Archive for the ‘Character’ Category

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Gaga Got Game

Tuesday, November 9th, 2010

Gaga2GagaYoutTube1The former Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta seemingly arrived on the scene fully formed as Lady Gaga and ever since girl found her game, she has played her heart out.  Music bloggers and critics compare her to Madonna, or call her Cher-esque.  Tabloids warn Christina and Mariah that there’s a fresh queen of pop on the block.  Elton John annoints her his new goddess.

And yet none of these analyses, nor all of them in the entirety, do justice to the gamechanging quality of Lady Gaga’s appeal, and the attraction she has for her fans, whom she has dubbed The Little Monsters.  Calling her the next Oprah would be closer to the mark, because she’s on her way, if she’s not there already, toward becoming a cultural phenomenon the likes of which her generation has not yet seen.

Here’s why:  Better than perhaps any pop culture persona of our time, she understands that her narrative belongs to her audience.  Instead of giving the Little Monsters an iconic persona they can imitate–as popstars like Madonna, the Beatles and Elvis did–Lady Gaga gives her fans a window to their own identities. Her repertoire is so dense with meta meaning, she evolves so persistently–getting on a plane playing one role, for instance, and getting off the plane playing another role–that her narrative is always fresh, she is continually being reborn before our eyes.

Fluent in the universal languages of spirituality, music, fashion, design, choreography, makeup, theater, fame, humor, honesty, hard work, sisterhood, branding, myth, equality, and improvisation, she speaks through all of them, often through many of them simultaneously, to connect with her  her audience.  What she says to them through these many languages always boils down to this:  “Look at me and find yourself.”

This is why the University of South Carolina teaches a course entitled Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame. It is why senior citizens, hotel workers, Russians, college students and young people all find her captivating.  We are all Little Monsters in search of ourselves.

Brands and organizations can learn a lot from Gaga:

Be true to your essential character, and you can play a thousand roles authentically.  Choose big themes and explore those themes energetically.  Express yourself in all kinds of languages, the more the better.   Always keep your narrative moving and evolving.  Don’t try to define what you are supposed to mean to your customers.  Instead, shimmer with meaning, just like Gaga, and let your customers know that in your brand they will discover some new part of themselves.

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Posted in Branding, Character, Creativity, Games, Narrative, story, Themes | 1 Comment »

Los Mineros, Part Seven: “And…Scene!”

Thursday, October 14th, 2010

The ‘Los Mineros’ scene ended in Chile this week with a worldwide swelling of joy at the safe rescue of all 33 trapped miners.  They survived for a total of 68 days 2,300 feet under the earth’s surface, the longest anyone is known to have been trapped underground and lived to tell about it.ChileanMinerRescue1

We have been analyzing the scene here since shortly after the miners were discovered alive.  One of the most instructive aspects of the ‘Los Mineros’ scene is that it has very little spin.  The cave where they were trapped was truly a no-spin zone.  Events were not manipulated or interpreted to someone’s economic or political advantage.   There were no conspiracy theories.  No, this was as unadulterated as a media narrative can be.

During their 68 days in the darkness, the miners had time to ponder their lives in ‘the normal world,’ as Joseph Campbell would call it.  Many, if not all, seem to have been enlightened by the experience, emerging with a newfound clarity about themselves and the world they are re-entering.  “I have been with God and I have been with the devil.  I seized the hand of God,” said one, Mario Sepulveda.

“I have changed.  I am a different man,” said another, Mario Gomez.

Here is a post-by-post summary of the GameChangers series about  the ‘Los Mineros’ scene:

PART ONE:  THE TRAPPED CHILEAN MINER GAME (August 26)

Lesson: Don’t be defined by your circumstances.  Be defined by how you behave in those circumstances.

PART TWO:  LEVELS OF MEANING (August 31)

Lesson: Narratives communicate on three levels of meaning:  Cosmetic, Emotional and Meta.

PART THREE:  YONNI’S WAITING PARTY (September 2)

Lesson: Rules of the game must be known to all players.

PART FOUR:  ESPERANZA! (September 17)

Lesson: Additions can heighten a scene emotionally.

PART FIVE:  SUPPORT FROM THE WINGS (September 28)

Lesson: Additions are generative.

