Facilitation in pictures

In March I was delighted to facilitate a workshop at the Malaysian Facilitators’ Conference in Kuala Lumpur. And yesterday, “The world is getting smaller and smaller”, wrote a friend in an email. “Recently I contracted an artist for a project and saw this on her blog.”

Thanks to the amazing Wendy Wong of Welenia Studios for capturing my workshop in such a beautiful way.

Once a decade conferencing

As many of you reading this blog will know, I’m sort of keen on improvisation theatre – especially on what I’ve learnt that influences my facilitation approach. Things like making your partner look good, seeing everything a group, or individuals, do or say, as an offer, and understanding status and how to shift it. I can’t imagine facilitating now without knowing this stuff.

And about once a decade, I get a rush of blood to the head and decide to convene a conference. In the 1990s it was Live and Earthy – a fantastic conference for community educators. In the 2000s (is that how you say it?) it was The Naked Facilitator, a conference for facilitators (naturally) which was to be (unknown to me at the time) an opening for all manner of opportunities. And this decade? Well, it’s Thriving In Uncertainty.

Why once a decade? It takes a lot of mental and emotional energy to host a conference. Maybe it takes me a few years to forget just how much work is involved, until I’m happy to jump on board again. And given my advanced years, this may well be the last conference I host!

So, if you want to know what all the fuss is about in relation to applied improv, maybe you’d like to come along. As well as the Applied Improvisation Network, I’ve partnered with Melbourne Playback Theatre Company to host the conference. They are a world class playback theatre company (playback is a form of improvised theatre where audience stories are brought to life). Oh, and if you’re wondering if you have to get up on stage, or act, or do anything even remotely scary, the answer is no.

You will get an opportunity to hang out with world-class improvisors and learn how they use their skills to engage groups.

It would be great to see you there.

You can check out more about the conference here (early bird registration closes on May 1st).

The future belongs to those who can be flexible and adaptable

A special Insight report in the weekend paper is about the future of a baby born in Australia this year. Here’s what caught my eye.

“If current trends are anything to go by, today’s babies will inhabit a world in which flexibility and adaptability will be key. Their life trajectories will be whorls of activity spinning off into periods of retraining and reinvention. Their education will be interactive, ongoing, and probably much more fun than yours.“

I’d argue that flexibility and adaptability are important right now.

Also in the weekend paper, is an opinion piece by Garry Lyon, a former professional Australian Rules Football player.

“I couldn’t help but think last weekend how important it is for football clubs, and their coaches, to have the ability to improvise, and be flexible in their planning as they embark on season 2012…I hope the spirit of improvisation catches on during matches…What we do know is that football constantly surprises, throwing up new challenges at every turn. The ability to improvise has never been more important.”

This talk of the need for flexibility, or agility as it’s sometimes called, adaptability and improvisation are all very well, but how do we develop these capacities?

We all improvise – life is an improvisation, as it comes with no user’s manual. We seem to be happy to improvise the small parts of our lives – or maybe it’s that we simply don’t recognize that we’re improvising. Yet when it comes to our work, improvisation is seen as something akin to recklessness.

It is possible though to learn to improvise more and to bring this to all of the facets of our lives. Even those in the most controlled professions can improvise within  constraints. Improvisation is not a synonym of anarchy or chaos. It exists within boundaries.

In many ways I’m not surprised when a group of capable, talented, professional people, when asked if they improvise, shake their heads. “I’m not an improviser,” they declare. “It’s not for me.” Jazz musicians, and comedy improvisors are probably what come to people’s minds when asked if they improvise. They probably think of improvisation as something performers do on a stage in front of an audience. Any wonder that most of us would say no to that.

Even these ‘professional’ improvisors practice relentlessly to build their capacity to improvise.

When watching a group of people improvising on the stage, here’s what I see: a high-performing team, seamlessly working with each other, each with a specific, if changeable, function, working towards the successful completion of a specified task, sometimes making mistakes that might give them pause, but rarely stop them in their tracks.

Sound familiar? In its various forms, this is how teamwork is often described to me in businesses and organisations. It’s how people wished their teams were.

Taking a group of people for an away day or two or even three or more, or suggesting they attend a training course to learn how to improve their teamwork is ludicrous.

Would you send a child to a camp to learn how to play the piano, expecting that when they return from a few days away they would be transformed into a pianist? Would you take yourself to a retreat to learn new habits expecting to be a changed person on your return?

You might return with a new perspective, new information, insights and inspiration. You might even return with a set of skills to practice and hone and develop.

And this is the point.

We never learn anything new without practice. I’ve already written about this here.

Building our capacities to be flexible, to be more comfortable with uncertainty, to trust our abilities to adapt, and to see the possibilities around us, don’t always come easily as we struggle to shed the legacy of an era of order, control and predictability. We need to be exposed to being flexible and adaptable, we need to learn the foundations of improvising, and we need to practice.

Just as a footballer will practice in the gym to build strength, and run to build stamina, we need to train to be more spontaneous. If we want to be more flexible and adaptable and able to respond when we don’t know what to do, we need to practice so as those skills become second nature.

These ideas fascinate and excite me. And I’m looking for others who are share an interest in how to develop our capacities to thrive in an uncertain future. I don’t think there’s any easy answers, no magic bullets, no next ‘big thing’. But I do believe there’s lots of new territory to explore, new skills to learn, ideas to share and connections to make. If you are also fascinated by these ideas, you might be interested in this.

