Are You a But Leader?

Yes and...by visualpun.chThe first rule of improv is “yes and.” There are other rules, or rather guidelines, however “yes and” is the one and only rule that truly matters. Without agreeing to the reality presented to you, progress trips over itself, and you and your co-performer are left staring at each other.

Much like improv performers, company leaders and managers should learn the “yes and” rule and stick it in their hearts. I’m flabbergasted at the number of times over the years I’ve experienced a “yes but” manager. Maybe there’s a “yes but” class at MBA schools, or maybe mentors train managers in the art of “yes but.”

Stop the “yes but” cycle of abuse, I say!

No one likes to have an idea agreed to with conditions. When you do that, you stop progress. The employee starts immediately placing restrictions on ideas. It’s more fruitful to agree and add to the proposal.

Of the following examples, tell me which is better:

Employee: “I plan to recycle all the aluminum cans in the break room.”
Manager: “Great, but that’s a lot of cans and you’ll have to do it all yourself.”

or

Employee: “I plan to recycle all the aluminum cans in the break room.”
Manager: “Great, and I know a place you can take them that offers the most money.”

If you’re truly a leader, or want to be one, you’ll see the benefit of contributing to an idea and moving forward rather than holding back and letting fear, doubt, or pessimism dictate your decisions.

The great improv teacher Del Close once said to “follow the fear.” What he meant by that is you should go toward what makes you uncomfortable, do things that scare you. For a lot of leaders, agreeing to an idea wholeheartedly scares the snot out of them. That’s exactly what they should do, though. Agreement isn’t the endgame, however. You have to add to the conversation, move it forward.

Do me a favor. This week, with everyone you interact with, make “yes and” a part of every conversation. It will seem uncomfortable and forced at first. Over time, though, it will become instinctual. After the week is over, reflect and let me know if you feel happier with your decisions and that life is moving forward.

If you’re creating an atmosphere of agreement, I can guarantee that your employees will agree to follow you. If you’re a but leader, though, employees will find any excuse to counter your decisions. Don’t be a “yes but” leader. Be a “yes and” leader.

(Image via Flickr: visualpun.ch / Creative Commons)

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Posted in <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/category/improv/" rel="category tag">improv</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/category/leadership/" rel="category tag">leadership</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/category/life/" rel="category tag">life</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/category/success/" rel="category tag">success</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/category/work/" rel="category tag">work</a> Tagged <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/decisions/" rel="tag">decisions</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/del-close/" rel="tag">Del Close</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/employees/" rel="tag">employees</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/improv/" rel="tag">improv</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/improvisation/" rel="tag">improvisation</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/leaders/" rel="tag">leaders</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/leadership/" rel="tag">leadership</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/life/" rel="tag">life</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/management/" rel="tag">management</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/managers/" rel="tag">managers</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/progress/" rel="tag">progress</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/work/" rel="tag">work</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/workplace/" rel="tag">workplace</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/yes/" rel="tag">yes</a>

The Value of Discovery

The Excitement Builds by John GoodridgeThe great improvisation teacher Del Close often said that performers should play up to their audiences, that they should treat them like poets and geniuses. This idea, though, shouldn’t be relegated to theater only. It should guide choices for anyone that creates and works with an audience, whether you’re a writer, a teacher, or an event planner.

Because here’s a truth: Like attracts like. If you cater your content for idiots, all you’ll ever get are idiots consuming your content.

Perhaps that’s what you want to do, and if so, great. Keep on keeping on. Personally, I’m unable to go down that path. I’ve always struggle with “write to an eighth-grade level” or “be overt with how it’s applicable to the audience.” To dumb down content, for me, is appalling.

The best part about improvisation is discovery. It’s an incredible feeling when you’re on stage and you discover that your ideas and actions match your co-performers’ ideas and actions. In other words, it’s magical when you hit upon group mind. It’s double magic, wizard-style, when that group mind spreads out into the audience. You can hear audience members gasp when you gasp. You can sense that they know it’s time for a callback at a particular moment and you do, too. And when the show is over, you get a rousing round of applause because everyone, on stage and off, discovered something magical together. The show will be unforgettable for a long time.

You can apply the same idea to writing and reading. In fact, reading is an action. A person may look passive reading a book or magazine, but she’s not. Her brain is making all sorts of connections and working in overdrive to sort out meaning and context. And guess what will make that book or magazine article memorable. Yep, discovery. Actively participating in the reading process, along with the writer who is pouring out info to guide you, makes for a much more fun and enjoyable experience.

