Think on Your Feet Read online

  One reason improv works so well for professional communication is because you’re planning for flexibility. Think about it like this: If you have a plan with only one path but you have to be flexible, you’re going to struggle. If you have a plan that has a few other possible plans built in, you’ll be able to flex when necessary. You’re basically stocking up on plans and ideas so when the moment comes where you need to be flexible, you can because you’ve thought about it.

  You’re planning for the unexpected. Improv helps you build your “flexibility muscle.” So when you ask for a raise, you can do it in the best, most prepared way. You can be ready for anything. Again, improv isn’t about flying by the seat of your pants and being spontaneous with all of your choices and decisions. It is about being ready for those moments when your boss says no to your request for a raise, when your coworker is upset with you, when you’re trying to meet people at a networking event, and when you have to stand up for yourself.

  A few more notes then we’ll dive right in. I’ve given a lot of examples in this book. These examples ground some information in reality. Learning improv from a book is a little like learning how to dance from a book. You’re reading about an active skill. It’s a little weird. Sometimes, the examples are the best-case scenarios so you can see how something works when it works. It’s often the gold standard. Although I’ve prefaced many examples with “this is the best outcome,” I want to make an overarching statement: the examples are here for you to see one way to make something happen in real life. You can take it, improv with it, and make it your own. Really, you should take all of this and make it your own. If it doesn’t work, reflect and see what happened. Move along, try again, and make it happen.

  Throughout the book, I frequently say in the moment versus at the moment: this is an important distinction in improv. You are actively part of the moment at hand. You are not a spectator. You are in it, you are part of it, and you are affecting it simply by being there. Your audience is too—no one is just passive at something. Everyone is in it.

  Finally, and most important, this book isn’t a cure-all. Yes, you will be better, faster, and stronger after this book, if you follow some of the ideas in it, but improvement is relative. If you’re currently terrified of public speaking and talking in meetings, and you think after reading this book you’re going to be ready to give a viral TED Talk without throwing up, I’m really sorry, you’re going to be disappointed. Will you feel a bit better about speaking up in the next meeting in a way that’s thoughtful and relevant? Absolutely.

  Before every single class, with every single student, we ask: Who are you? Why are you here? What are your expectations for this class? Sometimes, they have no expectations; they are taking the class because they thought it might be fun. Sometimes, they want to be an amazing communicator after the class, sometimes they have something specific like a raise or promotion they are shooting for, and sometimes someone else signed them up for the class.

  No matter what your expectations are with this book, take a moment, check in, and write them down. Don’t just think about them in your head; really dig in and think what you want out of this. Write it down somewhere, whether that’s in your phone, in your journal, in an email to yourself, in a document on your computer. Think about what you want and then dive in. This book is meant to make you better, faster, and stronger. It won’t do anything unless you know what you want to work on.

  Got your ideas and expectations down?

  Let’s go.

  Attending to Your Audience: Who, What, When, and How

  I still remember a show I did off-Broadway that killed my soul. It was with my improv troop. We got up, put on an “amazing” performance, but the audience never clapped, laughed, or even moved. I’m sure they made an active choice not to clap or laugh. At one point, during an overdramatic western in the style of the old cowboy movies, another performer, pretending to be a tumbleweed, rolled across the stage. There was not a peep, much less a chuckle from the audience. It was as if all the joy was pulled from the room. The rest of the show was in the toilet, and so was the second show that same night because the audience had killed our drive. Instead of responding to their reactions, we kept pushing our brand of “funny” and let them throw more dirt on the holes we dug ourselves into, pushing us into the ground.

  Does this performance remind you of a recent talk you gave? Or maybe a meeting you led? Or worse, a meet-up with a potential client, employer, coworker, or collaborator? It’s one of the worst feelings in the world when it seems like no one is connecting with anything you’re saying. Countless students mentioned having moments just like this during a conversation or presentation at work. Though these situations are not the same as the dictionary definition of “performing,” where you are seeking affirmation from people you don’t know (although, conferences are kind of like that sometimes), they might be even more nerve-racking because you’re talking to people you know and might want to see or work with again.

  When I first started The Engaging Educator (EE), I swore up and down I would never, ever train people to perform in front of an audience. It was the big part of improv that didn’t apply to what we were trying to do. The affirmation from strangers? No thanks. It wasn’t something most of our students wanted either, and if they did, they were referred to one of the improv theaters in New York City. Some came back, never regretting their choice to try something else and realizing performing for a dedicated audience who was looking for a show was very different than professional and personal development. Some performed with the other improvisers and actors in their class and invited the facilitators from EE along.

