What's in a Word?

Last week I picked up an interesting-sounding title – Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds, by Michael Quinion - from the $2 rack of my favorite store, Half Price Books. Being a fan of etymology (i.e., word origins) and finding myself in the market for a quick read over the holidays, the purchase was a no-brainer.
Imagine my pleasant surprise, then, to find within the first four pages of the book some unlikely echoes of a few of the concepts I’ve been developing in the Daily Improviser blog.

On page 2, Quinion observes that there are few fields of study as open to oft-repeated misinformation as etymology. Everyone knows the acronymic origin of words like COP (“Constable on Patrol”) and TIP (“To Insure Promptness”), right? (Well, OK, I admit I’m using those words in place of other more scatological “acronyms” that have gained a wide circulation, accompanied by a knowing nudge-nudge-wink-wink.) But as Quinion notes, almost none of these reputed acronyms actually represents the origin of the words in question (the term “acronym” itself dates only from World War I).

Yet in the popular mind, such dubious stories as to word origins continue to be spread via a process Quinion refers to as “etymythology.” Why is this?

First, as Quinion explains:

"We’re suckers for a really good story. It’s one way we make sense of the world around us and so turn the unfamiliar … into the known and the comfortable. So it’s important that we have stories that explain things, but it’s much less important that the stories we tell are verifiably true. [Such stories] must reassure and convince, but above all they must interest and entertain. Stories that are boring, mundane, or inconclusive will not survive. Unfortunately, real word histories are often all of these things."

I believe that Quinion is touching on a topic I’ve addressed here before several times: We humans are greatly susceptible to shorthand constructs that explain the world around us. In fact, as I’ve mentioned before, we couldn’t exist without a certain layer of abstraction through which we view and make sense of the world.

This “Layer of Abstraction” can take the form of useful shorthand – for example, describing an unfamiliar concept such as a “pomelo” in terms of a familiar concept such as a “grapefruit,” even though technically the two are not at all the same. However, the Layer can also be seductively misleading, a substitute for engaging in critical thinking. In the case of word origins, our willingness to accept and pass along a good story on shaky evidence can be relatively benign in its impact. However, when we use such one-sided thinking (as represented by the Confirmation Bias) to justify making invidious judgments, it can lead to the worst forms of discrimination and injustice.

(I'll continue with more from Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds next time.)

Anchors Aweigh!

I have written quite a bit in The Daily Improviser blog about the “Nothing Between” concept, i.e., the state in which there is “nothing between” a person and his environment, thus permitting the person to have a direct experience of reality. I have noted that many people seem to regard the performance improviser’s art as the quintessential Nothing Between state, a series of spontaneous fillings-in on a totally blank slate.

As I’ve mentioned in many of my articles, however, I wonder if anyone – the performance improviser or the Daily Improviser – really ever experiences the Nothing Between state, or even should aspire to that state as the ideal way to interact with his environment.

I recently ran across another source of support for this skepticism about Nothing Between. In his book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Nassim Nicholas Taleb cites a study in which subjects were asked to spin a “wheel of fortune” that pointed to a wholly random number, and then were asked to estimate the number of countries in Africa. As Taleb recounts: “Those who had a low number on the wheel estimated a low number of African nations; those with a high number produced a higher estimate.” Taleb goes on to note:

“A classical mental mechanism, called anchoring, seems to be at work here. You lower your anxiety about uncertainty by producing a number [even when you know it is random], then you ‘anchor’ on it, like an object to hold on to in the middle of a vacuum.”

Taleb relates the anchoring mechanism to the advent of spreadsheet software – specifically, to the way in which we rely on Excel to extend projections ad infinitum into the future with a single click of a mouse.

“Once on a page or on a computer screen, or, worse, in a PowerPoint presentation, the projection takes on a life of its own, losing its vagueness and abstraction and becoming what philosophers call reified, invested with concreteness.”

As Taleb notes, our desire to reduce our anxiety over uncertainty can lead to an overreliance on the first or most concrete data we can find. But even though Taleb seems to be taking us to task for blinding ourselves to “real reality” via these mental mechanisms, in fact he recognizes that it couldn’t be any other way:

“We use reference points in our heads, say sales projections, and start building beliefs around them because less mental effort is needed to compare an idea to a reference point than to evaluate it in the absolute. We cannot work without a point of reference.” [Emphasis added]

Taleb’s discussion of these mental phenomena – anchoring and reification – reminds me of the Five White Things activity in the book Made to Stick. There, Chip Heath and Dan Heath describe the different level of mental calisthenics required to think of “five white things” vs. thinking of “five white things in your refrigerator.” The latter is generally an easier task because it provides a frame for our thinking, rather than a boundaryless (and thus paralyzing) blank slate on which nearly infinite choices could be written.

Anchoring, reification, framing … each of these mechanisms is in fact a “Thing Between” us and our environment. And as Steven Pinker so eloquently demonstrates in his seminal work The Blank Slate, these Things Between are an inherent part of the human condition. Rather than trying to deny them or will ourselves to push past them (say observers such as Taleb, Pinker, and the Heaths), we would do better to acknowledge and even embrace these mechanisms. At the least (as Taleb says), our understanding of our own thought structures should make us aware of the limits of our own reasoning and logic capabilities. At the most (as the Heaths say), knowing about the effect of framing can help us place useful boundaries on our thinking, thereby preventing analysis paralysis and facilitating communication of new concepts.

More Confirmation of the Confirmation Bias

I’m one of those people who reads five books at once – sometimes fewer, sometimes more. And as I read, I continually look for patterns, connections, and recurring themes that I can work into The Daily Improviser blog.

Lately, it seems as if the confirmation bias has been particularly persistent in dogging my reading path. As I’ve mentioned, the confirmation bias is our tendency to overlook evidence that runs counter to our pre-set opinions, as well as our near-mania to find patterns in the world’s workings that confirm our assumptions and prejudices. As Leonard Mlodinow points out in The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, “patterns” of occurrences, even if they do occur, do not always reflect an underlying cause but can simply be the products of randomness (aka “coincidences”).

Mlodinow goes on to say:

"The human brain has evolved to be very efficient at pattern recognition, but as the confirmation bias shows, we are focused on finding and confirming patterns rather than minimizing our false conclusions. Yet we needn’t be pessimists, for it is possible to overcome our prejudices. It is a start to simply realize that chance events, too, produce patterns. It is another great step if we learn to question our perceptions and theories. Finally, we should learn to spend as much time looking for evidence that we are wrong as we spend searching for reasons we are correct." [emphasis added]

Mlodinow’s observation, I think, provides more support for the “bumper sticker” headline I attached to one of my recent articles:

Want to Defeat the Truth? Then Start Arguing!