I need help

Recently I received a great little gift from my friends at On Your Feet. It was a reminder about asking for help, and the rewards that often go beyond the help itself.

So, here I am, asking for your help to let others know about a conference I’m organising. It’s called Thriving in Uncertainty and will be held in Melbourne on July 12th and 13th.

I am simultaneously excited and nervous about this – the first time we’ve publicly explored how applied improv can be used in different business and organisational settings. I’m passionate about the power of improv practices to build people’s capacity to respond to uncertainty, navigate change and be agile and responsive. And I know passion is not enough.

A significant insight I had recently was about the role of practicing improv exercises regularly to build our capacity to do our work more effectively. It’s like going to the gym to build your strength to be a better tennis player; or it’s like practicing scales on the piano so you’ll be better able to perform that tricky musical piece. I believe we provide too few opportunities for people in businesses and organisations to regularly practice the skills of making and accepting offers, noticing, making their partners look good, letting go, and doing something when they don’t know what to do.

I’ve promoted the conference widely amongst improvisers – now it’s time to share with businesses and organisations who we know could benefit from some improv wisdom.

Can you help?

Navigating uncertainty with serious playfulness

If you’d like to know a bit more about these super cool cards that Johnnie and I have made, check this out. It’s all about using serious playfulness to navigate uncertainty.

And they were designed by the super talented Mary Campbell.

Three continents. Three individuals. Connected by a shared project. Now sharing it with the world. It’s times like these I love the internet – not to mention the people I get to work with.

An operating system for living

Enough said, really.

Improv in business

It’s no surprise – learning the practices of improvisation, has transformed the way I work, the way I facilitate, the way I relate to others, my outlook and my approach. Big claims? You bet.

The internet enables us to find others who share this passion for improv. This is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because we can find others who share this belief that improv is a fundamental skill for navigating the uncertainty of the world, and a curse because it may lull us into a believing that improv is now mainstream in business. Not yet. Definitely not yet. Using improv in business settings is still at the edge.

So I’m delighted to find this selection of essays about improv in business compiled by Ian Gotts and John Cremer. It is a cracker. If you’ve ever wondered what all the fuss is about, and why you should consider improv – in any context – it’s worth a read. Lots of examples and case studies and different applications of improv.

And if you’d like to explore applied improv – or improv in business, communities and organisations – closer to home (if home is Australia ofc), early bird registration is now open for AIN Downunder, right here in Melbourne , July 12 & 13.

Make your partner look good

This is one my favourite improv principles. It’s just so obvious – focus on making others look good. It’s about shifting the focus from yourself to others, and being concerned more about the overall outcome – whether that’s a performance, a workshop, a show, a presentation, or a conference.

Speaking of conferences, it’s the last three days for super early bird registration for AIN Downunder. You can help make the conference look good by showing up and making us all look good! Go here to register.

It’s gonna be amazing! We’ll explore how to use the principles of improvisation to bring more spontaneity, and effectiveness, to your work and life.

Asking for help

I quite enjoy helping others. I’m not so good at asking for help. From an improv perspective it’s like making offers – asking for help is making an offer to the world. And boy, does it pay back big time.

Those of you reading this blog recently will know I’m in foreign parts designing a biggish two-day event. Those of you who know me well will know that I’m never satisfied, always looking for new (and rediscovering forgotten) ideas. And those of you who know me even better will know I’d give my right arm to have a facilitation buddy or two to hang out with, toss about ideas, egg each other on. Sigh.

So I’ve turned to the next best thing, all you good folk in internet land. Some of you I know, some I’ve never met. I’ve no idea how many of you read my blog (I know, I know – there’s something I could do with google analytics to find out and, well, I really don’t care that much and I’ve never been that big into numbers. Are you out there Stephen?). If I’m only talking to myself, that’s quite okay – it gets my thoughts out of my head and on to the screen where at least I don’t forget them.

I try stuff. I like blogging. I like twitter. Facebook’s okay. Don’t mention google+ (makes me feel guilty), I’ve tried amplify, and instgram, I’ve lost count of my email addresses (they all go via gmail anyway), I quite like rapportive, I’ve just joined pin-somethingorother, I have a neglected flickr account, I think I have a YouTube channel, I subscribe to my favourite bloggers and thinkers, I just LOVE Skype – I could go on, obviously. What’s that? What about LinkedIn? Well, of course I’m on LinkedIn – I just don’t know how to use it that well. Then, in a little burst of activity towards the end of last year I created a LinkedIn Group. Wow! Just wow! I had no idea. It’s not a big group, less than 200 people – but what a generous and creative bunch.

And what I’ve learned from having a LinkedIn group is that it’s not about leading with answers – it’s about leading with questions. Real questions. Making big, bold offers by asking for help. Who knew?

It’s all about movement

“People learn a new language more easily when words are accompanied by movement.”

New Scientist, Issue 2844/2845 Dec 2011.

I’ve written before about the importance of physical movement, and how this is integral to how I facilitate.

I love this card because it reminds me to move my body, and to provide opportunities for people to move when they meet rather than sit in a passive state for long stretches. It’s ambiguous too – because it also reminds me to move and be moved – emotionally. Physical and emotional movement is equally important, and often equally ignored.

So in designing an event build in physical movement, and think about the emotional journey of participants. What will move them? What will touch them emotionally? What will create a shift or a disruption?