Ron Prater has worked in government consulting firms for almost 20 years, including three years with Arthur Andersen LLP. In 2007, he set out with partner Alan Pentz to create a company that would apply real entrepreneurial curiosity to find new ways to solve the U.S. government’s biggest problems. The result is Corner Alliance. Find out how this organization, triggered by a crisis in its formative years, applied the principle of collaboration to devise a new and different kind of corporate culture.

Leadership Lessons

Ron and I have known each other through other people for years. A few months ago I was talking with Corner Alliance Director Sarah Agan, a mutual colleague and veteran consultant. I was intrigued by the unusual ways she described a recent all-hands meeting. “We practice ‘inner voice’ all the time,” she said. “And we have an explicit value to eat our own dog food.” Needless to say, I was intrigued by Sarah’s word choice and even more so by her animation. I wanted to find out more. So I set up some time to talk with Ron and Sarah together.

Ron explained it to me, “‘Eating our own dog food’ means we operate the way we advise our clients to—we follow the same processes and approaches we recommend to them.” “Essentially, we practice what we preach. It can be harder than it sounds when you’re trying to balance helping clients succeed while also trying to grow a sustainable business. And it hasn’t always been that way, even in our company’s short life.”

Learning the Hard Way

Corner Alliance had some growing pains in its early years. “We had a really tough time a few years ago when we lost a project that led to a serious financial struggle,” Ron confided. “I, along with my partner, Alan, and our Director of Operations, Brandi Greygor, responded in typical ways. Privately, we talked daily about how much money we had left in the company’s line of credit and what to do if we maxed out what the bank would loan us. Publicly, we sent a general message to staff that we all needed to ‘increase billability’ but we were afraid to state the full reason.

“We thought we were doing the right thing by keeping the true stress from our staff. The MBA books say it’s important to protect the people from the stress of running the business. And the HR consultants told us we had to follow proper procedures to avoid lawsuits if we did have to lay people off. So we kept things hidden.”

Going contrary to conventional business wisdom, Ron and the other principals listened to their own inner wisdom. “It’s not how our guts said to handle it. We faced a real inner conflict every day for months. How do you form a company of trust and transparency when it seems like all the advice you get—from grad school, friends, lawyers, and more—says to withhold information?

“Looking back,” Ron said, “I grew more personally from that very tough time than from every great year I had. While it was hard, the learning from those six months led to one of the most positive and significant turning points for Corner Alliance.”

Eat Your Own Dog Food

Out of the crisis came a big transformation for the company. “With cost-cutting, along with full transparency with our staff, we managed to stabilize our operations,” Ron said, “And we realized that, on the heels of such a hard and painful time, we had a real opportunity to fundamentally re-think and re-vision.

“So Alan and I announced to our staff that he and I would map out a new company strategy,” Ron elaborated, “including our top three strategic priorities. We told people at an all-hands meeting that we’d start by focusing on which clients to talk to and what to offer them. That message landed with a thud. Within the first few minutes of the meeting it was clear we had made a huge mistake and needed to rethink the approach.

“Our people said, ‘That’s not how we advise our clients to develop strategy. So why are we doing it that way?’”

That uh-oh moment led to a dramatically different plan to create the company’s strategy. “We realized we’d be stronger if we engaged the whole company in the company,” Ron continued. “And instead of starting with what we do and where we want to go, we started with who we are and what we wanted to stand for as a company,” Ron explained.

Put Values First

The group put first things first. “We focused first on our values, and to do that we created a conversation rather than creating a task,” Ron said. “We also found a way to make it a truly collaborative process, not just a collaborative process led by one person. We’ve never been about one-person trust—not at our core—so we found a way to define our values that would reflect that we all have to trust everyone else in the company.

“Since we’re a virtual company with staff in five different states, we selected an on-line tool to help us create the conversation. Everyone could contribute real-time, see each other’s inputs, make comments, and vote.”

Take Your Time

The process of defining yourself takes time Ron learned. “We allowed three weeks to generate ideas, and it took us about four months to solidify our values. If we had tried to get results in a one-day strategy session, our output would have been more generic—even with everyone participating,” Ron added. “People needed time to digest and think through what they stood for and then internalize that in relation to the company. The elapsed time allowed people to contribute at their best, and allowed the most important things to materialize organically.”

They ended up with 10 explicitly stated corporate values that are the foundation on which Corner Alliance continues to be built. Not surprisingly, “Eat our own dog food” was on the short list.