The Layer Between the Daily Improviser and Reality

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I’ve posted a number of articles in this blog on the topic of “nothing between” – that supposedly ideal state in which we directly experience reality and respond intuitively, in the moment. As much as this might sound like the quintessential “improv state,” on the contrary even performance improvisers use structures and mechanisms that do in fact “come between” them and their environments. Similarly, the Daily Improviser’s interaction with his world involves less a continuous filling in of a Blank Slate and more a dependence on useful shorthand to help him make sense of his environment.

I like to think of this “something between” as a set of layers, each representing a level of abstraction that serves as an interpretive guide for the Daily Improviser. (For the purpose of simplifying the point, I’ll apply my own abstraction to this concept and refer to this set of layers as simply the Layer.) The Layer can be counter-productive if we use it to blind ourselves to the world around us, but it can also be as comfy and cozy - and as functional - as a thick blanket on a cold winter's night. 

I think the Layer presents itself in many different ways.

For example, in their book Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath refer to the notion of a schema – a mental representation of a concept that everyone understands and that can thus be used as a springboard for communicating similar yet unique concepts. Rather than having to describe a “pomelo” to a novice by articulating a precise botanical definition, the describer only has to say that a pomelo is “a supersized grapefruit with a thick, soft rind.” No Blank Slate is needed – just start with the shared concept of a grapefruit and proceed from there.

In an earlier article, I also cited another example of the Layer while describing an article by Keith Sawyer concerning the mechanisms we use to facilitate our daily communications. Sawyer notes that, rather than writing fresh scripts for our every interaction, we commonly use such structures as catchphrases and overall frameworks to serve as useful shorthand for concepts that we wish to get across.

And just today, I happened upon another example of the Layer while browsing through the book The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow. In the very first paragraph of the book, Mlodinow recounts the following story:

A few years ago a man won the Spanish national lottery with a ticket that ended in the number 48. Proud of his “accomplishment,” he revealed the theory that brought him the riches. “I dreamed of the number 7 for seven straight nights,” he said, “and 7 times 7 is 48.” Those of us with a better command of our multiplication tables might chuckle at the man’s error, but we all create our own view of the world and then employ it to filter and process our perceptions, extracting meaning from the ocean of data that washes over us in daily life.

So, yes, the man was in error – but it was a useful error, one that allowed him to rationalize a decision that led to a huge payoff. Doubtless, each of us (with different degrees of self-awareness) makes snap decisions based on bits and pieces of perception through which we’ve sifted. We then generalize and make abstractions about reality from the collage of sensation we craft. Failure to create and act upon this Layer would result in complete paralysis while we try to stitch together a “complete” picture that accounts for “all” the information we can gather and process.

I’ll continue to develop this idea of the Layer in upcoming articles.

Want to Defeat the Truth? Then Start Arguing!

In recent articles, I've described the way in which champion athletes manipulate their beliefs across the performance cycle.  In order to prepare their minds for success, they must instill in themselves a consciously irrational belief in their own invincibility.  Yet at the same time, they need to step outside of themselves and objectively view their performance so they can correct any flaws.

The maintaining of these two mindsets presents a paradox, since it requires a person simultaneously to believe both that he cannot fail and that he can (and must) improve his performance if he does fail.  I think this tricky mental balance perfectly illustrates a famous quote attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald: "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."

I derived the "manipulating beliefs" point from the book Bounce, by Matthew Syed.  Syed was writing about competitive athletic contexts, but, as a recent Newsweek article by Sharon Begley reveals, a similar psychological dynamic may also be at work in another competitive arena: Arguing.

Begley says that, when we want to strongly proffer a certain point of view, we commonly use a mechanism called the confirmation bias - "seeing and recalling only evidence that supports your beliefs."  The confirmation bias helps us remain firm in our commitment to our arguments by keeping us from dispassionately analyzing our beliefs against empirical data or subjecting them to a plausibility test.  As she says, if we want to argue that women are bad drivers, we will only remember (and mention) those times when we saw a female driver going 40mph in the fast lane.

Begley observes that this tendency to ignore counter-evidence constitutes a form of irrational thinking, much like the athlete's belief in his own invincibility.  And the confirmation bias serves much the same purpose for an everyday disputant as the "invincibility" belief serves for the athlete.  As Begley says:

"The reason we succumb to confirmation bias, why we are blind to counterexamples ... is that these lapses have a purpose: they help us 'devise and evaluate arguments that are intended to persuade other people,' says psychologist Hugo Mercier of the University of Pennsylvania. Failures of logic, he and cognitive scientist Dan Sperber of the Institut Jean Nicod in Paris propose, are in fact effective ploys to win arguments.

But Begley then makes an observation that shows the difference between the typical verbal warrior and Syed's champion athlete:

"Arguing, after all, is less about seeking truth than about overcoming opposing views. So while confirmation bias, for instance, may mislead us about what’s true and real, by letting examples that support our view monopolize our memory and perception, it maximizes the artillery we wield when trying to convince someone that, say, he really is 'late all the time.'” (emphasis added)

The typical arguer commonly fails to apply the second part of the "manipulating beliefs" equation: the recognition that he could actually be wrong.  By ignoring the holes in his own position, an arguer becomes like the athlete who convinces himself of his indomitability but overlooks the often glaring evidence that tells him where he's falling short.  When both verbal combatants fail to acknowledge their own fallibility, the typical argument becomes (as Begley says) "less about seeking the truth than about overcoming opposing views" - or, to use another combat analogy, an attempt to batter the other with one's position until he submits.  Whichever party "wins" such a battle, the truth is usually the real loser. 

Contrast this with the more productive outcome that can result from both parties' applying the And Stance, which I described earlier.

Maybe the typical arguer would do well to take a page from the champion athlete's playbook and entertain the possibility that he - and his positions - could stand further self-scrutiny.  If both parties were to do that, then their interaction could be less a competitive exercise and more a joint search for truth.

Getting There Is Half the Fun - Part Two

Last time, I described the mechanisms involved in one’s experiencing of a work of art. The enjoyment of the work doesn’t consist merely of the end-state, the basking in the emotion that comes after the work has been experienced. Rather, as described in the old advertising slogan “Getting There Is Half the Fun,” much of one’s appreciation comes from “having experienced” the work.

In other words, partaking of the structure of the work (the “how”) is as important as reflecting on the message conveyed by the content of the work (the “what”).

I think the same distinction between the “what” and the “how” is becoming increasingly important in pursuing and achieving results in an organizational environment. A leader might successfully achieve an outcome (the “what”) – a deadline, a cost savings, a revenue-generator – that provides benefit to the organization. Yet if he does it in a way (the “how”) that crushes morale, fails to develop his people, or violates ethical principles, then the question can well be asked: How successful has he really been?

A person can ask the same thing about the personal toll a goal-achievement can wreak. She might devote years of struggle and toil to attaining a goal – but if she ignores other important aspects of her life along the way (health, relationships, personal values), then she may fairly ask herself: Was the “what” worth the “how”?

Ultimately, I think, the issue boils down to a distinction I previously made in my article on Three Dog Night drummer Floyd Sneed:

“It ain’t what you do, it’s how you do it!”

