“Put down
your clever,
Let your
partner affect you:
Tenets of
Improv”
-- review of Keith
Johnstone’s Impro on HaikuBookReviews
I
recently had an interesting experience that revealed to me a big truth, a Big
Truth, that is, in capital letters. It was an encounter with a client.
My
business partner, David, and I were
working with the senior team of an organization and our focus was diversity in
their workplace, a conversation I have facilitated many times for other groups.
But never in my experience has the dialogue gone so deep and been so real and
raw, so honest and so true, so close to a point of real change.
We
had engaged this group in some new and experiential ways of approaching the
issue of diversity and I believe that focusing on embodied learning—getting
them out of their heads, that clever intellectual space, and into their bodies,
that place of real knowing—had helped them get to this place. But even as much
as we had created the space, they deserve the credit for going on that journey
and actually getting to that place where they could hear from their colleagues
about the sometimes small and sometimes large ways they are made to feel
unwelcome and unfit and dirty. Not just 20 years ago, but today.
They
heard people tell them about their first day of work in the organization, being
told there were “racist rednecks” who worked there, that they’d just have to
live with it, and that they’d better not be too sensitive to it. They heard—and
I mean really heard—their colleagues
describing what it’s like to mow their grass at home and have people drive by
and yell “nigger” and throw eggs at them. In the year 2005, not 1965. They
heard their co-workers telling them about colleagues who physically move away
from them at work so as not to get “dirty” by being around them. And they heard
about more subtle ways in which barriers are put between Self and Other in
their workplace.
As
a group, they heard themselves admit out loud that perhaps they are racist even
though they had never thought of themselves that way—some realizing that they have
enjoyed white privilege their whole lives without knowing it. Some listened to
their own trembling voices tell what it’s like to be stereotyped as a white
person who is Southern or who holds a certain kind of job. It was, in a word,
beautiful, what was happening in that room. And not only beautiful, but significant.
The
group made space in a special way to hear those stories. The hurt and pain of
their colleagues brought the group to a place of real truth and honest
awareness, unlike they had known before. They engaged around those stories with
a combination of pain and anger, feeding a burgeoning passion to ensure that
these things no longer could occur; if not out in the world then at least in
their workplace. It was a rare moment of real insight, deep personal
awareness—the kind that is absolutely necessary for change to occur. David and
I knew that they were ready for change; they had—in their gut—“gotten it” and
were ready to march together into the world to make the change that needed to
occur.
“Could
I see you outside?” their leader whispered to me in the fulcrum of the moment.
“I’ll
take it from here,” he said as we stood outside the door.
Shock
is just not a big enough word to describe what I felt. I pushed him for
information about why—did he think we weren’t doing a good job, was he
disappointed? “Oh, no, it’s been fantastic—just what we needed,” he assured me.
“But I think we need to move into action planning at this point so we can have
some concrete deliverables when we leave.” Funny how that word “but” erases all
that has gone before it.
Speechless.
I
wish I had asked him a different question: “What are you afraid of?”
But
of course, that is esprit
d'escalier talking—that spirit of the stairs—all the things you should have said but you only
think of after you've stormed out of the room (and presumably down some
stairs).
As
David and I struggled with this man’s decision and watched him take the group
into action planning in the afternoon, our tiny hearts were broken. Here was a
group poised for real change and left only with a list of predictable action
steps and due dates, unlinked to a vision of what could be since he had short-circuited
the process before we engaged them in vision-making. What happened? Why did
that leader feel the need, as David so aptly put it, “to reduce their very
complex insights into action steps toward issues they had not yet fully
articulated”? There was a whole big step missing, wasn’t there? I felt like I
was in a Yogi Berra documentary: “It you come to a fork in the road, take it,”
I could hear Yogi saying. Any fork will do.
The
group left with SMART action steps, that bane of every thinking man’s
existence. Yes, indeedy, the action steps were Specific, Measurable, Attainable,
Relevant and Time-bound. But were they inspired? Were they insightful? Were
they meaningful and authentic and real and charged with the kind of passion
that makes it impossible for a group of people to fail and makes it possible
for them to achieve far more than they ever imagine possible? No. But they
could have been, and they would have been. Instead, they were small and
predictable and very, very manageable.
Why
did this happen?
I
believe the conversation and the possibilities inherent in it were both too
messy and too scary. The container wasn’t evident—in fact, it is only because
we didn’t have a neat, tidy, organizational container that the truths could
emerge in the room at all. It was messy for us too—it’s much easier as a facilitator
to move through an agenda with great predictability and speed, focused on
coverage, getting through the notebook. It’s harder to put ambiguity in the
room and be comfortable with the ambiguity of it all, if that makes sense.
Where does the learning emerge? From listening or from doing? From hearing or
from feeling? From checking it off the intellectual to-do list or from really
getting it at a gut level? From your safety or your discomfort? As Madame Curie
has said, “dissymmetry causes phenomenon.” But are we so intent on stability (and
on getting good scores as facilitators) that we short circuit the necessary
dissymmetry?
We
had started the session with exercises from which the “rules” of improv could
emerge: Put down your clever, embrace your ordinary, and say “yes” to
everything. People relaxed into that permission to play and learn, to celebrate
every action, to let their partner affect them, to go beyond the safety of
words and intellectual business-speak. But it got too real, too potent, too
messy. It—that great big learning—wouldn’t fit into the nice, neat little
organizational boxes anymore. What, then, to do with it?