It’s a value that Sarah especially endorses. “We live that value even beyond our approach to strategy development,” she added. “Everyone takes turns running our internal meetings—everyone. We share leadership that way, and expand our capacity as leaders and facilitators at the same time. People get to experiment, practice, and learn in a safe environment, and they get real-time feedback. Just like the leaders we serve, we have to be willing to take risks and make mistakes to learn.”

Sarah continued, “It’s okay for things not to go well. What’s not okay is not learning from it. One of the greatest gifts we give each other is feedback. We are deliberate about creating a culture where we all recognize we’re both perfect and imperfect, where we can bring our whole selves—who we are and who we aren’t.”

Tell It Like It Is

Financial transparency is another key value that emerged from Corner Alliance’s collaborative strategy process. “Alan was instrumental in moving us to open-books management,” Ron said. “We now share just about everything with all employees every quarter, the exception being salary information. We have bi-weekly company-wide calls where everyone sees each other’s billability, our revenue, where we are exceeding or falling short of revenue projections.  We don’t hide anything bad or anything good.”

Ron is clear that the effect is palpable. “It has made a massive difference in everyone understanding the business impact of their decisions,” he stated. “It also supports one of our other corporate values, which is sustainability. I believe the whole firm really understands the state of Corner Alliance and can see that we have a really strong foundation for growth right now.”

Be Bold with Clients

That kind of transparency also now extends to Corner Alliance clients—in a bold and differentiated way. The stated value “inner voice” is about people sharing their internal dialog as much as possible, recognizing that’s often where the truth lies. Corner Alliance staff is encouraged to not leave important things unsaid.

“This is definitely not easy,” Ron emphasized. “It takes a commitment to practice over time with our clients and with each other. We actually label it, as in, ‘Using my inner voice, I’d like to say I think there are serious organizational risks associated with what you are considering.’ This makes it easier to do and hear as the person listening now knows that the person speaking is taking a risk.

“Our people know they’ve got the organization behind them every time they venture into inner voice territory,” Ron affirmed. “As Alan points out about using inner voice, ‘It’s a personal risk to reveal what you’re thinking but not saying. It’s a risk to the organization if you don’t.’ But we all also recognize it’s important to apply this value wisely, appropriately, and thoughtfully.”

Perhaps the most unexpected result from this dedication to speaking the truth is that clients have begun to pick up both the practice and the lingo. Ron explained, “When our clients started saying to us, ‘My inner voice is saying xyz,’ we knew we were onto something bigger.”

Reap the Rewards

The list of indicators that Corner Alliance is onto something is long, and now includes growing staff, secure multi-year prime contracts in place, and work with key government executives who have budgets in the billions. “Corner Alliance is poised for an incredible year in 2012,” Ron said with pride. “Not only are we making a difference in the business of government, but we get emails from clients saying, ‘You’ve changed my life.’”

The focus for 2012? “Helping people thrive by doing creative, meaningful work, and living the life they want—not just the work life they want,” said Ron.

The Bottom Line

Ron feels very strongly that what Corner Alliance has created was not led by or done by one person. “Featuring me for this article is actually counter to our culture,” Ron stressed. “Corner Alliance has been led by a collaborative approach using values as our core, and that’s precisely what will lead us into the future.”

And a promising future it is.

Connect with Ron on LinkedIn.

It’s an age-old challenge in the consulting industry: how to get your delivery people to develop more business. After all, who’s in a better position to bring in more work than the people who labor side-by-side with the client? But first there are barriers to break through. Read on for four specific strategies that will help your delivery people execute on both project plans and business development plans.

Old Problem: Those Closest to The Client Don’t Want to Sell

The other day I was chatting with Jonathan, the Chief Growth Officer for a boutique consulting firm. He spoke about the long-standing challenge of getting delivery people to think and act like business developers.

We talked about how:

• Many are 100% focused on delivery. They’ve got their eye on their target: project results. So they naturally pay the most attention to delivering on project promises, sometimes missing what’s in the periphery.
• Some don’t see business development as their job. This mindset is common and understandable: Generating new work is for salespeople or business developers; delivery is for project teams. And there’s certainly a case to be made for spending time where you excel and have expertise.
• Some aren’t sure how to sell. They may have a “deer in the headlights” reaction at the thought of selling, even though they know they should be looking for new opportunities, and even though they genuinely want to get better at it.
• No one wants to be seen as smarmy. They’ve developed trust based on project execution and may see it as a breach of that trust to switch to “sales mode.”

