Perfectionism

Dan Pink has a post on perfectionism, that adds another dimension to thoughts I’ve been riffing with Johnnie Moore and David Robinson around what we’re calling The Tyranny of Excellence.

One of the principles of improv is to ‘be average’ – to give yourself permission to stop worrying what others think, do what you do, and allow yourself to shine. David describes it as ‘putting down your clever and picking up your ordinary’. I wrote about it here. This nearly always gets a strong reaction – either ranging from “Yes! At last.” to “Oh, no, that can’t be right.”

Here’s some recent research that Dan cites:

According to research reported in this Miller-McCune article, perfectionism comes in two varieties: adaptive and maladaptive. And one of the key determinants of the type of perfectionism someone displays is whether the quest for perfection is “motivated from an inner urge or an outside push.”

…if you’re pursuing perfection because of pressure from others — parents, bosses, peers — that’s likely to take you down the path of dissatisfaction and reduced well-being.

The Tyranny of Excellence  sets us up to fail. It oppresses us by demanding we be creative, strive for excellence, make the right decision – even the best decision – to not be ordinary. It can be both internally driven, by that small voice telling us we’re an impostor or not ‘good’ enough, or externally driven by feedback and judgement. Is it any wonder that it’s easier then to just do nothing, to give up trying to meet such unreachable standards? And here’s the rub. What is ordinary to me, what I do really well because it is ordinary (to me) may very well seem extraordinary to you (because it’s not ordinary to you).

So it seems it’s a good step to aim for perfection if it’s what you want, not to appease others. And maybe it’s also worth considering the idea of ’satisficing’ rather than ‘maximising’ as described by Sarah Wilson.

Here’s some of what she wrote:

Then there’s this idea of “satisficing”, a portmanteau of satisfy and suffice, coined by an economist. Satisficing involves making decisions by first selecting criteria that matters most to you, then going with the first option that ticks all such boxes.

Thing is, most of us are “maximizers” – we put off deciding until we’ve examined every possible option, which makes life not unlike a bottomless purgatorial pit. I’d argue our culture encourages us to maximize, to believe a perfect decision exists; it justifies the enless choices consumerism chucks at us. But – quelle irony – research shows satisficers actually make better decisions than maximizers, and are happier to boot.

Slideshare for sharing survey results

This slideshow brings together a range of my interests.

Regular readers will know that I have a thing for improv, and try and attend the annual Applied Improv Conference to get my dose of spontaneity, new ideas, laughs, connecting with old friends, meeting cool new people and a general injection of enthusiasm and potential collaborations.

In the last couple of years I’ve helped gather feedback about the conference, analysed the results and prepared a slideshow to share the results.

In making the slideshow I can indulge my passion for design, typography and photography (and try to bring them all together into something, well, Insanely Great!)

Check it out for yourself. It’s best viewed full screen.

Letting go of The Hero

While Johnnie Moore was here this week, we’ve been riffing this idea of ‘putting down your clever, and picking up your ordinary’. I’ve also written about it here and here and here.

It’s also known as ‘be average’ and emerges from improv theatre. I know I have more work to do on this because I consistently forget it. Most recently, the evidence is here. Here’s part of what I wrote just a few weeks ago:

“That feeling of ‘not good enough’ is just SO hard to shake. There’s a handful of draft blogs, unfinished and unpublished. And don’t even start me on books! Ideas pop into my head and just as quickly I discard them. Where does this self-editing begin, I wonder? I know I’m not alone. And I know that the world needs all our ideas – good and bad, possible and impossible, those that will stick, and those that will dissipate. I wonder how we can support each other to share our ideas, to be brave enough, bold enough, instead of *not good enough*?”

For the past six months I’ve been taking part in a coaching class with Patti Digh and David Robinson. I missed the last four on-line conversations, so one day when I had some time to myself I listened to the recordings. There was some talk about feeling like a fraud and believing that everything that needed to be done, or said, had already been, well, done or said. The crux of it being: ‘what can I add?’ This story that David Robinson told really stuck with me.

“We were talking about the Law of Polarity, that is, believing that there are only two points and how that can freeze you. That it’s them or me, or it’s right or wrong – when actually all of these things are inter-related, you only know dark because of its relationship to light, you only know the things you know because of their relationship to other things.”

This led to one of David’s collegaues telling his own story.