In
a recent article in Fast Company entitled
“Change or Die,” Alan Deutschman writes
that "behavioral change happens mostly by speaking to people's
feelings....In highly successful change efforts, people find ways to help
others see problems or solutions in ways that influence emotions, not just
thought." Yes, that’s where we had gotten to in that room, to that special
limbic portion of their brains and hearts where real change begins.
But
feelings, my dear friends, are messy, aren’t they? They require something that
is non-linear. David and I have been reading some interesting articles to frame
our work, one of
which was an article on “Wicked Problems:
Naming the Pain in Organizations” that I was introduced to on Johnnie
Moore’s blog.
As we struggled after the session to make sense of what had happened, David
sent me the following quotes from that article: "This non-linear process
is not a defect, not a sign of stupidity or lack of training, but rather the
mark of a natural learning process. It suggests that humans are oriented more toward learning (a process that leaves us
changed) than towards problem solving (a process focused on changing our
surroundings)." "...business and government persist in applying
inadequate thinking and methods to solving problems. One reason they do that is
it is possible, in fact easy, to tame a wicked problem. To do so, you simply construct a problem definition that
obscures the wicked nature of the problem, and then apply linear methods to
solving it (this sets off a chain reaction that perpetuates the problem).”
Racism
is a wicked problem, so linear solutions are ineffective. As David wrote so
brilliantly, “the action needed is learning (not problem solving), the issue is
intrinsic and complex and is not easily containable so the action will look and
feel a lot like chaos (messy, messy). By going straight to action planning, the
leader of that group did a textbook taming of a wicked problem and has,
therefore, perpetuated the problem.”
Is
it possible that there are wicked problems in the world that can’t be
flip-charted, bar-charted, pie-charted, Gantt-charted or action-itemed? Are there
things that charts and lists and accountabilities can’t solve? Are there wicked
problems that require nothing less than revealing one’s own self and talking to
another human being openly and honestly before checking off the boxes?
~*~ 37 Days:
Do it Now Challenge ~*~
Get messy. Put down your clever.
Embrace your ordinary. Let your partner affect you. Say ‘yes’ to everything.
Resist the temptation to make things “actionable” and predictable right away.
Instead, follow the disturbance.
I
recently had an interesting experience that revealed to me a big truth, a Big
Truth, that is, in capital letters. It was an encounter with a client.
They
heard people tell them about their first day of work in the organization, being
told there were “racist rednecks” who worked there, that they’d just have to
live with it, and that they’d better not be too sensitive to it. They heard—and
I mean really heard—their colleagues
describing what it’s like to mow their grass at home and have people drive by
and yell “nigger” and throw eggs at them. In the year 2005, not 1965. They
heard their co-workers telling them about colleagues who physically move away
from them at work so as not to get “dirty” by being around them. And they heard
about more subtle ways in which barriers are put between Self and Other in
their workplace.
But
of course, that is esprit
d'escalier talking—that spirit of the stairs—all the things you should have said but you only
think of after you've stormed out of the room (and presumably down some
stairs).
The
group left with SMART action steps, that bane of every thinking man’s
existence. Yes, indeedy, the action steps were Specific, Measurable, Attainable,
Relevant and Time-bound. But were they inspired? Were they insightful? Were
they meaningful and authentic and real and charged with the kind of passion
that makes it impossible for a group of people to fail and makes it possible
for them to achieve far more than they ever imagine possible? No. But they
could have been, and they would have been. Instead, they were small and
predictable and very, very manageable.
I don't know if you believe in synchronicty and flow (I suspect you do), so you'll appreciate that I've been struggling for weeks with a problem that came to a head yesterday. It's the issue of how, as a consultant, you can effect organizational change on a really deep, meaningful level. Your essay was the perfect antidote, along with the call out of the blue this morning from a colleague who has spent the past several months addressing just this problem. So thanks for reminding me to follow the disturbance. You're one of the most thoughtful writers I've encountered and I really appreciate your point of view.
Posted by: Michele | 10 August 2005 at 13:41
ah, yes, synchronicity. it's nice when it works, isn't it? many thanks for your very, very kind words...i'm glad you've found something here that's meaningful to you - thanks!
Posted by: patti digh | 12 August 2005 at 22:55
It's frustrating when they were clsoe to making a field goal, but still they made headway. More awareness is in there.
Do you already have in your toolbox aha! Process' trainer's handbook: Stories to Stimulate Reflection, Conversation, Action http://www.ahaprocess.com/store/Books.html. I haven't seen it in person myself but so much of their line looks good.
Posted by: Pearl | 14 August 2005 at 23:09
Like the Wicked Problems look at solutions. Thanks for that too.
Posted by: Pearl | 14 August 2005 at 23:12
Thanks for the comments - and the reading suggestion - I haven't seen that book, but will take a look!
Posted by: patti digh | 15 August 2005 at 06:17
Patti, I just reread this posting from the "after" side of a training you and David gave. I'm learning, little by little. Thanks go to you and David for creating some "safe" disturbance for us here in Des Moines. We need more...
Posted by: Michael Wagner | 15 April 2006 at 13:38