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Resilient on Stage, Resilient at Work

April 20, 2012 in Improv by Shawn Westfall | No comments

Written by Shawn Westfall, BossaNova’s Improv Guru

Why should organizational leaders care about why improv scenes succeed or fail? Because what plays out on an improv stage is a lot like what happens in the organizational arena. Read on to discover exactly what it takes to demonstrate resiliency in either setting.

Failure is Quantifiable and Predictable

shawn_westfallI’ve been teaching improv for the last nine years, and performing it for the last fifteen. In that time, I’ve watched and been involved in a lot of improv scenes. Some were the products of my students, some the products of my friends and colleagues, and some were my own. Some scenes succeeded; others failed.

Why does one improv scene result in peals of audience laughter, while another results in silence? The uninitiated watching it might find that a difficult question to answer, and fall back on something like “well, it simply wasn’t funny.” But in my experience, there actually are quantifiable and predictable reasons for scenes not succeeding. Primarily, they are:

1. Lack of focus

2. Lack of commitment

3. Lack of energy

If you’re already thinking that each of the above is implicated in the others, you’re right.

And if you’re thinking that the presence of focus, commitment, and energy corresponds with resiliency, you’re right about that too.

Second-Guessing Impedes Success

Starting an improv scene can be daunting, especially to inexperienced, novice performers: “What do I do? What choice do I make? There are multitudes of options..” And indeed there are. And since improv performers are trained to choose, they do: they reach up and mime taking a glass out of the cabinet. They say to their scene partner, “hurry up, we’re late for the party.” They begin strumming an imaginary guitar.

All fantastic choices. All with unlimited potential to be turned into something successful and entertaining.

But then what happens? They end up second-guessing their own choices.

They don’t think it’s good enough. Or funny enough. So they begin throwing more choices into the scene , by turns forgetting the initial one: the “getting-a-glass” choice gets forgotten for a dozen other items. Their offer of “hurry up” gets thrown to the side for a choice that negates it, confusing the internal logic of the scene (improv performer: “Let’s sit down and watch this movie…”; audience, to themselves, confused: “I thought you were in a hurry?”). The choice to strum a guitar turns into a scene about baseball (audience again to themselves: “What happened to the guitar?”). Because of a lack of commitment, the scene begins losing focus, since there’s so much information floating around. What’s more, the scene loses energy, because the actors are confused about what to do or where to go.

And, by extension: the audience lacks focus, commitment to its outcome, and energy.

We’re Resilient When We Stand for Something

Successful improv scenes are like successful novels, movies, plays, sitcoms: they’re about one thing, and one thing only. The characters in them usually have one goal in mind (getting the girl/guy; remaining standing at the end of a boxing match; taking that balloon ride you’ve been meaning to take your entire life). The second they begin losing that focus, digressing from the story, confusion sets in.

Successful improv scenes are like successful novels, movies, plays, sitcoms: they’re about one thing, and one thing only.

What would have happened had the actor who made that wonderful choice at the top of the scene had been more resilient, had instead believed in the choice he or she initially made, and held on to it?  What if he had found ways to flex and adapt within his choice, without losing his focus?

While it’s certainly no guarantee of resulting in humor, there is a guarantee that a scene will not be funny when the audience is muddled. Actors who trust—themselves, the audience, and the moment to coalesce into brilliant improv—are by far the most successful. Audiences are very generous when it comes to contexts, and they will graciously follow a scene until something funny comes along. With resiliency, invariably, it will.

Actors who trust—themselves, the audience, and the moment to coalesce into brilliant improv—are by far the most successful.

What Works on Stage Works at the Office

Focus. Commitment. Energy. They are just as important to organizations as they are to improv scenes. Try to do too much, and your customers get confused.  Give into doubts about your choices your stakeholders quickly follow suit. Be fragmented, rather than flexible, and the system loses steam, because everyone’s confused about what to do and where to go.

Focus. Commitment. Energy. They are just as important to organizations as they are to improv scenes.

On the other hand, choose courageously from myriad options, then stay true to your goal, and clarity prevails. Stand by the courage of your convictions and confidence grows. Flex within the pillars of purpose, values, and strategic goals, and energy builds.

Trust your audience to be generous and to follow you until the results prove out.

With resiliency, invariably, they will.

Find out more about Shawn.

February 2012 Improv Tip of the Month

February 21, 2012 in Improv, Uncategorized by Shawn Westfall | No comments

This month’s improv tip is from Shawn Westfall, BossaNova’s Improv Guru:

The characters sitting at the center of our favorite sitcoms, shows, movies, plays, novels, short stories and improv scenes all have one thing in common: they want something. In most cases, they want something desperately. Indeed, that often is what informs the plots of the stories or scenes they are in. Hamlet wants revenge. Will he get it? Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman wants the respect he feels he so clearly deserves, something he feels he’s devoted his life to. Does he get it, in the end? That old “pretentious” actor cliché– the one that has him or her stopping a scene to ask “what’s my motivation?”—is actually useful information for the actor to know, another way of trying to discover what his or her character wants. And anyone who’s ever been part of a production knows that what a character wants in the play isn’t always clear, that what he or she says she wants may have little to do with what he or she actually wants.

