I’m sitting in the Toronto airport about to fly to Banff to speak and participate in the AIN (applied improvisation network) Conference. I’ve really been looking forward to the conference for awhile now; its my first AIN and I can’t wait to witness the inside of this industry. I’ve successfully adapted myself to several industries over my career; semiconductors, contract manufacturing, software, supply chain and now Consulting Improvisation. I’m also excited about just getting away for a few days. I’ve been working my butt off (figuratively and literally) since the spring and it looks like things are slowly down for a winter lull.
I’m presenting the results of research we recently completed that compares the attentional and interpersonal styles of Professional Improvisers and Business Executives. We used TAIS of course and I have to give credit to Dr Robin Pratt for helping to interpret the data. I’m looking for comments on the paper so please let me know what yo think, and not the usual comments about increasing my penis size or stocks I should buy (why do people spam blogs?).
Here’s the link to the Applied Improvisation Network and here’s the link to the white paper.
Here is the Executive Summary:
Executive Summary: Characteristics of Improvisation Professionals vs Executives
The business world is constantly searching for ways to expand the skills of its leaders. “Business Improvisation”, performance under pressure combined with the creative process, is becoming increasingly popular as a strategy to resolve these unexpected challenges. A promising approach to teaching new skills in an experiential manner is using improvisation exercises. Accordingly, we felt it valuable to study the characteristics of skilled improvisation professionals to see which ones might be applicable to leaders in business.
In order to see if we can identify characteristics that differentiate improvisation professionals from business executives, we studied a group of active, talented improvisers. We used a performance psychological inventory with these improvisation professionals, one that has consistently differentiated among elite performers in sports, the military, and business. We compared the profile or pattern of scores for these improvisation veterans with the data we had for senior executives in various corporations around the world.
Business Improvisation workshops offer that most rare of events in business—the chance to practice real skills in an active environment where executives can see what works and what does not. Business people do not have the luxury of such things as scrimmage or practice in sports or rehearsal in the theatre. They are too busy to go to the equivalent of training camp.
We found the improvisation professionals to have some attentional and interpersonal characteristics that serve them well as they have to think on their feet and creatively solve problems in real time. Given that speaking in public is regularly reported as the #1 fear in North America and that having to improvise produces even more pressure to perform, they indicated that they seemed to rise to the occasion, performing their best under pressure.
Improvisation professionals score higher on the two input attentional scales (awareness and analytic/conceptual) and lower on the output one (action/focused). Accordingly, they read their environments well and make sense out of it before acting. In other words, they listen well in all senses of the term. This is in opposition to the typical executive profile of being analytical and orderly in the way they processed information combined with being driven to action and less tuned to their environment.
A major difference between executives and practicing improvisation professionals was revealed in their competitiveness and need to control people and events. Executives score quite high on the scales that indicate a need to take charge, they are confident in their ability to do so, and need to keep score or win. Improvisation professionals score in the middle range on these variables indicating they are more likely to accept situations as they are presented and be egalitarian in their approach. Given the prime operating process and principles of improvisational success—listen, accept, adapt and advance, executives’ greater need for control would appear to be a stumbling block to creatively solving problems while under pressure. They do not show as much willingness to listen and to explore new or unexpected outcomes.
More and more approaches to leadership emphasize performance under pressure and situational leadership based on increased awareness and improvisation. Improvisation professionals recreate this environment in performance situations and engage these attributes at every performance. They seem poised to share this learning experience with executives so they can add to their repertoire for flexible leadership in a changing world.