Looking through the lens of delivery, all of these perspectives make sense. And all of them hinder business growth—for consultants and clients alike.

New Mindset: It’s a Disservice Not To Sell

One way to get delivery people to develop more business is to change their mindset—to help them think their way into behaviors that will naturally open doors. I think that’s the right place to start. Make it your job to remind them—again and again—that everyone in the organization has a higher obligation than delivery: client service. “Selling” then, is part of the professional obligation to serve the client. Not paying attention to the clients’ business needs as a whole is a disservice. Don’t miss an opportunity to beat that drum.

I also believe that’s the beginning and not the end. Overcoming the concern about being seen as smarmy—which I suggest is the biggest barrier—will take more than a steady drum beat.

New Approach: Behaviors That Take the “Sell” Out of “Selling”

Let’s be honest: selling is perceived as a less-than-meritorious endeavor more often than not. There are widely held stereotypes on the part of buyers and sellers alike that influence our thoughts, feelings and actions when we’re on either end of anything that feels like a sale.

Delivery people may falter because they’re just not sure how to approach opportunities in an un-smarmy way—even if they’re clear it’s the right and good thing to do. You owe it to them to provide specific tools and approaches to help take the “sell” out of selling. Try these four:

1. Ask permission. Telling a client about new opportunities to improve their business is a hundred times easier when you have set the expectation early on that you’re going to do it. At project kickoff, this could sound like this:

“Aria, we’re going to be working together closely for four months. We are totally committed to achieving the results we’ve defined in our project plan. Along the way, we might see opportunities to improve your business that fall outside the scope of our work. Would it be OK with you if we bring those to your attention when we see them?”

Then when the time comes, it’s natural to start with, “Aria, remember when we said…”

Anyone on the team can set this expectation and anyone on the team can follow through.

2. Sell by doing. One of the reasons sales gets a bad rap is that it’s seen—fairly or unfairly—as a process of mostly talk and little action. Selling by doing is a distinct approach that gives your client the actual experience of working with you. This is particularly valuable for professional services and is an easy transition when delivery people are already working shoulder-to-shoulder with a client. It gives the client a taste of what it might be like to go in a new or different direction, without obligation or pressure to move forward.
3. Sell the right solution, not your solution. The purpose of traditional selling is to help others buy from you; the purpose of trust-based selling is to help others make the best decision for them right now. Suggest that your delivery folk unreservedly explore all options with the client—not just your company’s solution. This frees them of the concerns they feel about having a company agenda. A trusted advisor, after all, is a safe haven for tough issues, not just ones for which you have a product or service or that fall within the scope of your work. Paradoxically, the chances are excellent that you’ll win more client loyalty—and more business in the long-run—when you approach opportunities with this mindset and the behaviors to back it.
4. Use caveats. Sometimes we feel things even when we know we “shouldn’t”—like feeling awkward or smarmy when it’s time to talk about being of greater service. Suggestion: say something about that. “Geez, at the risk of coming across as salesy…” That’s what we call a caveat, and it’s a conversational jewel. It dispels the yuck that you’re feeling and communicates that you care about how your message is received. It simultaneously smoothes over what could be an awkward shift for the client—although truthfully is more likely awkward for the one delivering the message.

Taking the “sell” out of selling—employing four specific strategies to reduce the perception of sales as smarmy—leads to greater value and better results.

Isn’t that the ultimate delivery?

Our Story Time series brings you real, personal examples from business life that shed light on specific ways to lead with trust. Our last story proved that trust is personal. But what does it take to really close a deal?

A New Anthology

When it comes to trust-building, stories are a powerful tool for both learning and change. Our new book, The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Leading with Trust (Wiley, October 2011), contains a multitude of stories. Told by and about people we know, these stories illustrate the fundamental attitudes, truths, and principles of trustworthiness.

Today’s story is excerpted from our chapter on the dynamics of influence. It vividly demonstrates how non-rational factors—like respect for tradition—can make or break a sale.

From the Front Lines: Decisions Aren’t Just Rational

Russell Feingold, now of Black & Veatch, recalls an early-career sales win.

“The client was a large electric utility in Hong Kong, and the project was complex. My company invested considerable time preparing our proposal, responding to questions, and meeting with the client face to face in Hong Kong. We won the project.

“However, it was during our working lunches that I really won the client’s trust—by my proficiency with using chopsticks. Quite simply, my clients appreciated my respect for their tradition, when even their own children were turning to Western ways of eating. To this day I believe my ability to use chopsticks not only ingratiated me with our client for the remainder of the project, but was a deciding factor in our being selected in the first place.”

