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| Jay Roderick and Kat Koppett, overseen by Cathy Salit at CiBC |
Improvisers commit to collaboration. They live and die by it. Our mantra is "Make your partner look good." This means: Focus on your partner, not yourself. Delight them. No matter what brilliant idea you yourself have, let your partners offers guide you. Collaborate or die!
On stage, this can be a challenging enough task. Especially when you have a "good" idea, and you are sure the audience will reward you with laughter and applause. But the best improvisers know that "Make your partner look good" is not just something nice to do when it's easy and convenient. The best improvisers know (often because they've learned it the hard way through many years of trying it the cheap way) that "Make your partner look good" is THE fundamental secret to creating rich, meaningful and yes, funny improv scenes. It is only by focusing on the people you are working with, by supporting their ideas, by looking for ways to inspire and engage them, that something sustainable and truly creative can be built. The audience may, in fact, laugh at the individual funny gag made at the expense of your partner. But what happens after it has been proffered? Do you have an engaged partner working with you or a distracted, embarrassed or downright pissed Other? Do you have a scene that is moving forward or story shambles? Are you expending energy competing for status and control or really working together to build something better?
Even in formats such as the world-reknowned Theatresports (tm) in which teams of improvisers compete for the approval of Olympic-style judges, the improvisers realize that the "competition" is just a gimmick. As the Artistic Director of The Mop & Bucket Company, Michael Burns, like to say to his casts, "Remember people, Theatresports is not really a competition. It's a show ABOUT a competition. Help each other out." In Theatresports, that may mean a team decides to forgo performing their favorite game because the other team just did a similar one and the show needs something else. Or it may mean that a member of one team actually jumps in to the other team's scene to offer support.
In life we talk about collaboration a good deal, but we tend to be chickens rather than pigs. How many of us regularly put our own heads on the chopping block to support the interests of our partners? How deeply do we really believe that if we focus on supporting those around us, our own opportunities will grow and improve? Do any of us promote our direct competition?
Improvisers do. Even in our business lives. Not always, of course, but to a surprising degree. I was struck anew by this fact last month when I was working for Performance of A Lifetime. Performance of A Lifetime (POAL) is theatre-based executive education firm based in New York City. Although there are style and content differences between Kopco and POAL's work that we as practitioners are aware of, tor all intents and purposes the are minor, and most clients would be hard-pressed to name them. We are direct competitors by any definition. It would have made great traditional business sense for us to be rivals. We could have chosen a performance of competition and proprietary "closed-door-ness" in which we made sure not to reveal our processes and content to each other. We could have made every contractor we worked with sign non-disclosure agreements and choose sides. Instead, (and I give POAL all the credit for initiating this) we have chosen to embrace each other. Regularly, they hire us. And we hired them. When onsite with a client of theirs, POAL people promote our book and ideas. When working for them, we help with instruction design and client relationship building, knowing that the work will be better, and better is good for both organizations.
Last month, Cathy Salit, POAL's President and I, both presented at the Creativity In Business conference in D.C. We had our own individual sessions in which we offered up our own individual spins on using improv in organizations. We also said yes when Michelle James, the conference organizer, asked us to do a closing session together. I don't know how Cathy felt but for me that joint session was the highlight of the day. I know we got more positive feedback (and more business leads) from that session than from the other two.
POAL has influenced Kopco's work and deepened it in innumerable ways. They tell us that our involvement with them has made their work better (and more marketable) as well.
When the field of Applied Improv was growing up, we collectively wrestled with how much to share, how much to protect, how much to be a community. In the end, (or currently), a belief in the value of collaboration won out. The Applied Improv Network was born, and through that organization we share content and process tips, form partnerships and alliances, and promote each other as a way to promote the field and ourselves. We understand that growing a field of high-quality and respected practitioners is good for us all - for our reputation, for the understanding of what we do, and for our own growth and pride in our work. Plus it's way more fun to play with others.
My book, Training to Imagine (due out in a new edition early 2012) lists dozens of improv exercises with facilitator guides. I set myself the task of attributing those exercises. But, of course, that was an impossible task. Virtually all of the games were created, appropriated, reinvented, and inspired by hoards of anonymous improvisers over the years. The best I could do was say, "I learned this here," or " I know this person influenced the work in this way." Ultimately, the bottom line is that Applied Improv is now an actual field - a rich, dynamic, growing one - because people shared their creativity rather than hiding it. We committed to collaboration. And now we are all bacon. What could be more delicious?
I know it may sound crazy but give it a try. Ask yourself:
- Who are my competitors?
- Is there any way I can support them? Make them look good? (Think "Miracle On 34th Street" when Santa sends a customer to Gimble's.)
- Take stock: Spend just a moment assessing who has helped you, influenced your work, given you opportunities. As Elizabeth Warren has been saying, none of us did it on our own.
- Be grateful. Pay it forward.
Then sit back and see what comes back to you. New learning, fresh perspectives, deeper relationships, unanticipated opportunities. And make sure to let us know.
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