A couple of weeks back I had the privilege of spending the weekend training with Jason Chin, the legendary long-form* impro maestro from iO in Chigago and creator of the highly successful “Whirled News Tonight”.

(*To clarify the jargon….Short form impro = the “Whose Line is it Anyway?” type game based, short, snappy single-scene improv.  Long form = a longer, story or theme based piece that develops characters and story through a number of  interwoven different scenes.  For those who have been to see the Comedy Store Players in London  roughly 1^st half = short form, 2^nd half = long form)

Whilst I’ve dabbled and played with long-form improv a little in the past, virtually all of my training and experience has been with short-form so I was keen to have my thinking s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d through working with Jason.

The main thing I noticed as different were the disciplines that Jason looked to focus us on (or ‘amplify’ in complexity language).  Whilst the short-form disciplines of listening, committing, saying yes, offering, accepting, being obvious and being altered were still key, Jason’s “Prime Directives” brought a greater focus on establishing and developing the relationships and feelings in the scenes which proved incredibly helpful in sewing together a congruent long-form piece.

“Just as Robocop has three prime directives, you have three prime directives in any scene:  1) Who is this person to me?  2) What are they really saying? and 3) How does that make me FEEEEL?”  (I add lots of Es to that to re-enact the way Jason emphasised the word ‘feel’!)

We were encouraged to be incredibly specific early on in the scene to establish who the other actors were and instead of saying “Well it’s a nice day here on Brighton beach” we would strive to add more relational detail such as “Janice, I can’t think of a better way to spend our 40^th anniversary than coming back to Brighton beach” (Notice the difference prime directive 1 makes?)

We were encouraged to really pay attention to what the real intent may be behind any offer.  On the surface the Brighton Beach offer could simply establish a location and a character but if the ‘wife’ imagines possible underlying history behind the words it allows the relationships to develop further.  Coming back to Brighton beach could imply any of the following – the husband is a skinflint and this is the first time he has taken his wife out anywhere for 40 years, or Brighton beach was where they first met 40 years ago and he’s trying to re-create the magic of young love/lust, or the husband is a wannabe nudist and is always trying to trick his wife into going to naturalist beaches!  (Notice the difference prime directive 2 makes?)

Finally, the biggest insight for me was how Jason encouraged us to express our feelings.  “The feelings the actor has are relevant for the character he is playing.”  This reminded me a lot of constellation work where the real feelings of the ‘constellators’ help illuminate meaning for the client.   When Jason spotted a dull offer he’d interject:

Actor 1: “OK – that sounds like a good idea”
Jason: PAUSE!  How do you FEEEEL?
Actor 1: Er – I feel really happy.
Jason: Tell that to the other actor then
Actor 1:  “OK – that sounds like a good idea.  I feel really happy.”
Actor 2: “I’m so thrilled you are happy.  You’ve been so sad recently”

(Spot how prime directive 3 adds something?)

By bringing feelings into the scene it both added some extra offers but also developed the relationships and story between the characters in a greater depth that provided stronger offers and threads for further scenes to build on and reincorporate in the long-form piece.

I had Jason’s prime directives in mind back in the factory where I’m consulting on culture change at the moment and decided to experiment (This poor factory is getting the benefit/brunt of all of my experiments at the moment!!).  Whilst hanging around on the factory floor I asked questions about what each person meant to each other, what they felt the underlying intent behind spontaneous interactions might be and how any particular interaction or event made them feel.  This surfaced some rich information about the complex web of relationships and the ongoing story of the shop-floor.

The most interesting part of the experiment was in a meeting that I was observing.  At the end of the meeting the group asked me for feedback but instead of telling them my observations I asked them three questions.   What did that meeting mean to you?   What did you think was really going on?  How did this meeting make you FEEL?  The floodgates opened!  Especially when I asked the last question.  It was as if all of the under-the-table dynamics, unspoken relationships suddenly couldn’t be contained any more and exploded out.  We then spent an extra 45 minutes making sense of this new information which was both painful and positive at the same time but helped us develop a greater shared understanding of the ‘characters’ and the relationships that are key to this ‘long-form’ culture change work.  This was invaluable in helping me identify key things that needed to be developed or reincorporated in future ‘scenes’.