PART SIX:  ACT THREE BEGINS (October 10)

Lesson: End energetically.

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Posted in Additions and Edits, Character, Emotion, Environment, Games, Narrative, Objectives, Problem Solving, Scenes | No Comments »

Giving It Up for Teachers

Monday, October 4th, 2010

I started this as a Facebook status update, and it got way out of hand, so in the neverending effort to Use All Parts of the Buffalo…

People get lucky in all sorts of ways.  I’ve always been lucky with teachers.  My teachers, it always seemed to me, performed at a high level.   They inspired me.  How?  They had great energy, and enjoyed what they were teaching.  Their senses of humor were intact.   They connected the gifts they gave us to a larger world, they cracked open doors that many of my friends and I eventually walked through.

I recite the names of my K-12 teachers to myself, like a person might go over the names of relatives in a family tree or a litany of saints to invoke a certain kind of contentment about one’s path:

Lena Bonifer (my grandma), Sister Francille, Evangeline McDaniel, Henrietta Allen, Sister Augusta, Henrietta ‘Sparrow’ Spink, Ken Dudine, Emil Dischinger, Dimp Stenftenagel, LINDA ROHLEDER (especially Linda Rohleder!), Sister Aloysius, Barry Bird, Gene Keusch, Vincent Arvin, BILL BASSLER (especially Bill Bassler!), Hershel Zehr (“I can solve the time zone issue.”), Del Steinhart (“This is how a brick wall moves during an earthquake.”), Cabby O’Neill (‘We don’t live in a democracy, we live in a representative republic!’), Pete Gill, Dave Leuking, Ray Minton, Jerry Brewer, Jack ‘Bulldog’ Leas, Don Hayes, Mary Ann Hayes (favorite historical character:  Eleanor of Aquitaine, wtf??!!), Mel Menke, Ed Schultheis, Rex May, Ray Cox, Ed Haller, Don Gamble, Paul East, Aloysius Mathias Alonzo Curabin Schuler–and can’t forget our school bus driver for eight years, Harold Diddleburger (Bus #3 Ruled!)  I have funny stories and loving memories of you all, God bless you wherever you are!

About the CAPITALIZED:

Linda Rohleder, my sixth grade teacher, wanted great things for us.  She was always bringing up and getting us involved in learning that had to do with the Astronauts, Vietnam, the Optimist Club Speech Contest, the County Spelling Bee, Fast Food, Fashion, Charles Dickens, Indiana State University and a hundred other ideas about the world that cracked doors.  Never mind the finger, she did not permit her students to even give one another a thumbs-down gesture.  Rumor was that she and Don the Bookmobile Driver had a thing going on.

Bill Bassler was my high school Latin teacher for three years.  He showed me how there’s life in everything if you know where to look, even in a supposedly dead thing like the language of ancient Rome.  When he was guiding us through The Aneid or Julius Caesar, a Coca Cola ad written in Latin, or a Roman kid calling out to his buddy to come play, (“Yo, Publius, what are you doing?!”), you were there, living it right along with him.

My lucky streak continues to this day, with my teachers in improvisation, music and the various languages of new media.  Jason Pardo, Aaron Krebs, Sarah Gee, Lonnie ‘Meganut’ Marshall, Craig Cackowski, VIRGINIA KUHN (especially Virginia Kuhn!) and a dozen others have given gifts I’ll be a lifetime repaying.   I’d rather have the good fortune of knowing and studying with these people than win a hundred lotteries.

I was thrilled to find this photo online, taken last year, of some of my high school teachers. From left: Bill Bassler; Aloysius Mathias Alonzo Curabin Schuler and his wife, Rosina; Mary Ann Hayes behind the ribbons; Don Hayes; Del Steinhart

I was thrilled to find this photo online, taken last year, of some of my high school teachers. From left: Bill Bassler; Aloysius Mathias Alonzo Curabin Schuler and his wife, Rosina; Mary Ann Hayes behind the ribbons; Don Hayes; Del Steinhart

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Posted in Character, Coaching, Education, Fundamentals | 4 Comments »

Los Mineros, Part Two

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

A serial analysis of the quest to rescue 33 miners trapped 2,300 feet underground in a copper mine outside Copiapo, Chile…

TCMG2Levels of Meaning

With the eyes of the news media fixed on one very specific location, everything about the Los Mineros narrative is tightly focused and vividly portrayed.  There’s no mystery to it, no hidden agenda (with maybe the exception of a mining company looking to avoid liability, which itself would be no surprise).  With the focus so intense right now on the mine itself and the rescue efforts, almost every element of the narrative is visible even to a distant observer like me, who might check the story every day or two on the webs to see how the miners are doing.

