 OK, let's leave the house lights on. What was Karen Pine saying before lunch? Do, don't just mean it. Are you still here? Hello. Let's leave some house lights. You're going to do something right now. So I've got 37 minutes. This is the time of thing here by the way. 36.42 I have left. I've wasted 18 seconds of your time. So let's have some house lights on. I want to see from you. Who here has ever seen an improv show? Hands up. Quite a few of you. Gosh, loads of you. OK. Peek-a-boo. I didn't say put them down, did I? Don't don't conform. Alexander is evil conformed to what I say. It's a bit like the I was thinking this is you can put them down now, but I'll ask them in a minute. This is a bit like the Glastonbury of Business, isn't it? Don't you feel like that? Yeah. It's it's you know, there'll be some naked people later along and people and stilts and I also am feeling, you know, a bit of a defender for evil corporate capitalism. There should be somebody here, shouldn't there? Next year, I want you somebody from Canary Wharf. Can we get somebody to come and say, well, actually, we do have, we do have meaning. We're not just evil. I noticed a lot of people talking today, if I'm just going to challenge you a little bit, talking criticizing capitalism, but are working with the companies that we might criticize. But we think we might change this one person, one team at a time. Interesting to hear that the US Army, for example, is looking at things that in a much deeper way than as outside as we might have imagined. They're just coming now. That's the prison program, Malarkey. Malarkey is my real name, Neil Malarkey. That's my website is neilmalarkey.com. So say hello, please. So hands up if you've seen an improv show and then I can just get a sense of what's going on here. So there's a lady down there. Hello in the white. What's your name? Anna. Okay. Why is that noise happening? Is it me or is it the devil? Okay, Anna, we met earlier. Who over here? Let's have a look because I'm going to just find out what happens. Yes. Bob, of course you have. You are a Scottish person. So over there, sir. You. Yes, I know you're you're from and then hands up over there. Over there. I want to there's a man there with your phone on right there. I'm pointing at you. Wave at me. Or maybe it's a lady. I can't I can't see very well because I got a stigmatism. So my left eye can't see very well. So you're waving at me right now. What's your name? Hello Helen. Oh, what a lovely voice. And Helen, where did you see an improv show? And what happened in the show? Lots of people threw things at each other. Okay. That's not. You mean throw ideas? Real objects. Okay. Was this just a fight in a bar? Maybe. Thank you Helen. Who ever seen the comedy store players? A part of the group I'm part of. Yes. Tom has anyone. There's a lady there. Hello. And you just put your hand up. Hello. You with a stripiness. What's your name? Caroline. What did you remember about the comedy store players? What happens in the show for those who've never seen an improv show? Caroline, because who's never seen a show hands up? Because when I first heard about improv, you're probably thinking, who is this idiot? But also I first thought, well, what happens is the audience gives a suggestion to the performers and then they say, oh, launder it. Thank you very much. That reminds me of the scene I was in in a garage. And you cheat it. And no, and then I met a man called Mike Myers. Anyone heard of Mike Myers? So he's Shrek Austin Powers, Wayne's World. And he said, no, there's this thing that's been around since the 1920s. Improv. I call it improv because it's a particular form of performance, a form of being, a form of thinking, of relating. And it started with a social worker called Viola Spolen in Chicago. And she was helping children who were a bit different in school to help them be more confident with their language skills, their creativity. And he said, this is how it works. And so Caroline, what do you remember of how, what the show, what happened in the show? Okay, what happens? The audience will give us suggestions and then we act out scenes. Is that right? Okay. And how many people were on stage? Four or five, yes. I always ask that just to be sure. They're actually six. People often say four. It's interesting how the perception is. You know, perception is not always entirely accurate. But what I will tell you, though, is that we have this idea of the offer. An offer in improv is something that's vital. There's a thing over there was about conversation being the first unit, the smallest unit of change. Well, I think even within a conversation, what's called an offer. John Gottman, the psychotherapist, might say that it's a bid for connection. I'm opening myself up to you by saying something. And now, does that sound too strange? Hopefully not in this environment where we've talked a lot about mindfulness being in the moment real listening. But I'll give you an example. For example, if we ask the audience for a suggestion, give us, who has seen an improv show over here? Are you