Archive for the ‘Fundamentals’ Category

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Just Say Yes And

Friday, August 27th, 2010

Our friend, Jeremy Redleaf, founder and star of the brilliant website, OddJobNation, sent us a photo he took on what looks like a New York City subway train, with the question, “Has Jet Blue been GameChanged?”JetBlue1

Umm.  No.  It has not.  Here’s why:  There’s a mistake in the ad copy.  The first rule of improv is not saying ‘Yes’…it’s saying ‘Yes and.‘  ‘Yes’ is only half a conversation, an agreement without an addition.  The word ‘and’ holds the power, because it merges the realities of two players into a new reality that can be shared by both.

When two players ‘Yes and’ one another, they’re not expressing different versions of reality, competing viewpoints, or two different versions of the truth…they’re co-creating a new reality.  This is why ‘Yes and’ is such a powerful statement and ‘Yes’ gives away power without generating any of its own.

While we support any move in the direction of improvisation as a professional practice–as this Jet Blue ad seems to want to do–it’s maddening when some ad copywriter misstates the practice like this does.

‘Yes’ without ‘and’ ???

To an improviser, it’s like Macaroni without Cheese.

Like Woody without Buzz.

Like Yin without Yang.

And, unfortunately for the people who spent the money for this ad, it’s like a Jet without Blue.

Walt Disney used to call it ‘plussing.’  Don’t just agree with me.  Tell me something I don’t know.  Add useful information.  Give gifts.  Move the scene forward.

John S., are you listening?

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Posted in Agreement Principle, Branding, Dialogue, Fundamentals | 1 Comment »

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 | 1 Comment »

GameChangers Glossary, H to N

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

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

Heighten–To build emotional involvement and energy in a scene

Improv–See ‘Improvisation‘

Improvisation–spontaneous communication designed to generate positive outcomes from unforeseen circumstances; interpersonal and group communication that is instinctive and informed by experience, knowledge, serendipity and respect for environment; improv, as performed in theaters, such as with improv comedy; a conversation with the community; the pedagogy, philosophy and process defined by Viola Spolin in her 1963 book, Improvisation for the Theater; a games-based methodology for generating communication, learning and transformation

Initiation–The first meaningful words or lines spoken during a scene; in this case, ‘meaningful’ refers to anything that directly involves the group’s progress toward achieving the scene’s objective(s).

Interrogation–A performance-related issue, often arising in interviews or employee reviews, that arises when one player only asks questions and never acts on the information revealed by the answers;

Invention–A performance-related issue that occurs when players work with speculative or subjective information instead of the reality of the scene.

Invocation–An exercise that lets players examine a subject from the third-person (”It is”), second-person (”You are”) and first-person (”I am”) perspectives in order to identify themes for a performance.

Issue–Any performance-related problem which can be remedied by better execution of GameChangers business communication techniques.

Judging–A performance-related problem that occurs when a player subjectively assesses a scene while the scene is taking place.

Justifying–A performance-related problem that occurs when a player self-consciously explains his or her (or their team’s) actions in a scene, especially when the behavior does not align with the GameChangers principles.

Liminal–relating to the threshold of perception that players break through by participating in a game; relates to perceptions of one’s own abilities and to what one’s perceptions of what is generally possible; transcending the status quo

Meta Communication/Meaning–A symbolic or allegorical representation of ideas and concerns that exist on a societal, cultural or archetypal scale; the symbolic representation of a macro trend, widely held belief, or aspect of the human condition; (See ‘Cosmetic Communication/Meaning‘ and ‘Emotional Communication/Meaning‘)

Monologue–A speech given by a single player in a scene; a speech shared amongst multiple players in the course of a scene or presentation.

Narrative–A flow of thematically-connected events that can be related after the fact as a story; organizational memory and vision of the future that inform scenes performed in the present; a purposeful alignment of ideas and events, such as for a brand.

Negativity–Traits, ideologies and behaviors that halt a scene’s progress through skepticism and a disagreeable inclination to oppose, deny and/or resist the ideas or involvement of other players; pessimism; the antithesis of the attitude required for productive collaborations.

