Improving science communications with improv

In another life I was a science communicator, working with scientists to help them tell the story of their work. This was at a time when story and science was rarely in the same sentence, when enthusiasm for the work was tempered by the protocols of research, and when everything was told in the third person. I guess not much has changed.

And if I had known about improv (improvisational theatre) back then I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have had the courage, enthusiasm and conviction to use improv in my work and in training. Not so today.

This video shows Alan Alda taking a communications class with scientists and using improv theatre games to help them connect with their whole bodies, with their story and to allow their natural enthusiasm for their work to emerge. The before and after clips are very telling. I particularly liked this comment: “It’s much easier when you make it up, then when you write it up the night before.” Of course, she wasn’t referring to making up the story, rather to improvising the story and sharing her message. I think it’s important for all of us to share our messages, rather than just information. Messages affect us emotionally, and can be supported by data and information. But you are unlikey to change my mind or get buy-in to your idea just by bombarding me with more information.

This class using improv games and principles enables these scientists to show their enthusiasm and passion for their work, and hence communicate more effectively. Who wouldn’t want that?

Hat tip: Geoff Brown

The most common facilitation question

When offering facilitation training, one of the most common questions from facilitators is about how to deal with difficult people and tough crowds. This seems to be the single most common fear amongst facilitators, wondering how they will react to individual and group challenges, disruption, annoyance, cynicism or disruption.

So this is why I’m really excited about this one-day workshop I’m offering with mates Simo Routarinne (status and improv guru) and Johnnie Moore (all round great bloke) as a pre-conference workshop for this year’s European International Association of Facilitators (IAF) Conference in Helsinki, Finland. It’s on October 14 and is called On Your Knees – Status and Facilitation.

Here’s a little taster: Status, or power, games are inherent in meetings – whether acknowledged or not. Sometimes status can get in the way, creating tension between individuals and limiting the potential for authentic communication and engagement.

Understanding the dynamics of status is a brilliant tool for facilitators. Not only does it provide a lens in which to view the sometime baffling behaviour of participants, it is also a way of using your own status, that is raising or lowering it, to influence the group. Status is the tool we already use to create distance or close-ness between people.

On Your Knees will be seriously playful. We’ll look at the subtle – and not so subtle – ways in which we embody and play out status games in facilitation. We’ll explore multiple small and diverse interventions drawn from improvisational theatre.

Why is it called On Your Knees? You’ll have to come along to find out!

Registration details here. Early bird is until 20 September.

If you can’t make it, I’ll be writing about it here and we’ll be offering it wherever there might be demand.

Information about the Europe IAF Conference is here.

And here’s a podcast I did with Simo about status.

Let’s just pretend I wrote this, OK?

Of course, I didn’t. It was written by Harrison Owen. And I am ever so grateful that he did.

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A long time ago a good friend, Ralph Copleman, was to be found in the middle of a large circle of peers dressed in a flowing cape and repeating the words, “Everything is moving, Everything is moving.” Odd to say the least and some doubted Ralph’s sanity. Some still do, but that image has stuck in my febrile brain ever since – and as time has passed it occurs to me that Ralph had it precisely right: This is an energetic cosmos. The problem arises when we (and that includes all of us some of the time) desperately want everything to  stop and stand still. So desperately in fact that we have created a mental image of our environment exclusively populated by static things which include everything from mountains to super nova along with the oddments of our life like professions, chairs, relationships, organizational structures, corporations, countries and empires. Unfortunately this mental image is a radical illusion, one might say delusion. Ralph is right. Everything is moving and what we perceive as stable structures are but the momentary, slice in time, freeze-frame constructs of our imagination.

Heresy? Psychobabble?  Advanced esoteric insight? – None of the above, I think. As a matter of fact, Ralph’s observation is nothing but a short (poetic?) version of the (now) standard scientific understanding of the nature of the cosmos. Starting with the Big Bang it is all flowing energy, albeit now clumped in momentary configurations – but still flowing energy for all of that. Scratch any rock hard enough and its essential nature comes through – a whirring bunch of quarks and neutrons doing the cosmic dance. Doubtless my physicist friends would take issue with my phrasing – but not, I think, with the core message. Everything is moving.

