Last week, Forbes ran a column by Glenn Llopis that poses the question, ‘Is Leadership Irrelevant?’ The unwritten follow-up question probed though not fully answered in Llopis column, is, ‘If leadership is irrelevant, what can take its place?’ This is an issue that comes up all the time in conversations with executives. People understand that their model of leadership is broken, yet they don’t really know what can take its place.
'A Captain of Industry' by Graham McKean
I don’t think it’s a matter of anything ‘taking leadership’s place.’ What are we going to do, remove the word from the dictionary? Are we all going to wait around for someone else to make the first move? (Oh wait, that’s what happens now.) What leaders can do is adapt to a business environment that is different than the one that shaped the textbook definitions of leadership. This environment moves faster, with more, and more fleeting, opportunities for a generation of restless, tech-savvy players entering the global workforce. To prosper in this environment, leaders and the companies under their guidance must adapt. This is not a one-time only thing, adaptation is not a new program that that can be taken off a shelf and ‘acquired.’ It’s a way of life.
We call this new model of leadership Flexible Vision.Naturally it is informed by the principles of improvisation, among them:
Take care of yourself first. This is a phrase popularized by Chicago improvisation master, Mick Napier. It doesn’t mean be selfish, as in ‘get your golden parachute packed, and don’t worry about where the plane is going because you’re jumping off before it gets there.’ Not that. It means come prepared. Have a take. Be someone. Stand for something. Rock your style. What your style is doesn’t matter nearly as much as whether or not you rock it.
Begin with listening. How can you contribute to the conversation if you don’t know what the conversation is about?
Follow the follower. This is a Viola Spolin concept. The narrative was going on before you entered the scene, and it will continue after you’re gone. Don’t ‘try to make things happen.’ Connect with what’s already happening.
Let go of status. In the old leadership models, status followed a person from scene to scene. If you were the CEO that was your role, and you played it in every scene you were in. This model forced a lot of managers into a mode of pretending to know more than they actually did, to feign authority in subjects with which they were not familiar, just to preserve their status. These ‘false narratives’ are a big inefficiency in any organization clinging to old leadership models. Improvisers, by contrast, change roles and status freely from scene to scene. Though your title is ‘The CEO,’ your roles can be ‘Student,’ ‘Fearless Explorer,”Arbitrator,’ ‘Cheerleader,’ etc. Adaptive leaders adjust their role and status to fit the scene, not the other way around. And the higher a person’s rank in the company (however that is gauged), the more adaptive that person can be, because the range of roles he or she can play is wider than that of a lower-ranked person, e.g. a new employee.
Give gifts. This is the phrase improvisers use for supporting one’s scene and one’s fellow players. In improvisation, giving gifts is the most productive move there is. Those who do it most consistently? Those are our leaders.
The 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 great teachers Mick Napier and Del Close get some of the credit, as do Viola “The Godmother” Spolin and ImprovWorks’ Sue “Pond” Walden, though the exact origins of most of these sayings would be pretty hard to trace. What’s clear to anyone who explores improvisation is that the the meaning behind the sayings originates from the same place that accounts for such profound ideas as jazz, the Dao De Jing, Johnny Appleseed and Pixar Animation. Here is the fifth in a series (quotes in bold):
Play against cliches. First, play with the cliches of your business. You all know what they are. Name them. Call them out. Have some fun with them. And then go against them. There is a lot of movement in playing against cliches. Just doing this one thing can transform your scene into something delightful.
Think of the environment as a six-sided sphere, of which the audience is a part. What a brilliant way to determine your marcomm budget! It’s 1/6 of your total operating budget. Done. Next.
The environment also has an outside and an inside. This is a good way of thinking about how your brand’s environment travels with the communication that represents it in the networked world. Think of your network as a place. What is that place like? Who is walking the halls? How is it lit? What kind of art hangs in its offices? What does it sound like? All these concepts should be consistent and play off one another in virtual space and in reality.A friendly atmosphere in the office extends to the social graph. Artfulness will be apparent in reality and in virtual space. Clutter is as clutter does. Etc. etc.