“For a vast portion of my life I was really invested in the Hero Syndrome which meant, if you believe in the poles( aka  the Law of Polarity) then there has to be an Anti-Hero. The more I invested in the Hero, the more I grew the Anti-Hero. And what I was trying to get away from was the Anti-Hero, so I kept invested in the Hero. Ultimately, after diminishing myself and my work in a number of ways – eg the perfectionism that comes from believing that you have to be a Hero and the tide that rises inside of you that says, ‘I’m not’ (the Anti-Hero, that you make enormously powerful by investing in the Hero), I recognised that what I needed to do in order to defeat and let go of the Anti-Hero was to let go of the idea that I needed to be a Hero. And suddenly all these choices opened up – I didn’t have to save the world, I didn’t have to be Pablo Picasso, I just have to do what I do, and in doing what I do there is no more Anti-Hero. I no longer empower it. I don’t have to be ‘good enough’ or ‘not good enough’ – which are versions of the Hero and Anti-Hero.”

David then explained how this was manifest as the improv theatre principle: putting down your clever and picking up your ordinary.

“The way to really be present and powerful with yourself is to put down the idea that you need to be right, that you need to be brilliant, that you need to BE anything, AND in fact what you need to do is to pick up your ordinary, because the thing you have labeled as ordinary IS what makes you special, it’s your most powerful, most potent gift, it’s where your talents are, and yet it is ordinary to you. You think everybody has it. You deny the very thing that is your most potent gift. So this is all about not investing in the Hero so we can let go of the Anti-Hero. Letting go of ‘good enough’ so that ‘not good enough’ has no power.”

A ’sliding door’ moment

Funny how things turn out. Way back in the 1990s I took some Playback Theatre classes – my intro to improvisation. Then early in the last decade, in 2004, I discovered the Applied Improvisation Network (then known as Improv in Business) on the web and took myself off to their conference in San Francisco. I decided to go to that conference because it was about *applied* improv and it included a day of open space and it was to conclude with a Playback Theatre performance and it was on the west coast of the USA, making it accessible from the east coast of Australia. Now I can see that making that decision was the turning point of the last decade for me.

How our lives are shaped by seemingly innocuous decisions. It was just a conference for heaven’s sake!

I didn’t know a single person. I met a few. And I went back the following year for another dose. And then again. And again. I’ve now been to five Applied Improv conferences. I’ve written often enough about what I’ve learned, here and here and here; how I’ve incorporated improv into my practice as a facilitator, here and here and here; how I use improv, here and here, and, most recently, my reconnection to Playback, here.

What I haven’t explored so much is what else I’ve gained from that simple decision. This post is inspired by a coaching program I’ve just completed with Patti Digh and David Robinson. I met these remarkable people (although I didn’t realise just how remarkable) at the AIN Conference in Banff in 2007. I truly thought, as we went our separate ways, that that would be it. I’d enjoyed their company, loved their workshop on diversity and how improv was used to explore abstract concepts, and expected nothing more. David flew back to one side of the United States, Patti to the other, and I flew back to Australia.

Fast forward to earlier this year when Patti and David announced an on-line coaching course. In the meantime, Patti had published her book, Life Is A Verb. I’d followed Patti on her blog, like squillions of others. I bought her book. And I bought her book for others. Geoff Brown and I did a podcast with Patti, and mused over numerous coffees about one day working with Patti and David. I still use their workshop as a touchstone of how improv can be incorporated to explore difficult topics. I started my own blog (in June 2007), joined Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn. This helped me stay connected to people I’d only met briefly. People like Patti and David.

So I signed up for the six-month course, knowing full well that I wouldn’t be able to fully participate. Remarkably, the timing of the calls was ‘down-under’ friendly. At some stage, travel and work would get in the way. Which it did – but I was surprised that I managed to hang in there for most of the program.

I’ve just listened to the recordings of the last four calls – all of which I missed. One after the other. Five hours’ worth. It’s difficult to be precise about what I’ve gained from this experience, because it’s ongoing. As I first heard from Chris Corrigan, and was reiterated by Patti during our last call, the conversations began before we came to them, and will continue long after. It’s these conversations that I value the most.

