Name, Logo, Tag Line, Ad Campaign!

Divide the group into subgroups of three to four people each. Task them with creating a branding campaign for the entire group, including name, logo, tag line, and some sort of ad campaign (like a television commercial). Give them a compressed time period (10 – 20 minutes total) to complete the task. In the debriefing, invite the entire group to mix and match ideas until you reach a “best of breed” solution.

The learning: The group that came up with the knock-em-dead tag line may not have been the most successful with the other tasks. This highlights the importance of checking your ego at the door and collaborating across the entire organization to produce the best overall result.

Try it and post your results in a comment below.

One of the main tenants of performing improv comedy is listening. What? LISTENING! If you’re not listening to your improv partner, the scene will most likely go downhill and the audience will know. The same thing happens at work. If you’re not listening to your manager or client, the conversation will most likely go downhill and they will know.

Did you know there are two types of listening? What? LISTENING! Level one and level two listening*. Think about the times someone in the office is talking to you and you’re thinking about what to say next. Or were thinking about where to go for lunch. Or relating the topic to yourself. You were probably in level one listening*. You’re hearing the person but not truly reacting to what they are saying. This is probably most of the conversations you have.

Level two listening* is when you’re focusing 100% on the speaker. Think about the times when you want the speaker to know they’re being listened to. When your manager is giving you important information. Or when a client is telling you what they need. Try the following: react to what the speaker says, be curious by asking questions, engage non-verbally by nodding, and repeat/paraphrase the thought or idea. This may result in more productive conversations.

Have you been listening? What? LISTENING!

*Source: Co-Active Coaching: Changing Business, Transforming Lives

Think about your favorite sitcom, sketch, or movie characters. What do they have in common? A comic perspective: a committed way of seeing the world that’s uniquely theirs. Norm on “Cheers” doesn’t just like beer: he views the world through the bottom of a beer glass. Ron Burgandy from “Anchorman” isn’t just an anchorman; rather, he wears his local-TV anchorman status as a kind of armor to get him through his day.

The things you are committed to say quite a lot about the kind of person you are; as well, your clients can sense when you aren’t committed to them, or not as fully engaged as you should be.

The next time you feel your commitment to a client, colleague, or task flagging, ask yourself why. Then, ask yourself what it might take to re-engage completely and openly with that client, colleague or job.

Your answer might surprise you, and also open up previously unforeseen opportunities for you, your colleagues and your clients to engage in unprecedented ways.

Don’t get in your own way. We are always encouraging our improv participants to be in the moment and get off script. Effective improv is reliant on participants not over-thinking their next action or reaction. Rather, we focus on listening, and building off our team mates. That can be difficult to do in improv, in work, and in real life. I’m always getting in my own way. I over-think. I over-plan. I mentally script out how a particular “moment” should look, instead of letting things play out as they would naturally do. Conversely, most of us would probably agree that the best (i.e. most enjoyable, awe-inspiring, breathtaking) moments occur naturally and authentically, without too much scripting.

What might you do this week to be more comfortable in-the-moment?

This post was written by guest blogger Shawn Westfall. Shawn is Bossanova’s

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.

This past October, BossaNova teamed up with WTPF for the conference HR Edge. After a full day of engaging and informative sessions, like Jim Haudan on the Art of Engagement and Tom Finn on Handling Pressure, attendees dropped all pretense and propriety and tried their hand at

improvisational comedy with me (Cary Paul) and BossaNova’s Shawn Westfall. During the debrief, participants called attention to some poignant moments that emerged amidst the laughter. We thought these were well worth sharing—for the benefit of anyone in HR, and anyone in business for that matter.

We see it like this: improv is like HR is like life. Here are three key insights that make it all more effective and more fun:

1. Being “in the moment” takes practice. The BossaNova team always emphasizes the importance of being in the moment with our improv workshop participants. They practice thinking on their feet.  Being adaptive. Going with the flow. Improv is all about getting off script and being both real and authentic. Now more than ever, HR professionals face ever-changing priorities. The ability to be present, adaptive, and proactive is a core competency for business success. And while it may seem crazy to practice being in the moment, that’s exactly what professional improv comedians do.

Tip: Do a quick role play with a colleague as a “warm-up” for an important meeting, or as a way to take the edge off a challenge you’re facing.

2. It takes a team. One of the biggest worries people have about improv comedy is being in the spotlight – and being alone.  What participants quickly come to realize is that you are anything but alone; it takes a team for improv comedy to be interesting, successful, and funny. The HR function, like improv, works best when communication is open and relationships and solid. The ability to work as a team can conquer many challenges.

Tip: Use these practices to earn your team a standing ovation.

3. The past shapes our future. Improv draws on the experiences of our past—places we’ve been, people we’ve known, situations we’ve confronted. Through improv exercises, participants practice calling on that past to react to verbal cues from their scene-mates. Similary, the discipline of HR is all about applying what we’ve learned before with smarts, grace (and sometimes humor) to the situation at hand. This works best when it happens as a muscle-memory reaction, without over-thinking.