So what does all this have to do with the price of eggs? Or for that matter – Open Space and our role as facilitators and consultants? A lot, I believe.

Starting with Open Space which is many things to different people. For some it is a Large Group Intervention. Others might see it as an aberrant phenomenon peculiar to a cultish few. For myself Open Space is a trial ride in the flow of life which has a lot of similarities to my boat.

My boat is smallish in size (32 feet) but definitely larger than the average punt. She is very seaworthy and shares a common heritage with the local Lobster Boats here in Maine. We have many visitors, most of whom have never been on a boat such as the Ethelyn Rose. When you walk on board, things look sort of familiar. Chairs for sitting, a comfortable nook for dining, and even an oriental rug on the floor – excuse me, sole. If you look further there are the standard amenities such as a shower and commode, all sequestered in their separate quarters. Even a complete landlubber will feel more or less at home.

But the moment we leave the dock the world changes – apparent stability yields to constant motion. Everything is moving even if it seems to be staying in the same place! In the harbor motion is minimal, but the moment  we clear the breakwater marking the harbor entrance the experience can be radically different. Sea swells from the open Atlantic Ocean take us up and down in distances measured in yards, and should we have a good cross wind the surface chop adds an interesting side to side motion. The Ethelyn Rose is right at home, but some of our visitors have a different impression. And navigating in these conditions is a definite learning experience. Even a simple walk through the main cabin can be a challenge. Hand holds that you had carefully plotted at the start of your journey suddenly changed position relative to you as you made your way. What was up is now down and who knows what is happening in between. Interesting, and as they say, It ain’t Kansas.

Most people meet the challenge and after a few educational bumps to  various parts of their anatomy they learn not to fight reality. No matter what you may have thought you were going to do, the only useful option is to go with the flow. And the next level of learning is that when you do that well (flow) you can actually arrive where you need to be. Wonderful! Sounds a lot like Open Space.

We start in the static stability of a circle. This may seem strange to some, but there is a place for everybody and everybody finds a place. A familiar and enduring structure for sure. Then it happens. The circle crumbles in bits and pieces as people come to center, announcing their passions – only to be briefly restored as they return to their seats. However the restoration is but momentary. Shortly everybody leaves their seats to join a chaotic gaggle at the wall. So much for static structure, and it goes downhill from there.

Ebbing and flowing, groups form and reform all without benefit of the standard constraints essential for orderly organizational life—or so we might have thought. Pre-arranged agenda (sometimes called Mission, Goals, Objectives) is nonexistent. The Schedule might be posted but never followed – things start when they start. Assigned participation is nowhere to be found, and yet the right people show up. And to make things even worse, the air is filled with buzzing and flutters as Bees and Butterflies do their thing. Madness! To be sure there may be a few people who are utterly flummoxed as the hand holds they may have expected (see above under “Ethelyn Rose at Sea”) disappear . . . or reappear in unexpected places. Their condition is not helped, for should they ask what to do the answer is likely to come back as a question – What would they care to do?

A trifling few will lose heart and head for the shore – perceived stability. But the vast majority, as we have seen over the years and around the globe, will be totally captivated by the moment, and a smaller group will experience that moment as total exhilaration. They are doing what their prior life experience taught them could not be done – seriously and intentionally going with the flow. And rather than being rank hedonism, the experience proves to be massively productive and fulfilling. Doing well and good – and feeling great. A hard to beat combination.

And then we come to Monday morning. Back to reality, as they say. But is it? The truth, I believe is rather different. They have experienced reality and come to the edge of shedding illusion/delusion. In the words of friend Ralph, “Everything is moving” – and this is now a fact of life to be savored and enjoyed. No longer a terrifying unknown, it is to be affirmed and embraced. Not without a few “white knuckle” moments to be sure – but infinitely better than hanging onto the (illusory) rock of stability.

So what about us – those privileged folks who have accepted the honor of opening space in people’s lives? Short answer: Invite our guests over the edge. Please note I did not say, push them over the edge.