I’m starting to use the term ‘short form OD’ and ‘long form OD’ now to help myself and others understand the difference between one-off interventions where one drops in, causes a disturbance and then drops out again and longer term immersive cultural change pieces where one is making sense of multiple characters in multiple scenes such as I am doing at the factory.  I am starting to see that there are subtly different lenses (or prime directives as Jason would say) that the consultant would be wise to pay attention to when engaged in a longer-form piece of work.  Having realised this I notice some personal biases towards short-form OD (it feels easier!) and through this reflection I have identified areas in which I need to develop my long-form OD practice in the same way that I am doing with my improv.

I feel both long-form OD and short-form OD are valuable practices to develop in parallel with each other –  I’d encourage you to reflect on what you are most comfortable with and how playing out of your bias would make you FEEEEL!!!!

———————————————————————————————————————————————————
Note: I should mention that the whole reason Jason was in the UK was because of those wonderful Maydays.

The bit that still puzzles me though is the idea that I apply something to my work in the same way that a decorator will apply paint to a wall.  Here are some recent questions:  “How do you apply your dissertation to your work?” “How do you apply complexity theory to your work?”  “How do you apply Improv to your work?”  Whilst it is wonderful that people are genuinely interested in my continued experiments and adventures these questions tap into and agitate a deep belief I have about my own learning and personal development.

For me, all learning takes place through paying attention to my current experience and noticing what that experience provokes in me and in others that is curious, different, bizarre, exciting, scary (etc).  Through being acutely aware, curious and reflexive in these experiences I am altered.  Often in unpredictable ways.

If I had to answer the question and summarise how I apply my dissertation/complexity experiments/improv practice to my work in one sentence I’d have to say:

“They help me create different experiences that I take seriously”

If I then had another sentence to elaborate further I’d probably say:

“Through drawing on the theories, philosophies, stories and ideas of others, as a lens to make more sense of that experience,  further insights can emerge.”

The point here is that be it my dissertation, complexity theory, improvisation techniques or even fatherhood, watching a film or a walk in the woods is that through taking my own experience seriously I am altered by my experience.  The ‘me’ before the experience is different to the ‘me’ that emerges after that experience.  I evolve and change and shift and get stuck and uncover strengths or personal stuck patterns with each bit of experiencing – all of which informs my ongoing process of ‘me-ing’.  The degree of altering is dependent on the nature and familiarity of the experience and how serious I take it.

Therefore, instead of applying the ‘things’ I learn or remember – I have no choice but to  ‘apply’ the altered me to my work.  The altered me may have subtly different beliefs, skills, behaviours, thought patterns, presence, feelings, values or physiology that may be barely perceptible but show up spontaneously in all I do.  Sure, I can talk of theories, experiences, books or stories that I have found helpful and help coach and teach others in those ‘things’ but the biggest shift in my personal development and why I find my continued adventures so exciting is the continual quest to find different experiences that will alter me in unpredictable ways.  I can’t help but think that if my teachers and I had approached school in this way then I would have found it a far more fruitful experience.

So do please do continue to ask me these questions about my learning.  Whilst I find them difficult to answer I also find that through taking the experience of trying to answer them seriously that they alter me in ways that you probably didn’t quite intend them to!

 —————————————————————————————————
FOOTNOTE: The idea of taking our experience seriously comes from Ralph Stacey– a prolific writer on complexity and the perspective of viewing organisations as ongoing, complex social processes.

My favourite model of reflexive learning is the very simple but very helpful Learning Cycle model from David Kolb.   The ideas Kolb suggests in this model were the catalyst for me learning how I learn.

Maybe this idea came from training with John Cremer and playing “New Choice” where the heat of not knowing what to say is continually turned up and made worse when you don’t want it to be.  Maybe its from watching programmes such as “The Office” and cringingly loving it when the characters try to improve the situation but only make it worse with every word they say.  Maybe its from seeing videos of how Fritz Perls used to work with his patients and get them to exaggerate and exaggerate their unconscious physical gestures to help them make more sense of them.

Who knows where it came from…the main point is I’m fascinated about playing with the idea of doing the opposite of what we instinctively want to do in a tricky situation.  At least in the fantasy* world of improv and role play. (*DISCLAIMER:  Am not suggesting that you make your day worse by jumping in front of a bus!)