I know this is true because of tendrils. Tendrils of thought, of ideas, of knowledge that roam in my brain and surface when I need them most. And I’ve also learnt to trust that these tendrils WILL be there when I need them. Here’s some of my favourite take-aways:

• The answer to complexity is not more complexity
• You can’t progress along a monkey bar unless you let go, and it’s in that moment of letting go that possibility emerges
• My life is made up of concentric circles. Sometimes they overlap, sometimes they don’t. Nonetheless, these concentric circles are who I am (even if you only see some of them)
• I do my best work when I am mastering my own craft, and not performing for others
• You can’t follow something that hasn’t been initiated – so I have a choice to initiate, or wait for someone else and follow their lead. Both are legitimate. What’s not legitimate is to complain when no-one else is doing something that you’d like yourself. This is an opportunity to implement the JFDI policy!
• Relationship is everything: I am who I am, and know what I know, because of relationship.
• Sometimes you see the purpose after you’ve worn the path.
• Being can’t be passive – nor can living.
• My decisions come from who I am and what I value, rather than from what other people expect.
• My list of criteria that helps me decide what I want to do, also helps me decide what NOT to do – when to say ‘no’.

How else has that simple decision to attend a conference affected my life?

It has everything to do with the people I’ve met, the friendships formed, and the opportunities enabled.

Photo credit: Noosa Lakes Dusk by Tristan Clements

What to do when you don’t know what to do?

I’m reminded, yet again, of the power of preparation over planning. During these last couple of weeks I’ve had to draw on all of my understanding of groups, capacity to analyse what’s happening and why, knowledge of process, ability to improvise and respond to what’s actually happening (compared with what I hoped might or should happen), and self confidence. Phew! No wonder I’m whacked!

And while this was an extreme case, EVERY facilitation job requires us to draw on these capacities to a greater or lesser extent. I believe my time is better spent building my own capacity rather than trying to predict what the group may or may not do and how I may or may not respond. The key, I think is trust. Trusting yourself that you WILL know what to do when a situation emerges.

Yes, it’s stressful at times. Who wouldn’t prefer to know what’s going to happen next? My experience of facilitating, and life, is that it’s somewhat tricky to try and predict what’s going to happen. I learnt at the Applied Improv Conference earlier this year in Portland about amygdala hijacks (which someone wittily described as *not* a cocktail). When threatened with uncertainty or unfairness or any other dodgy situation, the higher functioning parts of the brain shut down and the primitive brain takes over. This is not so good because the options are limited to flight or fright. Not a good look for a facilitator! The interesting thing for me is that we can TRAIN OURSELVES TO AVOID amygdala hijacks. Improv does this by putting us into situations that could cause an amygdala hijack – and we train our brain to stay functioning at a higher level. I also think trusting oneself and allowing process to emerge while facilitating is another form of brain training. It certainly has got easier for me over time.

And another thing that helps [me] is frameworks. Not everyone likes frameworks. I find them useful as a compass to help me understand what’s going on. The week before flying to India to facilitate a five-day event I decided to immerse myself in Theory U. I spoke with many wonderful people who helped me understand the theory, and to others who helped me explore how to apply it. While I didn’t consciously apply Theory U, it was there in the background and one aspect became critical on the last day.

While researching Theory U the following resonated:

• What does it mean to act in the world and not on the world?
• Leading from the future as it emerges
• The shadow side of the process

Theory U describes (in brief) a process of moving from sensing, to presencing, and finally realising. there’s lots more, of course, but that’s the essence.  So while I watched the group move thorough cycles of sensing, presencing and realising I also observed the shadow: judgment, cynicism and fear. Naming this on the final day was something I could contribute that I certainly hadn’t planned on. There were many nods of recognition as I described these shadows that thwart our best efforts to learn and improve. This is just one example of drawing on one framework to help a group move through the ‘groan zone’.

I’d be interested to hear what capacities you draw on when faced with not knowing, a potential amygdala hijack and high stakes to ‘perform’.

PS: Something else – the single most important thing I was reminded of was to do nothing. To not react, to simply observe, to allow whatever has to play out to, well, play out. And believe me, this is way harder than doing something!

Community building with Playback Theatre

We cannot hold a torch to light another’s path without brightening our own. Ben Sweetland

My introduction to improvisation was via Playback Theatre. Playback is a form that uses real stories – moments and stories from the audience – as a basis for the enactment. The players use deep listening skills and metaphor to play back the stories capturing the emotion, and sometimes the sub-text. It can be funny or moving or tragic. Anything really. It’s great fun, and a privilege, to perform.

The folk from TrueStory Theatre were at the Applied Improv Conference and provided a great platform for us – newcomers and old hands alike – to explore playback.

One comment that stayed with me was from Christopher Ellinger, who said that “the purpose of playback is community building”. Improv is not usually associated with community building, so maybe this requires some exploration.

