One of the most important things I’ve learned from improvisation is to act instantly and instinctively on opportunity.
In improv theater, when you’re observing your teammates in a scene and you sense an opportunity to add to the scene — you don’t even have to know what you’re going to add, you just get a sense that the time is right and the scene will gain energy from your addition — you jump in. This did not come easily to me. I am by nature, an observer, a describer of the narrative, and I have to work hard to stay out of my head, trust my gut, move on instinct.
Good business, like good improvisation, is not about describing the narrative, it is about living the narrative, moment to moment. About seizing as many opportunities as possible and being supportive of those who share the stage with you. About knowing in your gut when to add — and also when to refrain, and when to cut to a new scene. When the time comes, a GameChanger knows it, and jumps in. It may be an investment in securities or a trade in the pit at the Chicago commodities exchange. It may be a go/no-go decision on a new supply chain, or the selection of a direction for your new ad campaign. One of the hallmarks of the Networked World is our ability to turn idea into action, pronto. Ideas that generate action are the life’s blood of every business scenario. It naturally follows that the improvisational skill of moving on instinct will come in very, very handy indeed in the new global business arena.
Here’s an example of how the Networked World made it possible for me to improvise well. For at least a year, I had the idea of doing something in memory of my friend, Joe Ranft, the genius storyteller of Pixar Animation, who died in a car accident in 2005. Joe was one of the greatest, funniest, and most generous human beings I’ve ever known. He was a fantastic improviser, a graduate of the Groundlings Theater. My idea was to return improv to its roots as K-12 education — which is where Neva Boyd and Viola Spolin began in the 1930s in Chicago — with a fund named in Joe’s honor.
But how ito make this happen? It’s not like I didn’t have avenues. I know his wife, Su, and had her phone number. I could call her and begin the scene. But Joe had his own causes. In fact, when the accident happened, the three men were on their way to a retreat in Mendocino with a mentoring group called Mosaic. Would I be horning in on Joe’s intentions? I wasn’t sure. I held back.
I thought of going through John Lasseter, one of Joe’s best friends and my friend, too, but John’s running around Disney these days like the mayor of New Orleans on Mardi Gras. It’s all police escorts, sirens and phone calls and whoop-de-whoop. He has no time. And Pixar has already donated a ton of money to Joe’s favorite causes.
I thought of getting my friend Howard Green at Disney involved, but he’s juggling a dozen causes already.
I know Steve Hulett, who runs the Animators Local of the IATSE. He’s a wonderful guy, but scenes with him last for hours, because we get to spinning animation industry yarns, and it just…will…not…end…until…every…last…”What are Sue Frankenberger and Dolly Baker doing these days” story… gets told…
The truth is, I didn’t have the time either. And at the rate we’re pouring money into GameChangers, I didn’t have the spare cash to simply write a check.
And then, this morning, I saw that Marc Burdell, who works for the Notre Dame alumni association and is a friend on FaceBook, signed up for a FaceBook app called Causes. With it, you are able to start or contribute money to a cause or designated charity. Within minutes, I had begun the Joe Ranft GameChangers Fund, proceeds going to Treehouse, a 5013c in Seattle, where Su is from and where Joe and she once lived.
In the Networked World, I was able to turn instinct into action instantly. The barriers of the past — of time and paperwork and politics, of sober thought and meandering conversations — disappear with the appearance of this app on my screen. In a small but socially significant way, I am able to stop describing the narrative and start living it. Improvisation shows me how and the Networked World makes it possible. And all of a sudden others have the opportunity to begin living the ‘Joe Ranft’ narrative, too.
Such are the opportunities of the Networked World. In the Industrial Age, players often had to move three steps forward, two steps sideways, four steps back, a diagonal spin and two bunny hops forward — to make any progress. Today, as the Web Worker Daily puts it, networked entrepreneurs can take “fifty steps sideways and two thousand steps forward.” Sure, most of those two thousand might be baby steps, but even two thousand baby steps cover some significant ground.
Tags: Additions and Edits, Charity, GameChangers, Groundlings, Joe Ranft, Neva Boyd, Pixar, Treehouse, Viola Spolin