One thing I always notice when I’m in a scene with Mark Johnson–the founder and President of JiffyGas and HConverters, complementary brands in the business of converting internal combustion engines to run on alt energy (hydrogen, nat gas, biofuels)–is how observant he is.  He notices everything.  When you’re speaking, he watches your hands, he glances at your feet, he looks you in the eye, he focuses on your thoughts even as they’re still taking shape in your mind.  When he speaks, he speaks with much more than the words coming out of his mouth.  Mark Johnson’s kind of communicating transcends spoken language.  Yes, words communicate, but only on the Cosmetic level.  It’s what accompanies those words on the Emotional and Meta levels that has the power to change the game.

When Mark visited Los Angeles last month, and I got to watch Edwin and Armando, the whiz-bang mechanics he’d flown in from Colombia, convert a six-year-old Lexus to run on hydrogen, spoken language was maybe the least effective communications tool they used during the two days it took to do the conversion.   There were four languages being spoken in that shop in Alhambra–English, Spanish, Chinese, and Italian if you count the Italian narration on a DVD promo for the converter kit that Edwin ran for us on one of his computers.  Sure, some spoken language was required.  But what made the scene go–what got the team on the same page–in improvisation terms, what created the Group Mind–were the elements of communication that transcended words.   Here’s where Johnson’s genius as a communicator was clearly in evidence.

He uses humor.  Johnson  knew what his team would find funny and didn’t hold back from expressing it.   Let’s just say that the humor was ’street-level’, and Johnson was fluent.  Edwin and Armando had never seen an American businessman pantomime some of the things Johnson pantomimed that day, and it kept the mood lively and productive.

Johnson engages all the senses.  How things feel, how they look (”This is grandma’s secret recipe, keeps the metal in the engine from embrittling.”), how they smell (”Let’s move away from here, they’re starting to run the smog check”), what they sound like (”Sounds the same when it’s running as a gasoline engine.”) are important.  He made a point of pointing out how good the coffee was.  Someone else in the garage got into the spirit, went next door and brought back a box of cream puffs.  They were delicious.  The dainty pastries in the grungy garage literally added flavor to the scene.

He speaks with actions.  Johnson did not stand still, nor did he retreat from the scene into his Blackberry or laptop, or confine his communication to the most language-friendly of the team.  He lugged hydrogen canisters.  Poked around under the hood of the Lexus.  Asked questions.  Viewed schematics with the mechanics.  He was fully present, and physically involved. “I don’t even care what you do.  Do something,” he says of the lagging progress in the U.S. toward alt fuels for transportation.  Exactly.  Do something.  It’s way more effective than just saying something.

He uses meta language.  This is the symbolism supporting your scene.   The hydrogen conversion scene in Alhambra was part of a much bigger cosmos of sustainable energy for transportation, and Johnson constantly reminded his team of that.  He knows what percentage of cars in the U.S. run on alt fuels now.  What percentage of cars do so in Colombia and Brazil, and Europe.  He knows the tax incentives for alt fuel investments.  Knows the manufacturers who make conversion kits, who’s moving petrodollars toward sustainable ventures, and where all the major car companies stand on alt fuel development.  This sense of participating in the greater movement, of being part of a larger community, gives meaning to the scene, and elevates its importance.

He listens.  When it comes to making a scene productive, nothing beats good listening.  It makes collaboration possible.  It honors your scene partners’ contributions.  It turns trivial details into significant opportunities.   Johnson’s talent for observation that I described above?  That’s good listening.

Most importantly, he communicates with emotion.   Johnson is anything but a blank canvas.  He paints pictures with emotions.  Every gesture conveys emotion.  He can be patient, excited, optimistic, indignant, generous, or whatever conveys the most meaning at any given moment. At one point, he turned to me and whispered, “Edwin and Armando would do anything to live in America.  They see this (JiffyGas) as their ticket.”  Emotions don’t run any deeper than that.  And communication does not get any more meaningful.

Mind you that none of this is performed theatrically.  It’s not done for the purpose of showing off, or to feed his ego by making himself the center of attention.  In general, Johnson presents a steadying, supportive presence.  Most of it what he communicates is subtle, or even understated.  But it’s always there, and it’s always working to move the scene forward.  (Johnson says his ‘recipe for success’ is “Curiosity, intuition and heads-down hard work.”)