You don’t have to try to be funny, laughter will happen just by being human. Being human is funny enough. A common misconception we battle all the time at GameChangers is that improvisation is all about being funny. So not true! Improvisation is about communication, learning, and transformation. It is only by a quirk of genetic fate—Viola Spolin’s son, Paul Sills, brought all the games Viola had conceived with him when he and Bernie Sahlins co-founded Second City—that we in the U.S. associate improvisation so strongly with comedy. Comedy is just a sliver of the output improvisation is capabl of generating. It’s like saying all ice cream Praline Pecan. Taint so.
Playful, direct, co-developed ideas, informations, and dreams will always be far hipper than one person’s alone. This is just a basic human algorithm. The best ideas of eight people will always be better than the best ideas of one person. Spare us your genius, and bring us something else. Your work ethic. Your brain. Your smile. Your song. Your sense of smell. Your experience. But spare us your genius. Because, you know…our stuff will always be far hipper than yours alone ; )
In it, venture capitalist Alan Patricof of Greycroft Partners is quoted indirectly as saying he is looking to invest in “young firms whose bosses know how to pivot: ie, dump their old business model and adopt a new one. Difficult times demand flexibility.”
There is a science to pivoting, a science that generates predictably positive outcomes from unforeseen circumstances. That science, despite the article’s continuing use of the metaphor, is not Dance. It is Improvisation, which has as compelling a body of work supporting it as any business ethos that’s relevant to the networked era of business.
This ethos is both pedagogically sound and creatively liberating. Works by visionaries like Viola Spolin and Keith Johnstone, and many yes-anders like myself, have, together, laid a solid foundation for ‘applied improvisation.’ With approx 1,600 members worldwide, the Applied Improvisation Network is a loose affiliation of improvisers, many of whom understand how to apply improvisation techniques to business. Improvisation, in addition to being a key attribute of a successful start-up, plays a huge role in social social media strategies like ‘fanthropology,’ as well as in agile development processes, biomimicry, transmedia, and branded entertainment.
The ability to improvise IS the ability to pivot when the time is right in order to consistently grow through change. In this science of ours, preparation is emphasized over planning, thematic consistency over replication, flow over stock, and trajectory over position. Improvisation is, we believe, a vital skill for organizations and individuals doing business in a networked world—and who isn’t?
The author Steven Berlin Johnson, recently gave a TED talk on the subject of his next book, which will be his seventh: Where do good ideas come from?
He’s an observant man, so the observations come tumbling out of him in a 17-minute torrent, from why coffee shops were important to the Enlightenment, to the debunking of ‘Eureka’ moments. If you want the full effect, step into the Johnson waterfall and view the video.
If you’re looking for a summing up, well, there’s a one-word answer to the question, ‘Where do good ideas come from?’ The answer is ‘Improvisation.’ Good ideas come from improvisation. Check this out:
Johnson says, “Don’t protect ideas, share them.” This is precisely the concept behind of yes-anding. Instead of scripting, blocking, denying, judging or yes-butting–all anathema to innovation–add to the ideas of others. Walt Disney used to call this “plussing,” a phrase that has been adopted by Pixar Animation Studios. In doing so, Pixar yes-anded Disney. That’s how it works. Ideas evolve. And when you yes-and by sharing, they evolve faster and more purposefully than if you don’t.
Johnson says, “Ideas are a network.” This equates to the Group Mind of improvisation, where ideas belong not to any one individual, but to the group, and the scene. Ideas are not isolated phenemona. They always exist in relationship to other ideas, and other people. An apple falling on Newton’s head was not his idea. It was a connection between a number of ideas that described the physical world at that time. Johnson says, “Chance favors the connected mind.” He might just as well have said, “Chance favors improvisers.” It was because he was able to connect it to other phenomena that the chance occurrence of an apple falling on his head became meaningful to Newton. This is no different than what a good improviser does in a scene. He or she turns chance into meaning by making connections. That’s the work. It’s not easy. It is a practice that takes study, discipline and time.
