimes….it continues to grow.

I’ve seen many many many relationships get started through improv.

What’s your story?

[image: Penny Mathews]

© 2010, Improv Notebook. All rights reserved. info@improvnotebook.comi