 And welcome to everybody for this Applied Improvisation Network webinar. I'm Paul Z. Jackson, and this is part of our series of big topics. For the next 90 minutes, or just under perhaps, we're in the very interesting and capable hands of Christy West and Paul Levy. And the handover's there, and they'll tell us what's in store for us. So welcome everyone to this webinar. It's on the theme of digital transformation. And we're going to need your help to really get our discussion going around that. As Paul mentioned, I'm Paul Levy. This is what it says on my mug. And you might think that was the greatest act of narcissism you've seen. But actually that was a Christmas present from someone else. But this is what I put on my website. I'm a writer, a facilitator, a collusion breaker. And I'm certainly an Applied Improvisation person, practitioner, have been for many years, working with Paul sometimes as well. I'm currently here at the world's largest arts festival. I've been here for the whole month. It's the Edinburgh Fringe. There's 3,800 shows. And there's about 250 improv and improvisation shows there too. So I was saying earlier when we were preparing for the call that quite a lot of those shows are also doing work, not just in the entertainment world, but they're being brought in by organisations to help those organisations really transform themselves and become much more able to cope with changing environments. And that's a bit of rhetoric, the idea of hyper turbulence, but it's becoming more and more true, particularly with technology. So the aim of this webinar too is to get a real hands-on story from Christy who's going to take us in. Take us in as a practitioner. Take us in as a consultant and share the tale first of all about the context of how she's working with a client and then how applied improvisation activities can go into the room and help tune people in and skill people up to deal with that strategy, that strategy to be more improvisational and cope with the pressures of the digital realm, the pressures of change. It'd be really interesting to hear from you if you've got questions and input around your own use of AI. And in this case, we mean applied improvisation, not the other AI. So please do throw your questions in as well. During my month here, I've been blogging about digital transformation myself and when we go into the second stage, it opens up a bit more. I'll be sharing a link to some of the activities that I've been working with and how I'm developing, I think, a different approach to applied improvisation that doesn't contradict what's there that takes us somewhere else. And I'm starting to call it quantum applied improvisation. So I'm really happy to hear your thoughts about that too. Christie, can you just introduce a little bit about who you are and how you got into what you do as both a consultant and then someone who applies this once thought of as crazy practice of applied improvisation into ways of helping organizations go forward. Sure. Thanks, Paul. I feel like I should also introduce my mug, which is just a thrift store bargain that I found that I thought looked very much like something my great grandmother would own. And it's only fitting that I have a million plants behind me like my great grandmother. Okay, I digress. I'm Christie West and I found improv like most of us, just, you know, learning that the applications were very powerful off the stage and into corporate environments, but I learned it while climbing the ladder in business to business sales here in Atlanta. And so I think for me, my journey was very much about having applied improv helped me in my own career discovering that power, that transformational power and becoming very driven and passionate to share it with others. So my background is sales. A heavy sales career meets improv as a hobby. Fast forward 20 years later and here I am. So about half of my career has been in corporate America in sales and now about half of my career has been in training and development and mostly applied improv. So jumping to topic as it meets the digital transformation. I work, my business company is called Brave Space. So I basically work with teams and individuals either doing skill building or team development. And I found more and more in the last few years, my work takes me to team development where there's struggles today with bringing teams together for the greater purpose. And, you know, I believe in my research and what I've uncovered with my clients, the digital transformation is just a piece of that, right? There's so much going on. I kind of put the digital landscape as just one little problem in what, for me, is always a slew of other things, right? So that's what I'm actually going to take us through today is sort of a larger case study that's not just for one client. I actually did this research for a group of clients that I encountered in my work with sales enablement. So a lot of my work is with sales teams. And today's organizational landscape, as it were, is really leaning towards this industry called sales enablement, which is essentially just anything that a company is doing that enables their salespeople to do their job. So if you think about that, that's almost every department and organization from HR to marketing to product to, you know, you name it, customer success, customer experience, it's all about getting the customer what the customer needs when the customer needs it. So what I found is that a big need in the marketplace today for at least me and where my work touches, where applied improv touches team development is how do we get people to continue to collaborate and come together as we always teach and apply improv when we've got all of these barriers and limitations and a lot of that, you know, as a result of a digital landscape, a digital transformation. So that's kind of what we're going to get into today. So should we jump into the fun? Yeah, I guess I just had one question, too, which even five or 10 years ago, that sales process, people were rewarded for stable behavior. And yet when I'm seeing shows up here at the Edinburgh fringe, we're rewarding performers for unstable behavior. And that's when it gets exciting because performance goes up and we laugh if it's comedy. So it's part of that team dynamic now that actually they need to be comfortable with the natural behavior around the tomorrow's going to be different to yesterday. And even our assumed processes may have to be innovated very quickly. Yeah, I mean that I agree with you. And that's that's such a good segue into what what we were going to talk about is the teams look so different today than they used to. And yes, part of this is because we've become more digital. We're in a digital landscape. Everything is digital. And so some of the changes that we are experiencing as organizations and teams is a result of that. But there's a whole other bunch of things going on as well. Right. So if we can, let's jump right to that. And I will just share my screen with everyone. And so Chris is going to give us some backstory here. So bear with us in terms of setting the story up. Then she's going to take us into then how the applied improvisation comes into this. Yeah. So as I mentioned earlier, I've had an opportunity to really take a deep dive into working with organizations who are heavily reliant on collaboration, who are heavily reliant on cross functional and departmental collaboration. And I put together this case study called it, improvising the digital age of how I've been able as an applied improv practitioner to link our work to these challenges, limitations, barriers, whatever you want to call them associated with with the digital landscape and the digital transformation as we call it. So the client here would be any organization who is heavily reliant on departmental and cross functional collaboration and struggles with bringing people together for a greater purpose. That's pretty big. It's broad and we'll get more into that in a moment. I love this cartoon because I feel like we've all been there. I mean, how digital can we be? I just, it gets crazy. So I'll let you enjoy that on your own. But so some of the problems, the biggest problems that are associated with the digital, digital landscape that I've uncovered in my work and the clients that have come to me have been these sort of top three things. So we're very virtual. We've got a lot of remote teams and we struggle with feeling connected and it's hard to build trust. The digital landscape makes human to human communication difficult or non-existent. Another big one is the organization is siloed and there's a lack of collaboration between departments and functions. So how can we use applied improv to help drive more collaboration, communication and connectivity in this digital climate? So this is sort of just a case study for what I've encountered. So the way I approach this most times is how do we enable a culture of cross collaboration in a digital age? And much like most of our work, I've sort of created a framework or a template for when I hear these things that I feel like I know we all put our problems in the things that we're solving for clients into buckets, right? So I put this in the bucket of digital transformation. As a result of the digital transformation, it's difficult to cross collaborate. So what are we going to do? So part of the problem is that the teams, we just talked about this poll. The teams are changing. They don't look like what they used to, right? So