Johnson says, “Ideas are a slow hunch.” This equates to the patience some of the best improvisation groups have for finding the game in a scene. My favorite example of this from improv theater is the L.A.-based group, Dasariski. Those guys take their time about finding the game, this discovery arises organically–though quite predictably–from conversations, and it is a beautiful thing to see. Good ideas are the equivalent of productive games in improvisation. They often arise from anomalies or even mistakes. They’re generative, that is, they led to other ideas. Even though it makes for better anecdotes, ideas are not like a single frame from a movie, a frozen image—apple hits man on head!—they are montages of images, and jumps back and forth in time. Ideas are narrative.
Johnson says, “Ideas are a product of environment.” Yes and this, too, is one of the most fundamental ideas of improvisation: Environment fuels performance. This is why Belina Raffy conducts improvisation classes in Europe that are based on Biomimicry, where performers mirror biology to help their innovation process. Today, thanks to our connection with Belina (ideas are a network, remember?) we are beginning to play with biomimicry at GameChangers. As Viola Spolin said, “Act on environment and enviroinment will act on you.”
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.
In 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.
While at the Applied Improvisation Conference, I drank beer one afternoon with Gary Schwartz, of Spolin.com. Gary is Viola (pronounced vy-OH-la) )Spolin’s protégé, keeper and practitioner of what is, in my opinion, the mother lode of improvisation, the practice built by the grand dame of the craft, the godmother of the game. Hearing stories about Spolin and her teaching was in itself worth the trip.
Schwartz, who before meeting Spolin had studied to become a mime, described for me how Viola taught (no nonsense, all about interaction, no note-taking allowed). How she coached (get out of your head!) How he happened to become her assistant (a random act of kindness on his part). How long it took him for a real breakthrough to happen (a long time).
He said that Viola was profoundly influenced by a book entitled The Tao of Physics, which is now at the top of my reading list.
Viola Spolin did profound work that that relates improvisation to all human endeavors, and has particular relevance for business in the Networked World. She said things like:
“Information is a very weak form of communication.” (GameChangers translation: Meaning lies beneath the surface of things, hidden behind the facade, the artifice, the mask, it is found primarily in the emotions and in the meta symbolism lurking behind the cosmetic layer of information.)
And –
“Creativity is not the clever rearranging of the known.” (GameChangers translation: Creativity is daring by design, a plunge into the unknown, into the collective unconscious, and into one’s own subconscious. It is not rearrangement. It is newness. It is radical juxtaposition. Ultimately it is transformation.)
And –
“Talent or lack of talent have nothing to do with it.” (GameChangers translation: The individual’s ability to interact with, and be transformed by, environment, has everything to do with it.) “Act on environment, Spolin said, “and environment will act on you.”
And –
“Don’t thank me! It’s not me! It’s not ME. It’s the WORK!” (GameChangers translation: Stay humble, stay focused, and don’t be an asshole.)
Schwartz quoted Spolin as saying of improvisation, “You can’t write about it, it can’t be described that way. You have to experience it. When you do it, it’s in your bones.”
At Spolin’s suggestion, I’ll quit writing now, and show you pictures–which I’m sure Spolin would’ve had said is no substitute for the experience either–of improvisers having the experience at Edgefield. Good name for it, Edgefield. We like that about it. At the edge of the field, the transformation begins.
In the Business section of its September 22 edition, the New York Times featured an article by Steve Lohr about a Netflix-sponsored contest with a $1 million prize for the best solution for helping the movie rental service improve its recommendation system (”If you like Movie X, we recommend Movies Y and Z…”) The article included a number of insights into what we call a Winning Game:
1. A winning game attracts winning players. By giving participants access to a very sophisticated data set, NetFlix’ contest was designed in a way that attracted highly-skilled programmers from around the worl. The game itself serves as an organizing mechanism and a magnet for talent.
2. A winning game invites collaboration. The winning team, which called itself BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos (pragmatic chaos–a great description of improvisation!) was composed of scientists, statisticians and coders from half a dozen countries who joined forces in the course of the contest. By collaborating, they all increased their chances of getting to the prize. Collaboration begins with communication. It leads to learning. It results in transformation.