Changing the game from the United States’ petroleum dependence to widespread use of alt fuels will take communication skills that transcend languages, cultures and geographic boundaries. On that day in Alhambra, I got a glimpse of what it will take.  The Meta name of the new game is ‘Mark Johnson’.

This morning, my friend David LaPlante (if you want to read something beautiful, see his most recent blog entry) sent me a link to a CNN story and headline:

Here’s my response:

Candidates and media use the word erroneously, as CNN does in this story, when they refer to an EVENT as a gamechanger. A gamechanger is PERSON with the ability to change the game. Like you : ) A gamechanger can also be a brand, as in the focused, networked behaviors of a group of people who share business objectives.

The media have the luxury of predicting the future, reporting after the fact, and pontificating about the meaning of it all. Most of us have to face facts in the present. We don’t deal with things as they were, or as predicted, but as they are, as events unfold and new information comes our way. This is why gamechangers are good improvisers. They make every moment count for something. They don’t focus on outcomes but on process and trust that the outcomes, whatever they are, will be positive, and that their group’s agreed-to objectives will be achieved.

GameChangers change events. If a person does not have the improvisational skill to change an event, the event is sure to change them, and they will have no say in the matter. GameChangers play the game, and don’t let the game play them.

In terms of improvisation, Obama kicked ass last night. He was in tune with the scene and the audience. He listened. Agreed with his scene partner. Matched energy. Heightened. Called back lines. He moved more confidently than McCain. His timing and editing were far superior to McCain’s, who not once but twice walked in front of a live camera like a rookie P.A. on the Amarillo local news. McCain went for jokes, which is a big no-no in improvisation

If CNN had been looking through the lens of improvisation, they would’ve seen their gamechanger in last night’s debate. It was Obama.

1) A NETWORKED ORGANIZATION IS A GAME PLATFORM

Organizations and brands designed to operate in the Networked World are, in effect, game platforms. They establish an environment, rules and tools, and encourage players to exercise their potential to its fullest. They build context so that players can create content. The wealth of these organizations will be generated by a generation of employees for whom gaming is second nature. These employees understand that playing the game productively requires improvisation.

Think about the narrative experience of a movie or TV show versus the experience of playing networked games like Second City or Final Fantasy and you’ll begin to see the difference between a brand that hews to the script and one that encourages improvisation.

Narrative is passive. It is created by other people. A game is active. It cannot exist without our participation.

With narrative, the players and the audience are separated by ‘The Fourth Wall’ such as a screen, a page, a proscenium. In a game, the players are the audience. Improvisational brands, adept at listening to and collaborating with their audiences, are in the business of breaking down The Fourth Wall and building bridges between themselves and their customers.

In a narrative, players act according to rigidly defined roles that limit their range of behaviors. In a game, players have the freedom to define their roles and pursue the objective in any way they choose.

In a scripted narrative, spontaneity usually screws things up for your fellow players. In a game, spontaneity and innovation are applauded and rewarded.

A narrative usually involves a relatively small number of players. Games — like networked organizations — can be designed to accommodate players in unlimited numbers.

In narratives, the standards of performance are dictated by the storytellers. In games, standards of performance are determined by players.

Narratives are linear and finite. They consist of a single storyline with multiple subplots that unfold within a set period of time or number of pages. Games are non-linear and open-ended. They have the capacity to generate unlimited numbers of storylines that are unconstrained by time or page count.

Don’t get me wrong. I love stories. Love telling them. Reading them. Listening to them. Watching them unfold. But when it comes to business, stories are more limiting than liberating. Games, by contrast, are invitations for players to expand the possibilities. Like brands and organizations designed to operate in the Networked World, games (and the improvisation required to play them well) encourage immersion in the experience, audience participation and innovative behavior.

2) NARRATIVE CALLS FOR SETBACKS

Along the hero’s journey, there are always obstacles to overcome — dragons to slay, flying monkeys to dodge, tentacled villains to disarm — to create a resolution that’s satisfying to the audience. This is simply the nature of the narrative form.

Business, by comparison, is the practice of producing positive results time after time. What manager in his or her right mind would map a negative outcome to a business scene? This is another powerful argument against scripting a narrative for your brand or scene. Subsconscious though it may be, you’re charting a course that invites negative outcomes, that puts obstacles between you and your objectives.

Improvisation gives us the means to see why scenes go awry and make the fast adjustments required to turn those scenes around and make them productive.