What this deliberately paradoxical observation is getting at, I think, is that the “what” and the “how” are really inseparable in judging the success of any artistic endeavor, in either a performance context or an organizational context.

In Improv, Getting There Is Half the Fun!

Back in the heyday of oceanic travel, the Cunard Line (which built and operated the Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mary, among other famous vessels) used an advertising slogan that endures in the language to this day:

Getting There Is Half the Fun!

Cunard's hope, of course, was that passengers would think of the ocean passage as being the first half of the fun (and would spend that half on a Cunard ship), with the destination being the second.

Denis Dutton, in his fascinating book The Art Instinct, makes a similar point about our experiencing of artistic works of any sort, but particularly performance art.  The emotional end-state of an audience member's viewing of the work, he says, is not the real aim of attending.  Springboarding off a scene in Woody Allen's Sleeper in which people of the future step into a phone-booth-size cylinder that provides instant sensual gratification, Dutton says:

"Imagine [a machine called] an 'aesthetetron.' Step into it, push the correct button, and you can achieve a pleasure-moment of a kind produced by Sense and Sensibility or Lucia di Lammermoor without having to actually read the book or sit through the opera. What makes this joke funny (if it is) is the absurdity of trying to imagine that there exists any particular pleasure state ... that a work of art produces. Every great work of art is, like climbing a mountain, about the specific process of experiencing it - it is not about inducing some momentary pleasure that results from experiencing it." [Emphasis added]

I think this observation goes double for the experiencing of an improv performance. The structure of a novel or an opera does provide some pleasure in and of itself, but ultimately the greater pleasure is in a "final result" - the emotional content of the work that is carried by the structure.  In improv, by contrast, a transcription of the content of the improvised scene might provide some enjoyment on its own to a person who later cozies up with it by a warm fire.  However, an audience member's real engagement with the work comes from the process of its creation - i.e., the realization that the scene is being created totally off the cuff, in the moment.

Throughout The Art Instinct, Dutton describes how content and process (I'll call it the "what" and the "how") go hand-in-hand in our experiencing and assessing of a work of art.  Next time, I'll connect this observation with another art form: The creating of results in an organizational environment.

What Do Good Bosses Believe?

A friend of mine (thanks, Kat!) recently forwarded an intriguing Harvard Business Review article titled 12 Things Good Bosses Believe, by Robert L. Sutton.  I found this to be a refreshing departure from many such lists about "best practices" for leaders, many of which I believe to be fairly obvious in their recommendations.

I would like to focus on three of his 12 items in particular:

4. One of the most important, and most difficult, parts of my job is to strike the delicate balance between being too assertive and not assertive enough.

6. I strive to be confident enough to convince people that I am in charge, but humble enough to realize that I am often going to be wrong.

7. I aim to fight as if I am right, and listen as if I am wrong — and to teach my people to do the same thing.

I was immediately struck by the way these three items echo some of the paradoxes I've been discussing in recent articles:

• Matthew Syed's observations about the need for an athlete to be utterly convinced of his eventual success while also being aware of his shortcomings so he can improve his game;
• The need for a leader to be both influential and influenceable;
• The need for a leader to be confident in his course of action yet also flexible enough to course-correct if events so require.

And I'll also cite a fourth item from Sutton's list:

10. Bad is stronger than good. It is more important to eliminate the negative than to accentuate the positive.

"Bad is stronger than good."  Hmm ... it seems as if we've seen that one before. 

Famous Daily Improvisers: Ted Williams

In my recent articles, I've noted Matthew Syed's descriptions (in his book Bounce) of the way in which champion athletes adopt an almost irrational confidence in the inevitability of their success on the playing field. As I read Syed's accounts of the ways in which athletes mentally prepare themselves for matches, I was immediately reminded of a story concerning one of the greatest baseball players of all time, Ted Williams.

In his 1970 book Ball Four (one of the best and most influential baseball books of all time), ex-pitcher Jim Bouton describes an anecdote related by a teammate who had played with Williams on the Boston Red Sox.  (Note: Since this is a family blog, I've cleaned up some of the language.)

"In the bullpen tonight, Jim Pagliaroni was telling us how Ted Williams ... would psyche himself up for a game during batting practice, usually early practice before the fans or reporters got there."

"He'd go into the [batting] cage, wave his bat at the pitcher and start screaming at the top of his voice, 'My name is Ted Williams and I'm the greatest hitter in baseball!'"

"He'd swing and hit a line drive."

"Then he'd say, 'Here comes Jim Bunning! Jim Bunning and that puny little slider of his!'"

Wham!

"He doesn't really think he's gonna get me out with that junk!"

Blam!

"I'm Ted Williams!"

Sock!

Williams - or "Teddy Ballgame," as he used to refer to himself -  was a two-time American League Most Valuable Player (MVP) winner who led the league in batting six times. He had a career batting average of .344, with 521 home runs, and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966. He is the last player in Major League Baseball to bat over .400 in a single season (.406 in 1941).

Hmm ... well, maybe in his case, his confidence wasn't so irrational after all!

Mindsets: "Fixed" or "Growth" - or Both?

Let's consider two different attitudes that an athlete might adopt as he approaches a competitive match:

1) "I am great, the greatest performer in this field, the greatest performer in the history of the world!  There is no way anybody else is going to beat me! I am absolutely incapable of failure!"

2) "I need to be hyper-aware of how well I'm doing so that, if I fail, I can pinpoint my deficiencies.  Then, before my next competition, I can devote whatever amount of purposeful practice it takes to improve my performance!"

The first attitude reflects what Carol Dweck calls the Fixed Mindset.  A person with a Fixed Mindset focuses on what he "is," as if his skills and capabilities were unchanging and inalterable.  His regard for himself is thus completely dependent on maintaining and defending this facade of infallibility.  It follows that a person with a Fixed Mindset cannot allow himself to admit his deficiencies - to himself or to others.  And if he can't admit them, then he can't correct them.

By contrast, the second attitude reflects the Growth Mindset.  A person with a Growth Mindset focuses not on what he "is" but on what he can become.  He believes (and Dweck cites research to support this belief) that a person's potential is boundless, limited only by the amount of passion, toil, and training he brings to developing his skills.  To a person with a Growth Mindset, achieving performance excellence requires a continual awareness of the gap between where he is and where he needs to go.

Dweck sets up these two mindsets to be mutually exclusive - that is, you can have one mindset or the other, but you can't have both.

Or can you?

Well, recall my prior article on Matthew Syed's book Bounce, in which he notes how champion athletes can - and in fact must - deliberately hold two seemingly contradictory beliefs at the same time: One that focuses on his invincibility (so he can "enter into battle" with the complete confidence that he'll succeed) and one that acknowledges his shortcomings (so he can identify where he needs to improve).

The implication of Syed's observations about "manipulating beliefs" is that a performer must maintain both a Fixed Mindset and a Growth Mindset throughout the performance cycle if he wants to reach the top of his game!  He has to focus both on what he is (call it "saying affirmations" or "psyching himself up") and on what he has yet to become.