—Russell Feingold (Black & Veatch)

What’s the most unexpected factor that’s won you a job?

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

I’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.

“Story Time: It’s Trust, Therefore It’s Personal” can also be found on the Trust Matters blog.

Our Story Time series brings you real, personal examples from business life that shed light on ways to lead with trust. Our last story illustrated how one conversation changed everything. Today’s selection highlights  the value of making a personal connection.

A New Anthology

When it comes to trust-building, stories are a powerful tool for both learning and change. Our new book, The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Leading with Trust (Wiley, October 2011), contains a multitude of stories. Told by and about people we know, these stories illustrate the fundamental attitudes, truths, and principles of trustworthiness.

Today’s story is excerpted from our chapter on selling to the C-suite. It vividly demonstrates the value of paying attention to more than just the task-at-hand, and taking the risk to put personal before business.

From the Front Lines: Taking a Chance on Connection

Gary Celli tells a story of the business value of building trust quickly with a C-level client.

“I was working in California for a multi-national high-tech company. I was a project manager at the time, and the project I was leading was rife with difficulties—nothing atypical, just the usual stuff. We were also trying to position additional work with the customer.

“One day, the CIO asked specifically to meet with me. Until that point I had been dealing with his directors, so he and I hadn’t spent any time together beyond a brief interaction at the big project kickoff meeting. You can imagine I was a little on edge about the meeting.

“The first thing I noticed when I arrived at his office was what a mess it was. There were papers all over the place. One chair was so stacked with stuff it wasn’t usable. I glanced around and noticed a copy of the Scranton Journal on the floor—the magazine for my alma mater, the University of Scranton, a small Jesuit university in Pennsylvania. I looked around for a diploma on the wall, but didn’t see anything. So I asked about the magazine.

“It turns out that we were both graduates, now living nearly 3,000 miles away in California. Talking about that really helped break the ice and took the edge off. We spent 30 minutes reminiscing about the school, the campus, the local hang-out bar that all the kids went to. Then we spent about 15 minutes talking about project issues.

“It was a very successful meeting. The bond we had established made it possible for me to glean more information from him and he seemed very open to hearing my perspectives on the project. We got to the heart of the matter in no time. My company also got the follow-on work, and the CIO was a loyal client for years to come.”

—Gary Celli

What’s your next opportunity to make it personal?

Our Story Time series brings you real, personal examples from business life that shed light on specific ways to lead with trust. Our last story told a tale of risky business. Today’s anecdote zeroes in on the importance of being willing to interrupt the status quo.

A New Anthology

When it comes to trust-building, stories are a powerful tool for both learning and change. Our new book, The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Leading with Trust (Wiley, October 2011), contains a multitude of stories. Told by and about people we know, these stories illustrate the fundamental attitudes, truths, and principles of trustworthiness.

Today’s story is excerpted from our chapter on shifting from tactics to strategy. It demonstrates how simple it can be to dramatically alter the nature of a working relationship, and pave the way for delivering far greater value.

From the Front Lines: Upping the Ante

Sarah Agan tells us about the conversation that changed everything with her client, John.

“I had just joined a new consulting firm and was asked to take over as the engagement manager for a project that I soon learned was in dire straits. My client John was happy—he was responsible for a high-priority government-wide initiative with the potential to catapult his career, he had a high-end strategy firm by his side (that was us), and he was getting everything he thought he wanted—a well-documented plan identifying key investments required to guard against terrorist attacks.

“The problem was this: my team was very unhappy. Imagine a group of super-bright, creative, energized young graduates, well-trained in strategy development and execution, assigned to a high-visibility project, sitting in a windowless conference room formatting Excel spreadsheets. It was a troubled project that everyone in my firm had heard about and no one wanted to work on.

“While it was tempting to step in and make a dramatic move, I bided my time. I focused first on developing my relationship with John, understanding his interests and priorities. In several of our initial meetings he made reference to our team as his ‘administrative support.’ At first, I just filed it away. He was happy with the arrangement. He had no idea what he could or should expect from us.

“I also made a point to find out more about how our company had ended up in this predicament. We had fallen into the trap of being seduced by a lucrative long-term contract, doing whatever it took to keep the funding coming.

“One day when John referred to us again as his ‘administrative support,’ I decided it was time to speak up.

“I don’t recall being particularly nervous at the time. I just spoke from the heart: ‘John, this is at least the third time I’ve heard you refer to us as your administrative support. If that’s what you truly feel you need, let us help you find someone who does this as a core competency at a fraction of what you are paying us. If you’re interested in doing things more strategically, I’d love to have that conversation.’