It’s described by TrueStory Theatre like this:

The mission of True Story Theater is to promote social healing by listening deeply to people’s stories and transforming them spontaneously into theater. Our events create a respectful atmosphere where every voice can be heard and any story told — however ordinary or extraordinary, difficult or joyful. True Story Theater offers audiences fresh perspectives, deeper connections, and a renewed appreciation for our common humanity.

I’m reminded of my own experiences learning playback and performing. We built community amongst our dispirate troupe of newbies grappling with the form by turning up each Tuesday evening and telling our own stories: there was the woman minister dealing with the hierarchy and expectations of the Church and her family; the daughter of social workers who had grown up in institutions; the male beautician who went on to become a regular playback performer; the young couple just starting an organic fruit and vegie business. Oh, and I was there too, just starting out on my own in business – and exploring improv for the first time.

We’d share moments from our week, and stories that grew and developed. It was like living in a real-life melodrama serial. And all the while we’d practice listening – listening for the essence of the story, a metaphor, what’s not said and how it could be restated as three sentences. We’d practice each of these in turn, and then we’d practice listening for all four at once. It was the most authentic listening training I’ve ever done. We’d practice playing back, taking on different roles and using different forms. We’d practice accepting offers, and moving the action on. We’d practice speaking up and shutting up. We’d practice making our partner look good. And we’d practice giving, because that’s what playback is all about – the teller giving their story to the players, and the players reshaping it and giving it back. That’s why I also think the essence of playback is community building – it creates shared stories. Your story becomes my story. It creates shared understanding – I can empathise with your experience. And it creates a shared experience, that bonds us and builds connection.

Playback is another manifestation of the power of conversation, telling stories and human connection. And it’s great fun!

What clients really want from improv

There’s a tremendous hunger in organisations for individuals to be seen and to have the skills to communicate what they’re passionate about.

One of the workshops I attended at the Improv Conference was an interview with three clients who currently use improv within their organisations and the On Your Feet folk who provide the applied improv. The clients were from Nike, Intel and the Oregon Public Service.

We heard about the challenges that the clients face in introducing improv in their organisations and in getting buy-in from senior management and participants, particularly if their backgrounds and work are largely science/engineering focused. The tricky bit is demonstrating the value of improv in advance, hence the importance of starting with a relationship.

“Get yourself out there – find a trusted partner who knows your work and will get you a foot in the door. Try a pilot with a handful of people.”

Once you’ve delivered something you can start collecting data to demonstrate value: ask people how they applied what they learnt, capture anecdotal evidence, before and after stories – and don’t underestimate the value of your web site.

“Executives often process information and make judgment based on visiting the web site of the improv provider to see who else they have worked with.”

On Your Feet sometimes do before and after scenario measurement. They provide three situations and ask participants six weeks before the workshop how they would deal with them. Then they ask them the same question about the same scenarios six weeks after. The results and compared and analysed, providing valuable information for the client and OYF.

“You can get away with anything once. It’s about getting a return engagement.”

To get internal buy-in clients will tie the improv to whatever big initiative is current, especially when competing internally for funding. So it’s useful for providers to know what the big initiatives are and provide a clear tie-in.

And what about the nay-sayers and skeptics? It’s important to recognise the differences in the audience, listen to them and acknowledge that everything won’t work for everyone. Strategically, it’s useful to do pre-interviews with known skeptics and be prepared to use the organisational language and situations.

One of my own tactics for dealing with skeptics is to make sure that whatever they are doing in a workshop is tied to an actual situation they have to deal with in the workplace. This starts to build confidence that this ’stuff’ might even be useful!

People in organisations are often passionate about what they are doing – even if it seems mundane to others. They will try and innovate and do their best no matter what their role is. They like to be acknowledged – don’t we all? They want to share what they know and learn from others. It’s part of what makes us human. Improv can build the confidence and communication skills for even the most introverted to communicate with others (don’t I know it!). Individuals in organisations want to be seen and heard.

“And it’s valuable to get people just to laugh and enjoy themselves.”

Time well spent

Here’s some images from my recent trip to the US. I was there on holidays, and to attend the Applied Improv Conference in Portland, Oregon.

The highlights were the scenery, autumn colours, fresh snow, Yosemite (wow!), indulging my passion for photography, sharing the improv conference with my good friends Anne Pattillo, Geoff Brown and Chris Corrigan and the deepening friendships that develop from shared experiences, seeing Geoff and Chris improvise music on stage in Portland, and reconnecting with old friends. There were also some people I missed, and some new friendships forged, many ideas, time to reflect, laugh, and re-energise. Time well spent indeed.

