Yes, and…

Yes, and…

I’ve signed up for several workshops to get exposure to a range of techniques for connecting with others.  I attended the first session of “Creativity and the Entrepreneur” this week.  This workshop uses techniques from theater – principally improv — to help you listen better, tell interesting stories, and engage others.

I took Improv classes over the last couple of years to work on being more present/in the moment.  The idea was to bring more flexibility to group facilitation — to set aside the agenda when the group needed to take a detour.  I realize how important it is to continue practicing.   It’s easy to fall back into old behavior if you don’t work those new muscles.  It was good to get a referesher and practice with other professionals this week. 

The thing about taking Improv classes is most people aren’t doing it to develop as executive.  Typically, you’ll get people who are trying to launch their careers as stand-up comics or actors.  So they are trying to be funny.   Improv can be funny, but when people use it to promote themselves, you lose the team spirit. 

What Improv is really about is observing, listening, taking the offers others give you and building the story.  It’s not about you, it’s about the group.

Our homework for this week is to make a small change in our lives — perform something differently than usual.  Actually, I’ve been working on that for a few months now.  Trying to be lighter, fill with air and light (open the heart, as the yogis keeping telling us), smile a lot more.  I saw a product at the drug store called Frownies.  You put them on your face at night and they are supposed to relax the muscles that you tend to tighten during the day — it’s like training your face muscles to de-stress (kinda like braces — execpt for the face instead of the teeth).  I considered this, but decided I might end up with a very scary expression and, afterall, it seems like cheating — kinda defeats the purpose if you are smiling on the outside and rather than having it emerge from inside.

We’re also supposed to do something pointless.  That’s a hard one for me, since I tend to fill my days with a lot of purpose.  Of course some of what I set out to do ends up being pointless, but I don’t start out that way.  

Fortunately, the opportunity presented itself to me.   I gave my business card to woman who collects them.  That’s it.  She doesn’t use them, refer to them, make a collage from them… she just collects them.  She said she wants to get a case with pockets she can slip each card into.  Right now they are just in one big pile.   (I have a pile or two of cards as well,  just waiting for me to get around to filing them or tossing them.  Guess that’s a bit pointless too.)

We also need to practice “yes, and”.  This is probably the number one fundamental rule of Improv.  Listening to what others have to say and, rather than thinking about what you’ll say next or how you’ll make your point, acknowledging and then building on from what’s been said  — “their offers”.  It’s about listenting and going with what you’ve been given.  It’s not about you, it’s not about your agenda, it’s about “us” and what we make together.

The last bit of homework is to write down the story we want to start telling.  It could be how we want to introduce ourselves, our  history, a pitch for our business, whatever we want to say.  The idea is to color it and make it interesting.  So it starts, builds to reveal some conflict, and then there’s a twist – some sort of revelation or resolution.

Check back next week for my story.