Michelle has been teaching the principles of improvisation in business for a number of years.  She has assembled a stellar line-up of presenters who are aligned in the belief that creativity is the secret to a rich and satisfying working life, and to the necessary transformation of American business.  The Industrial Age models won’t cut the mustard in a Networked Economy.

I’m hoping to learn at least as much as I teach.

No sector needs more applied creativity and innovation than the federal government.  Obama and the Executive Branch can’t do it alone.   Today, through the lens of the health care debate, it’s easy to see the divide between the fearmongers clinging to a status quo in which insurance companies and big pharma control the U.S. healthcare system…and the champions of change who understand that we cannot continue to go down a path that puts so many barriers between health care providers and patients.

When the providers themselves want reform, you know something is screwy with the current system.  Yet so many people are afraid of change.  Of the unknown.  Here’s the insight for those people:  In resisting change and clinging to the past, you are guaranteeing your own irrelevance.

This is where creativity plays such a huge role in productive change.  Creativity is all about stepping confidently into the unknown, of facing the blank canvas of the future with the skill and preparation to turn it into a remarkable confluence of art and commerce.  It means confronting one’s fears instead of withdrawing from them.

If the objective (as in this instance) is better health care for more Americans, we have unlimited opportunities to make moves in that direction.  But we’re only going to make the moves when we realize that the process can be its own reward, and that in the process, we will discover the options and opportunities that will never come our way when we are ruled by our fear and frozen by our uncertainty.

Make your move, D.C.!  Sign up today!  (before Aug. 31, you get a nice discount)  See you there!

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’.

A gamechanger identifies and plays a productive game. Focuses on preparation more than planning. Is more concerned with getting results than in producing specific outcomes. Seddiqui could not be playing this game if he hadn’t prepared. And he could not have imagined a particular outcome. (Note that his ‘50/50/50 objective’ for the game is different from its ‘business outcomes’.) What Seddiqui trusted was that he was initiating a game that would produce results, and cause positive things to happen. New relationships would form. There’d be new experiences had. Skills learned. Insights gained. Possibilities awakened.

He is not sitting at home living the inevitable bad economy cliche, sending out job applications and getting rejected. Instead he created a game that generates acceptance in massive doses. David Seddiqui is creating a narrative in which he gets 50 job offers–and he’s going to accept all of them! Good story.

In Living the Map, Daniel Seddiqui is sending a three great big, important messages to the world:

1) All work is honorable. We should not judge a person by what it is they do, but by how they do it. Respect the work, respect the worker.

2) So what if you have 50 different jobs in your life? That’s a goal. Working in one place, at one job forever is drudgery. This is one generation telling another that it can stick the gold watch up its ass.

3) There’s work, lots of it, that needs doing. But you’ve got get out and find it, player. It is not going to find you.