“From that moment, everything shifted. The nature of all our conversations changed. The team began to bring ideas to the table, like helping John host a national workshop—with representatives from across the government, academia, and private industry—so that John could engage all his stakeholders in a way that they would have some ownership for the nationwide plan. It was an extraordinary workshop John’s successor is still talking about years later.

“Now we were positioned to deliver the kind of value we were truly capable of. The project that no one wanted to be on became a project people wanted to be part of.

“The biggest lesson for me in all of this was the importance of being willing to interrupt the status quo and say what had been left unsaid for too long in order to focus on what really mattered to John. Looking back, it was a pretty risky move. It was also the right one. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

—Sarah Agan

What’s been left unsaid for too long in one of your relationships?

++++++

Read more stories about trust:

Risky business

When to walk away

An unexpected way to recover lost trust

An unexpected approach to developing new business with trust

Leading with trust in the C-suite

Schedule a meeting in your conference room then let the games begin!

Plato once said, “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” While he probably wasn’t referring to creating a more engaged and productive work team, it still applies. Facilitated play makes it possible for your team to learn more about each other. Plus a shared fun experience creates team cohesiveness.

Here’s an improv game that is easy for you to facilitate:

“Zip-Zap-Zop.” Your team stands in a circle.  One person starts by pointing to—and making eye contact with—someone else in the circle and says “Zip.”  That person (the one on the receiving end of “Zip”) points to someone else, making eye contact, and says “Zap.”  That person points to someone else, making eye contact, and says “Zop.”  This continues around the circle for a couple of minutes. Encourage people to go faster and faster.

Now take it up a notch: Change Zip-Zap-Zop to colors, so each person points to someone, making eye contact, and says a color.  (Note: the blander the better; the point is not to be clever, but to be fast.) Then change colors to food. Finally change food to the company or team, so each person points to someone, making eye contact, and says the first thing that comes to mind about the company or team.

Zip-Zap-Zop, and its variations, creates energy and connectedness amongst the group. Plus it allows the team to find out more about each other and what’s top of mind about the company and the team.

So … have you scheduled that conference room yet?

This post was written by guest blogger Cary Paul. Cary is Bossanova’s Chief Improv Officer (CIO) and also founder and VP of Village Circle Company, a consulting firm specializing in experiential facilitation.  They are highly passionate about creating and delivering great experiences and results for the people, teams and organizations they serve – through video, improv comedy, music, and anything else fun. Cary also invented the spiral staircase.

On that hot, Washington DC day of August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was delivering a well-prepared speech. The American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement was—and still is—considered one of America’s great orators. And with good reasons: his legacy is marked by a world-changing mission, intelligent writing, and the distinctive cadence with which he enthralled listeners.

It was during that delivery, encouraged by a close friend, that King went off script¹. What was shaping up to be a historic, critically important speech, was essentially abandoned. Buoyed by the significance of his message, the passion of his audience, and his own brilliant style, King improvised critical sections of what is now called the “I Have a Dream” speech. While there is some disagreement on where exactly he deviated from script, it is safe to say that the “I have a dream” part of the speech–the most famous and recognized part–is where he started to improvise.

King built off of events, words, and shared experience. King had spoken of his “Dream” to a crowd of 500,000 just weeks prior to that hot, August day. He used that central idea as a building block during his more well-known speech in Washington, DC. His prior experience helped him deliver an improved, even more impactful message. The speech included poignant, compelling words about racial injustice, freedom, and brotherhood. And yet, when King began to improvise, when he completely seized the moment at hand, he took authenticity to a new level.

The same lessons apply, even on the smaller stage of our workplace. We coach our business clients to apply what great improvisation teaches us: to build from their team, from their leaders, from themselves. In essence, the “I Have a Dream” speech was the ultimate example of “Yes, and…”, and a shining example of how being authentic and in-the-moment pays huge dividends. Audiences of all kinds and sizes feed off of genuine communication.

Some would say there is a vast difference between the gravity of King’s message and what you and I are tackling daily. Yes, and … we can all share the benefit of getting off script, trusting our experience, and seizing the moment.

View the entire video of Dr. King’s speech here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs

¹ Today’s article was inspired by the article, On Martin Luther King Day, Remembering the First Draft of ‘I Have a Dream,’ published in The Washington Post by Clarence B. Jones on January 16, 2011.

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.

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.