It is extremely clear how the narrative is conveyed on three distinct Levels of Meaning.

All communication happens on three levels:  Cosmetic (data, information, quantification, surface descriptions, neutral language), Emotional (passion, mood, empathy, attitude, ups, downs) and Meta (symbolism, context, iconography, metaphor, perspective, interpretation, the subconscious connections).

Observe, and learn from, how the Los Mineros narrative is conveyed on these three levels:

Cosmetic: Tons of information here. Plans and backup plans described in detail.  The three four-inch pipes that have become their lifeline.  The NASA psychologists who’ve arrived to help.  The number of calories they’re eating every day (2,000), and how much water they’re supposed to drink every day (5 litres).  We know about the ‘super drill’ being brought in to bore through the rock.  This early in the story, there’s still a lot of cosmetic meaning to be conveyed, an abundance of factual information.  Expect that, at some point, this level of meaning will begin to lose steam, and that the tellers of the story will begin to place more emphasis on the other two levels.

Emotional: As always, this is where the most meaning resides, where the story is most potent, and touches us most profoundly.  We know that some of Los Mineros have been depressed.  We know that they have been able to communicate with their families.  They have shared their frustration.  We feel their claustrophobia.  They have begun to play roles, and these will rouse emotions, too.  Who will give the pep talks?  Who can get them to smile?  Keeping their emotions positive will be key to their mental health during their ordeal, and so, the longer the ordeal goes on, the more crucial the emotional content of the narrative will become.

Meta: The video feed is an existential lifeline.  “I video, therefore I am.”  For this reason, its very existence is a hopeful symbol.  The handsomer guys are getting more facetime on camera.  Stars of the narrative, those who can best hold our attention, will emerge as the Cosmetic flow slows.  Bringing in the NASA psychologists to deal with the miners’ prolonged isolation is a recognition of the global significance of the narrative, and it ennobles Los Mineros by equating them with astronauts, Los Astronautas, and to the heroic qualities we ascribe them.  This blog post is, itself, meta communication about the rescue effort.

Sometimes uncovering the Meta language requires digging beneath the surface, because beneath the surface is where the Meta meaning works.  For example the number of miners, 33, has deep meta significance in the predominantly Catholic country of Chile, because 33 is commonly believed to be Jesus Christ’s age when he died on the cross.  When Los Mineros finally walk into the light, the date on the calendar will not matter, they’ll be celebrating Easter in Chile.

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Posted in Character, Communication, Emotion, Narrative | 2 Comments »

JetBlue Scene

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Jeremy Redleaf, one of the new physicists of the narrative form and the creator of this brilliant siteOJN1initated the scene when he sent me this emailJBJeremy1

about this JetBlue adJetBlue1

which is anchored by copy that saysJBJeremy2In my role of Commentor On All Things About Improvisation in Business, I responded to Jeremy’s email with this GameChangers postJBGameChangers1in which i point out that ‘the first rule of improv’ if there even is such a thing, which itself is debatable, is not to say ‘yes’ but to say ‘yes and.’   ‘Yes’ is a state of mind.  ‘Yes and’ is action.  The most fertile ground in the world is useless until it’s planted.  ‘Yes’ is the ground.  ‘And’ is the seed.  My blog post inspired Jeremy…JBJeremy2C

