Ever since I started improvisational theatre, friends and loved ones have been at turns supportive, amused and bewildered by my fascination for it. Those who’ve known me since high school see the link to my days as drama club president, and my on-again-off-again dalliance with singing, acting and dance.
Yes, it speaks to the expressive side of me. The side that feeds on both the thrill and terror of baring one’s soul on stage, with nothing but a script or a score to lean on.
But improvisational theatre is that, and more. There is no script, plot or even a pre-determined cast of characters. You step into the spotlight with your fellow players, get a real-time suggestion for a story title or location from the audience and, seconds after the lights go down and come back up again….it’s showtime! Your job is to tell a story, conjure believable characters and sweep your audience along in the world you create in the moment.
Months into my improv studies, it struck me that this mimicked much of my career in the marketing and communications industry. On the best of days, we’d get a tight brief from a smart client which would lead to a smooth idea generation process followed by a wildly successful pitch or piece of communication.
I think I may have experienced that once, if at all.
Real life in advertising/branding/marketing is anything but predictable. Clients don’t always know what they want, their competition throws them a curve ball mid-way through the project which requires a complete re-think of our communication strategy, the head honcho who was supposed to be at the pitch presentation called in sick and we’d have to convince his stand-in who knows nothing about the project, the copywriter/art director/media buyer/3rd party service provider goes AWOL when the crapola hits the fan…and somehow, we still need to pull it all together and make it work.
All of which made me read Michelle James’ post with intense self-recognition and much delight. Michelle fuses her experience in improv with her passion for complexity theory and how adaptive systems work in the field of business creativity.
Both improv artists and marketers must adapt and co-create – their respective success depends on it. Having lived in both worlds, though, I see where branding/marketing/advertising teams can take a lesson or two from the improv principles she highlights:
1. Keep the energy going… As in many corporate environments, it’s second nature to stop to analyze, criticize or negate an idea that someone on the team puts forth, even during a brainstorming session. Most of us know, at least intellectually, the key rules to effective brainstorming: ideate first, analyze later. And yet, when you’re faced with a looming deadline or a phone call with a screaming client later in the day, your first instinct when you hear a left-field idea is to weigh it against the clients’/projects’ dictates and say “No, that won’t work.” Do that in a work meeting, and any constructive energy in the room immediately fizzles. Do that on an improv stage, and the scene often dies seconds later.
So it’s vital to keep moving in improv. Whatever unfolds (a mistake, an omission, temporary confusion etc), you find some way to justify it and move on. As a system, an improv scene is not static – it’s alive and dynamic. And so it could be at work. By remembering that you are part of a system that is serving a project/purpose/client/product, the best way to keep that system thriving is to keep its energy circulating. One of the most enlivening tools we use in improv is the practice of ‘yes, and’. The antithesis to the more common ‘no, but’, ‘yes, and’ is about fully accepting the reality of what is happening (or the intention of what has just been said e.g. a well-meaning idea presented in a brainstorming session), and then adding a new piece of information which allows the system to stay adaptive, move forward and remain generative. Every team member is fully entitled and encouraged to interact with or add to anything that is offered. This levels the ideation playing field and allows the seeds of co-creation and true collaboration to emerge.
2. Be changed by what is said and what happens. A huge source of work stress stems from our desire to hold on to a plan or pre-conceived idea despite overwhelming evidence that you need to let it go. There is, of course, a time and place to stick to your guns. But I have seen far too many instances where a stubborn creative director/client/account lead/planner insists on pushing their idea through to the eventual detriment of the project. Again, this behavior takes a finger off the pulse of the adaptive, alive, system and back into the heads and egos of a controlling few.
Just as in improv, the best teams are those who truly listen and respond to new information. On stage, we decide how our character will react to, for instance, the news that their pet cat has just started talking and wants to go to human school. In a second, you now have to discard any pre-conceived hope that the scene was going to be about, say, your first kiss, and go along with the talking-cat plot twist.
If your client/team-mate shares important and valid information at work, allow yourself to be changed. Give yourself time to play with the new information, then adapt your approach and create a new structure that expands to include the new reality.
I’ll expand on a few more improv principles in part 2 of this article. Till then, have an inventive week!
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