  Until one fall a small group of students really wanted to perform in front of an audience. They came to class one day as a united front and told me that they wanted to put on an improv show together and not with another theater. They wanted to do it together. My immediate reaction was first, “Why?” and second, “You do it every day, why now?” Every time we speak to another person, we’re talking to an audience.

  Let’s take a moment here to define what an audience is. The traditional definition is a group of attentive people at a public event. If you think about this definition, there’s a very active-passive relationship between the performers and the audience. You’ve got people “onstage” actively doing something intentional and a group of people “off-stage” passively watching. The audience generally can’t do a lot to influence the people onstage, because those folks will keep doing what they are doing. The passive people, even if they are paying attention, are not necessarily part of the action. Even during interactive plays or improv performances where people are pulled onstage to be part of the action, people can still choose to sit and do nothing. They have no skin in the game.

  But this is only the most traditional dictionary definition of the word audience. If you’ve ever been in front of a room full of people during a meeting, attended a networking event, had an interview, or even been involved in conversation, you know the people you’re talking to play anything but a passive role during these situations.

  If we think of these situations as performances, then your audience is the person or group of people you’re communicating with and they play a very active role in your performance. If that’s one other person, that’s your audience. If it’s a crowd of 10 or 10,000 people you’re presenting or speaking to, that’s your audience. And you, the speaker, are akin to the performer whose goal is to get information across and be heard. You are not just talking for the sake of talking. If you think about it, we are always in front of an audience when we are speaking out loud. The only exceptions perhaps are those silent moments when we read an email out loud to make sure we aren’t crazy and we’ve sufficiently avoided the passive-aggressive tone we’ve been working on. More on that later.

  Before any performance it’s important to ask yourself the following four questions: (1) Who are you talking to and Who are you? (2) Where are you? (3) What do you and your audience want? a
nd (4) How do you feel?

  Aside from being identifiers to tap into the moment at hand, these are also the major things that need to be considered in every improv moment. Without these four things, improv moments fall flat, stall out, and go in circles. The same things happen if you don’t have these identified in conversations, meetings, presentations, and interviews. Let’s take a minute to look at each of these further.

  WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO?

  An effective way to start thinking about an audience is to ask the very simple question: Who are you talking to? This might seem really basic, but hear me out. If you are talking to a group of people who understand your business, and you’re reaching out for collaboration or a partnership, you won’t need to get into every single detail about the business. On the flip side, if the audience has never heard of you or your company and you’re headed out to “sell” the business, you might want to and definitely need to start from the very beginning. That who is really important!

  When you identify who the audience is, you must define what that term means. Get specific. They aren’t just “people.” They might be contemporaries you want to impress or coworkers you need to convince. You’d talk to a kindergartener and a high school student differently, right? Same idea.

  TRY THIS

  Take a moment to think about the last audience you spoke to—remember, this might be one person, or it might be a crowd. Pick a specific communication moment and grab your phone. Set a timer for two minutes, and write down or talk out everything you can remember about that audience. If you’re writing, keep writing for the full two minutes. If you’re talking, record on your phone and talk for the full two minutes. You’re tapping into everything: from the largest of details all the way to the tiny minutia. Do not edit, do not overthink, do not stop. You’re dumping everything out of your brain about this audience. After you’ve finished, go back and reread what you’ve written or listen to what you’ve recorded and pull out the bits that show the characteristics specific to this audience.

  This helps you learn how to quickly identify your audience. We often don’t think about our audience before speaking to them. This activity helps you make a habit of checking in.

  When you’re doing the work to understand the audience, it’s important to think about them as more than just generic people. Ultimately, everyone in your life fits into a category within your life. This is something you’ll have to do and figure out for yourself, but here are a few to start with:

  • People you want to impress. This might be an interviewer, interviewee, supervisor, client, coworker, or potential client. You want this someone to see you in the best light.

  • People you want to maintain a relationship with. This might be a coworker, supervisor, or client. You want this someone to see you in a good to great light. You’re going to present a good version of you with the understanding that you might have some “off” days. We aren’t robots, which means it’s OK to not be OK. You do need to maintain a professional image, regardless of what’s happening personally.

  • People you don’t care about. This might be someone who doesn’t have an impact on you professionally or personally, so their opinion truly doesn’t matter.

  These are my three categories, and a good place to start when you create your own. The group of people I don’t care about is actually a really small group, because so much of my work is word of mouth. That’s not to say I communicate to everyone with my agenda in mind or categorize everyone I meet. That’s very different. I do want most people to see the best version of my professional self. After you take this inventory of the people in your professional life, start thinking about what version of who you are is presented to each of your categories.