here's the deal. Not only are we different. We look different. Remember the days of the cube that somehow just reminds me of like a honeycomb. There's a bunch of little bees working in there to make honey. And then you look down to the right here at the bottom of the screen and you've got more of the Google, the workspace that's very comfy and cozy and more collaborative, more inviting, right? So here's the deal though. We are collaborating more today, more than 50% than we used to, but we're also more digital. So how does that work? So that is part of the problem. And then you've got an organizational landscape where we talked about earlier, that's complicated. We've got a customer in the middle in most cases unless a business has no customer. And then you've got all of these departments and functions and people trying to get the customer what the customer needs. In order for that to happen, they all have to collaborate, work together. Marketing needs to be able to jump to, you know, they need to be able to jump around and come together and, and collaborate to get to the end goal, right? So if we're going to crack the code in this case for cross collaboration, we're going to have to figure out what the barriers are and then what the success factors are. I know this seems to be like a naive question, but just to help us move forward, there's an assumption here that collaboration is good and necessary. So just playing the devil's advocate, why is that an obvious assumption? Why do we need to collaborate? I don't want to, I don't want to hog the airtime here. So if anybody would like to take a stab at that, I didn't know if you were me or the general public here. Yeah. Well, it's just, maybe it's a rhetoric question as well. Why do we, why, why do we need it? And so I would, I would say it would depend on, are we talking about just the need for that to today in today's organizational landscape or just in general? Yeah, you know, I guess, you know, can we get work done without collaboration? Is the world of digital 20 years from now, you know, just going to be robots delivering stuff? We can certainly hope so. If anyone wants to come on in, then you'll need to unmute yourself or signal for me to unmute you, but you can control your own mute button. I've muted everyone up to this point. So the question is, why do we need collaboration at all? What's the value or advantage of it? If indeed it could be that we work individually and with the aid of robots has a, another plausible future or possibility. Why collaborate? I mean, I think I always go back to the, you know, we all want to connect. We can only get so far just working independently. I just think that humans want to connect and that more gets done together than a part. I mean, I go back to the, you know, the tried and true improv principles of why I love our work so much, which is why I'm doing this work is because I realized that there's so much more to doing it in a co-created fashion than sure we can all work independently for a little while, but I think more is better. And I could keep going and adding to this, but I think you get the idea, you know, I go back to the general idea of we can do more together. Hello. This is Tony. Am I on mute? No, you're here. Okay, good. So I would say that the business environment is going more and more towards a innovative and dynamic model that we have fewer and fewer work processes that are well-defined and stable. In the past, you could just plug someone in and say, here's the job description, go do it. But now we're continually inventing and creating new ways of working together. That requires not just coordination, but collaboration, which also leads us straight into applied improv because if you're going to be dynamic and innovative with other people, you need the skills that we develop. Thanks, Tony. Kristi and Paul, you've also got some chat answers from Alison and Nancy there if you want to reference those. Sure. Actually, could you do that, Paul, since I'm in my screen? Yeah, and that, you know, the great thing to hear because it confirms stuff is that, you know, there's a lot of research and some stuff has been quoted here that collaboration is one of the top five of the required skills, you know, at work. And also, you know, no one person has all the skills we need. And as the comment that was just made is, if we're in hyper turbulence, then no one's going to have the answer. And just the bit I noticed was that the first wave of collaboration tools digitally have been really clunky. And I think applied improvisation has got a real market back in the room running workshops at the moment because people aren't experiencing greater collaboration at the moment when they're on, you know, the work version of Facebook or on Slack, because it's still largely typing stuff and sharing video and being separate from each other. So until that next wave of tech comes, they still need people like you, Kristi, in the room, you know, doing AI with them. Right. Did we get to, were those the comments? Did we get to those, Paul? You didn't want to leave those out. Yes. Paul just summarized them. I'm going to go back. Sorry, I'm going to have to. There we go. So thank you, Paul. So, and this gets, this gets, we'll get back on track here. This gets just into sort of what we could use as a strategy and a roadmap and where this is sort of associated with digital transformation. And I just kind of want to recap, because we could get lost a little bit because the thing is, if we're digital, we know all of these things are happening as a result of being more digital, right? People are not relying on collaborating as much as they may have in the past, even though we may not have been doing it well. We're able to almost get to that point that you were talking about, Paul, where we can work independently more, but because of that, levels of trust have been decreased. People are not making time and space for personal relationships. There's less human to human contact. So what we want to do is try to figure out what those barriers are for specific clients who have been affected by digital, by the digital transformation, and then what success factors or behaviors do we need to add? And then we get a strategy and a roadmap for cracking that code. In this case, in this case study that I'm showing you, it was particularly about cross collaboration. So this gets into sort of your question, Paul, like why is collaboration so important today? Or in general, right? So if we're more digital and we're more dispersed, meaning more remote, more virtual, and we're more diverse, I think the need for collaboration is even more so today than it's ever been because we have diversity, we crave diversity, we aim for diversity, but with that diversity comes a bunch of different ideas and a bunch of different mindsets. And if we just waste all of that without bringing it all together in a way that is capitalizing on all the diversity that we have, I mean, what's the point? And then I call this the triple Ds. So if we're more digital, we're more dispersed and we're more diverse, there's even more reason for us to try to collaborate and think of new ways to come together and collaborate. And these next few slides are just problems that I uncovered with clients that are struggling with problems associated with digital transformation. Okay, because we are so digital, there's also a problem with the lack of a fully shared purpose. Most people and companies do not feel like they understand what the shared vision and the purpose of the company is. There's still competitive self-interest and ego. It's one of the biggest barriers to working together effectively. So, you know, digital or not, the ego is still there, right? And people are still concerned with just what they need to do and what they need to get done. We're not creating enough time and space for building these relationships that we consider to be so important. You know, the statistics still show us that people who know each other better, who know each other outside of the work stuff are more effective in working together on teams. The other thing that's not surprising, and I would love to get everyone's take on this, Paul, you mentioned it earlier, is we don't reward for team performance today. We mostly, in many cases, only reward for individual performance. So, if we really want to encourage collaboration and we really want to give value to team performance, why aren't we rewarding and recognizing that? Does anybody have any thoughts on this particular idea? If not, I will keep moving. I was just going to add one thing, which is some of the research that I've been involved in through the University of Brighton is identifying cultures where they don't reward physical world collaboration very well, but someone has put in Slack, you know, on collaboration digital platforms, and there are rewards inherent in the person who posts the most gets a bonus, you know, the team that, you know, responds the most. And that's interesting, because there's kind of clunky rewards for digital collaboration, even in organizations that don't have a reward for non-digital. It feels quite primitive. It doesn't feel very strategic to do that. It feels quite tactical. