Authority and Authenticity

In this last month, a variety of intriguing and really quite wonderful challenges led me to consider “what's the best way to establish credibility with a fresh circle of people?”

Let me set the stage.

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As a performer I have to convince an audience that they can trust me with their attention. As a doctor I have to convince patients that I know what I'm doing, and that I care about them. And when I'm doing a speaking engagement or acting as an external consultant, I have to convince people that I'm worth listening to.

When doing these things, I steer away from suggesting that I'm an “authority”, a word which hints of paternalism. I prefer to say that together we will attack a problem or engage in something creative where my expertise will (hopefully) come in handy.

A sophisticated audience appreciates this collaborative approach. But with a traditional audience or in a traditional setting, people will often expect you to be authoritarian as well as authoritative. After all, they’re sitting there and you’re talking wisdom at them.

If you’re a tall older man with a deep voice, and that cheerful-but-aggressive manner I've come to associate with sports coaches, then people do tend to take you more seriously. (It’s awful, isn't it?) If you don’t fit this stereotype, then it can take a little more effort. In the long-run, first impressions are sand in the wind though… the important thing is that people will trust you because you’re genuinely competent and committed.

Look and act the part

How you look and how you move does affect what people believe about you. One of the foundations of improv is “status work” – how we human creatures like to be dominant (or submissive) in our interactions with each other. How we like to fit into groups, or defy them. It’s all very interesting, and great when you’re playing a character! I've taught status many times, and what I've learnt is that audiences can read your underlying intentions like a book. So don’t try to fool them when they need you to be genuine. Domatch your appearance to how you want to be perceived. If you’re a creative thinker who’s there to shake things up a bit, feel free to look the part.

Position the audience correctly

"Positioning" refers to the audience’s expectations and their readiness. Hopefully you will be introduced accurately, and the audience will be inspired with excitement as to your very presence. Even better if the excellence of your reputation precedes you! But it might not (yet).

So have a self-introduction prepared which conveys both your expertise and your passion.

Learn what the audience’s values are, and what topic is important right now

Organisations often have a list of core values, they may even be chosen so that their initials spell out a word like SUPER. These values don’t get updated, so they could bear only a passing resemblance to the genuine, day-to-day core values of the organisation, which are more agile. If you can work out what the real values are, you won’t accidentally step on them, and find that an entire room of people has frozen in the act of eating canapés, and is looking at you in perplexed horror.

Use the right language

There will be key words or phrases that make people sit up and listen. Use the right language and you start to be seen as “one of us” rather than “one of those people who comes in and don’t really know what’s going on”.  For example in healthcare, people respect the ideas of “patient safety”, or “quality”. *

* which are usually (and weirdly** ) taken to be the same thing.

** I say “weirdly” because while they are both important and desirable, they are not at all the same thing, in the same way that “edible” and “delicious” are not the same thing.

Learn who the key people are

The key people are the ones who are listened to, respected, or have authority. Sometimes they are seen as leaders, other times they might be gatekeepers… permission granters. It will ease people’s minds if you are seen to have their approval. Just be careful not to be seen as “belonging” to any of them as it will diminish your mystery and your dashing air of uniqueness. (Also, it may pigeonhole you into a faction which you never intended to join, or curb your ability to make radical remarks.) Even if you don’t meet with them, you should know who they are, because they are fixtures in the mental landscape of the organisation.

The crucial message is: Don't strive to get people to trust you. Instead, be trustworthy. Don't try to get people to look up to you by using dominating body language or tone of voice or other tricks. Instead, be confident in yourself and respectful of them. The aim is never to fool people into thinking you're credible. The aim is to be credible, and show it effectively. 

Sean

Happiness Is Positively About Other People

A long post today - you might want to read this one in bursts. It starts with improv but it's really about being excellent to each other. Performing improv can be addictive. Partly it’s the adrenaline rush you get from stepping on stage armed with nothing but trust in your fellow performers and in your own ability to be interesting. But a large part of what makes improv compelling is that it’s intensely focused on positive, constructive interactions. And positive interactions are the fundamental cause of happiness. That’s got to be important in itself, right? 

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This post is solely about positive interactions. Just in case you’re fully cashed up with happiness, and need results: positive interactions are also a great way to get more value from people.