Crafting this invitation is always a matter of personal style and must come from the heart. The invitation I have in mind never  appears on a piece of paper (or the electronic equivalent). It arrives in our personhood – who we are and how we present ourselves, which is to say, from the heart. Not to be confused with a gushy valentine or formulaic presentation, the invitation manifests in our simple presence, revealing our own acceptance and joy in the moving flow of life. Without words we express the swimmer’s call: Come on in, the water is fine! Of course you have to be in the water for that call to have any credibility.

It is perhaps easier to say how NOT to create this invitation. First off, it is not a matter of rational argument and presentation of facts. Most people already know the facts at some level, and I think the case could be made that it was “rational argument” that has gotten us into the bind we experience. Given the “fact” of a moving, changing world which can be very uncomfortable, it is quite “rational” to define that world in terms of controllable static chunks that may be contained, or better, bent to our specifications.  This has led us to such wonderful things as “Flood Control” which works until such time as Mother Nature and Old Man River decide to take a different course. It turns out that The River is not a static, definable thing but part of a vast ever changing system. Effective Flood Control would require close management of the Planet’s atmosphere to say nothing of the cosmos beyond. Good luck!

Also under the heading of “NOT to be included” are well intentioned efforts to sugar coat the pill, as it were. Which is to say that we might propose certain limitations that will restrict the  possibility of change in Open Space. Some of us have called these “givens” but so far as I can tell the only given is change itself. And to suggest otherwise is not so much to violate the “Spirit of Open Space” but rather the essence of the cosmos itself. Ralph had it right: Everything is moving. In this context, Open Space Technology is a minimal consideration.

I am by no means suggesting that our invitation look like the back panel of some medication listing every possible adverce reaction, if in fact unexpected change is such an adverce reaction. And truth to tell I find the appearance of unexpected change in the midst of an Open Space to be one of its (OS’s) most delightful consequences. I also think that it is important to note the OS is not the engine of change. It simply provides the space for change to show up and the cosmos (or whatever) takes care of all the heavy lifting.

For me an invitation to Open Space is an opportunity to include friends and strangers in the deepest experience of (my) life. It has little to do with selling a product, doing a process, exercizing some sort of professional competence – although there are doubtless elements of all of that. Fundamentally it is my invitation to experience life at its fullest in which chanagability is not the enemy to be suppressed but rather the rich tapestry of an evolving future. I don’t make it, I can’t predict it – but I can participate both as a sojourner and a co-creator. Stuart Kauffman speaks of being “At Home in the Universe.” That is my elemental experience, and I am always looking for playmates.

Harrison Owen, OS-LIST 23 August 2010

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Count me in Harrison. I’m always ready to play.

Information or messages

Heard an interesting interview on the radio this morning about science communications and the need for more literary science writing. In another life, I was quite interested in science communications – even dabbling in the writing of. I eventually became frustrated with scientists wanting to ensure everything was covered, that all ‘stakeholders’ were acknowledged and it was ‘professionally’ written. By professional, I think they meant in the style of a scientific journal – which frankly has never been my style. It didn’t seem to matter that the audience was usually an educated lay audience rather than the scientific community they were used to writing for.

At the heart of this dilemma is fear. Fear of being wrong. Fear of being found out. Fear of admitting that sometimes, despite our best efforts, we just don’t know. So the story is drowned in facts, in graphs, in details. All very commendable but not at all engaging. And importantly, the message is lost amongst all the information.

I’ve seen this lately with climate change and other environmental communications. Information overload. People don’t engage because you give them more information. They don’t listen to your argument because of the weight of the data supporting your argument.

We listen, and engage, when you reach our emotions, when we are affected by what you say. I’m reminded of an improv principle (isn’t there something from improv for every situation?) which says ‘be changed’. The characters need to change in some way for the scene to be interesting. Maybe that’s also true of science writing – the reader needs to be changed by what they have read. This may not mean they have changed their mind, rather it reflects a change in feelings, maybe from apathy to interest, from absolutely sure to doubt, from interest to excitement.

Adventures in facilitation (in London!)

I like this cartoon by Hugh MacLeod (you can subscribe to his daily cartoon here) because it captures how I’m feeling about a visit to London and surrounds in September and October. It will be an adventure in many ways.