Network–The communications matrix of an organization, brand or individual; those who are connected by a communications matrix or belong to an organization; defined by John Seely Brown, John Hagel et al as consisting of ‘core’ and ‘edge’

Networked World–The highly communicative, internet-supported global stage on which business gets conducted

Objective–The desired outcome of a scene; the stated purpose of playing a game; the business goal of a scene; one of the four elements that comprise a Game

Opening–An ‘overture’ prior to a scene or series of scenes in which a player or a group develops the themes for an upcoming performance; usually triggered by Suggestions From the Audience

Organization–The manifestation of a business or brand to its audience; the operational structure of a business or brand; a company or group with a shared mission and business objectives (see ‘Network‘)

TO BE CONTINUED…

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Posted in Branding, Communication, Dialogue, Emotion, Environment, Fundamentals, Initiations, Issues, Narrative, Objectives, Themes, Uncategorized, story | No 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 »

Sweet Spot

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

GolfBallTee1I used to play a lot of golf, and the game taught me a lot.  One bit of wisdom came my way one Sunday afternoon from a golfer named Jim Bishop, while he and I were playing the classic old Wilson Course at Griffith Park in Los Angeles.  He told me that one reason he plays golf is that it that offers a person the chance to experience perfection.  “Every now and then,” he said, “you make a perfect swing.”  As any golfer who took the game seriously would, I understood exactly what Bishop was talking about.

On occasions, something amazing happens in the game of golf, when you transcend the conscious boundaries of all your prior experiences with the game, let go of your expectations, and become a passenger on the boat of your own brilliance.  You experience the patient takeaway, the coiling in the hips, the shoulders in perfect orbit around the spine, your back leg buttressed like a telephone pole, until you are behind the ball and then, your entire being uncoils through the ball, not swinging at it as much as passing a wave of energy through it, and in immortal words of Carl Spackler, “Cinderella story. Outta nowhere.”  There it is.  You feel it for just an instant.  Perfection.

A golfer pays a price to get there, because most often golf is crap and collapse, frustration, bad behavior and the sudden and unexplainable disappearance of one’s powers.  In other words, it’s a lot like life, which why everyone should play golf at some point in their lives.  It teaches you a lot about how to persist in the face of adversity.

Like the game of golf, the work we do requires a lot of patience and, like golf, work is all about managing adverse events.  The professional golfer, Frank Beard, once said that he hit exactly the same good shots an amateur golfer hits, he just hit more of them.  The same is true with our work.  Success looks the same for everyone.  You make money.  You enjoy the interactions.  You go home happy.  It is the consistency of our game, and the ability to manage adversity, that distinguishes the real players from the weekenders.

It doesn’t matter how great a player you are, there are times when you just have to take an unplayable lie, stroke and penalty, or when you find yourself out of bounds and have to hike back to the tee and start all over, stroke and distance.

Then there are times when work comes together like the perfect swing.  When your biggest client calls to thank you for solving a couple of problems, your oldest client makes things new again, and your newest client signs the contract.  When a friend makes news for doing something cool and funny.  When you begin a journey that is going to take four years and promises no end of excitement.  When you get to study with one of your favorite teachers for two hours.  When you have tickets with friends for a great concert tonight.

This is one of those days for me, and I wish you all the same.  Because we all know that soon enough we’ll be hooking them deep into alligator country again, trying to locate our ball in places where, as Lee Trevino once said, “there’s things with no shoulders living in there” and be asking ourselves why in the hell we put ourselves through it.

We put ourselves through it because we are promised times when perfection smiles on us, and we experience the satisfaction of seeing ourselves and the games we play in a new light, when we are capable of doing, in the context of the game, what we had only dreamed about before.

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Posted in Coaching, Creativity, Focus, Fundamentals, Games, Innovation, Issues, Problem Solving | No Comments »

Words From a Hopi Elder

Monday, April 19th, 2010

Painting by Bill Schenck www.schencksouthwest.com

Painting by Bill Schenck www.schencksouthwest.com

“You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour. Now you must go back and tell the people that this IS the Hour.  And there are things to be considered:  Where are you living?  What are you doing?  What are your relationships?  Are you in right relation?