The choice between scripting your narrative and improvising it into existence is the choice between seeing setbacks as inevitable and greeting them, when they do occur, as an opportunity to learn and turn. It is the choice between burdening yourself with the expectations of others and liberating your capacity for heroic action.

3) ENERVATION VS. ENERGY

Don’t practice what you preach. Preach what you practice.

Brands chained to the narrative form can exhaust themselves getting players to stick to the script and audiences enthused enough to buy what they are selling.

Those who improvise experience the buoyancy and authenticity of living their story spontaneously in the moment, and are free to make the most productive choices in every situation. By inviting their audience to play along, they infuse their performance with energy that reverberates through the marketplace. How can customers not love what they have helped to create?

An Entrance occurs anytime you enter a meeting, step in front of a group to give a presentation or meet others for the first time. When you enter, your audience will be reading your body language. They will form instantaneous opinions about you and your team. A skilled improviser steps onstage decisively, energetically, without any hesitation or doubt, with an open mind about what is to come.

Entrances are not a purely physical action. As with all other aspects of improvisation, they are motivated by intention and an emotional point of view. What are you thinking when you step onstage? How are you feeling? What’s your idea for the scene? What is at stake? When you’ve got something provocative or useful in mind to motivate your entrance, the audience will pick up on that and will be naturally intrigued by what’s going to happen next. When you enter strongly, your audience is with you from the get-go.

Timing and good energy are also essential to effective entrances. Energetic, well-timed entrances can be made in ways that are consistent with one’s personal style. No one should expect a boisterous entrance out of a bookish character. The style of entrance is not the issue. Style is a personal matter. The issue is whether you step into to your scenes assertively and contribute strongly when you do.

Here are some examples of poor entrances that nearly everyone has experienced and performed themselves.

Dude, Where’s My Dongle? We’ve all been there. Some little missing piece of technology, like a dongle or an adapter hangs up the start of a presentation. We have picture but no sound. Sound but no picture. No picture, no sound, no clue. A know-it-all tells you to try pressing Control-Alt-Shift-Escape-F11, to no effect.
“We’ll be just a minute, we have to send for an AV person.”
“Does anybody want anything to drink while we’re waiting?”
“Try Control-Alt-Shift-Escape F12.”
“I tried that. It doesn’t work.”
“Try shadow puppets.”
“Try this.” (You quit fiddling with projector and buy some time by making a bad shadow puppet of Abraham Lincoln. One person laughs a little out of politeness. Your boss glares at you. You’re toast.)

When the props for your presentation are not tested and ready, you’re setting yourself up for a bad entrance. Your scene will suffer because of it.

Casualty. It’s one thing to work in a relaxed atmosphere – most people perform better, long-term, in that kind of environment. When the casual approach turns into sloppiness, however, performance suffers. Casual entrances include: missed deadlines; lethargic, low-energy behaviors at the beginnings of scenes; people straggling in after meetings have begun; people entering while talking on the phone; or blurring of the line between professionalism and sociability in the office. Meetings that don’t start on time, capricious cancellations and habitually extended deadlines are also signs of over-casualness. Waiting in the wings and not entering when you’re expected to, or entering with un-focused energy, will undercut the potential of any performance.

Star Turn. People who consider themselves ‘star performers’ will sometimes indicate their status by keeping the rest of the team waiting before finally making a dramatic entrance, at which point the scene can commence. This attention-getting stunt is, generally speaking, a poor entrance. A variation of this game called The Last Word gets played by managers who do not participate in the dialogue during a scene, but instead, lurk in the wings and attempt to indicate status by waiting to have the last — thus definitive — word on every idea expressed in that scene.

There are scenes in which a Star Turn entrance can be appropriate. When one of your group is an acknowledged leader in your industry recently featured on the cover of Fortune, it can be very effective for this person to make a splashy entrance when the stage is set. It builds audience anticipation, making the start of a scene momentous and high-energy. Most often, though, improvisers take turns being the star and do it onstage during a performance, as the circumstances of their scenes unfold. First and foremost, we are a team. One of the ways we show it is by supporting one another with timely entrances.