Some experiments where I’ve toyed with this idea recently…

What’s the worst that can happen?
Asking this question of a group of people who are nervous about their first ever play with the ideas of improv.  In a triangle of three, one person answered the question and the job of the other two was to make it worse and worse to the point of being ridiculous.

Person 1: I’ll look like a fool
Person 2: Yes and I’ll secretly video it
Person 3: Yes and I’ll post it on Linked In and you’ll never be hired again
Person 2: Yes and your family will be so embarrassed that they’ll disown you
Person 3: Yes and you’re reputation will be so tarnished that you’ll have all the unsolved crime in London pinned on you
(etc…etc…)

The overly-complicating machine (TM)
The sole purpose of the overly-complicating machine is to make simple things more difficult and worse.  I used the machine recently to help overly complicate the simple process of introducing oneself to a group.  Before and after each person could speak there were various dials, processes, levers, rules and rituals that they had to do and they could only leave the machine by adding an extra bit of bureaucracy to the process.   The machine can be programmed to make any simple process or thing overly complicated.

Personal coaching
I was working with somebody who was scared of presenting to a particular group so I played them and they played the audience and heckled for no reason.  We made the heckling worse and worse and some unprintable language was used and objects thrown! In the end the audience murdered the presenter and then committed mass suicide.  The ‘real’ presenter said she felt strangely more confident about the ‘real’ presentation after this experience.

Competitive Lock-keepers
At the Monday night Hoopla Improv class I found myself in a scene where I was a neuro-scientist on a canal boat holiday with my wife to escape the ‘hubbub’ of neuro-scientist life.  I soon encountered an aggressive unionised lock-keeper which increased my stress and he became more aggressive the more stressed I became.  Steve Roe directed more lock-keepers to come into the scene over time – some sided together, others competed until the situation got so bad I had to cower with my head in my hands – overpowered by the situation.  I both loved and hated the effect that the worsening of the scene had on me mentally and physically.

I’m sure there’s some science or psychology somewhere behind making things better by making the fantasy worse – I’m just having fun playing with the idea.  I’m curious if getting to know and feel the ‘shadow side’ or the ‘photographic negative’ of something in facts help us better understand and frame the ‘sunshine side’ or the ‘photographic picture’ of our lived experience.

…or is this a new field of “negative psychology” or “depreciative inquiry”?

The day before yesterday, a learned friend and I convened a group of people we admired, provided very little structure, a few subtle nudges and took a risk that some magic might happen. I’ve never done that before.

The 1st February 2012 was the day the first “Impro JAM” happened. At least the first I know of. Two months earlier in Café Rouge Kingsway, my learned friend Caryn Vanstone and I had played with the idea of bringing together all of the people we admired who look to blur the lines between improvisation and corporate life with no more of an offer than to play together with what we held a collected passion for. People came from as far away as rural ‘off-the-grid’ Spain and as close as Primrose Hill. People came from the world of musical improv, jazz improv, improvisation comedy and theatre as well as consultants and business folk who explore improvisation as a means of working with complexity in organisations.  (Look up these wonderful people:  John Cremer, Rob Poynton, Neil Mullarkey, Alex Steele, Bruno Dalbiez, Stuart Reid, David Hall, Joe Samuel, Iain Christie, Fabiola Williams, Asher Rickaysen, Heather Urquart)

 The day passed in a blur of song, experiments, stories, insights and laughter in that all-to-quick way that happens when doing this sort of work. Caryn summed the day up for me by saying at the end “If only every working day could be like that!” But the day didn’t end there for me.

Yesterday I went to a factory to help them understand the culture, beliefs and behavioural change they need to effect to transform their business. This was a familiar and much loved environment for me but the inspirational events of the Impro JAM wouldn’t leave me alone to get on with business-as-usual. My curiosity and creativity muscles were still buzzing from the day before which made the factory seem much more exciting than usual. It was like an episode of The Simpsons where Homer is considering becoming a clown and everything he sees reminds him of clowning!

As I hung around at the daily factory floor performance meeting, a stand-up, rapid-fire gathering around the performance boards for each production line, I recalled how the day before I’d been ‘side-directing’ an improvised scene to mimic real-life to see what the performers noticed about that experience. I started pretending to myself that this meeting was an improvised scene being played out by actors that I or anyone else there could direct or coach.

