By Ronnie Feldman
rnf@learningsentertainments.com
To start today’s blog post, I’d like to get a suggestion from the audience. Just yell out the first thing that comes to mind.
“Risk Mitigation!” “Culture!” “Leadership!”
Okay, great! We will now talk about Improvisation and Risk Mitigation, Culture & Leadership.
Hi, I’m Ronnie Feldman, President of Learnings & Entertainments, a creative services and content provider that focuses on improving corporate communication through the use of improvisation and purposeful humor. I had pleasure of leading an improv workshop at this past years SCCE Compliance & Ethics Institute, where we had 350 GRC professionals participate in some improv exercises focusing on communication, collaboration and leadership. We had lots of laughs – because improv is fun – but we also started making connections between the wonderful world of theater and improvisation and the compliance community. There are actually quite a few skills and philosophies that professional improvisers use to be successful on stage that can help the GRC professional (and leaders in general) communicate more effectively to build a culture of collaboration, transparency and trust. The fine folks at SCCE asked if I would expound upon these concepts in blog form, which we will be doing here over the next several months. We hope you enjoy.
Improvisation – An Introduction
What is Improv? It is the art of making something out of nothing. It is thinking on your feet, creating on the spot, off the top of your head. It is not, however, the art of being funny. On stage, funny is often the byproduct of good improv, because of the unexpected connections and spontaneity. Funny people who are good improvisers often get famous – Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert, Steve Carell to name a few. They tend to be great performers. They also tend to be great listeners, great supporters, great collaborators, great storytellers, and they are experts at being non-judgmental of themselves and others. They are fearless and creative and engaging. They are comfortable being uncomfortable so their natural personality and wit can come out. There are many exercises that improvisers practice (yes practice) that help them build these skills. These are muscles that can be developed…by anyone. Some lessons are philosophical and some are tactical. We’re going to introduce and unpack some of these and translate their applicability to the GRC professional.
Others Focused
People who are really great at improv are really great at “getting out of their head” which essentially means shutting out the judgmental part of your brain that is saying “this is just silly,” “why did he say that,” “oh no, that didn’t make sense, did anybody notice,” “eeek…no one is laughing” and so on. This is quite difficult to do because as humans we tend to judge ourselves pretty harshly long before others get a chance to judge us. We’re “in our heads” chock full of judgment all the time. When you observe beginning improvisers on stage, what you often notice is that they tend to fall into argument or they shut down or they slowly (or not so slowly) fade to the background, desperately looking for the exit. This is not fun to watch on stage and terrible for auditions. Behaviorally speaking its a fight or flight defense mechanism. The fear of failure is so strong that people often lash out or flee! That fear of failure comes from judgment which gets in the way of advancing the scene, supporting your partner and being your best self in those moments.
One way improvisers become adept at overcoming this, is to simply focus on your scene partner and put yourself in service of their needs. We call this being “others focused.” Some say improv is largely the art of being “others focused.” Focus on the person in front of you and be committed to “Yes-Anding” them (See Improv Lesson #4) with unconditional support (See Improv Lesson #1). By focusing on the person in front of you and thinking about them and their needs, you can more easily be in the moment and just listen and react (See Improv Lesson #3). It shifts you away from the judgment part of your brain into the action part of your brain which frees you up to be your best self.
The origins of this approach stem from Viola Spolin, widely considered to be the mother of improvisation. Her work with focused play and theater games was applied to actors to help unlock creative expression but also was utilized in education to help cross cultural barriers with immigrant children in the Chicago public school system. Pretty cool. You may not be familiar with Viola, but her son, Paul Sills went on to be one of the original directors of famed improv comedy institution, The Second City. As they say, the rest is history.
Translating to GRC
The lessons for the GRC professional are self-evident, but that doesn’t mean easy. The skill of being “others focused” requires putting the idea into practice. You need to get out of your head, trust your knowledge and intelligence and put yourself in service of the person directly across from you. You are an authority figure. You have knowledge that employees need. You are a coach. You are an advisor. You also are scary as hell to the average employee – see Improv Lessons #1 Trust & Support and Lesson #2 Attitude of Gratitude. They are fearful or have some misdirected negative feelings about the ethics and compliance function and you have to overcome that before you can provide effective counsel. And while that is going on in their heads, your head is saying “jeez how do they not get this!” or “why did I say it that way” or “oop, I just burped a lil’ bit…I wish I hadn’t had tuna salad for lunch.” There is a whole bunch of judgment going on in your head as well! That judgment stops you from listening, it makes you less effective and erodes trust. So while this lesson may seem obvious, it is actually quite difficult to overcome and requires practice.
I recommend starting your first conversation of the day with the mindset of being “others focused” and then put it into practice. Truly listen, engage and respond to that person. A great improv exercise to help you get out of your head is “Last Word Response” which was highlighted in Improv Lesson #3, Listen Like a Thief. Force yourself to listen all the way to the end of the other persons’ sentence. Then Yes-And them, i.e. acknowledge, validate and then and only then add. Do this every day for a week. Give it a try and see how it feels.
Being “others focused” can help you in a number of ways.
- More Agile Presentations: You’re obsessing about stumbling over that line or losing your train of thought. No one cares. They are in their heads thinking, “I’m glad you’re up there and not me.” If you focus on them, you will sense when they are understanding and when they are not…when to pick up the pace and when to pause and double back for further explanation.
- Confidence, Presence & Trust: When you are around a good listener, you know it. It feels good. You like them. People sense when you are in your head and not present. They see you not listening. It erodes trust. By being “others focused” you will find the person across from you to be more engaged in what you have to say. They will like you more.
If you’ve followed along with these blogs from the beginning, you might start to notice how all of these improv lessons fit together and lead us to the same place. Unconditional Support. Attitude of Gratitude. Active Listening. Yes-And. Bring a Brick. Be Others-Focused. All these lessons are focused on helping the performer and the leader be more present which will help you be more creative, effective and productive while building an environment of trust and support. Improv workshops are one of the ways to give you and your team the proper vocabulary and tools. Remember, this is just philosophy unless you put the mindset into action…every day.
As they say in the biz….Annnnd…scene!
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