In April, a little more than three months before the concerts, I am in Live Earth’s Los Angeles production office, which is now at full boil. Damon Cason, who’s in charge of the films, is on the phone dealing with Joaquin Phoenix’s people. Andre Mika and David Parks, who are designing the media architecture, tack maps and index cards on the walls that depict the global satellite config. Jose Caballer and his team from The Groop crank out design work like Junior Warhols. Lily Sobhani, the worldwide event manager, is on the phone serving as some promoter’s suicide hot line. Tom Feegel, the Chief of Staff, is trying to figure out what to do with a hundred pairs of hybrid shoes that just arrived from Keen. Daniel Dao, in charge of on-site promotion is looking at stadium maps on two computer monitors while moderating a global conference call about the placement of banners, and how those banners will be printed with biodegradable ink on recycled material that will itself get recycled after the show. Cathleen Lewis and Kerry Craft are on a speaker phone talking Smart Car through its ticketing arrangements in Berlin. The head of PR, Christina Schake, is plotting for a band of scientists who call themselves Nunatak to perform live from Antarctica on the day of the event. Kevin saunters through, showing Cameron Diaz around and introducing her verrrrrrry selectively to certain people, me not being one of them.

Dang.

Through the hubbub of this crowded stage, I catch a voice that is riveting in its eloquence and intensity. It belongs to a well-dressed man huddled in the middle of the bullpen area speaking with John Rego and Josh Stempel, two of Live Earth’s environmental consultants. I scoot over to listen. What the man has to say appeals more to the improviser in me than anything I hear for the entire year I am with Live Earth.

The man’s name is Michael Molitor. Originally from southern California, he got his undergrad degree at the U. of Michigan and holds graduate degrees from the London School of Economics and the Scripps Oceanographic Institute at the University of California-San Diego. Today he lives in Sydney, where he is founder and CEO of a CarbonShift, a PriceWaterhouseCoopers joint that advises Fortune 1000 companies on energy investment strategy. In 2003-4, he served as the scientific adviser on the Roland Emmerich film, The Day After Tomorrow. On Live Earth, Molitor supervised the sustainability of the Sydney concert. That was a small scene for him. When he plays to his full potential, the objective is to move capital markets in a way that has a positive effect on the environment and generates new wealth. That is a big, big game. One that is changing every day. To play it, you must be a GameChanger. Like Molitor.

This week, Molitor took time out from prepping for the U. N. Conference on Climate Change, which is taking place Dec. 3-14 in Bali, to email me his views on how the energy game is changing (my queries in italics):

Describe the Industrial Age energy game vs. the energy game being played in the Networked World.

The new global energy game will be defined by “carbon-energy” — the ability to increase global energy supplies with decreasing carbon emissions. The large and growing carbon driver will also force new and bigger demand-side management exercises — because at least half of our current global carbon emissions are “superfluous” as they are the result of blatant and obvious inefficiencies. We have calculated that we can reduce household emissions in Australia in half at no net cost to households — the story is even better for commercial buildings. We cannot begin to imagine the changes in our lives that will result from the upcoming global carbon-energy game. Did you predict in 1960 that we would have personal computers and the internet before the end of the 20th century?

In a sense, the energy game is one we all play. The smaller players do not, however, define the game, or have a huge say in its rules. What players (or what ‘roles’), in your opinion, have the skills to change the game and establish the new rules?

The carbon-energy game will be driven largely by capital markets as they are already working to convert a company’s carbon performance into financial performance. The TXU deal and the Alcan purchase were both carbon-energy plays — these were the two largest deals in the world in 2007. Credit reporting agencies are downgrading the credit status of companies as a result of their exposure to both 1st and 2nd order climate change risks. Regulations will play a role but nothing compared to the new capital markets’ carbon rules. We are moving towards a point where there will be a measurable premium or discount on the share price of companies’ based exclusively on their carbon performance.

What effective moves can individuals and small businesses make in the new game?

People and smaller companies should be looking to invest in carbon management solutions.

What is CarbonShift’s role in the new game? How are you a player in it?

CarbonShift plays two roles: (1) we advise large companies on how to design and implement carbon management strategies through our strategic partner: PricewaterhouseCoopers (Australia) and (2) we are active in the carbon finance/carbon trading space working with large financial institutions to create and manage carbon funds.

What are three themes that guide you personally and/or the CarbonShift brand?

(1) help drive the process of reform in capital markets where carbon is measured and reported on a scale meaningful to both the risks and opportunities flowing from climate change

(2) measure your performance in terms of mega-tonnes of carbon emissions avoided and not revenue

(3) walk the talk—-live a carbon negative life

In what sense are you improvisational in your work?

