Posts Tagged ‘Support’

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 »

Power and Powerlessness

Friday, March 5th, 2010

TheNewHow1This is from a blog post by our friend, Nilofer Merchant, author of the new book The New How: Creating Business Solutions Through Collaborative Strategy:

The challenge with people feeling powerless is this: we don’t see how we can contribute to solve problems. We believe it is “someone else’s” to own rather than something any of us can contribute to. Powerlessness leads to apathy on global issues and disdain on local issues.

Now check out this from Mick Napier’s classic book, Improvise:  Scene from the Inside Out:

Two people…staring at each other and wondering who’s going to make the first move.  Two people being nice to each other and allowing the other to start doing something.  In that short amount of time, two humans have created themselves as powerless…Who has time?  The audience is waiting.  They don’t care about your support.  They care about what you do.  What you do now.

These two statements, made miles and years apart, reflect the timelessness of the concept:  Do something!  Participate!  Add to the conversation!  When you’re just getting started don’t worry about what the solution will be, or where the scene will take you.  No one knows, and your audience doesn’t care.  The most important thing is to bring to the scene whatever you’ve got.

The saying in improvisation is ‘take care of yourself first.’  This is not the same as being selfish.  It is, rather, the recognition that making the first move, even if we are not always the one to make it, is always our responsibility.

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Posted in Agreement Principle, Communication, Dialogue, Entrepreneurship, Initiations, Innovation, Leadership, Relationships | 1 Comment »

The Unsung Hero of the Game

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

We cannot emphasize enough how often the origins of the productive game rest not with actions of the first person to act, but with the person who defines the game by supporting and adding to what the first person is doing.  The second person is the unsung hero of the game.

Ethan Bauley sent me a link that’s a perfect depiction of the ‘Unsung Hero’ idea. Take a look at this video shot at the recent Sasquatch Music Festival outside Vancouver:

The first dancer, Collin Wynter from Calgary, deserves credit for initiating well. He’s having fun, and he’s high energy, connecting with the music and the rest of his environment and not at all caught up in his own little world. He is acting on his environment (the hillside and the soft grass and the music) and as a consequence, the environment ‘acts on him’ as his dancing becomes infectious. But it doesn’t become a scene, it doesn’t find its game, until the second dancer joins. The second dancer adds and heightens, and from that point on, there’s no stopping this scene.

The second dancer learns the ‘rules of the dance’ from the first dancer, then yes-ands, making dance even more playful by falling to the ground and crawling through the first dancer’s legs. It is the second person who defines the game and plays it in a way (by yes-anding) that others cannot resist joining.

After the third person joins, the joining becomes a wave that lasts until the music ends. (And maybe beyond, that’s where the video cuts.) This same dynamic is characteristic of any productive game. A game played alone has finite potential, while a game that invites joining has unlimited upside. It is the second person to play who signals to the crowd that your game is worth joining.

This article in the Calgary Herald celebrates Collin Wynter as being some kind of hero, but does not mention the second dancer, or even the existence of the unsung hero of the game.

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Posted in Additions and Edits, Games, Initiations, Movement, Scenes | 1 Comment »