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I've talked about this with some of the clients I've worked with. So they're rewarding, you know, the top performers, but they're not rewarding for the teams that are really kind of coming together and performing well as a team. And I think that's huge. And then, of course, top-down commitment for cross-collaborating for, you know, how teams are performing isn't something that we see a lot of, that people don't see that commitment from the top-down. So, Christy, can you share where that 75% of, can you share where we got those last stats on the last slide you shared? Yeah, I'll share this with everybody right after the webinar today. Oh, okay. So the references are at the end. Yeah. Yeah, they're at the end. It's great. And just as an adjunct to Slack, there's a startup that I believe Erica Marks is working with called Kali, and they are tracking and are able to analyze the data to understand better who in their digital teams are the influencers and based on the tracking of that specific tool, who is making the decision, who is collaborating better, and who is influencing others. So interesting technological metrics to be able to track digital collaboration. Yeah, that's great. No, that's great. So, yeah, we'll share all these as a side note and all the resources of where we, I found some of the research and information will be in there as well. So, and again, this is a case study that is just really about sort of a look at what one particular organization might be going through. So know that this goes in a lot of different directions. The idea is if we can uncover where the barriers are to cross collaboration, then we can find out what success factors we need to add to create more effective teams that are collaborating and whatever, you know, the particular problem with that client might be. So if it really kind of comes down to the fact that this particular client has this set of problems, they're digital, they're dispersed, they're diverse. They don't have a fully shared purpose. There's a lot of ego. There's no time and space to build relationships, no rewards for team performance, and no top-down commitment. You've got to eliminate these things and then we need to add in, you know, if you look at the applied improv principles and where it meets these particular barriers, giving everyone a voice, communicating the vision and purpose, empathy and being others focused, valuing relationship building, giving it time and space, supporting and encouraging 14 performance, and then the leader support, delegating and empowering. So when I looked at this particular case that I was working with, with a few customers in the sales enablement world, I said, okay, if I can add these behaviors, we can work as a team with the client to add these behaviors. We can start to move the needle here and really create an awareness and value around cross-collaborating in the digital landscape. A couple more comments there that I'm not sure if you've seen on the chat. No, I'm sure they're happening, but Paul... You don't see them? Yeah, since I'm in the PowerPoint, I'd have to start tracking for it. I think if I just add in what's coming on, apologies if I don't get this exactly correct, but we're getting comments around the fact that one thing that digital do through tracking, which has got a good and a bad side, is it can kind of identify when collaboration is taking place. It can kind of measure it. And everybody when 5G comes in, those cameras are going to be scary and benevolent because they're going to be able to observe us all the time. But maybe there's the possibility of helpful observation. The second set of points are also about the dilemma that now comes between trying to work horizontally in vertical organizations. Both become true in most organizations, and you can't just switch from one to the other. And so the challenge becomes that it's a creative one, is how can we have what are clashing cultures happening at the same time? Yeah. Thanks. Hey, that's great. So this takes us to the part we all love, right? Which is we know the problems and then we know sort of what behaviors and attitudes we want to add in. How do we align some of the applied and prof techniques, tools, games, exercises, and activities to working with an organization on helping their team get there. So I'm going to kind of pause there and take you to a different screen, which is a case study, an actual case study, with a client where it was, while it's not saying anything about digital transformation here, this was part of the problem. This is a company that is a bank that's obviously become very digital. They were having a problem with everyone sort of working independently. Like these themes keep coming back, you know, where it was like easy for everyone in this organization to go, oh, I can do everything at my cube and never speak to another person. I can get the job done. I do not need to go talk to this person or that person. That was the problem. So this client came to me, VP of sales excellence. And she said, you know, we are going through a lot of changes, meaning, you know, in this case, it was a lot of things were becoming digitized. And so we've kind of lost our ability to become, you know, to be connected and to collaborate. And I'm not going to take you through the whole case study, but I will share it with you after the webinar. But basically the result was, and the most powerful thing I heard as an AI practitioner is that two hours after the session, this person in this interview, Tanya Schultz called me and she said, I don't know if you know the aftermath of your work often because people don't tell you, but as soon as you left, I saw people talking and collaborating at their desk with people that I had never seen them talk to before. So for me, that was of course awesome. But for us, what that means is, is that if we go in with a solution around busting silos and around bringing people together to understand why working together is still important, even though we could work independently, I think that's the ticket, right? So some of the things I did with that team to practice, to meet some of those challenges we just talked about. Sorry, let me get through this. We're lined up here and I'll send these out to you as well. So Applied Improved Programming mapped and success factors. So giving everyone a voice psychologically, creating a psychologically safe climate. Some of the exercises I did with this team were around removing fear. And as you can see, I put fear in a hat and failure circle in there, which kind of helped them all go, hey, we're all scared because, you know, there's a lot of fear in the things that we're going through with changes and just the constant state of blocks in our organization. And some of the other exercises here are just around giving everyone a voice and knowing that everyone's voice matters and that we're all going through things. But at the end of the day, you know, we're scared, but we can all work to support each other and give each other a voice. So these are just a list of games for each of these categories. And I think Paul, this is where we decided to kind of come in together and say, you know, group discussion on, you know, some of the work that we're doing, some of the exercises and activities that we can link to some of the problems. It would take a long time to go through each of these. So I'm just going to kind of, kind of skim through here, but communicating vision and purpose. Same story word at a time string of pearls where you kind of realize that, you know, how important it is for everybody to be a part of the, to have a stake in the game to be a part. Could you describe same story, Christy, both as an example, because it's one that I don't know. Yes. Yes. So same story isn't a lot, isn't that much different from one voice, except when I do this work for the purpose of bringing people together and understanding that it takes a little bit more work to get on the same page with someone and to share that responsibility. So you get people together in pairs and you tell them that essentially they'll be telling a story at the exact same time. And the first round, you know, whoever is starting your partners one or two or A or B, they are telling a story maybe about, you know, something that they are passionate about or their best day at work, you give them a suggestion of a good story to tell that doesn't make it too hard on them. That's a true story. And they basically mirror their partner and they're going to tell the story at the exact same time. Now you coach, you let them go the first round and obviously just discover that it's hard and they're echoing and they're not together because they're not really willing in the first round to put in the work. And the work is sort of getting rolling up your sleeves and getting in there, right? And looking at this person in the eyes and watching their lips and slowing down and making it easy for them to follow you. So the second round, you've given them some coaching on, you know, what made that hard, what could make it easier. So I kid you not, second time I do this exercise in every workshop, they nail it the second time around. And what they realize is that in order to bring somebody into the same place that you're at, it's not, it's work. It takes an investment in wanting to do so. Does that help make sense? Sort of with how it aligns with communicating vision and purpose. It does. Very clear. Thank you very much. So I was going to have the helicopter view for me of that list. It'd be interesting to see if people have the same thing is in the whole context we introduced this webinar is, you know, people were collaborating before, but rates of change were slower. Behaviors were fixed and