In everything — there are virtually no set rules or guidelines for how we approach a challenge as large as global climate change. If you are using something that looks like a recognised framework then you are moving in the wrong direction. We face this climate challenge because of the existing and well-embedded rules of the game — we need entirely new rules. Improvisation would be the fourth point to your question [about themes] above.

If you want to add notes about the Climate Change Conference, I will blog about that, too.

Success in Bali depends on getting most of the large carbon emitting nations to see a global response to climate change as the world’s greatest investment opportunity and not simply as a giant cost. Why can’t we develop a new treaty framework that makes it profitable to reduce carbon emissions in China [instead of focusing] on the cost of compliance in the US or Europe? GE and many leading investors have already acknowledged that the global carbon management challenge is the greatest business opportunity in history — why haven’t key government also seen this?

ENVIRONMENT: A Southwest Airlines 737 going from Salt Lake City to Reno/Tahoe. Full flight. Early evening.

ROLES:  My friend Martin Gastanaga and a Southwest Airlines flight attendant.

RULES:  Normal commercial airline procedures apply (Martin’s not already drunk, he’s of legal drinking age, etc.)

SCENE: Martin asks for a Heineken.  The flight attendant hands him the beer.  He offers her a twenty.  She doesn’t have change.  Without hesitating, without missing a beat, she keeps wheeling her cart up the aisle and says,”This one’s on me.”

What a great gift that flight attendant gave on behalf of the Southwest brand! Think about it. How many of the typical things could she have said or done? “Give it to me and I’ll go get change.” “Can you see if your friend has change?” “I don’t have change, hold onto it and I’ll come back.” She could’ve gotten on the plane’s P.A. and asked if anyone had change. Any of these responses would have been perfectly reasonable and expected, but would not necessarily have been productive moves where the scene was concerned. In fact, when you factor in the time of the people involved, the imposition on players who aren’t in the scene and the zero-effect on brand equity, those moves could conceivably be unproductive and not even worth the margin Southwest gets on the sale of the beer.

But the flight attendant didn’t do any of that. Instead she gave a little gift that had big implications. Not the beer, the beer was not the gift, it was only a prop. The gift was friendliness. “This one’s on me” is something you say to a friend. It’s personal. By giving this little gift on behalf of Southwest, the flight attendant reminded Martin that the airline is a passenger-friendly brand.

With four simple words accompanied by an action — the zero-hesitation movement of the cart up the aisle — she touched on themes of the Southwest brand.

Notice she did not tell Martin that the drink was “on Southwest” or “on us.” She didn’t say “Don’t worry about it.” Those moves would have been less personal, less of a gift.

And notice that of all the moves she could have made, this one was the most economical. This too, was the flight attendant channeling the brand, and another way in which a little gift like this one gets big returns on the investment. It was a message to Martin and to all of us within earshot that Southwest makes things easy for its passengers. In so doing, she expands the meaning of “economy” communicating to her passenger that to Southwest, economy not only means low cost, it means ease of movement, too.

Finally, this little gem of a gift was a very effective “Yes and” statement. The attendant yessed the beer transaction and added her friendliness to it, further defining her character and her (and her organization’s) relationship with her scene partner. The friendliness of the exchange implies that not only is there an existing relationship between the players, but that the relationship will continue next time they encounter one another. The implication to Martin is that the next one is on him. Martin will continue to fly Southwest, and if he’s on a flight with that same attendant anytime soon, I guarantee you he’ll pay her back for the Heine. The cost to Southwest’s food services department of giving away the beer might very well turn out to be no cost at all.

I wish I had gotten this flight attendant’s name. She has some kind of genius going for her. And because of that, so does Southwest Airlines.

Southwest does an absolutely brilliant job of casting players with the ability to give gifts like this one in their scenes. It is no coincidence that as one of the most improvisational companies in America over the past 30 years, they have also been one of the most successful.

(THE UPDATE:  A couple of days after this was posted, I got an email from Brian Lusk, head of public relations for Southwest, asking me for the date of the flight on which the above scene took place.  My conversation with Lusk eventually led him to invite me to tour Southwest’s Dallas headquarters.  Two months later, I got an envelope in the mail from Lusk’s office.  It was the paper trail that led from Lusk, through several managers, to a commendation for the flight attendant and the crew that had worked the ‘Heineken flight.’  Imagine!  All that effort to honor a flight attendant who’d given away a beer!  Most companies only expend that kind of energy on an employee when they to fire her.  Bravo, Southwest!)