  . . . AND WHO ARE YOU?

  Who are you? We’re not deep diving into your psyche here. It’s safe to say you are a different version of yourself when you talk to your friend at work than you are when you’re talking to the CEO. In improv, we tend to start with the who as interchangeable—you need to understand both who you’re talking to and who you are, and they both have to be clearly defined. People often come into improv thinking we’re going to jump immediately into doing scenes and being funny, but the fact is if we started with scenes, or as we call it, moments, I’m not sure people would come back! We tend to forget or not realize that too much creativity is just as crippling as not enough. If you have everything to choose from, you’ll get nowhere.

  Since the who is one of the easiest to quickly identify, even when you’re starting out with improv-based thinking, we’ll flesh this out before moving on, keeping in mind that both sides of who might shift. An example of a who might be the version of you that is interviewing for a job you really want. I tell students this is usually that best-self I refer to so often. When you are interviewing for that job, you often wear your favorite professional outfit and are usually completely on point when communicating. Take one minute to list those best-self characteristics.

  This version of you should be exactly that: a version of you. If you suddenly start using language that isn’t authentic to you, you will sound false. Same goes with acting in a certain way.

  Here’s where improv comes in strong—you get to practice these whos. At one of our Level-Up classes in New York City, a vice president of a well-known communication company and an online talent with a food channel were paired together for an activity. They had one of the longest back-and-forth small-talk conversations either one had probably ever experienced. You know the kind of conversation I’m referring to: those painful ones where everything was about the weather. Their back-and-forth was awkward and superficial at best. It lasted three-plus minutes. I had no clue who they were to one another, because their relationship was undefined. The entire class was watching the moment with giant question marks plastered across their faces.

  I called time at the end of the painful moment and asked the two students how they felt. My vice president, the amazing sport he always was, said, “I think we need some work on focus and objectives.” My online talent looked at me and said, “I have no idea what’s going on. That was the worst!” Instead of going into the usual what-happened reflection questions, I asked, “Who are you and how do you know each other?” Blank stares. The VP said, “We know each other,” while the online talent said, “We’re strangers” over him.

  This confusion? This is why the foundational information is critical. Of course, in real life you don’t have as many options to choose from: you know who you are and who you’re talking to. How often have you clearly defined which who you’re tapping into before a professional moment? In improv, you get the opportunity to think about the conversation afterward with no regrets and all the reflection. It’s just a game, remember? We can have that blank stare “Who are you?” moment, because again, improv is a voyeuristic adventure and you generally have a facilitator calling you out. The audience (other students) is also there to help you with those things that you missed in reflection. In real life, you might walk away feeling like conversations stall out, and afterward, you beat yourself up with the woulda, coulda, shouldas. Instead of feeling the regret, try reflecting on how you can do it better when it goes poorly and plan for next time.

  Using the solid decisions you make in improv and improv-based thinking as your guide, you can start defining which version of you will be at that conversation, based on who you are talking to and your relationship with that particular audience. That best version you bring into an interview? You’re probably meeting with someone who has some kind of say: maybe it’s the decision maker or perhaps the person who will be your direct report. Whoever it is, it’s most likely someone you’d want to impress. Boom—you’ve got your who on both ends.

  Once you have a handle on that vague who—a hiring manager or a coworker—you can refine this further by adding details to your who. Is it a hiring manager or the hiring manager? Does the person you’re talking to report to anyone, or are they in charge? Or are they the person you have to
interview with first to get to the person who does the hiring? See how all of this is deeper than the interviewer and the interviewee?

  When you’re thinking about your personal who, start asking questions about them to decide your who. If you don’t know specifics, do what you can to discover them. We’re lucky enough to live in a time with social media at the immediate—you can quickly look up on the internet past events or people who work at a specific place. While it is a nasty rabbit hole, a bit of digging will help. Show the knowledge; don’t refer directly to your online research. This “show, don’t tell” concept is an improv principle we’ll see a lot of through professional communication. We’ll dig deeper into it when we work on confidence. For now, it’s best summed up as, use the information to inform what you’re saying, but don’t change your message.

  Let’s take a moment to bring both of these whos together. At first, this exercise will feel incredibly contrived, and that’s OK. The following worksheet will help you work through a few groups and types of people, along with what version of you should come out when talking to them. In improv, we have stock characters. A stock character has clearly defined traits, and each person has a different set of stock characters because they are drawn from characteristics the performer can do well in a moment’s notice. This activity works out something similar, but it’s more about you than a made-up character you’re trying to be.