now we need improvisational cultures to cope with that change. And so under the different headings, I'm hearing that, you know, in that collaboration, collaboration and communication has to become more flexible and responsive. People have to have the confidence and the ability to trust the team and let go of their ego and classic in improvisation. You know, it's the ability to accept offers and not block. And that seems to be in there too. And then they're kind of communicating to other people. We become storytellers and we become much more confident with language because we can't script in advance. Exactly right, Paul. And I mean, these are just ideas. I think what I wanted to do is stir the imagination a little bit to what are those principles and tenants of improv that we want to pull out of, you know, you could use word at a time for all of these concepts. If you wanted to, you just have to, you have to position it in the right way. But if, you know, there's always a behavior and attitude that you can invite them to experience in a workshop that will touch on all of these things. These are just, you know, these are just a way to really restore the imagination, certainly not an end all be all list here. But, you know, when you get to empathy and being others focus, letting go of ego, I love any of the exercises that we do that abandon one's agenda for the greater purpose. Change the. Yeah, we've had a comment from Patrick, which is just noticing that most, if not all of these things seem to be rooted in story and storytelling. It's interesting. I hadn't noticed that, but I think it all be used for that for sure. Sure. I was just going to point out that on empathy and being others focus, letting go of ego, change the hero was one that I used for a particular team and ego's anonymous, which was pretty powerful because the ego's anonymous is great for a large group, a large team. I think I had a room of 200 and they had to sit at their tables and sort of admit a time where the ego has, go around the table, admit a time where the ego has interfered with getting work done or it was a block to greater collaboration. And so however you want to poise or word that based on your client or team of the event, it's basically admitting a time when the ego stood in your way. And it's a vulnerable thing, but the table discussions were so heavy for that. I probably could have gone for 30 minutes. Just FYI, if you want something deep and something that really gets people to be vulnerable, that's a great one. I can share the greater description with you and debrief and then change the hero we all know. But I didn't think about using it for this until I did an event where, you know, leaders and even people and companies just want to be the thing that saved the day, the thing that did the better job. And when you do a change the hero exercise for this purpose about just letting someone else have the spotlight, it really went over very well in getting to this point of being others focused and letting go of the ego. And Pam's intrigued about what the mantra meeting is. Oh, yes. So this is great for giving everyone a voice and creating a psychologically safe climate. So you can do mantra meeting in a lot of different ways. One is to, before the meeting, find out some of the behaviors that are inhibiting progress. A lot of times I'll talk with the hiring manager or, you know, through research and needs analysis, find out that there's a lot of competition. There's a lot of fear. Whatever behaviors you uncover, you create, you know, just little pieces of paper or note cards with a mantra you might be playing in your head before you go into a meeting. Negative or positive, right? I tend to go the negative route. Because I want to create the most real meeting that they might be having on the day-to-day. For example, like, no one's going to listen to me in here, but I'm just, so I'm just going to sit here and think about what I'm going to eat for dinner tonight. No one here knows what they're doing. You know, all these negative mantras that might come up. So you instruct everyone to, that is the mantra that they're going through in this meeting, then you give them a problem to solve or a discussion topic in that meeting, and everyone must be the mantra that you've given them. And what it makes for a very dysfunctional, toxic meeting basically. And you're recreating something that might happen to them in the state of things as it sits in their environment so that they can talk about how destructive it is. Paul, are we on 20 minutes left? I wasn't quite sure how long though. No, no, we've got 20 and 30. So about 50, 45 minutes left. 45 minutes left. Yeah, and I'm about to pivot to Paul L. Can I put a couple more points in? Oh, absolutely. That it would be nice later on if possible to pick up again on Patrick's insight about these being story based. And he's suggested in a further comment, I'm wondering if story is the top level key to collaboration. I've noticed that the mantra meeting is about stories we're telling ourselves, stories of the inner voice. So there's another connection there. Great point. And there was something else that I can't remember what it is. So let you carry on. Well, so now I'm digging this thing that Paul's thinking because we go to this next screen and come back to us. And it's about the last three problems that we talked about and the behaviors we'd want to add. So valuing relationships and creating the time and space for it is sort of all about how well you know people that you work with and is there the human connection, right? So if you've played the truth about me, it's brilliant. It's fantastic. Circle who's who and then a human connection exercise. Christie, do give a one line description because even if we maybe know the games, we often know them under different titles. I know. And I'm sorry. I put so many here. I was like, how am I going to get into all of these? Well, a one-liner would be fine. I promise. And then others can ask if they need further elaboration. I promise when I send this out, if and when the time comes, I'm happy to go over it with you either by phone or email. So the truth about me is just walking around and telling people that as they mill about the room, when they think of something that's true for them, they stop and when they stop, everyone else stops. And they say the truth about me is I hate chocolate and they stay in place. And then if that's true for anyone else, they or the degree of how true it is, they get closer to that person. If it's just a little bit true, they might get halfway close to that person. And then that person initiates the movement to start again after everyone settles. And then another person, the truth about me is I hate change. And it goes on and on and on. What you find out is all these little nooks and crannies about people that you wouldn't uncover. And it's neat and it's fun and it gets people moving, but it's a lot of truths and things you would never, you know, find out about others unless you put them into this direction. So that's for that game. And then we probably have all played Circle Who's Who. It's a very similar game where you, if it's true for you, you step into the center. And then if it's not, you stay at the outer banks and then you just continue to ask questions. And I like this one because if we're doing a workshop on collaboration and how to be more collaborative in the digital age, we can ask questions like, if you've ever needed to accomplish something in your job and were not able to, because you couldn't collaborate with the right person or department, take a step in. You know, different questions around how the digital transformation or digital landscape is serving up a challenge for you. Human connection is any, and this is broad. I have like five or six different human connection exercises, but those are the ones where we talk about how, you know, you can go to someone in a room and you know, tell a story about someone you care about and then on a scale of one to 10, how connected were you at the beginning and how connected were you at the end. And again, I've got several versions of exercises like that. So that's sort of the category of how we create time and space. And I don't know what the Patrick's story connection is for those, but I guess we're still telling stories when we're doing those things. Patrick's coming again. So using who's who as a frame for client content is interesting. So still a story element in there. I'm on support and encouragement for team performance. I think we're familiar with most of these broken squares is a Tiagi game. It's very, that's the one I'll talk about. If you want information on any of the others, I am happy to walk you through them, but broken squares, if you're not familiar, is where everyone gets an amount of shapes and squares. And the goal is that everyone has to create an exact square that is the same proportion, height and length. And you have to, the goal of the game is you have to do it without speaking. And you can only give pieces to someone else and you can't take a piece unless it's offered to you and you can't give a piece unless they take it from you. And the idea is that a lot of people will get a square and just sit back with their arms crossed like I'm done. I did it. But you can't complete the game and the goal of the game unless everyone is looking out for what everybody else needs in order to build their square. That is a very short version of a game that takes about 45 minutes. But