You might have heard me bang on about facilitation from time-to-time. Okay, a lot then. I find facilitating endlessly fascinating. There’s a different group, a different dynamic every time. Hence my own response is different. Changing. Evolving.

So I’m excited to be able to share some of what I’ve learnt about facilitating at a Facilitating With Confidence course in London. Let me say that again, just in case you missed it: Facilitating With Confidence in London! Woot! And best of all, for me, and anyone who comes along, is that I’ll have two brilliant co-facilitators at my side: Johnnie Moore and Trish Stevenson.

And what if nobody comes says that little voice in my head? No problem, I still get to spend time with Johnnie and Trish, and who knows what else we might cook up?

It will be an adventure no matter what. And it’d be really cool to share it with you or people you know. I can guarantee some fun, some laughter and you will even learn a few things about facilitating – just as I will continue to learn from you.

Everything else you want to know can be found here (including registration details). Or if you want to skip the blurb you can go straight to registration.

Part 1: 20 – 22 September 2010

Part 2: 4 – 6 October 2010

Wallacespace Covent Garden, 2 Dryden Street, London UK

Early-bird rates till 31 August, group rates available and special rates if you ask us nicely.

Sustainable is Attainable

In May, I was involved in a conference called Show Me The Change – all about sustainability, evaluation, behaviour change and complexity. There were lots of expectations regarding the conference and its outcomes. But here’s one that was probably unexpected.

It was a conference about sustainability, so we concluded that the conference itself should be as sustainable as possible. A no-brainer really. It was catered for by students from Swinburne University and it seems they were inspired. So inspired that they have since created this event called Sustainable is Attainable.

Here’s the details. If you’re in Melbourne this August try to get along.

Mecanix Restaurant and Swinburne Event Management class, Derby, are holding a sustainable dinner called ‘Sustainable is Attainable’.

Our dinner is to promote a healthy lifestyle that is ethical and environmentally friendly to the planet and our lives. The night will serve a three-course meal as well as tea and coffee and a presentation on how to live a sustainable life. Lucky door prizes will also be up for grabs. ‘Sustainable is Attainable’ is being held on both Tuesday 17th and Tuesday 24th of August at Mecanix training Restaurant (located on the Prahran campus of Swinburne) Building PE 144 High St Prahran.

Tickets are $27.50 and doors open at 6.30pm.

Booking are essential – please contact Mary Zougoulos on 92146589 or email Mary on mzougoulos@swin.edu.au.

Comet

Even the sky was gloomy across Comet’s last night.  The new, last, day began in thick fog with mist that persisted. Right up, that is, until Comet’s final moments, when the sun came out and a breeze blew the fog away. Just a co-incidence, but nice nonetheless.

And there were the kangaroos, grazing as usual and the beach where Comet loved to run was just as glorious.

If you’ve got to go, then having nature provide a grande finale is to be recommended.

We will remember the life of the last of our gentle dogs and take comfort in the wonderful life he had and the joy he gave us.

But just right now, for one day only: desolation.

Being provocative

When Andrew Rixon and I were working together recently we were talking about clients who say they want something different in facilitation, but all of their subsequent behaviour (and anxieties) point to something else altogether.

Andrew shared with me this tool he uses to engage clients in a more meaningful conversation about what they are really willing to commit to. When I first saw it, it didn’t look this pretty and was missing a third question. Together we nutted out the final question about failure. Andrew calls this provocative facilitation, and I call it disruptive facilitation. Whatever you call it, it’s about shaking things up rather than making things easy.

I think this is a great way to open up the conversation. I also think the three questions are nested, with the easiest one first. By the time you get to talking about trying something quite different where outcomes may be nothing like those expected and that failure is a real possibility, you have reached quite a different client/facilitator relationship than one where you suggest you can predict and control the outcomes – which IMHO is nonsense.

Improvising writing

I’ve never been afraid of writing. It’s my preferred form of expression. And, mostly, I enjoy it. I do think I’m afraid of committed writing though. You know, the sort of writing that ends up being something: a book, a play, a script, a thesis.

So I’m always interested in ways to trick myself into more committed writing.

I really liked Denzil Meyers’ Adventures in Micro-Fiction, an improvisational writing technique based on an improvisational form called the Harold.