So, again, what seems like an inescapable dichotomy can be resolved by the Daily Improviser through the application of the Improv Mindset, which seeks to find the seamless connections between apparently irresolvable contradictions.

"I Am Invincible (I Think)!" - The Daily-Improviser Leader Manipulates His Beliefs

In recent articles, I've been describing my quest to resolve (seeming) contradictions. In doing so, I've been drawing on one of the central components of the performance improviser's art: The integration of incongruous elements (as pitched by the audience) into a seamless whole.

To illustrate a real-world application of resolving contradictions, I cited the example (from Matthew Syed's book Bounce) of an athlete who must absolutely convince himself that he'll succeed while simultaneously noting his performance gaps if he fails so he can correct them later. As Syed notes, an athlete must be able to "manipulate his beliefs" across the performance cycle - even to the point of maintaining contradictory beliefs of invincibility and fallibility at the same time - if he ever wants to reach the top echelon of performance.

I can see the same effect at work in an organizational setting. Vance Packard once defined leadership as "the art of getting others to want to do something you are convinced should be done." To achieve this, the leader has to project absolute confidence in the vision and the course of action he sets before his intended followers. Yet at the same time (as scores of historical examples show), if the leader turns a blind eye and a deaf ear to all signs that suggest a need for a course adjustment, he'll quickly lose touch with reality (and, except for the most rabid true believers, will lose most of his followers as well).

So, to borrow an old cliche, if she wants people to follow her through a brick wall, the leader must first approach the wall with complete certainty that she'll break on through to the other side. Yet, rather than continuing to bang her head against the wall if she fails, she better also be looking for the doors.

It seems, then, that to be truly effective across the performance cycle, a world-class leader must take a page from the champion athlete's playbook and learn to "manipulate his beliefs" to alternately shape reality and respond to it. If you want to grow as a leader, you must develop the capacity to both "influence and be influenced" - sometimes doing one, sometimes doing the other, often doing both simultaneously.

And here, I think, is where we can resolve another seeming contradiction I described in an earlier article. I'll reveal this next time.

John Wooden - 1910-2010

Last year I wrote an article about the famous Hoosier basketball legend John Wooden.  It is with sadness that I note that Coach Wooden passed away yesterday at age 99.

I can't think of a life more fully lived. For all his achievements, he never focused on the standings or the final score - his credo was, "Do your best, that is success." He may be known primarily for his great UCLA teams, but Indiana will always claim him as its own - as a player, a coach, and an example of the power of living one's values.

Should We Focus on Problems or Solutions? - Part Two

In a previous article, I noted the seemingly contradictory advice given by some prominent change experts regarding where to place focus when influencing others through organizational change. On one hand we had William Bridges, who essentially said, “Sell the problem!” On the other hand, we had Chip & Dan Heath, who said, “Sell the solution!”

How do we resolve this apparent lack of agreement among the experts?

I think the answer lies in a common model called the Change Cycle. The Change Cycle reflects the idea that we experience change in much the same way we experience grief, as set forth by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her groundbreaking book On Death and Dying. Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance) track very closely to the stages of the Change Cycle as set forth by Bridges and others. In essence, people who experience change must first go through a process of relinquishing the past before they can start looking ahead to the benefits the change might bring in the future.

When people first enter the Change Cycle, they often try mightily to keep things the way they are, to maintain the status quo. If allowed to, they’ll quickly rush back to the old ways rather than cast their fate to the promises of the (uncertain) future. To move across the starting line, they need a good answer to the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?) question. At the early phases, then, “selling the problem” is usually more effective than “selling the solution,” since people are not yet convinced that anything needs a “solution.”

However, as the Heaths point out in their book Switch, once people have been prompted to move across the line, a steady drumbeat of problem-problem-problem will only serve to scare them, demotivate them, and wear them down. This might work fine for changes that require quick, specific, short-term action. Yet most organizational changes are bigger and more complex, requiring (as the Heaths put it) “creativity and flexibility and ingenuity.” To do this, you have to enlist people in the search for ideas and implementation strategies.

In fact, these organizational needs track well with the typical progress of people through the Change Cycle. As they work through the initial process of letting go of the past, they become more open to the possibilities presented by the future. At this point, “selling the solution” becomes a more effective way to inspire and motivate people to commit to the change so that they’ll lend their hearts and minds to sustaining the change over the long haul.

So rather than constituting another “either-or” choice, the question “Do we focus on the problem or on the solution?” can really be seen as a matter of not whether to do one or the other but when to do each.

Can You Manipulate Your Beliefs?

I’ve been reading the fascinating new book Bounce, by Matthew Syed, which investigates the science behind the success of people who have achieved mastery in their fields. Focusing particularly on world-class athletes at the peak of their games, Syed explores the physical and mental preparation that goes into the making of champions – both in the world of sport and in non-sporting contexts.

I was particularly struck by the chapter on the mental self-manipulation that top athletes engage in when preparing for key matches. Syed (himself an Olympic table tennis player) notes that no athlete can achieve the pinnacle of success without “surgically removing doubt from the mind.” To elaborate, he cites the words of Arsene Wenger, a top soccer club manager:

“To perform to your maximum, you have to teach yourself to believe with an intensity that goes way beyond logical justification. No top performer has lacked this capacity for irrational optimism; no sportsman has played to his potential without the ability to remove doubt from his mind.”

But how can a performer improve his game and make necessary adjustments if he ignores weaknesses and “irrationally” focuses on nothing but positives – which, as Wenger notes, are often amplified in the performer’s mind “beyond logical justification”?

What happens, says Syed, is that top athletes are able to “wield different beliefs as part of a cycle.”

“In stage one, the athlete ‘takes the positives’ to protect self-belief; later, when training, he incorporates the insights gained from the negative aspect of the previous match to strengthen weaknesses; then, when the next match is looming, the focus returns to building self-belief once again, so that doubt is eliminated at the point of performance.”

Syed then quotes an extraordinary observation by Wenger:

“Unless you have the ability to manipulate your beliefs over the performance cycle, it is difficult to perform well at anything, sport or otherwise.” (emphasis added)

In sum, Syed and Wenger are saying that a top performer must be able to control his thinking in order to entertain two seemingly contradictory mindsets at the same time: An unshakeable confidence in his own abilities to succeed and an objective evaluation of his actual current situation so that he can course-correct as needed. It’s the type of attitude that leads a champion golfer to feel dead certain about making a putt – while also making sure he hits it so that it won’t roll too far from the hole if he misses.

It’s also the type of attitude that the Daily Improviser needs to adopt in order to resolve the (seeming) contradictions that continually confront her in life! Throughout this blog, I’ve noted several examples of situations where the performance improvisers and Daily Improvisers must keep paradoxical thoughts in simultaneous suspension, including:

• The Stockdale Paradox – “Confront the brutal facts, yet never lose hope!”
• The And Stance – “I’m right and you’re right!”
• The Yogi Berra Paradox – “When you come to a fork in the road, take it!”