it is perfect for supporting and encouraging team performance. And then lastly here, leader support and delegating and empowering. We know follow the followers great for that. Communal monologues and story swap, which are both games where you have to stop talking and build, again, stories Patrick, build the story with the other person. So communal monologues, when person steps in the center tells a monologue, someone tags them out and takes over and so on and so forth. And story swap, you just, when you say swap as the facilitator, the other person takes over the story of their partner and so on and so forth. So it's the idea of supporting, delegating and empowering others. So with that, I am going to stop sharing and know that you'll get these. I know that went fast. I promise everyone will get those, but I don't want to steal away from Paul Levy because, is it Levy or Levy? Levy. Levy, I did it right. Because I think Paul, and Paul and I got a chance to know each other and speak a little bit before today's webinar. I think the way he approaches this work is, is powerful, but different from maybe how I or someone else might approach it because it's about how to become spontaneous and remain present in a digital landscape. So Paul, I'm going to turn it over to you at this point. And maybe you could tell us a little bit about how your work sort of touches this whole idea of, of the digital transformation. Thank you. Part of the reason I'm at Edinburgh is I'm fascinated by collaboration. So I come here for the month and you would expect theatre and the arts to have a lot of collaboration. And for the world's largest arts festival and a city loaded with tens of thousands of people not to fall into chaos. So there's a lot of inquiry you can do in places like this. And I mentioned there's 250 improv shows, particularly use the word improv. And I think what I'm about to inquire into with you and invite your comments all the way through this is, is how far does improv take us in a chaotic world? And I put a link in the chat box to all the activities and resources that you're welcome to use. But the paradox is there's quite a few that I've not put in there because I've forgotten them. And I guess my starting point is that when I'm working with clients, the activities Christy's talking about have a very useful role in the context that you've just given. But the way that I work is that I only know what the activity was after it was invented in the room. And if that sounds dismissive of having our activities we all share, it's not meant to. It's meant to be an and, and also rather than an instead of. The improv shows up here get reviewed and go from one to five star. They're nearly all comedy. Quite a lot of them are the traditional improv around games and activities and the audience is the customer who inputs sometimes just at the beginning names and then something is improvised. And the real classic improvisers are up here. They're from TV along with younger groups. The audience claps when the thing has been successful when they laugh, when something's been clever, you notice that in the audience. And one of the things they're appreciating when they clap is the spectacle of people on stage seemingly doing something impossible or not often done in our own lives, which is they seem to be making it up super fast. And that when that's brilliant, you go wow. And a term around it, of course, an improv is being in the moment. And my own belief is that improv takes you really, really close to the moment, but the present always eludes us and that's brilliant. So we have a relative state of freedom and creativity that sometimes gets so fast. It's about as close to the moment as you can get. And those shows are being really celebrated up here because people can't quite believe it. It's about as close to magic as you can get. And it aligns very clearly with words like creativity and spontaneity. And some of the rules like offer and acceptance are demonstrated before us. So we see the highest possible performance in collaboration of a team. And as I think we've already kind of shared on this particular call at the moment, the digital tools are largely so clunky. Most people are reporting they do not get to that relative improvisational state online. And if you even look at the design of the Zoom we're on, which is great, I mean, I'm on matrix format where we're all squares on top of each other. Otherwise we're in a long line, but there are almost no currently existing digital tools to put us in a circle or just on a space where we could just walk anywhere. The closest one that has been reported is Google documents when people just write into it at the same time. That seems to take away the transactional state of the telephone, the transactional linear state of email. And even when you collaborate on documents using software, you'll find it quickly goes into transactional state when we have comments that need to be resolved at the click of a button. So it could be when we can all be holograms in the same room and move around. We can have our first improvisational workshop anywhere in the world where people see us and we see them full bodied. So I think it's a great moment. My experience has been that digital tools are not very improvisational, but also up here in Edinburgh, the point I want to make, and it's not a conclusion, it's an observation, is this, the 250 improvisation shows are billed under a label improv. You can go and see improv and you can have a great time. But there's a bunch of other shows here, mostly not from the UK, I would say almost all are not from the UK, and I've had the chance to talk to those people and there are some audio interviews online with some of them, where they have never heard in their practice of the word improv. And yet they do not know and have no script about what they're going to do when they step onto the dance stage, the physical theater stage, the dialogue play around an issue. And at the end, not in all cases, the audience are on their feet in tears saying that was the best thing I've seen at the fringe and I didn't know what I was expecting, but you've just met my needs. And when I talk to them, they're not saying they're doing improv, but if you observe them, there is something akin to the process of improvisation when you don't have a script and you don't know what you're doing. And often when I say what did you do, they can't remember a lot of it. The customer has to tell them what they did. And it's particularly there in silent improvisation. So if the aim here is to deliver to customers powerful, memorable experience and a sense of value for money, it's interesting that those people are actually doing it as well. Now, I just wanted to mention one other thing and then kind of open it up, is my father died two years ago. He was 87 years old and we got to see him decline quite quickly in hospital as a kind of rigorous form of dementia kicked in. But as he got less and less clear, he started to dialogue with us in hospital as if he was in a field with things around him and not on a timeline, which he used to do. He used to talk about things in his past, something that happened a long time ago, but now he was staring at the time he was evacuated in the war as if it was over where the doctor was. And he suddenly looked behind him and he could see when he met my mum. And he was experiencing in some kind of delirium mode what I think they're discussing now in quantum physics is that linear time is only one mode of consciousness, awareness and things like possibilities, just like light that can exist in two places at the same time is that we exist not only on a timeline but in a field of possibility. And examples of that in the creativity world is that the random word technique where suddenly you just choose any letter out of a book and then it stimulates ideas and suddenly you have insights and you describe them afterwards as if they came to you, not out of you. And that's a kind of interesting experience about the field of possibility as well. So the idea of that is a belief I'm developing myself is that actually we can get so close through improv to being present. It's a brilliant relative state of previous state of feeling stuck, slowed down, unspontaneous but we can't get into the present moment because it keeps changing into the past. But what we can do is have an experience of being in a field around us where everything is possible to a greater or lesser extent. And up here they call that play. And I think when you see young people we think they're in the moment. I don't think they are. I think they're in the field where at least in their imagination everything is possible and they reach with curiosity all around them. So at one point I'm just pointing out that it seems at the moment that the digital realm is largely digitizing a linear approach and speeding stuff up to make us experience more freedom but actually it still keeps us on the idea that we need to be in the present on a place of past, present and future. Whereas actually up here the performance I'm seeing is that people are going into a zone of shows sometimes 50 minutes an hour where they exist in a field where everything is possible and they play and performance arises and often surprises at the same time. That has huge implications for me and it adds to what we know about improvisation. And I'm quite interested because that gives us the possibility of helping shape organizations and work with them not to make them more in the