Posi-ffiti!  Yes!  I love threads like this.  As usual, I’d tweeted a link to my blog post. I decided to yes-and Jeremy by calling JetBlue’s attention to its error with a Tweet.  I was able to Google their CMO, Marty St. George and find his Twitter account.  JBTweet2To Marty’s credit, he tweeted back within 15 mins.  This already puts @martysg and JetBlue way ahead of most CMOs in brand narrative game.  It also tells me that this is one vigilant, sensitive cat.  Dude’s running it like Ochocincomartysg1

here @martysg commits the improvisation error of denying.  He does this by being vague–what does “if you said ‘no quotation marks’ I might be with you” mean, anyway?–and acting as if I’d accused him of misquoting ‘John’, and seems to be saying that the mistake is not theirs, but mine, for calling them out on the wrong thing.  I responded by suggesting the ‘Posi-ffiti’ gameJBTweet3

and further suggested how to initiate the game…JBTweet11

@martysg blocks the game… martysg2By acting as if I’d said something I hadn’t–that ‘The Posi-ffiti Game’ would have to be played without ‘John’s’ permission–Marty kills the scene.  This was probably his intention.  He also implies that quoting people without their permission is MY style.  In one statement, he refuses my gift and pimps my character.  Nice.  This is classic old school management style, a familiar corporate game I call, “Parry and Thrust.”  It’s played  by stalling, and staying non-committal (“Hm…if….I might…”) and then landing a knockout blow (“Do something unethical?  Not us.  YOU maybe.  Not us.”)

Look, everybody understands that a CMO like @martysg will not alter an ad campaign because some nitpicker tweets him about the word ‘and’ in an ad.  Like I said, he gets credit for being open enough to have the conversation in the first place.  This is more responsiveness from a tweet than you’d get from 90% of all the CMOs in the world.  It is, however, short of the kind of action a person would get from an improvisational brand like Southwest Airlines.  Furthermore, what happened when @martysg did respond is precisely the point of my blog post.  The conversation didn’t go anywhere because Marty St. George ‘yessed’ and he did not ‘and.’

How might Marty have yes-anded?  Anyone who’s gone through a GameChangers workshop can give you a dozen games that would be more productive than ‘Parry and Thrust.’

The good news coming out of this exchange is that all is not lost.  Jeremy Redleaf has a new job description for OddJobNation: “Posi-ffiti Artist.”

To an improviser, Lost is just the first step on the way to Found.

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Posted in Additions and Edits, Agreement Principle, Branding, Character, Communication, Dialogue, Games, Gifts, Initiations, Issues, Listening, Narrative, Scenes, story | No Comments »

The Trapped Chilean Miner Game

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Several years ago, in a Level One improv class at I.O. West, I did a scene with Parvesh Cheena where he and I were given the situation of being trapped together in an elevator.   I immediately began McGuyvering my way out of the situation.   (“You got a paper clip?  We’ll pick the lock on that panel and…blah blah blah.”)  Big rookie mistake.  Our teacher, Sarah Gee, said to me, “If you get out of the elevator the scene’s over.  Show us who you are to one another while you’re trapped!”

TrappedMiners1This broke today over CNN. The 33 men trapped in a Chilean copper mine have begun to assume different roles that will help them survive the time, estimated to be months, it will take rescuers to drill through 2300 feet of solid rock to rescue them.  This is brilliant.  They’re designing a game to help them get out alive without going batshit crazy while they’re waiting to be rescued.  This is going to give us all a good look at how a game works, and how it informs and inspires group strategies.  One thing is already clear:  There are some good improvisers trapped in that mine.

To review, here are the elements of a game: Environment, Roles, Rules, Objective(s).

Let’s begin with the Objective.  Simple:  ‘Get out of here alive without going crazy.’  Same as most survival strategies.

The Environment of the Trapped Chilean Miner Game could not be more starkly defined:  A pool of darkness deep beneath the surface of the earth, and the rest of the world watching up above.  The contrasts between the Down Below and the Up Above are extreme, an archetype embedded deep in every human’s subconscious.  The Well, the Fallen Rubble, the Cave, the Mine–all tap deep into our unconscious, where our memories of the womb are stored.   As my friend Richard Wynn Taylor says, “It will remind us of something we’ve never seen before.”