Plays are texts that may seem to clarify this, but there’s usually a subtext involved, one best elucidated by the behavior of the actor playing him. And sometimes the complexities are readily apparent even within a text, and may hint at its subtext: Hamlet may indeed be the greatest revenge tragedy ever written, but Hamlet doesn’t simply want revenge – otherwise he’d make quick use of the numerous opportunities available to him throughout the play. No, he wants something else, and it’s up to the actor, director and the ensemble surrounding both to help clarify and communicate that.

Take a look at your organization. No doubt it has a mission statement or a manifesto, a text or a piece of writing to suggest daily aspirations toward an explicitly expressed overall organizational goal. Now, take a look at the steps you or your organization is taking to fulfill that mission, to help it get what it wants. Are you part of that? Or does your behavior or the behavior of your colleagues, sections, departments or even the entire organization suggest a subtext that might be completely at odds with the organization’s explicitly expressed goals?

Clarifying both those things might help you and your organization discover, exactly, what’s your motivation.

The Fastest Way To Trust: Laughter

May 4, 2011 in Improv, Uncategorized by Shawn Westfall | No comments


This post was written by guest blogger Shawn Westfall. Shawn is Bossanova’s Improv Guru and the creator of Improv Comedy Delivered. Shawn writes about the indelible lessons he’s learned from teaching improv comedy for the past eight years. May we all take heed for more trusting and rewarding relationships.


Begin with the End in Mind: A Post Mortem (and a Drink)

One of the “traditions” I’ve established during my eight-year history of teaching beginning improvisational comedy classes at the DC Improv is what I call “the-after-the-class-drinks-and-post-mortem”: everyone of drinking age retires to a local pub to share their experiences of the class. Approximately 17 people squeeze into a medium-sized booth at a local Irish pub to hoist their potable preferences, where I then invite their class critiques. Hey, it’s better than some formalized written class critique. Plus, there’s booze.

I start the discussion by inviting students and their classmates to be completely candid about their favorite moment or moments in the class, as well as their least favorite moment or moments in the class.

Their answers are naturally as varied as the individuals taking the class: some don’t like a few of the warm-ups and exercises (one warm-up in particular gets plenty of animadversions, not because the students don’t find it effective, but primarily because it involves singing), while others enjoy them. Many focus on one particular scene that gave them trouble, or a scene that they found particularly rewarding. Most often their favorite moments weren’t the improv scenes they themselves were in, but rather ones in which their classmates made them laugh, or displayed an aspect of their classmates’ personalities in new or unexpected ways.

But, invariably, the students turn the tables one me: what, they ask, were your least favorite and favorite moments? Regarding my favorite moment, my answer never varies, not because I’m lazy or insincere, but because, even after eight years of teaching this class, that moment (which may more accurately be described as a series of moments) never ceases to astound me.

The Power to Transform

On the first night of class, I greet my students as they walk in and sit down. They’re quiet, as if they’re in church, and choose seats equidistant apart from each other. Then, after a brief introduction to the class (logistics, expectations), I ask them to introduce themselves one-by-one and tell the rest of the class why they’re taking improvisational comedy class.

Some of the responses are sincere, but are purposefully canned, planned ahead, consciously “joke-y.” As the jokey introductions are told, I scan the room, specifically watching the eyes of the other students. Some seem intimidated. Some make notes, prepping the “joke” they’re going to make when it’s their turn. You can almost see the wheels turning: “he seems funny”; “she seems really confident – there’s no way I’ll be able to compete with that,” they seem to be thinking.

But, as the class moves forward, first subtle and then not-so-subtle changes take place. As they get up on stage, become less intimated by each other and by this art form and begin making each other laugh, those spaces that kept them apart begin to diminish: chairs eventually move closer together, conservations on breaks more frequent, more rife with laughter. You can see the walls and defenses coming down, and more importantly, you can see friendships and connections being made by people from every cultural strata that Washington, DC offers, between people who would normally pass each other on the street without a word: the high-profile K Street lawyer befriending the public school teacher; the NRA lobbyist and the Eco-friendly non-profit administrator sharing laughs.

The Team that Laughs Together, Lasts Together

It’s a lesson I learned long ago: it’s really, really difficult to dislike someone who’s making you laugh. In fact, when we say we “miss” someone, what we’re actually saying is that we miss laughing with that person, the shared jokes or stories or experiences that result or resulted in laughter. Not only do my students eventually come to like one another, they have, more importantly, come to trust one another, which is a necessary component of any successful improv scene.

The thing about improv? It quickly lays bare the trustworthiness of those involved. Since my students quickly come to understand that they succeed or fail together onstage, they quickly discern who’s going to support their choices, and make them look good on stage—and who isn’t. The fellow actor making selfish choices is easy to locate: first, by how often he or she compromises a scene by refusing to either engage with others or share the focus and attention; and second, by how reticent others in class are to work get on stage with that person. Conversely, the more generous and trustworthy one of my students is, the more readily others are to hop on stage with him or her: they trust that student will make them look good, often with hilarious results.

So that’s my favorite moment: when it becomes clear that my students have checked their egos at the door and begun to trust each other with their improv livelihoods, with the success of the scenes they are in; when they’ve allowed humor to help remove the real and imagined barriers that prevent them from connecting with each other; and when they recognize that they can trust each other, both on stage and off.

My least favorite moment? It’s when the class ends.