And next time, I hope to apply this concept of “manipulating beliefs over the performance cycle” to resolve the paradox I posed last time: In times of change, how can we focus on both the problem and the solution?

Should We Focus on Problems or Solutions?

I’ve developed a hard-earned reputation as a music trivia expert – a status achieved through 10,000-plus hours of passion, toil, and training in some of the grungiest hole-in-the-wall record stores from San Francisco to London.

About ten years ago, in Columbus, Ohio, I ran across one of my best finds – a 1978 UK import cd by Andy Mackay, the sax player for the band Roxy Music. Mackay intended the album as an amalgamation of traditional Chinese music and the progressive rock sound reflected in his work with Roxy. (And, I might add, he succeeded brilliantly.)

I mention the album because its title – Resolving Contradictions – perfectly expresses one of my primary goals with this blog: To show how, by applying the improv mindset, the Daily Improviser can find common ground between ideas, opinions, and concepts that might at first blush appear to be irresolvable. (In this regard, see also my prior article No Contradictions – Just Paradoxes.)

I must admit, though, that sometimes the Resolving Contradictions path can be a rocky one. And I’m currently having to step carefully around two sets of concepts relating to Change Leadership that could potentially trip me up.

On one side, we have the words of Chip Heath and Dan Heath in their book Switch:

“What if [we] had a more positive orientation [toward our world]? …Imagine a world in which after a husband forgot his wife’s birthday, she gave him a big kiss and said, ‘For thirteen out of the last fourteen years you remembered my birthday! That’s wonderful!’ This is not our world. But in times of change, it needs to be. [We have] a problem focus when we need a solution focus…. We need to switch from archaeological problem solving to bright-spot evangelizing…. These flashes of success – these bright spots – can illuminate a road map for action and spark the hope that change is possible.”

On the other side we have William Bridges, who says in his book Managing Transitions:

“[When you’re attempting to change the organization], you may discover that people have trouble understanding the purpose [behind the change] because they do not have a realistic idea of where the organization really stands and what its problems are. In that case, you need to ‘sell the problems’ before you try to sell a solution to those problems. If that wasn’t done during the ending phase – when it should have been done – now is the time to provide answers to these questions: What is the problem? What is the situation that requires this change to solve it? Who says so, and on what evidence? What would occur if no one acted to solve this problem? And what would happen to us if that occurred?”

So – do we line up with experts like the Heaths who advocate a solutions-focused approach to organizational change? Or do we adopt the thinking of an expert like Bridges and instead clarify and “sell” the problem that the change is intended to overcome? Is this yet another case of “pick your expert”?

Well, like Andy Mackay, I think this is a situation where Resolving (seeming) Contradictions would be a worthwhile exercise. I’ll take us further down this rocky path in future articles.

Puppies, Pizzas ... and Improv (Part 2)

In my previous article, I described the improv game Word at a Time Story, which I conducted as part of a leadership class in Orlando, Florida. The participants successfully (and spontaneously) created a story that made some semblance of sense but left hanging in the air the question: What is a puppy pizza?

Well, as I mentioned last time, improv is the gift that keeps on giving – and in this case it provided me a huge present, neatly wrapped and tied with a bow.

As I drove back to my hotel after Day One of the two-day class, I noticed a storefront by the roadside with a large sign out front: Just Puppies. This being my first time in the Orlando area, I wondered what sort of a business it was - puppy seller, puppy doctor, puppy supply store?

As I absentmindedly considered the possibilities, my attention was suddenly seized by something that immediately revealed the meaning of “puppy pizza”!

The next day, the leadership class continued with great engagement and involvement on the part of the participants – as well as several references to the outcome of the previous day’s Word at a Time Story. As we approached the end of the day (and the session), I launched into a wrap-up speech that I’d sketched out on the proverbial piece of scrap paper just that morning:

“In the last two days, we’ve introduced you to many tools and concepts that will help you be a more effective leader. As you’ve seen, leadership is not about giving orders and trying to seize and maintain control. There’s really no better way to lead than to develop your people, empower them, and then stand back and see what great things they create.

“As we saw with the Word at a Time Story, there’s a lot of benefit to just letting go and seeing what emerges from the combined efforts of a group of people. Even though you successfully made it to the end of the story, though, I know everyone was still wondering: What is a puppy pizza?

“Well, I found out!

“Yesterday, as I was driving back to my hotel, I saw this store called Just Puppies. I have no idea what kind of a store it is – but as I drove by, something very distinctive about the building caught my eye. And then it hit me. Do you know what used to be in that space?”

Immediately the light bulb went on above one of the participants as she answered: “A PIZZA HUT!”

“YES! I’d know an old Pizza Hut building anywhere! So … Just Puppies … Pizza Hut … PUPPY PIZZA!”

As laughter erupted in the room, I concluded by saying:

“So this shows another benefit of letting go and letting things happen: It can just add some unexpected fun to our daily lives! Thanks for a great two days – now go forth and lead!”

So this was really a double gift: One for the participants (to reinforce the points from the previous day) and one for me (to give me the perfect wrap-up for a great two days).

Puppies, Pizzas ... and Improv

I’m always amazed at the power of improv to surprise, delight, and … well, amaze.

Last week I conducted a two-day leadership program in Orlando, Florida. On Day One, I had the 14 participants play the improv game Word at a Time Story. In this game, players spontaneously create a story by taking turns calling out only a single word when their turn comes around. The players keep the story going until one of them feels that it’s reached its logical conclusion, at which time he says “The End.”

In last week’s activity, the first four players had it easy:

“Once”
“Upon”
“A”
“Time”

[Full Disclosure Department: I don’t actually recall the exact words of the story, except for the two key words below, so the following is a re-creation that should still provide a flavor of the experience.]

Each of the next few players then had to come up with words (one at a time, of course) to begin forming characters and a plot:

“My”
“Sister”
“Went”
“To”
“The”
“Store”

[Side Comment #1: By now it should be clear that no individual person can possibly control the direction of the story – it truly has to be a collaborative effort, requiring total presence in the “now” and a reliance on gut instinct to come up with a word. The players with control issues usually have the hardest time just going with the flow of the group and letting the story emerge on its own. Back in the workplace, this controlling attitude can take several forms: unwillingness to rely on the wisdom of the team, failure to delegate, micromanagement, a need to direct and dominate, and a tendency to solve problems for others rather than coach them on how to come up with their own solutions.]

“And”
“Bought”
“A”
“Puppy”

[Side Comment #2: At this point, I figured that some of the next players in line were formulating ideas about what they might say when it became their turn, with a likely focus on playing with the puppy, feeding the puppy, walking the puppy, etc. This reflects a common practice that people engage in during business meetings – i.e., scripting and rehearsing their responses in their heads while they should be fiercely listening to the other participants in order to truly understand the “story line” of the meeting as it unfolds.]