“Where is your water?  Know your garden. It is time to speak your Truth.  Create your community.  Be good to each other. And do not look outside yourself for the leader.

“There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.  They will try to hold on to the shore.  They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination.  The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open and our heads above the water.

“And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history we are to take nothing personally, least of all, ourselves.  For the moment we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

“The time of the lone wolf is over.  Gather yourselves!!  Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary.  All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

“We are the ones we have been  waiting for.”

Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said,  “This could be a good time!”

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Posted in Communication, Emotion, Environment, Fundamentals, Group Mind, Listening, Themes | No Comments »

The Difference Between Narrative and Story

Monday, April 19th, 2010

Gregg Morris a writer and narrative consultant based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, attended the Smithsonian Conference on Storytelling this past weekend (#storycon #storytelling) tweeted @Bonifer with this question:

Investigate ’story’ & you will find enough definitions to make you dizzy. Have you formulated a definition for ‘narrative’? Thanks!

We appreciate questions that put the GameChangers fundamentals to the test, it’s good learning, and this is one question that had never been asked quite so directly as the way Gregg phrased it.  Because we at GameChangers are such self-proclaimed champions of (improvised) narrative, and because our work contrasts narrative and story, I should have a good answer for Gregg’s question, right?

Here’s what I came up with:

narrative: a flow of events connected to a theme.   story: the conscious ordering of these events to elicit meaning.

@greggvm tweets back :

@Bonifer Thank you sir! What a wonderful and succinct definition of both. #gamechangers

Here, in allegorical terms is the difference. Narrative is how Native Americans saw a river. Story is a fish caught from that river by a boy who gets named Big Fish by his tribe.River1_Sepia_Narrative

Today, a friend of ours, Natan Volkovich, wrote this in his Facebook status:

has walked the earth for 23 years. Looking back, my memories feel as but single frames in a long and lengthy film that has come to this precise moment. Running through in fast forward, I feel an awesome sense of fortune at having lived those frames and learned from their images. My gratitude goes out to all that have played an important role in shaping the movie that continues to piece itself together in my mind.

That is Natan’s story.  His narrative is the frame he’s standing in now…BigFishStory1




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Posted in Fundamentals, Narrative, story | 9 Comments »

What He Said

Saturday, April 17th, 2010
Tecumseh

Tecumseh

Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.

Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their views,and demand that they respect yours.

Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.

Seek to make your life long and of service to your people.

Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.

Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a stranger if in a lonely place.

Show respect to all people, but grovel to none.

When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life and strength.

Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living.  If you see no reason for giving thanks,the fault lies in yourself.

When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death,so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.

Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.

- Tecumseh of the Shawnee Nation, whose tribe hunted and lived on the land in Indiana where I grew up

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Posted in Character, Environment, Fundamentals, Group Mind, Initiations, Issues, Leadership, Themes | 2 Comments »

Over Under Sideways Down

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

One of the characteristics of networks is their flexibility. What our communication channels looked like yesterday may not be what they look like today. This, of course, can be an asset or a liability. The net that allows us to build new relationships, discover markets and expand our potential for taking productive action is the same one that swallows channels and markets like a singularity sucking down solar systems in nanoseconds.  The global financial system, guaranteed, is right now teetering on the edge of such a debt-and-greed-spun vortex.  Call it The Bank Hole.

TheBankHole1In our crazy race to escape these kinds of vortexes, we can turn direction-blind.  We pick a course of action, or someone picks a course for us, and in our all-out effort to escape a certain fate, we go heads down as hard as we can for as long as we can in that direction, like barn-sour horses galloping toward a distant barn.  A strategy, as Umair Haque points out in his latest HBR post, can be just as bad as a locked-in direction, because it can confine or limit one’s options instead of liberating them.