And now Stella Duffy explains how she used Open Space to complete the 4th draft of a novel. She was stuck, and Lee Simpson of Improbable suggested, “it might not be so much a case of not knowing what to do, as not wanting to do it in the usual way.”

Stella explains:

“And that if I did actually know what to do, all I needed to do was come up with that agenda and then allow myself permission to work on it in OS – as and when I was drawn to/moved to, rather than ploughing through a list and grinding to a halt because it was so boring/difficult.

So, the next day, I took some time, called about two dozen sessions – for myself, alone – made up my timetable and each day for the next few weeks I worked on what I was drawn to work on, for as long as I wanted to stay there. The final edit was a pleasure, the book my most successful at the time.

It sounds incredibly obvious as I write it now, but at the time it felt like a huge liberation, trying a new process, one I had worked successfully for other forms, and giving it a go with my ‘real’ work.

And a joy, of course, finding that OS had solo application!”

And Harrison Owen wades in with some thoughts of his own on writing in Open Space.

Having written a few books myself, in retrospect, I guess I did them all in Open Space. The one thing that became absolutely clear was that if I did not have the passion, nothing would work. Grinding it out was no help and best just to put the project on the shelf until it called me. However, once called, there was no stopping until it was over. I never knew at the beginning where the book was going, never had an outline — and truth to tell always felt that the book wrote me.  Sounds pretty much like the 4 Principles and the Law of Two Feet.

So my take aways from this little exploration: follow your passion, don’t plan and wait for the book (or play or whatever) to write me. Now that’s something I can commit to!

The surprising power of open space

Regular readers will be aware that I’m a fan of open space. And this week I was inspired by Stella Duffy and her experience of using open space to make theatre. Made me wonder if I’ve been limiting my own use of the form, and gave me a few ideas to chew over.

Stella has been working on a new theatre project and shared with the open space list the report she returned to the National Theatre Studio who generously gave 30+ people the space to work on the new project in OS. Here’s Stella’s story.

I’m emailing to thank you all so much for your support for the Chaosbaby Project Open Spaces this weekend and last.  To give you some idea of what happened, and how valuable it was :
36 people attended over both days (many of them came to both).
The age range was from 21 to mid-60′s.
They were 11 actors, 2 actor-musicians, 4 actor-writers, 1 choreographer-dancer, 6 directors, 1 designer, 1 film-maker, 2 musicians, 2 playwrights, 5 writer-directors, 1 photographer.

In the two days, using the Open Space form, various groups & individuals :

• wrote a 14-page traditional/’straight’ narrative for the piece
• developed character breakdowns
• worked on the physicality/movement for a number of characters/spaces
• held many discussions about the nature of the piece
• discussed the nature of chaos (as a theatrical concept, as a dance/movement concept, and in terms of chaos theory and mathematics)
• created/drew up initial design ideas
• wrote 3 new monologues
• worked on the (two, brief) pre-existing texts
• wrote and recorded a lullaby
• documented the work on camera and video
• made a puppet show, with live music accompaniment

Above all, I think, we showed ourselves it is not only possible,but perhaps preferable to work in Open Space, with a wide range of theatre-makers, across many disciplines, which generated an enormous amount of work/material, led not by a single director or writer, but by the whole - and that in doing so it is still possible  to have a cohesive idea of what we are making and where best our skills might be used. I’m really excited about taking this on further, I especially loved that, having met Slav (on the door, doing security) the first Saturday, he took (wonderful) photos for us on the 2nd Saturday.

We’re looking at a full weekend/three day Open Space to further the work later in the year.

I’ve worked in made/devised/improvised theatre for the past twenty-five years, this was one of the few times I’ve felt that it was TRULY a shared group endeavour and not, at least in some ways, a director or writer-led experience. And happy though I am to work as both a director and a writer, a working form that uses ALL the skills in the room, to the utmost that can be offered, feels like a much better use of time, space, money and, most importantly, the full range of all the artists’ abilities.

And I loved Stella’s comment on my earlier post about scriptwriting and facilitation: “Improvising / writing / facilitating – they’re all the same thing as far as I’m concerned.” Indeed!