You can’t have that, though, if you’re treated like a dummy. For example, consider if William Faulkner started off The Sound and the Fury with “This is a story about the disintegration of Southern values.”  That takes the fun and mind growth out of reading it. Isn’t it more interesting and more rewarding as a reader to discover that on your own, to make that connection yourself or talking it out with others?

The question is: Do you want to create content that’s memorable, or do you just want to relay information? The answer depends on who you want as your audience. As I mentioned, if you want to continue with a passive audience, that’s fine. Me, though, I’m sticking with active participants, because through discovery comes change and enlightenment. And, really, this world could use more discoverers.

(Image via Flickr: John Goodridge / Creative Commons)

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Posted in <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/category/improv/" rel="category tag">improv</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/category/life/" rel="category tag">life</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/category/musings/" rel="category tag">musings</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/category/reading/" rel="category tag">reading</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/category/writing/" rel="category tag">writing</a> Tagged <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/active/" rel="tag">active</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/audience/" rel="tag">audience</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/content/" rel="tag">content</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/creation/" rel="tag">creation</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/del-close/" rel="tag">Del Close</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/discovery/" rel="tag">discovery</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/improv/" rel="tag">improv</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/improvisation/" rel="tag">improvisation</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/passive/" rel="tag">passive</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/reading/" rel="tag">reading</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/the-sound-and-the-fury/" rel="tag">The Sound and the Fury</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/william-faulkner/" rel="tag">William Faulkner</a>, <a href="http://www.pimplomat.com/tag/writing/" rel="tag">writing</a> 1 Comment

The Story Goes on Forever

My friend, Jay Frosting, is the host of an online improvisation podcast called Pre-Recorded Late Night. It’s a great show, and he recently asked me to participate. The following is the episode in which I performed. My character is a book publisher who works to keep people reading physical books.

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Un-Scripted Theater Co. and the Art of Long-Form Improv

The Un-Scripted Theater CompanyWe arrived in San Francisco on a Friday evening and immediately received glasses of wine at the Hotel Serrano. After dumping our luggage in our 17th floor room, we left to visit a food truck event called Off the Grid. We walked up steep hills, guided by our Google Maps, but were no closer than we thought we’d be for the time we had walked. The GPS was off almost half a mile. We decided to refresh in the Tonga Room, a tiki bar in The Fairmont hotel’s basement, that we happened upon during our walk. A couple of high alcohol and sugared drinks later, we thought best to catch a cab at the hotel for the food trucks. Once we arrived at Off the Grid, we randomly moved among the various food selections, trying out samples that appealed more to our curiosity than our preferred tastes.

The rest of our trip was much the same way, happening upon places and sights unexpected and rewarding. Entering a large city without a plan is one of my favorite things, because of the openness you allow yourself.

That’s the reason I love improvisation. Entering a world, creating a world, living in a world all made up on the spot is a delicate and powerful position for a person. The world’s life is your responsibility. You are both creator and destroyer.

San Francisco’s Un-Scripted Theater Company knows this intimately and handles improvisation with the skills of a wizard-like master. Their “Act One, Scene Two” festival pairs the art of improvisation with straight playwriting. Before a performance, the playwright is interviewed on stage and asked questions about themes, characters, props, etc. On stage, the improvisors read and act up to 10 pages of a script pre-written before abandoning it and improvising the rest of the play for up to two hours.

My play, “Meditate,” was selected this year to be a part of the festival. I’m glad it was, because it offered me a chance to witness the type of improvisation that I’ve ached for for a long time. I do like the comedy aspects of improv; however, there’s something refreshing to me when scenes and characters are given a chance to expand or deflate, reach out or be reserved. This is difficult to do in a 30-minute montage show. Given enough time, though, improvisors can properly explore relationships between characters in a well-rounded manner that is also pleasurable to performers and audiences.

Mandy Khoshnevisan“We are a company that pays a lot of attention to genre: finding the specific genre of our show, and really trying faithfully to figure out that genre and produce it accurately,” said Mandy Khoshnevisan, director of the “Act One, Scene Two” festival. “We had been gravitating gradually toward more theatrical genres—producing theater that feels like theater—with our shows Three and Theater: The Musical, where we studied existing playwrights, and that was work we really enjoyed. An earlier incarnation of the group (as the BATS Belfry) had done a baby version of this show (called “By The Book”), during our season planning meeting for the 2011 season, and we decided to try it again—only this time with local playwrights, and full-length plays.”