The Roles, as stated in the CNN story, are developing.  One of the miners has become a spiritual leader.  Another an entertainer who sings Elvis songs.  Expect that all or most of the miners will eventually define roles for themselves, some as group characters (‘peacekeepers,’ ‘storytellers,’ ‘spokespeople,’ ‘mediators’ etc. etc.)  Some of the miners will play more than one role, depending on the scene they’re in.  Eventually some of them may trade roles, taking turns speaking to the media, for example.  What’s also interesting about the roles element of the game is that all 33 men trapped in the cave will, for the duration of their rescue, abandon the roles they were playing when they went Down Below: None of them will be playing the role of a miner.  Note also that ‘trapped miner’ is not a role.  It’s a circumstance.  Your circumstance does not define your role; it’s your behavior in your circumstance that defines your role.

Expect that in the coming weeks, we’ll be hearing about the Rules of the TCMG. These Rules will be designed to create agreement and establish ground rules for the miners’ interactions.  The rules will initially address the fundamentals such as sleeping, eating, sharing resources, communicating with Up Above etc., and then get more detailed.  The rules of a game will not be designed to create sameness or repetition, but to liberate performance, by empowering players to play their roles well.  The miners cannot afford to get weary of their roles.  It will be interesting to see how many rules will be set or influenced Up Above.

Unlike a reality TV show like Jersey Shore, where editors manipulate the juxtaposition of shots to create scenes and the sequence of events to construct a narrative, the ‘live-ness’ of this scene will demand improvisation, and that means the miners will be the primary architects of their narrative.

The intense focus on this particular scene by the world media, is going to make the elements of the game highly visible.  We will be able to track how well the trapped miners are doing by how focused and productive they are in playing their game.

What’s going to hold our interest about the Chilean Miner scene will not be the drama of whether or not they make it out alive.  The objective, the ‘Will they or won’t they’ aspect of the narrative, will only carry it so far.  What will hold our interest is how the miners behave in the meantime.  How well we get to know them.  Who they are to their families, and to one another.  What kind of character traits emerge. This is true of any narrative.  If you want to hold your audience’s interest, don’t focus on how you want it to end, but on how you want it to be.

When the miners’ survival becomes imminent, their game will transform from a survival strategy to a business strategy.  To the objective of ‘Get out of here alive without going crazy,’ they will undoubtedly add, ‘Make Money.’  When the miners finally walk into the light, the game may change, but it will not end.

Buena suerte, Mineros!

ChileanMiners2

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Posted in Agreement Principle, Casting, Character, Environment, Focus, Fundamentals, Games, Group Mind, Narrative, Objectives, Scenes, story | 3 Comments »

GameChangers Glossary, A to G

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

Adapted from GameChangers–Improvisation for Business in the Networked World, by Mike Bonifer:

Addition–Entering a scene in progress for the purpose of contributing immediately to the team’s performance; contributing to a scene; giving a gift

Agreement, The Agreement Principle–A principle of improvisation, characterized by players’ openness towards each other and an organization or communications network’s openness at its edge; the group consensus around a game or theme that informs a scene

Audience–Those within and outside of an organization whose reactions and opinions will determine the success of a scene or performance

Audience, External–People outside an organization or network, including customers (and potential customers), competitors, bloggers, users, fans, viewers, etc. whose reactions ultimately determine the value of a performance or narrative

Audience, Internal–People inside an organization or network, whose judgment acts as a kind of filter on scenes and narratives before they reach the External Audience

Blocking–A performance-related problem that occurs when players impede the progress of a scene by refusing the gifts offered them by their teammates

Callback–The act of recalling information that was stated by a player earlier in a scene or in a previous scene.

Cast–Players who share the same business objective; also called a Group or Team; can also refer to the employees of an entire division or organization (Disney, for example, refers to all employees as ‘cast members’)

Casting–The process of selecting players who will comprise a business team

Character–Traits that make a player unique as an individual and consistently valuable to his or her team

Close, Del–Credited as one of the originators of longform improvisation, and one of its most influential teachers, Close (1934-1999) created ‘Harold,’ probably the most-performed structure for group improv theater performances; his proteges include Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, John Belushi, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey; legend has it that he willed his skull to the Goodman Theater in Chicago to be used in future productions of Hamlet, in which he was to be billed as playing the role of Yorick

Coach–A person who casts a team; an objective observer and critic of a team’s performance; one who establishes game-based strategies and standards of preparation and performance in directing a team toward its objectives; manager; director

Cosmetic Communication/Meaning–The surface level of communication within a scene, primarily through spoken dialogue; data; information. (See ‘Emotional Communication/Meaning‘ and ‘Meta Communication/Meaning‘)

Crazy Town–A performance-related problem that occurs when players indulge in fantasies, magical thinking, or egoistic behavior, until the scene becomes un-moored from any actionable reality.

