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The Improvisation Edge: Secrets to Building Trust and Radical Collaboration at Work - Softcover

Hough, Karen

 
9781605095851: The Improvisation Edge: Secrets to Building Trust and Radical Collaboration at Work
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1605095850 ISBN 13: 9781605095851
Verlag: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

All kinds of books have been written about building trust and teamwork. But The Improvisation Edge is the only one that draws on the knowledge of experts in trust building: theatrical improvisers. Think about it: other than combat, no situation requires more extreme trust than improv. You have no script, costumes, or set—nothing but your fellow actors. Improvisers must manage risk, collaborate radically, create deep trust, and turn disasters into opportunities—which are also vital business skills.

Karen Hough describes four secrets that help leaders, trainers, managers, and frontline employees adopt the improviser’s mind-set. You’ll learn techniques to create a positive environment, encourage fearless participation, and turn “Oops!” into “Eureka!” The Improvisation Edge offers a hands-on way to build an organizational culture that makes breakthrough business results possible.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Karen Hough, founder and CEO of ImprovEdge, was a senior sales executive for many years. She also has been a professional improviser and actor for twenty years, training at Chicago’s legendary Second City.

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Introduction

Your Biggest Problem at Work and the Most Unexpected Solution

We all want to be successful, effective, happy people. That’s probably one of the most common desires in adult humans. We want to contribute in a meaningful way. We want to enjoy our friends, family, and colleagues; make money; and feel good about our work and life. And these are great desires; they keep us striving, keep us motivated and engaged—keep us living.

But what about the problems we face in reaching those goals? It sometimes feels as though we’re paddling upstream and that the very things we want to enjoy and rely upon—such as good teams and relationships, challenging projects, and a successful career—just aren’t coming together.

The surprise I will explore in this book is that our issues and problems aren’t actually about spreadsheets. Or cash flow. Or the economy, clients, salespeople, or even the boss. It certainly feels as if those things are the root of all the frustration, worry, and sleepless nights—and they are a part of it, certainly. But the most important factor underlying all of these elements is trust.

That’s right, trust. And if that seems startling, get ready for an even bigger surprise.

The key to creating trust and success in the workplace is probably the last thing you would ever imagine. It’s improvisation.

Improv. Like the club you visited in Chicago. Like Whose Line Is It Anyway? on TV. Like good jazz.

Improvisation, along with the skills and behaviors that are the breath and blood of improvisers, is the surest way to start working at a higher level, creating high-performance teams, exhibiting greater leadership behaviors, and building and engendering trust at work.

image The model for management that we have right now is the opera. The conductor of an opera has a very large number of different groups that he has to pull together. The soloists, the chorus, the ballet, the orchestra, all have to come together—but they have a common score. What we are increasingly talking about today are diversified groups that have to write the score while they perform. What you need now is a good jazz group.

PETER DRUCKER

Let’s take some time to think a bit more deeply about trust.

The level and amount of trust you feel affect not only your own performance but also the performance and profitability of your entire organization. Trust in yourself, trust in your team, trust in your boss, and trust in your organization.

We build trust over time, through consistency and behaviors that continually show we are collaborative, innovative, and, well, trustworthy. We have to earn trust through our behavior, and that takes work, because trust is seriously low among us right now. We don’t trust our banks, we don’t trust our politicians, we don’t trust our dry cleaner, and we sometimes don’t trust ourselves. This is a serious national issue.

People love to invoke the “good old days,” in part because there seems something innocent and rosy about the period one hundred years ago. People then believed that a man’s word was his bond. There seemed to be fewer reasons to doubt certain institutions. But then scandals arose, individuals lied, and governments broke their own laws. So now, when we desperately want to just live, to just get through our days, we feel compelled to double check everything: check another newswire, check another reference, check to see if we got enough change back. It’s exhausting, time consuming, and saddening, and when we do decide to trust someone or something as a matter of principle, we walk away worrying “Will I be glad or made a fool?”

One of the biggest holes in our ability to trust has to do with our teams and organizations. When we don’t trust our colleagues or don’t believe that our company has our best interests in mind, we end up without foundational trust. Corporate confidence is at an all-time low as a result of a long wave of shameful activities: Enron’s ethical morass, Madoff’s lies, Wall Street’s collapse, GM’s bailout, and the list goes on. It has made us cautious, sad, and slow to trust.

The irony here is that the financial collapse came out of too much trust. Most people do not understand the complexities of finance and real estate, so we trusted our financial and real estate institutions and the individuals doing the work to be ethical. We trusted that they would work in a collaborative way that would take into account the greater needs of the market and the country, always looking for a way for everyone to come out ahead. Instead, they acted only on their own behalf, did not collaborate with other entities, and lost track of the big picture.

I’ve encountered some people who doubt the critical importance of collaborative behaviors. Over the twenty years I’ve been doing my work, a lot of people have tried to convince me that, professionally, trust shouldn’t matter.

“Plow through! If you’re a professional, it shouldn’t matter if you like or trust other people! Just get it done!” I’ve actually heard those words come out of a manager’s mouth. I doubt his team enjoyed working for him.

When trust is low, people experience stress, which seriously affects our health, mental capabilities, and emotional stability. Daniel Goleman, the researcher behind the concept of emotional intelligence, tells us “stress makes people stupid.” He states that people cannot “remember, attend, learn, or make decisions” when they are emotionally upset—when they’re worried, frustrated, angry, or hurt.2

Have you ever felt any of those emotions at work? The experience of emotional stress creates physical side effects such as higher blood pressure, stomach and intestinal issues, headaches, weight gain or loss, and lower metabolism. We also suffer mentally. We more easily lose control of our temper, we can’t prioritize as well, we lose our ability to process rationally, and our memory does not work as well.

All of these emotional and physical side effects result from the stress generated by any environment that keeps us from working together effectively. When people are constantly wondering whether they can share information, if they have to watch their backs, or if their colleagues don’t value them, the result is low trust.

Conversely, when trust is in place, it creates incredible strength in individuals, teams, and organizations. Relationships stay strong in an atmosphere of respect. Teams over-perform when they collaborate and trust that everyone is working toward a common goal. Leaders motivate when followers trust that those leaders are competent and ethical. Organizations thrive when there is trust in the adherence to goals and values. And for that matter, customers buy products because they trust the quality of a brand name. Planes take off because pilots trust that the engineers, air traffic controllers, and ground technicians have done their jobs. And we stay in relationships when we trust that we will be cared for.

As Patricia Aburdene wrote in Megatrends 2010, “Transcendent values like trust and integrity literally translate into revenue, profits, and prosperity.”3

Radical collaboration creates trust. And trust is the key to relationships, teamwork, leadership, and success. So how do we create trust, engage in trustworthy behaviors, and start to reap those personal and professional benefits?

The Most Unexpected Solution You’d Ever Guess

Improvisers step onstage without a script, set, costumes, makeup, or props. They arrive without any of those common tools of...

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Verlag
Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Erscheinungsdatum
2011
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1605095850
ISBN 13 
9781605095851
Einband
Taschenbuch
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
192
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
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Pärnu mnt. 139b - 14
Tallinn
11317
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