One step at a time

I’ve been musing on the differences between offering advice, making an offer and saying no – inspired by a recent conversation with a good friend. I just picked up the Saturday paper and was scanning the employment articles. Lots of fairly pedestrian stuff about writing resumes and so on. There’s also the inevitable ‘advice’ column – with lots of questions about what’s the best or right thing to do. This expectation that there really is a best way, exacerbated sometimes by an education system that rewards correct answers over creative responses, is ingrained and often emerges in groups and individuals when a decision is needed.

I noticed this in myself while on holidays in the United States recently. Will we do this or that? If we do this, will it be better than that? What might I miss out on if I choose one thing over another? The problem with this thinking is that there’s no resolution. You end up doing nothing, or putting off the decision until it’s too late, and missing out on both!

Improv performers face this dilemma constantly and train themselves to accept offers and to do something – anything as long as it moves the action forward. Trying to work out, in advance, the consequences of a particular action would be, well, insane. That’s not to say we should completely ignore consequences – no, no, no. There’s plenty of times we need to slow down and consider the impacts, on ourselves and others, of a decision we’re about to make. See – it’s not so easy. In the one breath I’m saying, ‘Do something!’ and in the other, ‘Slow down and consider the consequences.’ I guess the trick is knowing when to do what, and in recognising being stuck. When stuck, I try and do a little something just to move on.

Here’s a story I wrote recently about being stuck in Myanmar.

We returned to the hotel for a bit of a rest – and for Andrew, my colleague, to do more work on his handouts – agreeing to meet later to visit the spectacular Shwe Dagon Pagoda. At 5.30 I was waiting in the lobby. Andrew turned up and said he had too much work still to do and wouldn’t be coming out. It shouldn’t stop me though.

And so began my inner dialogue. One part of me – the rational part – was saying, yes, go to the temple. It was my only chance. Imagine coming to Myanmar and NOT going to the temple? Unthinkable. The other part – the emotional part – was screaming ‘but I don’t want to go on my own! I’m scared’. And so I sat on the couch in the lobby having this to-and-fro conversation in my head. Rational. Scared. Wanting to. Not wanting to. Maybe I could go during the week? Yes, that’s it. I’d go then. You’re crazy! Go now! What’s stopping you? It’s getting dark. How will I get back? What if I get lost? I don’t have enough local money. Oh, the excuses. I was STUCK. Stuck on a couch in the lobby of a hotel in a country I may never visit again.

And I thought of my patterns, accepting offers, of doing something.

So I walked over to the tourist desk and very tentatively asked about visiting the temple. Was it easy to get to? Yes! Only a 5-minute taxi ride. How would I get back? Taxi’s would be everywhere, and anyway here’s a little card with all the information I needed written in English AND Burmese. It’s all I needed. That little card. That talisman which meant I could find my way back to my temporary home.

Minutes later I was standing barefoot at the entrance to the temple, an English-speaking guide by my side, the most amazing, stunning Buddhist temple I’ve ever seen, all my senses alive with the sights, the incense, the marble underfoot, the feel of the jade and the carvings, the chanting. OMG, in that moment I felt utter relief that I’d taken the opportunity handed to me. I was reminded then of my favourite Keith Johnstone quote: Those who say yes are rewarded with the adventures they have; those who say no are rewarded with the safety they enjoy (or something like that).

I’ve never been more grateful for saying Yes!

Do you want fries with that?

Here’s some of my take-away’s from last week’s Applied Improv Conference in Portland, Oregon. This was my fifth improv conference, and my focus has shifted from learning improv to furthering my understanding of how to incorporate and apply improv into my practice. These are tasters – to remind me to write in more detail later. Let me know which ones you are interested in.

Performance improv is all about the audience – applied improv is all about the participants and their experience and learning.

To overcome the myth and perception of improv being a soft, kumbaya-type experience, ’shock’ the participants with a ‘violent’, sarcastic or overly-competitive game.

There’s a tremendous hunger in organisations for individuals to be seen and to have the skills to communicate what they’re passionate about.

Improv trains your brain to sit with threatening or fearful triggers (such as unfairness, lack of choice, uncertainty, difference and status) and to react less often, and better.

Improv activates the part of the brain that loves to learn, as well as enabling innovation by creating opportunities for neural rings to intersect.

The purpose of Playback Theatre is community building. (And, BTW, I love playback!)

There are so many applications for gibberish in facilitation that I don’t know where to start. Don’t know why I haven’t used gibberish much before – that’s about to change!

So, what would you like to hear more about?