The currency of improvisation

The currency of improvisation
The basic unit of exchange in improv is the offer (like when you politely offer someone some tea). An offer is when you put forward an idea, no matter what method you use. You might say it, “it’s a fine brisk Christmas morning, isn’t it?” or you might shiver and rub your elbows to indicate it’s cold, or look at someone in surprise, or declare a scene direction (“cut to the first time they met!”). When someone makes an offer, you’re supposed to accept it. That keeps everything flowing creatively.

Reacting with flair (or not)

Let’s take a look at the four basic types of reactions to someone else’s offer.

1. Embrace the idea and add to it. This is often referred to as “yes, and…” – it’s much more than just acknowledging or agreeing with an idea. It requires that you embrace the idea so hard that you add to it. With enthusiasm. “Yes, and…”ing is active and constructive.*
2. Acknowledge the idea but add nothing. The name for this is “wimping” - it can be quite pleasant (but exhausting) to work with something who will go along with everything but not come up with any ideas of their own. Wimping is supportive, but in the most passive way possible.
3. Brush aside the idea, after a perfunctory acceptance. This is often called “shelving”, because you’re putting that idea back on the shelf – your own idea is more important! “That’s nice, Dougal; but first! We’ve got to rescue the trapped fishermen!” Shelving destroys the original idea, but only passively, by saying that it’s not important enough to address now.
4. Reject the idea, or destroy any possibility of advancement. This is known as “blocking” and is regarded as so corrosive to creativity that it’s practically taboo. Blocking actively destroys the original idea

* Please note that you don’t have to use the literal word “yes” when doing this. You might even use the word “no” while still embracing the reality of what has been stated.

Do these four cases sound familiar? They might, if you’re interested in Martin Seligman’s work on positive psychology, or Shelly Gable’s work on positive relationships. About six years ago, Shelly looked at how people reacted to “good news” types of remarks, and drew up the responses in a two by two framework of active vs passive, and constructive vs destructive. She found that people who engaged in active, constructive responses were more pleasant to be around, and that happier couples respond to each other that way, habitually.

An active & constructive responses might be, “What’s the best thing that’s going to come out of this?” while an active & destructive responses might be, “A lot of crime happens in that area. And you bought a house there? Hmm."

The types of responses people make when improvising map directly onto this matrix. For over fifty years, improvisers have been intently studying such responses, dissecting them, giving feedback to each other, and exploring combinations of them. And there’s a lot more to say than just “active, constructive interactions are good!” (Also we have colourful names for all of them.)

Variety is great. Good stuff needs bad stuff to stand out from.

The first point I want to make is that all of the responses have their place (although the hero of the story is “yes, and…”). But not if you overuse it.

Imagine dealing with someone who embraced the active, constructive approach at all times. Each time you speak to that person, your comments are met with whoops of joy, followed by an exploration of your feelings. You quickly come to regard that person as happy, childlike, and about as focused as a tornado made of cats.  Indiscriminate enthusiasm can also come across as insincere.

Conversely, if you’re the one who feels compelled to say yes to every new idea, you will burn out.

Shelving ideas for later certainly has its place. It isn’t your turn all the time, but it is your turn at least sometimes, so be ready to shelve someone’s interruption if you have to. Some days, you may have to be a little pushy about it!

Even blocking can be necessary, to avoid feeding a really catastrophic idea.

I get the basics. What would a dramatic response look like?

Beyond accepting, wimping, shelving and blocking lie several other possibilities.

The über version of “yes, and…” is reframing, sometimes called The Tilt. This is where the responder not only takes the offer on board, but reinterprets it or reframes it in a way that seems blindingly obvious now, even though the rest of us never saw it coming. Typically, this moment of insight and perfect clarity leaves everyone with their mouth hanging open in wonderment (like the reveal at the end of Fight Club).

Here’s an example:

Person A: I’m consulting on so many different projects, that I never feel like an expert at any of the meetings.

Person B: So you’re always approaching things with a fresh perspective? It must be great not to fall into the same assumptions that everyone else is making!

Beyond wimping is waffling, which is where the performers are so worried about what the future may hold that they’ll spend their time focusing on minutiae, or engaging in meaningless transactions, or creating lists of things to do (but never actually doing them). These are all ways to delay making progress, because progress implies change, and change is scary.