moment but to make them more in the field of potential. So some of the activities you can see on the website were things I wrote up afterwards to describe what we did and some, you know, I guess I'm cheating a bit because as we went along over two or three day work with clients we kind of said in the evening let's try that tomorrow so some things were designed a bit more. And I'm going to be really honest with you here I've stopped going to improv shows that haven't changed even if the content has and we can give the title to Game of Thrones the musical but essentially they're using the same song structures and they're varying a bit and even the long-form improv stuff like there's the improvised novel we'll do a Jane Austen novel if you want or a Charles Dickens is we give the title and then off they go but I think what they're doing and you can hear on the interviews is what they're doing is lightning quick planning picking up the next thing so fast that they can't tell and you can't tell and it feels like being in the moment but it might as be just as bad in a way if you're not in the field of possibility because it becomes predictable and uninnovative when you keep repeating the format and it's a warning to me and it's a warning to you that the danger of the games is that we shouldn't do them too much before changing them, you know that in the end what happens is the content becomes the only thing we improvise and it becomes fixed tools just like it's happening in the digital world at the moment and I ask you if you find that your Facebook timeline and some of the apps you're using do they feel that they're engendering a kind of thrilling spontaneity in you that surprises you and unmakes you well certainly not me so there's a lot of advocacy there but as we come to the last four days of the Edinburgh Fringe I've noticed now I'm going to see the shows where play and unscripted work is happening that's not calling itself improv and the bottom line of it is that that collaboration can't be designed in it, it only can be looked back at afterwards as having happened so there's just some thoughts here at the World's Biggest Arts Festival leaving me a state of excitement and bemusement and confusion as a consultant facilitator Thanks Paul, that's deep I'm just sitting here like we went through two different very very different I think valuable mindsets but yours being that something I haven't thought about in a really long time as a as a person who got into this work as a performer and performed for 10 years before I really started to apply this to work or any other thing other than the stage I guess for me this opened up you know a lot of thinking around how we lost a lot of the spontaneity and the true nature of making it up and letting you know we always say when we work with clients especially if we do a little bit of performance at the end of one of our sessions or we do an entertainment gig that they're getting something that has never been written never been performed never been done before one time one thing only performance but the way I hear you talk it's we've even found a way to become digital almost in a sense in the improv formats and the templates that we use and I guess I'm arguing for a parallel approach because absolutely the games you've listed I've experienced them as absolutely unblocking and inspiring and doing all the things that your case studies suggest but I feel that particularly with the digital realm toolizing what we do the danger is we just end up at the same place in a few years time because change will still happen in fast rates and I guess what I'm suggesting and what unmade me is when somebody said to me that there isn't improvisation if you decide what to do next and it equally isn't improvisation if you accept an offer from somebody who's decided what to do next it's only improvisation if something happens and you all notice it happened and I guess for me that meant we have to do a lot of work in creating an ease with silence and ease with openness and ease with the idea things can come to us not only from what's up ahead or behind which is planning and history but from around us from wherever and Paul I know you said you were sharing things on your website with activities and games that you've used but I have to ask you because I'm so intrigued and interested what techniques are you using in a group where let's say the same case study that I just took us through client comes to you and says we're so digital now nobody's collaborating I can't get customer success to talk to marketing whatever we've got a lot of ego what are you doing to keep it purely spontaneous in nature in your work with that particular team so that the lesson of just pure spontaneity comes through what it was an activity or a technique that you're using so one that worked really well I think Paul might remember this one is where we we have three actors in the room and I remember we originally did this in a theater but you can just have everybody sitting there but you choose or three people volunteer and you begin with some rules and the rules could be for example that the three actors can only stand up sit down or turn their heads no emotion no sound or anything and what they notice in themselves is a bit like the improv you do is when when someone is making a decision and after a while if they let go of that what am I doing next what do I need to do and just let go so there's a kind of surrendering process that people feel and they're not used to that because they're always into what's the control if you can't control it you can't measure it you can't manage it so it goes through a process where it starts as improv and there's giggling in the room and people look and there's a bit of clowning and then it settles and then nothing's happening for a while maybe and then somebody turns and they actually shock themselves they jump a bit and after a little while you get and it's happened every time to me and this can take an hour you get electric performance where the little drama that emerges between people that somebody doesn't move for five minutes and then they turn and it just so happens that someone turns at the same time and whether you think that's chance or something else going on is that they turn and they look at each other and that could have been inspired by a movement in the audience where they didn't know they were about to twitch and the politics between the two people suddenly they become powerful in the group and we have theatre and actually we've done it a lot where the audience said if I paid for that that was better than anything I could script it was just this thing was going on this dynamic this energy and so performance becomes an emergent property and when you experience well if performance is an emergent property what does that mean for our organisation well it means we need to have a little bit of time sometimes where the very systems we've got in place could be stifling innovation and so of course that's coming in organisations where you just have quiet where it's deemed to be work when you're not doing anything because you could be waiting for something to happen and it's not only about measuring busyness as either a decision to do nothing or a decision to work but just a decision to allow things to emerge how is that happening in software development that's where people open a document and anybody types into anything by a deadline and anyone can delete anything anyone else is doing and when that goes into this state too and people go away from this well what am I supposed to be doing you get little emergent acts of code that everyone goes wow who wrote that when did we write that but that could become a little bit of graphics that would have been hard well it might have taken three weeks to create through the committee and approval structure of traditional coding I can't answer it specifically but some of the games there which are around you'll see they're around discovery they're around movements they're around the facilitator disappearing and to see what happens they're around a lot of looking back on what happened rather than rewarding what you made happen and I'm just interested in that because I think it's new and I think the digital world as it currently is transforming us into automatons rather than genuinely spontaneous people we're going to become improv experts rather than improvisers and you think about it Paul sorry real quick on the on that comment you just made about digital is so planned and thought of and it's like you know it's robotic and if we're discovering the moment instead of inventing the moment like our friend Alan Alda told us then we're we're working out a different muscle all then maybe in all the games and exercises I shared with you we have to find the balance between maybe some of those more thought out exercises with obvious sort of behaviors and outcomes to some of this more spontaneous discovering the moment type of exercises and try to find a balance between those things and it sounds like what you're talking about is more about creating white space so they created there's no agenda they discover it it's not laid out for them which is a lot of times what we do in our work and I'm just vocalizing this because it is sort of a aha moment for me personally I guess I forgot to mention that that exercise you then keep removing the rules until there are none and so there's one version where people are just sitting there and the only thing they're allowed to move is