“Pizza”

[Side Comment #3: PIZZA??!! Now the next person has a challenge: To keep the story going in the face of the weird combination the previous player created. This is another workplace lesson from the game: Rather than treating seemingly incongruous ideas, opinions, and perspectives as irresolvable conflicts, proceed with positive purpose and see how you can integrate all the elements into a constructive result.]

“Which”
“Really”
“Surprised”
“Us”
“All”
“THE END”

At this, the participants let out a huge collective laugh at their success in reaching “The End,” at the rough sense of the story that they had collectively created - and at the idea of a “puppy pizza.” (In fact, one woman was laughing so hard that she had to call “time out” and leave the room.)

We then debriefed by discussing some of the points in the “side comments” mentioned above. However, we never did answer the lingering question: What is a “puppy pizza”?

If that had been the end of the “story,” that would have been enough – but improv is the gift that keeps on giving, as I discovered after the day’s session was over - and as I'll reveal in my next article.

The 80/20 Rule and Strengths-Based Development

This past week, as I was reading Howard Gardner’s book Changing Minds, I came upon a description of a commonly held attitude about the way in which people should expend their efforts:

"From early childhood on, most of us have operated under the following assumption: When confronted with a task, we should work as hard as we are able and devote approximately equal time to each part of that task. According to this '50/50 principle,' if we have to learn a piece of music, or master a new game, or fill out some role at home or work, we should spread our effort equally across the various components." [Italics added]

I think this description relates directly to the commonly held belief in business that a person should focus his development efforts on identifying and improving his weaknesses. That is, he should try to raise his skill levels in his weakness areas to reach parity with his areas of proficiency. In doing so (as the belief holds), he should aspire to become well-rounded in his particular job or position.

However, as Gardner notes, this development strategy may be wrongheaded:

"Now consider another perspective on this issue. Early in the last century, the Italian economist and sociologist Vilifredo Pareto proposed what has come to be known as the '80/20 principle' or rule. As explained by Richard Koch in a charming book, The 80/20 Principle, one can in general accomplish most of what one wants – perhaps up to 80 percent of the target – with only a modest amount of effort – perhaps only 20 percent of expected effort…. It is important to be judicious about where one places one’s efforts, and to be alert to ‘tipping points’ that abruptly bring a goal within (or beyond) reach. Conversely, one should avoid the natural temptation to inject equal amounts of energy into every part of a task, problem, project, or hobby." [Italics added]

In this view, the application of equal effort to all parts of your “toolkit” constitutes a misguided approach to a personal development strategy. (To paraphrase the Heath brothers in Made to Stick, if you’re focusing on ten skills, you’re not really focusing on any skills.)

As I read this, it suddenly struck me: The strengths-based development approach is a perfect example of the 80/20 Principle! Placing your development focus on optimizing your key strengths provides you the leverage you need to succeed, while at the same time ensuring that you don’t spread yourself too thin in your development efforts.

And, yes, you could choose to focus your “20%” on your major weaknesses – but the payoff for the effort would probably be only (as Peter Drucker said) the attainment of mediocrity in those areas.

Why not instead be more "judicious" - and strategic - in your 20% focus by placing it on your strengths?

Ducky's Dilemma Resolved! The Role of Passion, Toil, and Training

I left off last time by asking the question: How can Ducky reconcile the two seemingly contradictory pieces of advice given by Marcus Buckingham ("Focus on your strengths!") and Carol Dweck ("Adopt a growth mindset!")?

Well, Ducky can reflect a bit more on the Dweck quote I cited last time: "It’s impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, toil, and training."

I think the key word here is “passion,” a word that Dweck repeatedly uses in citing examples of people who prevailed after years of hard work and practice. I think that Dweck recognizes that toil and training only make sense if you employ them to get better at something you really want to do. In this, Dweck echoes Buckingham in his description of one of the hallmarks of a strength: Something for which you have an Instinct. As Buckingham says:

"Your strengths have an I-can’t-help-but quality to them. You can’t articulate why, but you find yourself drawn to certain activities repeatedly. Even though you may be just a little scared to do them, just a little nervous – 'Maybe I’m not good enough, maybe I’ll fail' – you nonetheless feel a pull toward them."

A passion … a calling … something you must do … as Buckingham notes, these all precede the desire to start pursuing one’s chosen path. And I think that Dweck’s concept of the growth mindset can provide reassurance for the Daily Improviser as he starts on this “must do” path. Even with a burning passion behind him, the Daily Improviser’s path won’t always be easy. Especially in the early going, he’ll likely be confronted with doubts (of both his own and others’ making) and challenges that may well make him feel like giving up. 

By keeping the growth mindset in mind, the Daily Improviser can avoid feelings of futility and realize that "passion, toil, and training" are enough to get him to his goal.

No Contradictions - Just Paradoxes!

We left off last time with my former class participant Ducky standing at a fork in the road, with two pieces of seemingly contradictory expert advice staring him in the face – that of Marcus Buckingham (“Just focus on your strengths!”) and Carol Dweck (“Adopt a growth mindset!”).

I suggested that Ducky instead adopt a third piece of advice, from that Daily Improvising expert Yogi Berra: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it!”

In saying that, Yogi was touching on what I believe to be an essential point about the improvisational attitudes: Rather than look upon apparent disagreements as contradictions that require an either-or choice, instead regard them as paradoxes that can be integrated with further reflection and creative thinking.

This attitude lies at the heart of all improv, I believe. It’s what allows a performance improviser to take an audience suggestion such as “You’re a Sumo wrestler performing Swan Lake” and create a scene that seamlessly weaves the incongruities together. It’s what allows him to take an off-the-wall offer from his partner, say a vigorous “Yes,” and deftly integrate it into his next action, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

And, as I’ve mentioned before, it’s also the attitude that underlies the application of the And Stance by the Daily Improviser.  Rather than approach all issues with an either-or, I'm-right-and-you're wrong attitude, the Daily Improviser can adopt the "mindset" (all too rare these days, unfortunately) of "I'm right and you're right," that is, "We both have a piece of the truth in our possession."  The real question then becomes, not "Who's right?", but "How do we move forward productively?"

No contradictions, just paradoxes! With this in mind, next time we'll look at how Ducky might derive guidance from both Marcus Buckingham and Carol Dweck.

Ducky's Dilemma: Strengths vs. Mindsets

Today I’d like to revisit the story of Ducky, the class participant I described about a year ago. Ducky was a project manager who wanted to become more spontaneous in his interactions with others, which prompted my suggestion that he enroll in an adult improv class.

Lately I’ve been wondering: What if Ducky had begun an improv class and initially found enjoyment in it – but then ran headlong into an improv exercise that left him lost for words, tongue-tied, uncomfortable?

What advice should he be given?