The extreme version of shelving is hogging, where you make the whole thing about you. It can be arresting to watch someone hogging the limelight because they can be loud and energetic, but the rest of the team wonders why they bothered to show up. Repeated hogging is destructive of good team relations.

There’s something that’s worse beyond blocking: personal attacks. Yuk. Not something you want to see on stage, or in a professional setting; thankfully it’s rare!

Play the long game

If you find yourself defaulting to wimpy or destructive responses, please keep in mind the seeds you are sowing for future interactions.

Whatever behaviour you engage in, it will encourage more of that behaviour. People who feel they aren’t being listened to will stop listening, people who feel that they’re being shot down in flames will become more negative, and people who don’t contribute when asked will find that their input is no longer sought. But if you meet people’s ideas with enthusiasm and respect, they will be even happier to contribute… and so will you be.

Sean

The Real and Unreal World of Pretty Much Everything

Hey there. I hope those of you in Melbourne are enjoying the Fringe - fresh perspectives are good for creative juices.

Now, here’s a concept so central to understanding everything, that I'm devastated that I haven’t mentioned it to you before. Quick! Read everything herein!

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Real stuff and unreal stuff, hopelessly entwined

The concept is that there are two worlds: the Apollonian and the Dionysian (to use the formal theatrical terms). The Apollonian world is the domain of the real, the concrete. No-one can seriously argue about the existence of Apollonian things. Are there hats? Yes. Yes, there are hats.

The Dionysian world contains all the imaginary things. It is just as real (more real) and just as important (more important) than the Apollonian world. The Apollonian world contains some wonderful things, like oceans, owls, windmills, and running shoes. The Dionysian world also contains wonderful things. Beauty. Obligation. Unexpectedness. Value. It is the world of meaning.

Imagine a chair. An Apollonian description of it would be that it’s made of wood, it’s 75cm tall, with straight legs and a curved back.

I should mention that this chair is one of the things that I bought when I first moved out of home. It’s sturdy and practical. The nicks and dents acquired over the last twenty years have only added to its character. It doesn't quite match any of the other chairs, but they don’t match each other, so that’s okay: our furniture is collaborative in its diversity. Come to think of it, the chair and I share a lot of qualities.

There. That’s a Dionysian description. You can see how objects sometimes carry echoes of our own identity, visible to people familiar with our inner quirks.

So what does it mean?

Okay, so this concept of the real world, which affects us deeply, and the imaginary world, which affects us deeply, is a pretty basic idea. You've thought about it before. But basic principles give rise to complex issues, and the interplay between real and unreal worlds is endlessly fascinating. Once you start looking, you see it everywhere. Take marketing, for example. The decision to buy a hammer is partially because you need a hammer, partially about the exact shape and weight and quality of this particular hammer, and oh so much more about how much you trust the person selling it. And how much you feel that they understand your hammering needs. Simon Sinek, an authority on leadership and teams, stresses that “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” The why is intangible, even if the hammer is real.

What are the repercussions of this?

It’s possible to concentrate solely on the real world. It’s easy, too: the real world is black and white, there are facts, it’s a solvable equation. Research suggests that 80% of us are more comfortable dealing with the world of what is. After all, the unreal world of “what if?” is messy, emotional, and unpredictable…. it’s a bunch of hard work!

Within the medical profession, there has been a tendency to focus on the concrete, on outcomes rather than interactions. If your well-regarded hospital delivers high quality care, does it matter that the staff go home exhausted, or in tears from sheer stress? If you've cured a patient’s disease, does it matter that you've been rudely patronising while doing so?

Of course it does. We recognise the truth of that now - but it took us a while to get here.

It’s also possible to concentrate too much on the intangible, so that you never get anything done. Do you know anyone who habitually avoids conflict? Their quest for harmony may get in the way of producing results. Dionysian thinkers sometimes communicate indirectly (it’s all subtext and subtle hints) which can be infuriating or beautiful, depending on your tastes and in how much of a hurry you’re in.

If you see life as the physical world overlaid by the imaginary world, like a magical extra dimension, then suddenly you've got a much bigger ocean to swim in, and everything that happens to you can be reframed, recontexualised, understood more deeply. Which is a tremendous advantage to being human. Isn't that peculiar and great?

take care, sean.