their eyes and then you can have audiences in hysterics at the comedy that emerges and then everyone goes oh what did I do I just remember shutting and opening my eyes but there's a kind of collective skill in the field of possibility when we draw it in and one other interesting thing particularly in physical theater and dance when they do it is what emerges is not only offer an acceptance as a rule but blocking when you blocked me and there's this conflict that arises and out of that came forgiveness and suddenly at the end the audience were in tears because we'd become one and we'd resolved a fight and so all of that kind of stuff I find really interesting I just it unmade me a bit when I first discovered it and so I see the improvisation you were presenting as a really powerful way to unblock and unbreak the structures but when the organization wants to move into the unplanned and the spontaneous and the chaotic and how we manage memes and how we deal with crowds and all of that stuff the digital world is going to try and do it by controlling it but I hope that we do it in another way and I'm not sure why I'm saying that but it just feels right. Thanks Paul and Christie a couple of things I've been taking as many notes as I can on what people have been saying particularly Paul's lengthy piece just then so some of that can be retract on the chat which we will share in some way I don't know how we'll share it afterwards but I'll make sure that it's kept so that we can do that as a possibility Christie I think you absolutely summarized the heart of what Paul was saying with the Alan Alder quote about discovering the moment not inventing it this is the difference between improv of the theatre and the fixed games and the predictable satisfaction of the audience through the comedy that we know and improvisation being fully present or fully in the field of possibilities as Paul is putting it very interesting distinction Paul you've got an invitation from Jackie Net and Nancy to consider doing a learning journey on this at the next in Abia Spain there's some thumbs up there from Panty so get stuck doing that some thought and you've left your email on the chat there as well people wanting to discuss this afterwards that's good those working towards a certification program that acts upon these insights that would be good I'm sure that copy will be interested in that too something that struck me is that you derived your insights there Paul and indeed Christie both of you from being a performer and observing performance respectively and it's often been the case that applied improvisation as understood in the applied improvisation network follows performance the performance is often the place in which we discover and notice things that can be applied in organizations of course that doesn't have to be the case I'll make that an observation now we're getting some commentary here people on the chat which is great do you want to keep talking to us or sharing other things or would you like to hear from participants maybe unmuting and coming in with some of their responses Unmute Unmute, okay so I'm going to read the ones written and then we'll invite people to unmute and speak then their thoughts directly so Tony as I half mentioned is hoping that these insights are included when AIM develops its certification program thing that's currently going on and Patrick comments that many people who wouldn't choose to hear these ideas might benefit from hearing them I think I know what Patrick has in mind then Paul is asking what makes you say you wouldn't choose what makes you say they wouldn't choose Patrick do you want to speak to that and then we'll see who else likes to come in if you do you unmute yourself to do that unless you need me to it for you I'm unmuting you Patrick if you speak we will now hear you I am speaking am I heard Excellent at the conferences when there are a variety of breakouts people choose things that are of interest to them when there are what we've been calling AINX talks that are in a plenary session people often hear ideas that they did not choose to go see but really can change them to me over and over at this most recent conference one of the disappointments was that the talks were always up against other breakouts and I heard a set of talks that would have blown most people's minds and 30 people from the 350 people at the conference were in the room that's my concern is if you set it up as a learning journey that's great for those who sort of know who you are and kind of understand that we might be hearing some revolutionary things that's great but most people wouldn't choose them but if somebody got to hear you over 10 or 15 minutes like we just did now minds blown things changed awesome that's my point I'll mute Thanks Patrick yes I don't know that any conference organizers are on this call you know how to get in touch with them and I agree with you that we should create a space in which we are exposed to challenging ideas particularly if they're coming from within people who are thinking hard about improvisation and have been doing so for many years Paul and I have been having discussions along these lines for decades which is great fun but not yet at the conference I think I would add Paul that you know it's really important I guess for me that it's not seen that view isn't seen of dismissive of the other one you know having been through some health stuff in my life I think it's the first approach and the creativity that went that cured me of a life-directing disease but when we get into questions like over the next 10,000 years how do we render cancer irrelevant or not an option for the earth there's a different way to be and it's a different kind of performance and you know the solution approach to organisations lends itself really well to tools and techniques but ways of being doesn't only sit on the timeline it sits in the field of possibility and that's not so easy to technicise or certificate one doesn't dismiss the other but I think this one I'm talking about is harder to pin down so in a consultant change management mindset it goes to the bottom because we're so busy yes indeed and as Patrick said I'm not sure that anyone's hearing your ideas as dismissive you've described them quite clearly as parallel and articulated the value of what we've been most of us traditionally doing but for quite some time I don't think that's going to vanish soon because even that's not yet been caught up with by most of the organisational world there's lots of us to, lots for us to do in all sorts of ways. Anyone else who wants to come in to either wave or unmute so Alison you're already unmuted and can come in now, thank you Thanks I just wanted to build on the example that Paul gave earlier because as you were describing using the three actors it reminded me I've participated in a lot of what I term embodiment work so one of my applied improvisation colleagues really works with applied theatre so it's a little broader and she introduced me to this embodiment work where we're doing similarly to what you were describing but we're working in pairs or sometimes three or four people together and whatever the particular aspect is that we're exploring we start off by trying to get into the being of whatever that concept might be and then often play off each other so one would do something be the emotion for instance the other would mirror that back to them and then you would adjust it that type of building on each other so there's a whole bunch of different variations we've done and I find it to be extremely powerful in terms of what you described it is improvisation it is emerging and there's nothing dictated in it however when I've tried to facilitate or not I have facilitated people doing it I've realised that if you're not working with more experienced people because when I do it with my colleague we're a fairly experienced bunch of people working with less experienced people I've seen there's that barrier of them overcoming wanting to cognitively make something happen and yet once one shifts and which is what I'm wanting them to be able to experience, once one shifts into just following the body the most amazing insights have come out in things that we've done answers to complex questions even something we did once looking at the politics occurring in Africa what was holding Africa as a continent back and we as a group working about 12 of us on that occasion we revealed an answer that I don't think any of us had come with to start with so it's another way of looking at it instead of it being acted out in front of a group or evolving in front of a group that everybody is participating in it I have found it's more tricky with people who are not accustomed to working with their bodies at all just as a counterpoint to that but I think it overlaps is one thing I invite everyone to try, this is an experiment I'm doing myself you get up in the morning, you turn your email on and you've got 15 emails you normally go reply reply reply this this and this if you can you take a walk to the art gallery and you silently go around all the pictures without any what do I like this or do I like that and then you go back and you start replying to your emails and you usually come up with acts of genius that you've never typed before and that's because you've just gone into the field of possibility and gathered in your flowers and stuff like that some work and some don't and so that there are versions of that embodiment actually can be solved