Tip: Take five minutes to reflect on what you’ve laerned and experienced in the past, as it relates to a current challenge or opportunity. What’s important for you to keep top of mind? What could you apply?

Consider what action you might take today to improve your in-the-moment skills, to amp-up your team, and to draw on the past in a productive way to shape your actions for today.

And don’t forget to take a little time out for a laugh or two.

Click here to see some funny scenes with clients performing improv with us.

• Getting out of your head and into the more creative parts of your brain—in an instant;
• Crossing chasms with colleagues without having to memorize their personality types;
• Gelling as a team minus the stress and strain of a ropes course;
• Riding the high of laughing with your co-workers while advancing your business goals. (Read more about how Laugher is the Best Corporate Medicine).

Here’s the third in a series of exercises you can start using with your team today to hone your improvisational skill sets. The first was called “Yes, but … “ or “Yes, and …”?. The second was “Tuned in or tuned out?”. This one is “Name, Logo, Tag Line, Ad Campaign!”. Here’s how it plays out:

What to do: Divide the team into subgroups of three to four people each. Task them with creating a branding campaign for the entire group, including name, logo, tag line, and some sort of ad campaign (like a television commercial). Give them a compressed time period (10 – 20 minutes total) to complete the task. In the debriefing, invite the entire team to mix and match ideas until you reach a “best of breed” solution.

The learning: The group that came up with the knock-em-dead tag line may not have been the most successful with the other tasks. This highlights the importance of checking your ego at the door and collaborating across the entire organization to produce the best overall result.

Tip: Do a second round using a real business issue that’s at stake.

The moral of the story? Improv is something everyone can do (in fact, it’s something we all already do, every day) and team exercises are quick, painless, valuable, and fun.

Which one will you try this week?

“In the nearly 20 years I’ve been working with groups, it is, without a doubt, most transformational team building experience I’ve ever witnessed. It’s much easier than ropes courses. It’s more immediately impactful than personality typing. It gets you out of your head and into the more creative parts of your brain—in an instant. Plus it just plain feels good to just plain laugh with your co-workers. And what could be better than laughing while advancing your business goals?”

I also offered a simple exercise you can start using with your team today called “Yes, but …” or “Yes, and …”?.

Here’s another one that’s just as quick, painless, valuable, and fun. It’s called “Tuned in or tuned out?”

What to do: Divide people into pairs. Have them introduce themselves to each other, conduct a short conversation, and find three things they have in common (3 minutes). Then, direct them to turn their backs on each other and remain silent. During the silence, the leader/facilitator asks group members increasingly difficult questions about how much they noticed about their partner, such as: “What color are their eyes? Their pants/skirt? Their shoes?”

The learning: Listening is the key to teamwork, and listening extends beyond words and even tone of voice and body language. Masterful listening requires us to pay attention to others on multiple levels.

Tip: Repeat the exercise another time with the same group (later in the day, week, or month) as a way of practicing the art of noticing.

Think of “Tuned in or tuned out?” as another essential practice for earning your team a standing ovation. While you’re getting good at noticing, others will be noticing you.

Anyone who’s been in professional services for more than a week has probably encountered a tricky client situation or two. Some examples:

• A prospective client asks you point blank, “What experience do you have in xyz industry?” and even though you saw that question coming, you didn’t think it would be quite so direct, and the honest answer is zero, zip, nada—only you’re afraid to say so because you think it’s a deal-breaker and you’ve got other relevant experience that surely they’ll want to hear about before summarily dismissing you!
• You thought the draft deliverable you turned in yesterday was pretty good until you got an email from your client saying how disappointed she is in the product and that, quite frankly, she’s seriously re-considering sending you to London for the next and largest revenue-producing phase of the project.
• You’re seconds away from beginning a meeting with a very senior client, originally scheduled to discuss how to expand the successful work you’re doing together, but an hour earlier you accidentally overheard him in the lunchroom speaking with colleagues about dumping your company and hiring your number one competitor instead.

(By the way: 2 of those 3 really happened to us: which is the made-up story?)

I call these Moments of Truth—when something happens, and suddenly it feels like you’re alone on a sinking ship with no life preserver in sight, and you’d rather be anywhere but where you are.

Daniel Goleman, author of “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ,” taught us to understand the science behind our reaction, using the phrase “amygdala hijack” to describe how our well-functioning “thinking brain” (the neocortex) gets completely overruled by the part of the brain that manages our survival. Then our amygdala-threatened-selves do stupid things like spin a great story of how we don’t exactly have direct experience in xyz industry but blah blah blah … or subtly (and maybe overtly) blame our colleague for the sub-par work product … or completely sidestep an awkward interaction altogether in favor of maintaining the pretense that everything really is OK after all. In other words: we’re in fight or flight mode, and often both at once.

Moments of Truth become Moments of Learning

We spend a lot of time dealing with Moments of Truth in our learning programs because they happen a lot in your business relationships. How you handle them speaks volumes about what you’re made of. It speaks to whether or not you have the mindset, motives, and agility of a Trusted Advisor. Being effective in a Moment of Truth requires more than mastering a few behavioral tricks; it demands a new way of thinking and being.