Denying–A form of blocking in which a player repeatedly contradicts or ignores other players, confusing the audience and fellow players; refusing to recognize another player’s reality

Edit–The action of making an entrance for the purpose of shifting the scene’s focus, or to begin a new scene; edits usually occur in concert with other players exiting the scene

Emotional Communication/Meaning–The most dynamic and meaningful level of communication in a scene. conveying its players’ passions and desires, where reactions (both positive and negative), and reinforcements/alienation are strongest

Energy–The pitch at which a player or group performs (and modulates) its performance; an umbrella term for the level of activity and intensity the audience observes in the group, and that players in the group experience in one another

Entrance–A player’s first appearance in a scene

Environment–The setting in which members of team collaborate to achieve their objective; any place where players interact; more expansively, any place where an audience experiences a brand; the overall business climate in which an organization operates, shaped by factors such as regulatory agencies, competitors, geopolitical factors and the desires, attitudes and beliefs of customers

Exit–A player’s departure from a scene

Fantasizing–A performance-related issue that occurs when players build outlandish, or wildly fictitious scenarios that do not acknowledge or act on the real world environment or the businessa; magical thinking; (see ‘Crazy Town‘ and ‘Invention‘)

Flatlining–A performance-related problem that occurs when players show no energy or life, impeding or halting a scene’s progress

Game–Rules, roles, environment and objective(s) defined; an exploration of a theme; a strategy used to achieve a business-related objective; games fall into two broad categories – productive and unproductive

GameChanger–A player who has mastered the art and practical techniques of business improvisation; a manager/coach or player with the ability to identify and support productive games and quickly change or edit unproductive ones

Gift–A move that supports the scene and the players in it; ‘giving gifts’ is one of the most powerful and effective moves a player can make

Grandstanding–A performance-related issue that occurs when a player wastes time and effort trying to contribute something ‘heroic’ to a scene; holding back for effect instead of engaging in the moment; habitually swinging for the fences or reaching for the ‘Wow Factor’; going for a home run when a single would better serve the scene

Group Mind– The tangible web of connectivity between players that achieved through a shared focus on a game and the exploration of a theme; the collective unconscious; not the same as ‘Group Think‘

Group Think–Rubber-stamping; going along to get along; consensus for its own sake; agreement that does not involve a game or theme; behavior that is not intended to achieve the objective, but rather to reinforce status; uncritical or unquestioning support for a political agenda, ideology or hierarchy

TO BE CONTINUED….

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Posted in Additions and Edits, Agreement Principle, Branding, Casting, Character, Coaching, Communication, Dialogue, Emotion, Entrances, Environment, Fundamentals, Games, Gifts, Group Mind, Issues, Narrative, Objectives, Scenes, Themes | No Comments »

Fools With Rules

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

This one’s for the golfers…

I used to joke with our neighbor back in Indiana, Euline Kieffner, that the reason she and I loved golf so much was that there was nothing more alluring to folks who’d grown up on farms like we had than a mown field with no manure in it.  Until four or five years ago, I was enchanted by the game of golf, and literally could not get enough of it.  I played and practiced it religiously, at one point working my way all the way down to a four-handicap, which is pretty damn good.  I could play.

Golf is a great game that can teach a person a lot about patience, persistence, imagination, focus, character, and the difference between trying to force positive outcomes and letting positive outcomes emanate from an open mind.  As my business focus has changed, so has my relationship with the game.  Today, I play rarely, maybe two or three times a year, and only on social occasions.   The romance is gone.  Occasionally, my Taylor-Mades and I stare wistfully at one another across a crowded garage, and remember how it used to be between us.

What fascinates me most about the sport of golf today, sad to say, is the wreckage to its most visible brand experience–the PGA Tour.  We’re talking multi-vehicle pile-up. Its shiningest star has lost most of his luster and its TV ratings have tanked in tandem with the Tiger brand.  The Tour’s newcomers have apparently had no life experiences to differentiate them from one another–all they know is golf.  Its core demographic is aging.  Its most interesting personalities have retired.