Then it struck me!

Of course this was an improvised scene! They were just a bunch of people hanging around having a largely spontaneous conversation around a fixed agenda. Each participant had character, a back-story, a status, an emotion, an attitude, a perception of each of the others (etc).

I went through the rest of the day playing a game in my mind and continually asking myself two questions:

1) If I had to accurately re-create the current scene I am watching with a group of actors what detail would I need to include on the script for each character?
2) In relation to the desired story of the actors…what’s wrong with this scene?

Beyond simply being a fun game to play with myself I found that doing this really tuned me into the individuals and the relationships in a much deeper way than normal.  My listening deepend, I became curious not only about what people were saying and doing but micro-movements, thoughts, beliefs, status (etc..)

I imagined that after each scene that I would provide the individuals with a scrip that told them accurately how to recreate what I’d witnessed – what to say, what to feel, what to think and how to react to the others.

Here’s a Hypothetical example

The Performance Meeting – Scene 2
Bert: [Moving around a lot in a low status way. Talking 1st circle down and into chest. Talking loudly to nobody in particular to mask a growing deep fear of rejection] “So, that’s what I propose. What do you all think?”
Janet: [Playing with hair. Staring at Bert with a still head. Think to self its a stupid idea but nod politely but say nothing and let him fail.]
Fred: [Sitting with an arched back and laboured breathing. Think to self “I wonder what’s for dinner tonight”]
Joe: [Suddenly realise you’ve not been paying attention. Suddenly sits upright and becomes flushed. Memories of school flood back. Voice laboured] “Er- YES! Sounds good!”
Bert: [Fiddling awkwardly with tie. Adopting a slightly higher status but not believing that anyone has really agreed but better not knowing than facing rejection] “Great. That’s agreed then.”

I was chuffed I had a new game to play that was relevant to the work I do.

Give it a go.  Wherever you are as you read this – try writing the script for what you see and see what you notice.

It wasn’t always like that.

I remember around 10 years ago when being able to craft a 40 slide Powerpoint presentation including animations and swishy sounds was a real sign of presenter perfection.  Being able to sit in the audience with the “notes” format printout was a great way of jotting down the wonderful insights that the slides brought.  Being able to drop in clever clip art and slowly revealing bullet-points was something to be proud of.  Powerpoint was a much loved friend.

I had a conversation with a colleague about whether slides were good or bad after we’d both just given a conference talk and both used slides.  It was during this lively debate that we both came to realise that “To Powerpoint or not to Powerpoint” isn’t the question we should be asking.  Instead we should be asking “Does what I’m projecting help me to alter the audience in the way I want them to be altered?”  It is what you chose to project as much as whether you chose to project or not.

I like to think of Powerpoint slides simply as a big window that people can look into.  Like an old fashioned slide projector but instead of looking at somebody elses holiday snaps one can get a glimpse of whats going on in the presenters mind.  A window into their creativity.  Slides give an opportunity for a presenter to be a little bit more mad, bad and wrong – and get away with it.  To cause a disturbance in your audience.  If that’s what you want to do.

In my book less is more.  Less structure on slides = more imagination usage from the audience.  Less structure on slides = more opportunity for audience to make their own sense and choices.  Words are a last resort.  Even better if the slides are hand-drawn pictures presented all big to really show off the imperfections.

However, if I wanted to present the fire evacuation procedure to a group then I’d want to be structured, specific, use words and pretty much say the same thing that was presented on the slides to reinforce the important points.  I wouldn’t really want to engage the audiences imagination there or encourage them to make their own minds up.  I’d want to engage their senses simultaneously and for them to hear, see and write the same things at the same time.

Then there is always the option to use no Powerpoint at all and simply talk - its all dependant on how you want the audience to be altered by what you are saying and showing.  It is all context dependent.

To use slides or to not use slides seems to be a new bit of ‘splitting’ in the corporate world – our need to class one thing as good and one thing as bad with no grey space in between.

I feel sorry for powerpoint.  I imagine it thinking to itself “What did I do wrong – it’s you guys that created all the crap boring content!” and waiting for the inevitable pendulum swing in 10 years time when we all fall back in love with it or it’s futuristic offspring.   Poor thing.