So we do a lot of out-of-the-box experiential learning that deals on the spot with your own live, real situations. Occasionally we use our own caselets for you to experiment with—ones that have been tested for a decade and earned a special place in the hearts of our alumni, like “The Lunchroom.” In other words, we do what most classroom learners universally dread: we role-play.

All right, collective groan–I know, I know, I hate role-playing too. It’s scary and contrived. And there’s never enough background or history or facts to be really comfortable in a role-play. It’s a common refrain during debriefs: “If only I’d known more about the situation I could have handled it better.”

But let’s be real: How many times have you prepped for hours for a meeting, only to learn in the first two minutes that the client just came out of another meeting in which a major decision was made that completely alters not only your agenda for this meeting but your entire set of recommendations for the engagement?

In a Moment of Truth, background and history and facts don’t matter one iota because your reptilian brain doesn’t care—it’s focused exclusively on the emotions of the moment. It has neither the time nor the inclination to process anything else.

Q. Faced with an MOT, what’s a Trusted Advisor to do?

A. Learn how to improvise.

The Practice of Improvisation: a Key Trusted Advisor Capability

To improvise is to “invent, compose, or perform with little or no preparation.” Which is exactly what is called for in a Moment of Truth—the ability to deal on the spot with something unexpected.

Believe it or not, you get better at improvising by practicing improvisation. (And that only sounds like an oxymoron—it’s actually very true). Practice is exactly how professional improv comedians (think, Whose Line is it, Anyway?) become so skilled at their craft.

They practice being quick to respond instead of over-thinking. They practice “yes-and” responses, where they build on what’s already been said, instead of contradicting or denying what someone else has already offered. They practice subordinating their own egos to support what’s being created by the collective instead of hogging the spotlight and stealing a scene. They practice giving up being clever and witty and funny and insteadget real.

How do they do this? They get together and … role-play. They do it again and again, always with new scenarios and relationships that are completely made up on the spot. And when it’s show time and the curtain goes up, they still have no idea what they’re going to create together because everything is based on audience suggestion. But what they do know is that they’re fully rehearsed at being responsive, collaborative, and authentic.

In Trusted Advisor terms, they’re credible, transparent, other-oriented, related.

And that is something worth practicing to get good at. So: role-plays? Yep, role-plays.

The Trusted Advisor/Improviser—a Brief Commercial

If you think your skills could use a tune up or you wish you felt more confident in the Moments of Truth you face with your clients and colleagues, we’d love to have you come practice with us Sept 28 and 29 in Washington, DC. Being a Trusted Advisor: Walking the Talk is a rare opportunity to immerse yourself in the mindsets and skill sets of a Trusted Advisor.

We’ll improvise. We’ll laugh a lot. And we’ll be sure you walk away with far greater value than you expected.

In the nearly 20 years I’ve been working with groups, improv comedy is, without a doubt, the most transformational team building experience I’ve ever witnessed.

The true test of your ability to get the job done is when you’re working off script. How skilled is your team at dealing with the unexpected or innovating on the spot?

The reality is the skill of improvisation is something we can all hone, all the time. Here’s a simple exercise you can start using with your team today. It’s called “Yes, but …” or “Yes, and …”? It’s quick, painless, valuable, and fun.

What to do: Divide the group in half, giving them the task of planning a company party, where one half always says, “Yes, and …” after each team member suggestion and the other half always says, “Yes, but …” (5 minutes). In the debriefing, discuss who was most successful in the short time period and why.

The learning: Even at a basic level, finding common ground with your colleagues is important. An antagonistic relationship benefits no one and the judgment of a “Yes, but …” stifles team members.

Collaboration, creativity, and results grow out of an environment that is positive and affirming.

Tip: Stand in a circle and use “Yes, and …” every time you want to re-energize your brainstorming. Be consistent and persistent with it.

Think of “Yes, but …” or “Yes, and …” as an essential practice for earning your team a standing ovation. Ways to vary it and incorporate it into your day-to-day practices include:

• Start all your routine team meetings with a quick round of “Yes, and …”—all you need is one person to kick it off with a statement or idea. Team members will be alert and ready for “business as unusual.”
• Use it as an after-lunch energizer during a team retreat.
• Use it as reinforcement for key learning about creativity, listening, or collaboration during a training event.

And if none of these strike your fancy, say “Yes, and …” and create one that does.

See How It’s Done

Do you hear “improv comedy” and wonder how it works?

It’s a lot like the show, Whose Line is It, Anyway?, where short scenes are collaboratively created on-the-spot based on a suggestion from the audience. The laughs don’t come from clever lines or witty repartee; they naturally arise from the unexpected. In fact, that’s one of the best things about improv comedy: everyone can do it. There’s no theatrical training or funny bone required. That’s because we all improvise, every single day. Life is improvised.

The best way to really get it is to see it for yourself. Click here to watch our clients perform improv comedy with us. You’ll get a lift by watching them explore new ways or working—and laughing—together.