Last Sunday, while I did a little work in the office, more out of habit than anything, I had the PGA Championship—the last of the four ‘majors’ of the season—on the TV in the background. It held no inherent interest for me. And then, all of a sudden, it did.  Several of the game’s young lions—Rory McElroy from Scotland(?), a long-hitting lefthander with high follow-through named Bubba, a cool German named Kaymer I’d never heard of before, and Dustin Johnson, who hits it insanely long, were all fighting for the lead, along with a caddyshacker named Wen-Chong from China, who learned to play on that country’s first golf course, which was built only 20 years ago.  All of a sudden, it was a story worth following.

DustinJohnson1Over the last five or six holes the tournament’s drama became palpable.  None of the young guys were holding back, no one was playing not to lose, they were all winding up, letting it rip, and playing for the win, and it was riveting.  The tournament came down to a tie between two players, Bubba and the German, Kaymer, with Johnson playing the final hole of the tournament with a chance to win it.  He missed his par putt to win.  We were looking at a three-player, three-hole playoff for the championship.

And then, all of a sudden, we weren’t.  A PGA Tournament official pulled Johnson aside as he walked off the 18th green and told him that he had violated a rule by grounding his club in a hazard along the 18th fairway, one of the 1000+ sand bunkers that lined the course.

I’m not going to get into the specifics here, except to say that technically the officials were correct—Johnson had, in fact, let his club touch the sand prior to making his second shot.  Narratively, however, the PGA people blew it like I’ve never seen a call blown in a lifetime of watching sports.  There was no possible way for Johnson to know that the spot where his ball sat—a spot that had been trampled by tens of thousands of people during the tournament, and was tightly framed by hundreds in the gallery as he made his swing—was a hazard.  Besides that, if there had once been a border to the sand bunker, that border had been erased by the week’s crowds to the point where it no longer existed.  Given this, there was no way for the PGA officials to know for sure from looking at a replay whether the ball was ‘in’ a bunker or not.

This wasn’t some snap judgment in the heat of the moment by a referee or ump.  This was a deliberation.  A review.  A consideration.  And then, a horrible decision that took all the life out of the story.  Johnson was penalized two strokes, and eliminated from the playoff.

The tragedy of this decision goes way beyond any personal setback to Mr. Johnson.  The PGA brand desperately needed this story, needed the drama to keep building with the playoff between three of its new stars.  They had it.  It was happening.  The audience was engaged.  There was real enthusiasm from the broadcasters.  It was turning into the most interesting finish to a tournament in years.  All the PGA officials had to do was stay out of its way.  Instead, they committed the golfer’s most grievous mistake: they over-thought the shot.  And then they shanked it.

This was not the behavior of people concerned about what’s best for the game of golf, about supporting their brand’s narrative, or about nurturing the next generation of golfers.  This was vainglorious meddling by middle-aged men desperate for attention and fearing nothing as much as their own impotence.

Oh yeah, Kaymer won the playoff, but who cared?  Nobody outside of Kaymer’s girlfriend is talking about it.  All the fan conversation is about the idiotic ruling.

We see this a lot in business.  A compelling narrative begins to unfold, or an idea seems to be gathering momentum, and then, from out of nowhere, an expressionless manager with a rule book derails it.  It sucks for everyone involved except the person with the rule book.

If the rules don’t support your brand’s narrative, don’t change the narrative, change the rules.  If your managers, like those PGA officials, aren’t nuanced enough to understand what it takes to support your narrative, change managers.  This is what the PGA needs to do, pronto, to get its ailing game back on track.

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Posted in Branding, Character, Focus, Games, Issues, Narrative, story | No Comments »

Who Is Josh Weinstein?

Monday, June 21st, 2010

On his excellent MBAStoryteller site (yes! more MBA storytellers!) Nabil Laoudji, who’s in the Sloan MBA program at MIT, posted this 2006 video by Josh Weinstein.

Weinstein’s video demonstrates brilliantly how our perceptions shape our opinions.  That’s the obvious learning.