Daddy:  Are you OK Maya?
Maya: Daddy.  Have I ever seen a hedgehog?
Daddy: No Maya, I don’t think you have.
Maya: Oh.  I really want to see one one day.  Will you help me?
Daddy: Of course Maya, we’ll try and find one soon.  Goodnight.
Maya: Goodnight.

The next day Maya reminded me of our conversation and drew a picture of a hedgehog to remind herself and my wife and I of her desire to one day see a real-life hedgehog.

Whilst I love any surreal interaction like this with Maya what really struck me about this particular interaction was how Maya had gone about setting herself a new challenge…

- She’d thought about something she hadn’t done before, an experience she’d never had.
- The moment she realised it she took it very seriously, calling out at 3 in the morning to make sure it wasn’t forgotten
- She immediately shared her ambition with somebody else (i.e. a sleepy Daddy) and asked for the help she needed
- She reminded me about it the next day and drew a picture as a formal reminder
- Every time we see the hedgehog picture it reminds us all of her ambition

What a great strategy for personal development and adventure without having ever gone on any formal coaching training!

I decided I’d try and learn from her, base my ambitions on having experiences I haven’t had yet, taking them seriously, writing them down and sharing them with others.

Once again, my creativity mentor had shared her wisdom with me.

And no, we’ve still not found a real-life hedgehog so any hedgehog hunting tips would be much appreciated!

The majority of my dissertation was written on the back of reflecting in great detail on 150 seconds of my life that I had journalled, recorded or videoed to see if I could identify what enabled or constrained my ability to improvise in the corporate world.  (I was inspired to do this by William Blake’s suggestion of “seeing the world in a grain of sand”.)  I was amazed at how much information about myself I was able to distill from such a short period of time – in particular, three big patterns of behaviour/habits that inhibited my spontaneity in the corporate workplace…

1) Power, status, the need for affirmation and my own sense of self
I realised the increased risk of being spontaneous in situations where I perceived a large power differential and some of my habitual projections of power onto particular people (especially older ‘wiser-looking’ males).  I realised that in these situations, instead of being my spontaneous self that I would ‘script’ my interactions to maximise my chance of receiving affection and to have my sense of self affirmed.   I also realised that power and status are not things that people have but are things that people do that are reinforced by others acting into it.

2) Trusting my own spontaneous self
I realised that part of what inhibits me was simply not knowing and trusting my spontaneous self – part of me that I probably last trusted when I was around 5 or 6 years old.   I realised that, as Keith Johnstone once said, getting over my own fear of being mad, bad or wrong were key to starting to trust myself and realising that my spontaneity was inhibited by scripting my interactions to come across as sane, good and right!  Through improv classes and experimenting in my work I’ve became better able to start to trust my spontaneous self more and realised I’m not actually as mad, bad or wrong than I may have feared.

3) Trusting the body and senses
I realised my habit was to try and think myself out of trouble and I later realised through improv classes that this is the one way to guarantee getting stuck.   After some wonderful conversations with body experts I began to realise how intelligent the body is and how, when trusted, it can be a source of great personal awareness.  I learnt that the body and the senses are naturally spontaneous and that trusting them to take the lead (especially in an improv scene) is a great way to get unstuck and come up with something new and creative.

And as to the BIG question whether scorpions can smoke or not?  A wonderful response from the London Natural History museum answered that one…

Our ref: IAS 2011-1969
Dear Mr Chapman,

Thank you for contacting The Natural History Museum.  The answer to your question is no, scorpions can’t smoke. A large scorpion would be able to physically a) grab a cigarette in its pincers and b) move it towards its mouth. For more details about scorpion anatomy and names for body parts, please read Wikipedia article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorpion#Anatomy

However, the scorpion wouldn’t be able to c) inhale and exhale smoke from the cigarette, because scorpions have a different respiratory system than ours. The ‘lungs’ (please see Wikipedia article for book lungs here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_lung) are situated in the abdomen, not in the cephalothorax. They don’t communicate with the mouth. Scorpions don’t inhale anyway, as the insects do inflating and deflating their abdomen. The book lungs work fine without a ventilation system.

I hope you will find this information useful.

Best wishes
Florin Feneru
Identification and Advisory Service
Angela Marmont Centre for UK BiodiversitThe Natural History MuseumCromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, U.K.