Improvisation is a group-mind art. It’s up to the performers on stage to figure out what’s going on with each added bit of information. Still, most improv groups have coaches, or in the case of Un-Scripted, a director.

“The director is the person who carries the vision of what the end product should look like, and designs the rehearsal process to make sure everyone else can see the vision too, and has the skills needed to get there,” Khoshnevisan said. “For example, for [the festival] there were some specific things that were very different from what we’ve often done as a theater company. I wanted it to feel very much like a play—hence, we had costumes, set pieces, real props, and a sound designer playing recorded sounds and music (as opposed to a musical improvisor on a piano, which we often have).

“We also had to train ourselves to improvise differently,” she continued. “Because in improv so much is possible, and you’re often working with space, improvised shows tend to be more like movies than plays. You can go anywhere in time and space, you can create as many characters as you want, you can solve all your problems. As the director, I had to figure out how to have us improvise in limited space and time, with set characters, and a different kind of story arc, that takes place in emotional space rather than ‘plot’ space.”

The director is the person who sets the parameters for what kind of show it’s going to be, and what lies inside the circle of expectations for any given performance, Khoshnevisan says.

“I like to think of it as installing a tiny me inside everyone’s head, since in the moment, during the show, people are essentially directing themselves—so it helps if their internal director is saying the same things I would say,” she said.

As someone used to shorter shows, I was amazed how it all came together over two hours and how the performers landed on themes and elements I would have written into a longer script. The play ended similar to how I would have ended it, too.

“One of the hardest things for us to learn was how to find endings,” Khoshnevisan said. “At the beginning, when you’re learning how to do it, you feel the need to tie up absolutely every single thing with great plot machinations, so the end becomes somewhat confused with everyone needing to tie up every offer in a neat bow, which leads to a lot of talking, and a lot of unnecessary justification.  What we eventually realized is that, the way you make it the end is to see how things have changed and be okay with it.”

Meditate Act One Scene TwoFor a lot of performers, long-form improvisation (as defined by Khoshnevisan as a single story) is difficult to grasp, or more often, scary.

“I’d say, first of all—just try it. I teach high school improv, and those student actors—some with very little improv or acting experience–managed to learn to do 40- to 60-minute, single-story long-forms pretty quickly. I pretty much just threw them at it to see what would happen,” Khoshnevisan said. “Just like improvised singing, the easiest way to get yourself doing it is just to start doing it. We all consume so much media (movies, TV, plays) that these story structures are kind of ingrained in us already. If you can guess what scene might happen next when you’re watching TV or a movie, chances are you’re ready to try doing single-story long-form.

“One thing to keep in mind is that, if you’re going to be telling the same story for a long time, you can relax and enjoy the ride a little more,” she continued. “In short-form improv, we’re taught to establish CROW (or something similar—who/what/where) as fast as possible, so we can move forward. This can lead to incredibly labyrinthine plots. Your story has a lot of breathing room if it’s going to be long, so you can take the time to give it color along the way.”

And that’s what I found satisfying about the two-hour improv set I saw. Much like the actors on stage, I, too, was discovering in the moment. It made me a part of the performance and not just an idle witness. That’s true theatre, one in which everyone has a role to play.

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Act One, Scene Two

Act 1, Scene 2I fly to San Francisco this weekend to participate in a really cool festival produced by the Un-Scripted Theater Co. called “Act One, Scene Two.” It’s a show that’s one part scripted and nine parts improvised.

The site explains it best:

Here’s how “Act One, Scene Two” works: each performance is a collaboration with a different playwright. At the beginning of the show, we interview our featured playwright onstage to find out what makes him or her tick. Then, that evening’s actors do a cold “staged” reading of act one, scene one of the play, which was written for us by our playwright. When we finish the scripted portion, the actors continue on to finish the play — now un-scripted — starting from act one, scene two.

The goal is to finish the play as it might have been intended, continuing to honor the genre, style, and intent of the first scripted scene, creating a piece that causes everyone — playwright, audience, and actors — great delight.

And they don’t just finish the play in 20 or so minutes. It’s a full show, 90 to 120 minutes. All of that is improv. Based off my 10-page intro scene. Yeah, I know. Cool, right?

I’ll have to try out this whole mobile blogging thing and update from the road. Or maybe I’ll get so wrapped up in it all and just give a recap. Either way, I’m excited.

If you’re reading this and in the San Francisco area, please come out on Saturday, May 5, to the Phoenix Theater (414 Mason St, SF  – 6th floor) at 8 p.m. for the show. It’ll be fun. Afterwards, we’ll get a drink.

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