A Strengths-based-development guru such as Marcus Buckingham might ask him whether the experience was making him feel strong or weak. For, as Buckingham says in his book Go Put Your Strengths to Work:

“Your strengths are those activities that make you feel strong…. ‘An activity that makes you feel weak’ is the best definition of a weakness.’”

So if Ducky were made to feel weak by the activity, Buckingham would probably say: “Drop the improv! Instead, focus on developing and leveraging those activities that make you feel strong.”

But if you were Carol Dweck, you’d probably give Ducky some very different advice.

In her book Mindset, Dweck draws a distinction between the growth mindset and the fixed mindset. The growth mindset, says Dweck, is based on the belief that one’s basic qualities can be cultivated through effort, and that anyone can change and grow through application and experience. As Dweck notes:

“[People with a growth mindset] believe that a person’s true potential is unknown (and unknowable); that it’s impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, toil, and training.”

People with a growth mindset welcome challenges as learning experiences, as a way to find out their true capabilities. “The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well,” says Dweck, “is the hallmark of the growth mindset.”

By contrast, says Dweck, people with a fixed mindset believe that one’s intelligence, skills, and other traits are predetermined and cannot change greatly over time. To people with a fixed mindset, says Dweck:

“Either you have ability or you expend effort…. [Fixed mindset people believe that] effort is for those who don’t have the ability. People with the fixed mindset tell us, ‘If you have to work at something, you must not be very good at it.’”

Fixed mindset people thus become easily discouraged and frustrated when a task starts to require significant effort. The need to expend the extra energy immediately confirms (to their minds) their innate inability and the likelihood of being proven a failure if they continue striving.

Given all this, Dweck would probably advise Ducky: "Don’t stop doing improv just because it’s becoming more difficult! Instead, adopt a growth mindset and keep plugging away. It’s the only way to discover your true improv ability."

So we find Ducky the Daily Improviser at a fork in the road, with one way marked Buckingham Boulevard (“Don’t try to develop your weaknesses!”) and the other marked Dweck Drive (“Keep going! Don’t stop just because it’s getting difficult.”) What should he do?

Well, he should follow the advice of the great Daily Improviser sage Yogi Berra, who said:

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it!”

(I'll elaborate next time, when "Ducky's Dilemma" continues.)

Cultivating Those "Micro-Moments" of Joy

In my previous two articles, I described the Negativity Bias - the disproportionate power of negativity in the world as compared with comparable positive occurrences. I left off last time by pointing to the use of Yes And as a way to counter the impact of the Negativity Bias.

So … how should you do this?

Perhaps the best place to start is to examine how the Negativity Bias operates in your own life. As another leading light of the Positivity movement, Barbara Fredrickson, says, you need three positive emotions for every negative emotion in order to flourish rather than languish in life. (Note again the unfair power advantage of Bad over Good here.)

The encouraging news is that you have the power to create and nurture these positive emotions – you don’t have to just wait for them to occur. Fredrickson refers to this as “cultivating” positive emotions and recommends that people focus on “micro-moments” of joy, happiness, and gratitude as a way to build their net surplus of Good over Bad. "A lot of times,” says Fredrickson, “ we get so wrapped up in thinking about the future and the past that we are blind to the goodness we are steeped in already, whether it's the beauty outside the window or the kind things that people are doing for you.”

Being aware of the Negativity Bias can remind you to take an active, vigilant role in the sustaining of your positive outlook. As Fredrickson says:

"You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it."

"Jerks Are Not Born - They're Made!" The Daily Improviser and the Fundamental Attribution Error

"When some guy cuts you off in traffic, you probably think instinctively: What a jerk.  (Or perhaps your inner voice is more vulgar.)  What you almost certainly don't think to yourself is, Gosh, I wonder what's wrong that he is in such a hurry."

In their book Switch, Chip Heath & Dan Heath use this example to make a point about the way in which our behavior (in this case, the "jerk" driver's) is often driven, not by any hard-wired personality characteristic, but by the situation we find ourselves in.  And unfortunately, as the Heaths note:

"We are frequently blind to the power of situations. In a famous article, Stanford psychologist Lee Ross ... noted that people have a systematic tendency to ignore the situational forces that shape other people's behavior.  He called this deep-rooted tendency the 'Fundamental Attribution Error.'  The error lies in our inclination to attribute people's behavior to the way they are rather than to the situation they are in."

I think that the Fundamental Attribution Error also represents another instance of the Negativity Bias ("Bad is stronger than good"), which I referred to in my previous article.

Think of the last time a driver cut you off (and I'm assuming everyone's had that experience).  Recall that sudden, reflexive, overwhelmingly negative feeling you had toward the "jerk" in the other car.  That's the Negativity Bias at work - the unfair power advantage of Bad over Good.

Now think of the last time someone "cut you off" at a business meeting, by interrupting you or ignoring your comment.  Did you immediately think, Poor guy, he must be having a bad day to be acting so cross.  Or did you think ... something else?
 
For the Daily Improviser in these instances, the Yes And approach would involve exploring the situational aspects of events rather than giving in to the knee-jerk "jerk" reaction.  The goal is not really to put a positive spin on the event but to at least find a more neutral explanation that puts you in a better frame of mind to Advance with Positive Purpose. 

Yes And vs. the Negativity Bias

Rule Number One for the performance improviser and the Daily Improviser is Yes And – that is, accept the offers of your fellow players and contribute something that advances the action. For the Daily Improviser, this doesn’t necessarily mean Agreeing with the Position put forth by your “partner,” but it does mean:

• Accepting the Person,
• Acknowledging the Possibilities in what he says, and
• Advancing with Positive Purpose.

For the Daily Improviser, though, it can often seem as if every positive impulse you put forth into the world is met by a battery of “No’s” pushing back. And this experience may not be just a product of your imagination, as Jonathan Haidt points out in his book The Happiness Hypothesis.

Haidt, one of the foremost scholars in the area of Positive Psychology, refers to a psychological tendency called the Negativity Bias, which can be simply stated as: For most people, bad is stronger than good. This is not a value judgment but a reflection of psychologists’ repeated finding that the human mind tends to react to bad things more quickly, forcefully, and persistently than to equivalent good things.

To illustrate the Negativity Bias in action, Haidt points to the following research examples:

• In marital interactions, it takes at least five good or constructive actions to make up for the damage done by one critical or destructive act
• In financial transactions and gambles, the pleasure of gaining a certain amount of money is smaller than the pain of losing the same amount
• In evaluating a person’s character, people estimate that it would take 25 acts of life-saving heroism to make up for one act of murder

(To demonstrate the Negativity Bias yourself, you can conduct your own unscientific study – just turn on the next installment of the evening news.)

The existence of the Negativity Bias sounds pretty depressing and negativity-inducing in itself, right? Well, I think this is another situation that calls for the application of the Stockdale Paradox: Confront the brutal facts, yet never lose faith!  You need to recognize the disproportionate strength of "No" in order to avoid being blindsided by the power it wields in the world.  Yet you also want to maintain your faith in the power of Yes And and be sure to cultivate, nurture, and repeatedly put its positivity principles into effect as a remedy for the “No” disease.