There are other, subtler ideas expressed in this video, too, which is why I really dig it.  It has lots of subtext:

The absence of knowledge makes perceptions more malleable. Because Weinstein is unknown to his subjects, slight adjustments in his appearance seem to cause wild fluctuations in perceptions (the edits themselves also shape perception, but I’ll comment only with subjects’ behavior here).  Anyone or any brand that seeks to limit knowledge?  This is why.  Manipulation of perceptions.  In a business environment where knowledge is so easily shared and transferred, limiting knowledge in order to manipulate perceptions is not good business.

Consistent character encourages learning. Weinstein’s character, a slightly bemused, inquisitive observer of human nature, seems consistent throughout.  As a storyteller, he uses this truth to get honest reactions from his subjects—that is, because he’s consistently in character, we can be pretty sure the subjects’ reactions are their own, and not something he has manipulated them into doing   Imagine if, instead, he’d played different characters in the interviews—aggressive, stupid, coy, flirty—we would not have been half as interested in or trusting of what his subjects had to say.  He and we would not have learned half as much.

Interrogation is not dialogue. The questions all go one way.  Weinstein does this to control the narrative and make a point.  Generally, however, dialogue is much more productive than interrogation.

This is what a lot of market research looks like. Like market research, Weinstein’s film is a series of snapshots.  It is an interrogation of the audience, not a dialogue.  Because of the way the interviews are conducted, the audience’s multi-faceted responses are nearly all flawed.  It doesn’t matter how much data you have if its facets are flawed and unrelated.  Many facets do not a diamond make. It is the interrelationship of the facets, their connection to one another, that illuminates the stone.

Admit your ignorance. Nearly everyone in the video is willing to guess about Weinstein’s identity, and in doing so they accept a ‘rule of the game’ that underscores their ignorance.  This is a fine storytelling device for Weinstein’s video, but it’s a toxic game in business.  For some managers, however, this is THE  game.  A conversation consists of them waiting for a ‘gotcha’ moment, when they can prove you wrong, ignorant, or both.  People pretending to know what they’re talking about are just as much to blame for this game as those who expose them.   Beware of games designed to show up anyone’s ignorance!  Admitting your ignorance is a first step toward learning.  Guessing, or faking knowledge, is not.  Ultimately, Weinstein’s video delivers the goods in the form of questions answered, but not before he demonstrates just how elusive the goods can be.

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Posted in Character, Education, Games, Leadership, Networked World, Problem Solving, Relationships, Scenes | No Comments »

Harpo’s Rules

Sunday, June 20th, 2010

Harpo1Underneath his fright wig and his goofy screen persona, Harpo Marx was one beautiful human being.  In his autobiography, Harpo Speaks, he lists his family’s rules.  It’s some of the wisest advice a father ever gave his children:

1.  Life has been created for you to enjoy, but you won’t enjoy it unless you pay for it with some good, hard work. This is one price that will never be marked down.

2.  You can work at whatever you want to as long as you do it as well as you can and clean up afterwards and you’re at the table at mealtime and in bed at bedtime.

3.  Respect what the others do. Respect Dad’s harp, Mom’s paints, Billy’s piano, Alex’s set of tools, Jimmy’s designs, and Minnie’s menagerie.

4.  If anything makes you sore, come out with it. Maybe the rest of us are itching for a fight too.

5.  If anything strikes you as funny, out with that too. Let’s all the rest of us have a laugh.

6. If you have an impulse to do something you’re not sure is right, go ahead and do it. Take a chance. Chances are, if you don’t you’ll regret it–unless you break the rules about mealtime and bedtime, in which case you’ll sure as hell regret it.

7.  If it’s a question of whether to do what’s fun or what is supposed to be good for you, and nobody is hurt by whichever you do, always do what’s fun.

8.  If things get too much for you and you feel the whole world’s against you, go stand on your head. If you can think of anything crazier to do, do it.

9.  Don’t worry about what other people think. The only person in the world important enough to conform to is yourself.

10.  Anybody who misteats a pet or breaks a pool cue is docked a month’s pay.

Hope your Father’s Day was as happy as mine!

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Posted in Character, Coaching, Education, Games, Leadership | 2 Comments »

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