What Haque advocates, and what we could not agree with more, is adopting a set of behaviors (he calls these behaviors ‘Wisdom’) that foster liberation of the ideas and the ethical actions that can deliver us from the Goldman-Sachs Singularity, and whatever else sucks.  These behaviors have no time frame, because they are timeless.  They cannot be quantified, because they are potentially limitless in number.

One of these behaviors (me, adding to Haque’s list) is to Envision.   And by that I don’t mean Ayn Rand’s old Burt Lancaster-as-One-Of-A-Kind-Genius concept of vision but what I call ‘Viola Vision’, which consists of ’seeing and sharing what we see.’  This kind of envisioning expands our horizons, and gives us infinitely more options for escaping what sucks.  So in your quest for solutions, don’t forget to:

Look over. It’s how you get perspective on a problem.

Look under. Play with the dynamic of concealment and revelation.  Respect roots.  Dig deep.

Look sideways. My friend, the animation director John Musker, talks about stories as ‘taking an unexpected left turn.’  A sideways move can shake up your narrative in a way that keeps you on your toes and your audience engaged.

Look down. Who needs a helping hand?  Some days, this the only question worth answering.

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Posted in Communication, Entrepreneurship, Environment, Fundamentals, Games, Innovation, Issues, Leadership, Movement, Narrative, Networked World, Relationships, Scenes | 2 Comments »

‘The President’s Question Time’ Scene

Saturday, January 30th, 2010

There’s a great tradition in British government that, if you’ve never seen it, you ought to.  It’s called The Prime Minister’s Question Time, and it is wonderful political theater.  Watch some of this.

And then compare this.

Quite a difference.

The first is improvised.

The second is scripted.

Improvisation is active.  It is alive.  Members of Parliament are energetically engaged in the conversation about the matter at hand, supportive of, but not bogged down by, their various ideologies and positions.  Their actions and reactions are immediate, emotional and visceral.  This honors the problem.  American politicians dishonor a problem, and obfuscate it, when they use it as a foil for politicking, which is how almost every problem faced by the federal government is regarded now.  An excuse for campaigning.

ObamaRepubs1This is the big point President Obama underlined yesterday in his meeting with the Republicans.  That 66-minute conversation may be the best thing that’s happened in American politics since the Watergate hearings.  Obama changed the game by calling out the current political game for what it is.   Let’s call the current game “Our Way or No Way.”  It is played by Democrats and Republicans alike, with equal vigor.  This game is toxic.  Limiting.  Stultifying.  Divisive.  And ultimately it’s unproductive.  This is not about blaming one party or the other.  The bad game is to blame.

Yesterday, Obama not only called out the current game for the quicksand pit it is, he suggested a better, more liberating, more productive game.  You might call the game he’s proposing, ‘Part of a Pie is Better Than None.’  In other words, the invitation to the Republicans (Dems, you’re next!) is to find an area of agreement and agree on it.  Do it knowing that some, but not all, and probably not not 80% of what you’ve got scripted, will come to pass.  Don’t be greedy.  Be generous instead.  Don’t place blame.  Accept responsibility.  Don’t point fingers.  Shake hands.  And then come out fighting.  Let’s relish the good fight, one where we fight together to solve the problem, not the bad fight, where we fight over who’s right and who’s wrong about how to solve it.  Let’s pick battles we can win instead of battles we can make the other guy lose.

Cheers to the GameChanger in Chief for changing the game once again.  Our political discourse needs more of the kind of energetic, intelligent, articulate, performances that the Brits demonstrate in their ‘Question Time With the Prime Minister” and Obama and the Republicans staged yesterday.  It will be a healthy transformation.  And it’ll make great TV.  Nothing we Yanks like better than that!

Do not get locked into your script for success.  Be prepared, instead, to improvise your way there.  Remember that other people have scripts, too.  As I can tell you from working in the entertainment business, when all we do is fight over whose script we’re going to follow, the show does not go on.

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Posted in Agreement Principle, Communication, Dialogue, Fundamentals, Games, Issues, Leadership, Narrative, Scenes | 2 Comments »

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