Next time I'll talk a bit more about becoming aware of the impact of the Negativity Bias on your own thinking and attitudes.

A Day in the Life of an Agent of Change

"The long and winding road / that leads to your door."

Paul McCartney

I love it when things Come Together!

I've been in a major Beatles groove this week, inspired by a friend who's been eagerly preparing to attend a Paul McCartney concert with her daughter in Phoenix this Sunday. As I was listening to one of the Fab Four’s signature tracks, Sergeant Pepper’s “A Day in the Life,” I was suddenly reminded of a story about the recording session for the track – one that provides a connection to the “change journey” topic I’ve been writing about in recent articles.

“A Day in the Life” is really made up of two separate songs, one written by McCartney, the other by John Lennon. Lennon, McCartney, and their producer, George Martin, wanted the two songs to comprise separate “movements” for the work but were stumped for a way to connect the pieces.

Finally, Martin hit upon a way to fill the gap. McCartney and Martin brought in a 40-piece orchestra to play a 24-bar improvised fill – a tough challenge for classically trained musicians accustomed to an orchestrated score. In order to facilitate the process for the musicians, Martin structured the fill by using a novel approach which he described as follows:

What I did there was to write ... the lowest possible note for each of the instruments in the orchestra. At the end of the twenty-four bars, I wrote the highest note...near a chord of E major. Then I put a squiggly line right through the twenty-four bars, with reference points to tell them roughly what note they should have reached during each bar.

As I read that, I thought: Get Back! (OK, so that’s another album.) Martin’s description struck me as a perfect integration of the two approaches to change that I described in my article about the Heath Brothers’ book Switch.

I had written that, when influencing other people to change, a change agent has a choice of two useful boundaries: Either focus on the first step just to get people started on the Change Road, or focus on the ultimate goal and leave it up to people’s improvisational abilities to blaze their own road to the destination.

Martin did both. He first made sure that the musicians had the same point of orientation before they began their 24-bar journey. But then he relied on each musician to choose his own improvised path to reach the predefined goal – the E major chord. (And not only that: He added rough “signposts” along the road to help them calibrate their progress throughout.)

Along with four lads from Liverpool, Martin – who in my estimation was the true “Fifth Beatle” – helped engineer one of the most momentous cultural changes of the 20th Century. And I think Martin’s creative solution to “A Day in the Life” provides a model for change agents in any field – especially when they're trying to influence seasoned people who might be anxious about the road ahead:

1) Paint a distinct, vivid picture of the ultimate goal;


2) Provide a clear starting point and first steps;


3) Set up rough milestones along the way in order to measure progress;


4) Then step back and let people improvise their way to success!

----------------------------------------------
 
Here is a video excerpt from the actual recording session for “A Day in the Life.” The 24-bar fill starts around 1:45.
 



PS - Enjoy your Magical Mystery Tour, Kathy and Kim!

ExploreFlexSupport ... and Keith Johnstone

As I sit at my keyboard today, I think I've been falling prey to something I cautioned against in an earlier article - namely the striving for originality.  So, as a remedy, I thought I would turn to that great crusader against the mania for originality, Keith Johnstone, and see what ideas I could draw upon from his book Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre.

Lo and behold, I ran across a passage that echoes my observations in my earlier article about people who try to impress others with the originality of their arguments and observations during problem-solving discussions.  Says Johnstone:

"My feeling is that the best argument may be a testimony to the skill of the presenter, rather than to the excellence of the solution advocated.  Also, the bulk of discussion time is [often] taken up with transactions of status which have nothing to do with the problem to be solved."

In other words, positioning, posturing, and one-upmanship, rather than using the ExploreFlexSupport Model:

Exploring the possibilities presented by others' perspectives;

Flexing one's viewpoints, assumptions, and (yes) biases; and

Supporting others in developing their ideas - and supporting the group in moving the group forward productively!

Are We There Yet? Embarking on the Change Journey

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step." - Lao Tzu

In my previous article, I drew a parallel between the improv structure Finding the Game and the Heath brothers’ observation (in their book Switch) that effective change efforts require focusing people on specific, concrete actions. “Reach for 1% milk” is thus a much clearer call to action than “Eat healthier” (and more grammatical, too).

To bring all of this full circle, I’d like to refer to one of my earliest articles in The Daily Improviser blog, in which I discussed the Heath brothers’ previous book, Made to Stick.

In Made to Stick, the Heaths tell how to create “sticky” messages – that is, messages that are memorable, understood, and likely to inspire people to take action. The first step in creating a sticky message, say the Heaths, is to define the essence (or “Core”) of your message and then package it into a succinct (or “Compact”) form that can be readily communicated.

Probably the most powerful example of Core and Compact messages cited by the Heaths – and the one I covered in my earlier article – involves the concept of Commander’s Intent. Commander’s Intent is a brief statement of a military mission’s overall objective, framed so as to provide direction to soliders in the field while leaving them room to improvise as necessary to deal with unanticipated situations along the way. A sample statement of Commander’s Intent might be “Break the will of the enemy in Sector C.”

The beauty of Commander’s Intent, say the Heaths, is that it “aligns the behavior of soldiers at all levels without requiring play-by-play instructions from their leaders.”

Commander’s Intent is also a perfect everyday example of Finding the Game. Both Commander’s Intent and Finding the Game involve compact statements that can guide people’s collaborative actions without having to script every move. In this way, both structures place useful boundaries on people’s thinking, giving them a loose framework (to provide focus and direction) within which they can improvise at will (to let them shift with the vagaries of circumstance).

The Heaths’ “Reach for 1% milk” example also illustrates Finding the Game, but in a way that differs from Commander’s Intent. The "1% milk" message is similar to a Commander’s Intent message in that it uses clear, simple language to put a useful boundary on people’s thinking and prompt them to act in a desired direction. However, whereas the Commander’s Intent message focuses on the ultimate goal, the 1% milk message focuses instead on the first step.

The difference, I think, lies in the context in which the two messages are being conveyed. The battlefield represents a fluid, ever-changing environment that is almost a pure example of improv being played in daily life. Soliders don’t need to be convinced of the importance of accomplishing their mission: They just need to know what that mission is and then be given the leeway to make choices that will achieve it.

In the 1% milk message, though, people do need to be convinced of the value and attainability of the goal – especially since it represents a change in their long-ingrained behavior. Since they’re likely to be either indifferent or resistant to the goal, they need to be shown a small, easily implemented action that will start them on the road to change. Trying to show them the ultimate goal (“Be healthier”) right off the bat may make the journey appear too daunting and thus entrench them in their old familiar habits.

In mobilizing people to take action, then, you have a choice of two useful boundaries you can apply: Either focus people on the goal as a way to guide their actions, or focus them on the first action as a way to start them toward the goal. Your choice will depend on their existing level of commitment to the goal.