Nothing.  And that is the precisely the point.  When you want to change the game, one way to do it is change your environment.

The April 7 CBS Evening News with Katie Couric reported the story of Lynn Love, who for 22 years owned and operated a used car lot in Tampa.  When the economic downturn hit the car business, Love liquidated his inventory and, with the last of his savings, bought a catering truck and began serving meals in his empty used car lot.  He didn’t know anything about cooking, but he learned quickly (giving yourself problems to solve is a great way to learn) and the inexpensive, simple meals on his menu have been a hit with his customers, some of whom formerly bought cars from him.

On the surface, this is a simple feel-good scene about a businessman adapting to a changing economic climate.  Beneath the surface, Love is working with some very potent principles of improvisation:

If you act on environment, environment will act on you.  This is a fundamental of improvisation that cannot be explored deeply enough.  When skilled improv theater performers do a scene set on a camping trip, they take great care to establish environment.  Is there a fire?  If so, how hot is it, and how close are they to it?  Are they deep in the woods where animals make strange sounds, on a beach, or on the side of a mountain they’re climbing?  Is it cold?  Do they have a tent?  What’s in their backpacks and fanny packs?  Are there bugs?  Are other campers nearby?  By defining and honoring environment, the players in the scene will discover avenues for playing their roles expertly and making their scenes productive.  The very same characters will behave  differently when they’re cold and miserable and ill-prepared for the elements than when they’re sharing a bottle of wine under the stars.   The same is true in business.  Paying attention to environment can have a profound effect on performance.  Lynn Love went from Underperforming Used Car Salesman to Overachieving Chef just by changing his environment, and then letting it have its effect on him.

Role is different from character.  Roles change.  Character remains.  We have the ability to play many roles, but only through the essential truth of who we really are.  We cannot undo our life experiences, cannot divorce ourselves from our intellect, our energy, the emotions we feel, or the way we relate to the world.  In changing his environment, Lynn Love changed roles, but it did not change who he is as a person – an energetic optimist who enjoys having a chat and giving a good deal to his customers.  And because people know him as that character, they will be drawn to the scenes he’s in, no matter what role he’s playing.  Whether it’s about the cars or the carnitas, people still love Lynn Love.

Meta meaning.  You cannot ignore or deny last name of a man with the last name of ‘Love’.  In the bigger scheme of things, it’s got to mean something.  And when love and food are presented together, you’ve got to like your chances that your experience will be a good one.

Play slow, edit fast.  This is one of the old sayings of improv theater.  Take your time going about your business.  Let your scenes build in tempo and intensity.   And when it’s time to edit, make it clean and quick.  Lynn Love took his time about the used car business.  20 years of his time.  But when the time came, he didn’t dawdle about getting into the new business.  He got into it even before he knew how to cook.  A second scene can start almost before the first one ends.  Love was no doubt cramming on cookbooks and pricing catering trucks while he was still selling cars.  But once he started selling meals, he was not selling cars.  Changing the environment means an edit.  A new scene begins.  The new scene is a clean, quick break with the past.  There is a snap to a good edit.

Heighten.  The catering truck is just the beginning of the new narrative.  Love has plans to turn what used to be his car showroom into a restaurant.  “I look at it (the showroom) now and a restaurant is the only thing I see,” he says.

Spoken like a GameChanger.

Tags: , Character, edit, Environment, heighten, Heightening, Lynn Love, restaurant, Role, Tampa, used cars

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 at 9:10 pm and is filed under Additions and Edits, Character, Entrepreneurship, Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.