on your own because we're in a spatial world around us but the problem of the digital tools at the moment is like here they're sitting us at a tool that has a transactional either or relationship we can't do that embodiment stuff because the technology is not letting it happen it's making it almost impossible Are we familiar with the new book surveillance capitalism by George Osana somebody or other I'll look it up and post it here describes the way we're going digitally in absolutely tremendous act of analysis and warning if you read it as if it's a J.G. Ballard novel it will really make a good impact Well it's certainly anti-embodiment at the moment and everything Alison's saying is we have to have an acoustic guitar in an increasingly electronic world So just one comment to close on that from a point of view of using applied improvisation in a digital context so facilitating a workshop that's online like this in a zoom environment for instance and Pietru and Christian who are both members of the AIN they have done a lot of embodiment work online so within the restrictions of working with a screen and as a group that are spread out wherever it's been quite fascinating what we've been able to achieve and I'm starting to bring some of that into work that I would be doing not with facilitators practicing something but with a team maybe a technology team that works in a diverse remote way I also have a book I'm going to share that Paul everything that you've been talking about it just sort of went off in my head I read it a couple of years ago it's called The Chaos Imperative by Ori Brafman and it literally talks about how chance and disruption increase innovation effectiveness and success in a way that really emphasizes the fact that no matter how complicated the organizational landscape gets you still need that white space where people can create you talked about going to an art gallery and then coming home and checking your emails Einstein's best ideas came to him in those moments where he cleared everything out of his head and allowed himself to think about nothing right and just created white space so I think there's just so much weight to this idea of in all this digital digital digital everything we're involved in today that we have to be conscious as individuals to be able to have that create that white space that we need to still be creative to still be inventive to still be innovative and if that means going to an art gallery or sitting under a tree if we don't make that time and space for ourselves in our work you know it gets it goes nowhere but I also wonder you know the what we characterize maybe as the story techniques that you were using Christy and the way actually you described it which I felt as you describe them it's just my opinion is in a very caring way and the AI community that I've met it's a community of good hearted people you know we're not here met a few you know really shitty consultants who want to earn loads of money everybody I've met we just seem to want to make the world a better place and so it's part of it too not the technique it's also the orientation of the facilitator in the room so if you do a story technique that is styled as right who's going next who's going next you know we we've flipped charted the problem we need to solve and we're going to use story then then we miss it but whereas if it's like we're in a circle and at some point there's a discovery that a store is emerging and we're all in wonder then the same games most of them could could be as relevant and usable but there's just a kind of orientation towards it that's not the same as you know the group on stage at the Edinburgh fringe trying to deliver a round of applause at the end absolutely certainly given us a lot to think about so if anyone wants to either ask any questions in the chat box or make further comments we'll take about another five minutes on this topic then I'll give a quick preview of what else is coming up on the AI and big topic webinars what else will help us to be complete and satisfied as far as it's possible from this webinar one thing I'll add sorry mine's quick I was just going to say if anything something that we can do to merge these two big ideas around helping your clients with the digital transformation is in doing traditional exercises like string of pearls or story spine we emphasize the need for creating spontaneously in our debriefs and our setups of the exercises that's a simple tweak and a simple shift maybe that we hadn't thought of that I will certainly think of moving forward so I'm sorry who is cutting in there this probably relates to why you just said that I was thinking to ask Paul leave you a little bit more about the looking at things afterwards and are you finding ways to look at what emerged that aren't cognitive and linear we did this and that and this have you found some different ways to have people explore experientially what happened I don't know if that's clear but I'm just curious about is it does it change how you work with what happened in the room hmm well I can only answer that with some questions to all and some assumptions I had so when you look back over a process and somebody says oh that went wrong is it okay actually to go yeah that went wrong five people think that went wrong and you know because we're sharing this process because part of my kind of training was to try and bring that down and celebrate that we're all hit so there's a kind of question about when we debrief and look back what if we're not on lines of right or wrong well what if we are because certainly some of the performers they look back and attack each other because they're in the art and why did you kill my intention it's kind of like that's why we're here is to explore so I realize my training as a facilitator doesn't match some of what I've been seeing I've been people watching I get to go in the press bars here and the performers come in some of them are they're in shock about what they did but that's not all good it's a way of life where it's okay to be ill at ease and not knowing and things don't emerge for 10 years and we didn't sell any tickets because we were shit but that doesn't lead to them then going how do we not be shit tomorrow we go on and do the process again it's called improvised dance who is the answer I don't think I learned how do you look back when you haven't cooked to the books or fixed the process and called it facilitation I think on that note we can thank Christy and Paul for splendid session lots of really practical things lots of really provocative thoughtful things as well if you've got any comments on that do pop them in wow there we go telling you long post there which I won't read out at the moment I'm going to tell you about the next of the AIN webinars just so that you are able to join that if possible on the 18th of September Wednesday 18th of September same time which is four o'clock UK time and that one is an online game swap where there's been a series of webinars Leif Hansen is leading those now in which we exchange the activities that we are using online so that might be an interesting one to follow this and to apply some of the thinking from today to those Per joined us late and asked if the hello these sessions are being recorded they are so we're recording this one currently and the recordings go on to the AIN YouTube channel when they go on depends a little bit on when the AIN administrator puts them on and she'll be given the cloud recording as soon as it's completed soon after this webinar and she'll follow that up Paul and Christy if you want to send her further information further notes or anything else for distribution then you do that through the same email that we've been using to discuss this so far anyone can select all the chat and copy it I will select it all and have it available and send it to Paul, Christy and to Amy the administrator nice to use people's faces there will be it briefly in some cases Patrick final words from Paul and Christy and then we'll say goodbye great discussion thanks for everyone's participation and involvement I think it's given me a lot to think about and I guess what I'm experiencing it's been part of my life is discovering I always look for new stuff and it's not always easy but as I say what the story that Christy shared and all those exercises I think they actually become more important not less but we have to orientate them in the right way towards the very dangerous times we're about to live in yeah and I'll just add one more thing to that I think it's easy for us in our work sometimes to just get caught up in the mechanics and we know that there's power toward at a time and follow the follower and some of the tried and true exercises and we can't be afraid to tweak and invent and create things that we've already used time and time again to make it meet the needs of today's crazy, complex, ever-evolving organizational landscape which includes the digital transformation so we take some of that on ourselves right and and so I encourage us all to do that thanks Christy, thanks Paul thank you to everyone for joining this webinar and if you're watching the recording thanks for watching this we'll be back with you soon I'm going to stop recording right now there we go so anything you say now will be unrecorded and I'm going ah shit I left my house and felt like it was everybody have a great rest of your day this is the best part of the whole thing what did we do that amazing we had thanks everyone bye bye