6 lessons borrowed from Improv Artists to help us face our challenges creatively
21st April is the UN International Creativity and Innovation day. It’s a challenging time in the world – on a global scale, and, if you’re like most people, you are facing stress and challenge in your individual, personal or professional life too. We need to be at our most creative, innovative, flexible selves if we are going to respond and adapt to challenge, and make change happen. What can we learn from Improv artists - masters of adaptability and innovation?
It’s clear that to respond to global challenges, and cope with rapid change and challenges in our daily life, we need to be flexible, adaptable and open to doing things differently. Whether we idenitfy the need to influence system or complex change; or creating simplicity, ease and better alignment; or micro-changes and tweaks; or small steps towards something new; and whether we are responding rapidly, in the moment, or gradually building in transition: we are re-imagining and re-shaping - and we need the skills and mindset to facilitate it.
Using our creativity, innovating, and making change happen, can feel exciting and hopeful.
But at the same time, the more we feel challenged and stressed, the more we are likely to resort to the familiar, the automatic, the seemingly safe. Instead of being open minded and flexible, we narrow-down and favour the habitual. It’s the way we are wired.
How can we build our resilience by getting better at adapting to change, and creating new possibilities when we feel stuck?
Today I’m taking inspiration from the masters of creativity and adaptability: Improv actors and comedians. One of my former coaching clients is an improv comic and they inspired me to do some research! Improv artists are able to create a world that both the actors and audience can see, in just the first few lines, responding to their partners in the moment, to build something out of nothing. How do they do it and what can we learn?
Practise
Firstly as David Alger writes on www.pantheater.com
‘Improv is an art. However, it is also a craft. A craft is something that is learned through practice, repetition, trial, error and hard work. Much like any other art, skill in improv is acquired over time.’
If you want to open your mind to creativity and flexibility, remember that using your mind in this way is a skill that you can develop, and skills take practice, repetition, trial, error and hard work.
Collaborate
Collaboration is good for improv and for real life because new combinations and possibilities can arise when you put people together, combining their ideas, knowledge and experience.
“Improv is a vast mechanism of give and take and support. The group mind is greater than the individual”
In improv a rule that pops up repeatedly is: ‘make your partner look good’. Stephen Covey, author of ‘The 7 habits of highly effective people’, says having an ‘abundance mindset’ supports collaboration over competition: if you assume there is enough for everyone, you can collaborate and support each other, and you believe there are possibilities and opportunities waiting to be created and discovered. The opposite of the abundance mindset is the ‘scarcity mindset’, and this increases anxiety, comparison and threat-focus, making it harder to collaborate creatively.
Assuming that everyone has something to offer, the sum is greater than the parts, and that there is ‘enough’ for everyone supports creativity and flexibility. And you can apply this to the ideas themselves too: no idea needs to be perfect but allowing them all to flow and combine allows the possibility of something new to emerge.
Collaboration is key in Improv, and in real-life, to create new possibilities - Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash
Listen
This comes up again and again as so crucial for improv (and so difficult). This is about listening in the present, rather than listening while you think of what you’re going to do/say next. This relates to the previous point about collaboration, but I would also apply it to creativity within yourself. How often do we openly listen in the present to our ideas? In my experience, people are usually jumping ahead to ‘what next’ before they’ve fully heard their own ideas, and this means you automatically get into the ‘practicalities’ and ‘reasons why it won’t work’. The idea hasn’t even fully emerged, and you’ve already dismissed it. It also means you get into a focussed way of thinking, looking for an answer, without giving space for the idea to develop. Listen fully, in the present, and allow new connections and possibilities to emerge.
Agreement, and ‘Yes, and…’
These are two important improv rules. First, in Improv, you need to agree with whatever your partner comes up with otherwise you kill the scene. So if they say, ‘I’m excited about our holiday’ don’t reply, ‘Actually it’s a business trip.’ Likewise in real life, when you dismiss ideas straight away – your own or otherwise - you kill the creative process. Give ideas a chance – you don’t know their potential when they are just being born.
The ‘Yes, and’ rule means you add on something, so you don’t just say ‘Yes, I’m excited too’, you might say ‘Yes, I’m excited too - I haven’t been away since we had that disastrous trip last year.’ It moves things forward and gives your partner something to build on. In real life, this is about exploring and adding to ideas to see where they go and what new possibilities can be made – don’t just leave ideas languishing and undeveloped - see what potential they have.
And for the writer of a post on WWW.IMPROV.BLOG based on comedian Tina Fey’s 4 rules of Improv:
The ‘Yes, and…’ rule: “Challenges you to contribute [In improv and real life]. Whether you are developing an ad campaign or deciding where to eat dinner, put your neck out there, give your thoughts and have a say. Two minds are always better than one.’
Photo by Eduardo Pastor on Unsplash
There are no mistakes
Improv artists often say that some of the best scenes come from mistakes and miscommunications. Mistakes might take you somewhere unintended, but it could still be a good place to be.
It reminds me of the perspective that mistakes can be like compost: what you couldn’t use in the way you intended can become hugely valuable as nourishment for the new seedlings and ideas.
Rather than seeing mistakes as an end point, see them as part of the process, the journey, providing new and different information and unexpected results.
There’s the famous Edison quote - of which there are multiple versions, including ‘I haven’t failed I’ve just found 1000 ways that don’t work’, or ‘I didn’t fail 1000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1000 steps.’ This is the creative process.
So don’t worry about getting things wrong, or playing it safe. Creativity and innovation means doing things in new ways, trying things out, and exploration – so things are bound to go in unexpected directions.
“Many of us struggle daily with confidence and insecurities. Improvising can help you get you out of your own head and access deeper parts of yourself. In life, we are constantly editing ourselves and second-guessing our ideas in an attempt to be perfect”
Reflecting on the quote above, how could an ‘Improv mindset’ help you to be more creative, flexible and adaptable in daily life?
Check your questions
In quite a few Improv guides they say don’t ask questions because they are a subtle form of blocking, playing it safe and getting your partner to do the work. Instead turn your question into a statement that adds something new. In the context of us learning to become more adaptable, creative and innovative in the face of challenge I would say check your questions. Quite often when we ask questions, they are not coming from a place of curiosity, and they are coming from a place of blocking. Is your question actually a question or is it really judgement or a disguised statement of criticism or frustration?
To see what I mean, try saying: ‘How would that work?’ in a tone that means ‘This won’t work’ or ‘I’m so sick of this’. Then try saying it with ‘I wonder’ at the start, and using a tone that means you are genuinely curious and interested in exploring how it would work. Can you feel the difference? Can you recognise a difference in your body? So in real life questions can be a brilliant creative tool, but make sure they are genuinely open and exploratory, rather than blocking.
Ready to build your resilience, and be more flexible, adaptable, creative and innovative? Photo by Luemen Rutkowski on Unsplash
What do you think about these pointers? Is there anything you can borrow from Improv Artists to help you be more adaptable, creative, innovative and flexible, to make change happen, cope with challenges and stressors, or make a positive difference in the world?
If you think you need a little break first, or at any point along the way, I would like to invite you to your own DIY Micro-Retreat: Restore, Refresh, Renew. Follow the FREE guide at a time and place of your choosing, to restore your sense of calm, refresh and open your mind, and renew your purpose and motivation, perhaps going back out there with a renewed and innovative perspective.
Get in touch with me if you want more help to come up with a fresh perspective and new ideas around your challenge, or to help you turn your ideas into a practical reality.