3. The performance of the team is more important than the performance of any one player. See #2.
4. Successful outcomes cannot be scriptedahead of time, they must be improvised. No one member of the Pragmatic Chaos team had the roadmap to victory before the game began. It was the collaboration, and their ability to improvise, that guided them to the winning solution.
5. In a winning game, there are no losers. Only one team got the $1 million prize awarded by Netflix, but there were many winners. If you improve your performance through participation, you win. If you make a connection, add to your knowledge, or get a fresh perspective on a problem by virtue of playing the game, you win. The second place team in the Netflix contest, Opera Solutions, a NY-based data analytics company, not only got a lot of coverage for its brand in the Times article, its CEO, Arnad Gupta, described the $1 million prize as “trivial.” “We’ve already had a $10 million payoff internally from what we’ve learned,” he said.
6. A winning game is designed to improve everyone’s performance. Viola Spolin, the godmother of modern improv, distinguished between competition and contest. A competition, by her definition, is designed to separate winners and losers, and inevitably results in an ego-fueled quest for status, dominance, and control of the narrative. Because walls go up and knowledge gets hoarded, not shared, competition limits opportunities to collaborate and learn. A contest, Spolin explained by way of differentiating, is a way of competing with oneself, and of improving the performance of one’s team. It results in what she called extension. Participating in a winning game makes you and your team better players than you were before.
The Times article mentions several other games that, like the Netflix contest, are designed to yield productive outcomes for all their players, among them the X-Prize Foundation, and InnoCentive, an online forum for collaborative problem-solving and innovation that launched in 2001 and has attracted the attention and participation of big brands like Eli Lilly Co., Avery, and Procter & Gamble.
Footnote: The article quotes Michael Schrage, a research fellow at MIT’s Sloan School of Business and one of the most brilliant analysts of business innovation I know. Schrage and I have corresponded about GameChangers and improvisation in business. He told me in one email that he was an “improv kid,” from the South Side of Chicago, the same neighborhood where Viola Spolin lived and worked. When he was in high school he built props for Second City shows. “I cried when Del died,” he wrote. And if you truly know improvisation, you know what Schrage means by that.
For sure, the game is changing. And improvisers, in all walks of work and life, are the ones who are changing it.
Back in January of this year, Barack Obama tossed out an aside at a coffee talk with a couple dozen senior citizens in Indianapolis, an aside that was probably lost on most of the audience listening in person: If he got elected, he and his team were going to re-design the White House web site to become more of a utility for citizens. I pointed out at the time what a brilliant initiation this was, with implications related to technology, jobs creation, art and design, and citizen activism, to name a few of the themes that could be explored as a result of it. (more…)
I sometimes answer business-related questions on LinkedIn that can be addressed with the principles of improvisation. This is one in a series of responses that was deemed ‘Best Answer’ by the questioner…
THE QUESTION: I have to run a workshop for a top management team that has recently adopted a new highly matrixed structure. As a result, there is a challenging amount of interdependence and ambiguity. While they have an understanding of the structure, very little work has been done on how it will operationalize, what operationalizing it will mean etc.
One of the activities I want the group to undertake is a scenario building exercise where they will build potential scenarios that will arise in the future, and then based on the scenarios, evolve in advance, an appropriate response to the scenario.
I have never run a Scenario Building activity before. Would appreciate if you could share:
a. A process for how to run it
b. Tips/Techniques
c. Do’s/Don’ts
d. Any other advice/input
Thanks in advance!
Gurprriet Siingh
THE ANSWER: The ‘highly matrixed structure’ you describe, Gurprriet, is in fact one small subset of a much more complex environment in which this management team will perform — and that is the Networked World. Because of the fluid, incredibly complex nature of these networks-within-networks, it is both impractical and impossible to run scenarios that can accurately predict any particular outcome. By the time you have created the scenario, run the scenario, analyzed the outcomes, then ratified and codified the outcomes, the environment will have changed, rendering the results irrelevant and passe’. (more…)
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…)
The extraordinary improviser,
In 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, 
In the Business section of its September 22 edition, the New York Times featured 
