The extraordinary improviser and improv theater teacher, Paul Vaillancourt, gave me a list of sayings compiled and passed around the improv community over the years. Legendary teachers Mick Napier and Del Close get some of the credit, though the exact origins of most of these are as hazy as the roots of any folk wisdom. Here are a few of the sayings from what I call ‘Vaillancourt’s List’, with my comments following. As you go about your business, keep these concepts in play: (more…)
Archive for the ‘Coaching’ Category
Entrepreneurs Improvise
Tuesday, August 26th, 2008To introduce her students to the concept of improvisation, Viola Spolin, the godmother of modern improv, used to summon half a dozen students onto the rehearsal stage, and then say nothing to them. Literally nothing. No direction. No reason for them to be there.
Nothing.
Nothing…
Still nothing… (more…)
Vaillancourt’s List 2.0
Thursday, June 19th, 2008The extraordinary improviser, Paul Vaillancourt, gave me a list of sayings that have been compiled and passed around the improv theater community over the years. The legendary teachers, Mick Napier and Del Close, get some of the credit, though the exact origins of these are as hazy as the roots of any folk wisdom. Here is the second in a series of sayings from what I call Vallaincourt’s List, with my extrapolations in italics: (more…)
Improvising Higher Education
Tuesday, May 27th, 2008Item #1: The headline in today’s business news reads: “Wake Forest to Drop Standardized Tests in 2009.”
Item #2: A professor at Stanford complains to me recently that “Today’s students are institutionalized grade-making machines.”
Item #3: The person I know with the most money in his bank account does not have a college degree.
Item #3A: His wife has a PhD., he reads like a maniac, and they strongly support one another in every way imaginable.
Item #4: One of the most brilliant and creative people I know enrolled in college at the age of 14 and has never gotten a degree. He describes himself as a ‘serial dropout’. There is, it seems, always a lot of self-designed drama accompanying his dropping out. He says, ‘The ritual and circumstance with which I drop out creates far more value for me, in terms of building awareness for my personal brand, and in terms of the lasting relationships I make with the faculty as part of this dropping-out process than any degree possibly could.” (more…)
What Paul Said Viola Said
Monday, May 19th, 2008
If Viola Spolin is the godmother of modern improvisation, that makes her son, Paul Sills, its Michael Corleone — the heir to the family business. Sills, who assisted his mom with her children’s theater workshops in the 1940s, enrolled at the University of Chicago in 1948. There, he directed many student productions and in the process met David Shepherd, with whom, in 1955, he organized the Compass Players, the first improvisational theater company in the U.S. In 1959, Sills and Bernie Sahlins formed Chicago’s Second City Theater, where he was director until 1965. All of Sills’ work in comedy theater, and in fact his life itself, was influenced by the theory and practice of improvisation. (more…)
Workshop Clips
Thursday, April 3rd, 2008Video clips from GameChangers workshops at Twelve Horses Interactive and an Executive MBA Class at Notre Dame. The Twelve Horses engagements typically have from 8 to 10 people participating. The MBA class had 65 people in it.
Gen-Why?
Thursday, March 6th, 2008In GameChangers, I label the first generation to enter the Networked World workforce ‘Gen-Why?’ and make the following observations:
This is the most photographed generation in the history of the world. Practically from birth, ‘Gen-Why?’ has been MySpaced, FaceBooked, Flickred and YouTubed. We are talking about people who know how they look and what they sound like, and are well on their way to developing a personal brand. They possess more knowledge and are more flexible in their thinking than their parents. Improvisation provides the ideal platform for helping them put their look, their sound, their knowledge, their brand, to productive use.
And…
As employees raised (educated?) on video games enter the workforce in increasing numbers, the improvisational skills inherent in the gaming world will naturally become part of the ‘Gen-Why?’ business culture.
Samantha Maxwell is the founder and owner of CYA Human Resouces, an HR consulting company based in Los Angeles. In helping her clients deal with issues unique to Gen-Why and to the networked workplace, she’s on the fault line of a tectonic shift in business culture. In ten years, she says, 80% of the workforce will consist of Gen-Whyers. (more…)
How to Kick Ass
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008One of the beautiful things about improv is its abundance of folk wisdom — sayings and stories handed down over the years from group to group, teacher to teacher, polished and honed in the telling and retelling until they shine with the luster of truth. Periodically I’ll post a few of these priceless gems, and why I think anybody interested in getting deeper into the improvisation of business should take note.
The following list appears in my book, GameChangers. It was handed out at the beginning of a class I took at I. O. West in Los Angeles, by our teacher, Jason Pardo. The list came to Jason by way of improv legend Mick Napier, under whom Jason had studied in Chicago. (Napier is Artistic Director of the Annoyance Theater in Chicago and author of Improvise: Scene from the Inside Out. ) The GameChangers translation of each tip appears in italics .
TIPS FOR BEING A KICKASS STUDENT AND POWERFUL PERFORMER
An Homage to The Coach
Friday, December 14th, 2007
COACH JOHN WOODEN PASSED AWAY TONIGHT AT THE AGE OF 99. THIS IS AN UPDATE OF A POST WRITTEN TWO YEARS AGO.
Coaching is one of the most honorable professions there is. A few money- and headline-grabbing exceptions distort the fact that the fast majority of sports coaches are motivated by factors other than money. No team can reach its potential without good coaching, and no coach brought more teams closer to realizing their potential than John Wooden, the best basketball coach, and one of the best coaches of any game, who ever lived.
Wooden’s teams changed the the sport of basketball, from a polite Hoosiers-style half-court square dance, to a baseline-to-baseline rampage of disruptive defenses and extreme athleticism., and they have the championships to show for it. As someone who grew up in Indiana like Wooden did, I always related to how The Coach used basketball as an allegory for life. That’s how it was for a high school kid in Indiana. Basketball was life.
Coach Wooden’s teams showed how the game, and not just the game of basketball, any game, should be played. He was an educator who just so happened to use a basketball court as his classroom. The players who had the good fortune to play for him got gifts that lasted long after their playing days were over. Here are some of Coach Wooden’s fundamentals: (more…)
Dear GameChangers
Wednesday, December 12th, 2007Dear GameChangers,
During the last fifty years, and increasingly so in recent years, so much of business practice has been influenced by ‘new knowledge’ and ‘new theory’ developed within our business and management schools; this often results in ‘new executive education’ or is touted by consultants as the next ‘big idea’. However, do we as business practitioners really believe that these ‘new theories’ help us to run our businesses better, produce more profits, behave ethically and be more socially responsible, make our people happier, build environmentally sustainable businesses, coexist with our stakeholders, give us more fulfilling business lives, etc, etc.?
Many of my colleagues feel that the continual glut of ‘new theories’, and the ever-increasing mountain of books on business and management, often combine with a lack of connection to the realities of business practice, complexities of organisations, and a changing world. Consequently, some believe that this ‘pretence of business knowledge’ is leading to disillusionment amongst many in the business practitioner community. How do you feel about the ‘pretence of business knowledge’?
Thanks,
Kuldip Reyatt
Dear Kuldip,
The art of improvisation has been with us since the first human saw the first spark fly off the first flint and thought, “Yes and…I’m going to make another spark and this time the game is to make it land on that clump of dry grass…” (more…)