there? What's your name, madam? Nancy. You know, we might ask for a suggestion. They might ask for a hospital, something like that, Nancy. And then you get two people up on stage. And one will say they're hospital, hospital, hospital. Good morning, doctor. So that's the offer. The offer is doctor. I'm putting it out there for you to receive. And I'll say, good morning, nurse. So my offer is nurse. OK? So we build up one step at a time. We trust the process. Just like in Gore. We assume trust. We've never played with each other, perhaps, but we assume trust. We presume trust. We don't need to work together for years on end and go on away days and get drunk together and naked. We just say, I trust you. Or it may go, good morning, doctor. And the other person say, good morning, Mr Johnson. I see your legs better. So the offer then is patient leg. This person thinks, what do I do with that? Leg's better football. Yes, I'm playing football again. And this person say, yes. And I heard you scored three goals at the weekend. OK, easy. Everyone understand, Nancy? Nancy's gone away. Helen, there's no throwing in this type of improv, but maybe we'll find out. Compare that with, good morning, doctor. And this person says, I'm not a doctor. We have a technical term for that in improv. It's called a block. Has anyone ever been blocked at work or at home? What does it mean for you when somebody doesn't pick up your thread? You put yourself out there. Here you are. Here's an idea. Here's a thing. Oh, no. The energy stops. Thank you, Tom. Rejection, yes. So the thing is, when I ask people about this, they'll say one or two things. They'll either say, oh, that person's a rota, a stinker. Horrid. Or they'll say, oh, no, it was my fault. My offer wasn't good enough. These are both rationally valid, aren't they? It's interesting how many people say, oh, it was my fault. I wasn't good enough. And of course, actually, in improv, our whole ethos is to say, how can I make the other person look good? This is the essence of collaboration which is applicable in every walk of life, in every business, in every organization. How can I make the other person look good? How can I justify their offer? How can I make them enjoy themselves? So what do we do at Gore? We make a profit, but we also have some fun doing it. That's how collaboration works. But on the other hand, a lot of improv, you will find people sort of misfiring or going in different directions. And that joy of the diversity of different ideas is what gives improv its energy. The great improviser will say, okay, that feels like a block. Good morning, doctor. I'm not a doctor. You want to go. You bastard, I hate you. Go and see the improv teacher now. Block boy. But you've noticed that? You deal with that, remember? What does Domacio say? Where are you? He says, we are feeling machines, machines you try and think. You say, I feel rejected. I feel ignored. I feel you're the bad guy or I'm the wrong person. But I'm going to notice it and say, how can I frame what feels like a block as an offer? Good morning, doctor. I'm not a doctor. Well, I'm not a patient either. But I see you every day with your white coat coming to the hospital and I'm here too, isn't it fun? And you could have a whole story about these imposters wandering around the hospital that could be more interesting than the more conventional scene implied earlier. Remember what Stefania said about you use what's there. You use what's actually there. You pay attention to what's really there. What Albert Einstein said as quoted by the Leavies. What's actually there? Rather than saying, oh dear, this isn't very good. I want to think outside the box. Improvisers say, what's in the box already? In fact, another friend of mine, Steve Shapiro, a creativity expert says, get a new box. Any metaphor is obviously going to run out of steam at some point. But improv we say, what do we have now? We don't have much electricity. How do we deal with that? We've got all the wrong people there. Idiots, smucks. I'm the best one. How do we deal with that? We look at it again. OK, I think we want to play this game, don't we? Let's play a game. So Nancy Helen and Caroline, calm down. Give them a big round of applause. Come on down, come on up here. OK. So Nancy, thank you very much. There you go. That's Helen, isn't it? And Caroline, keep coming, keep coming. Come up stage. You've got to come up here. They're going to tell a story one word at a time. Have you ever worked together, you three? Have you ever met each other? Your collaborative team in the making. You trust the process. You presume trust. In fact, I'm going to give you credibility as well. I've done this before with people and they're marvelous. OK, come forward. Trust each other. Really listen. Actually, what's the first rule of improv? To listen. It's not. Oh, I've got some great ideas on my own that'll show you up. How can I pick up your office, accept your office, listen? And I was interested to hear about the Libis, but attention and intention. People talk about active listening. In improv, I call it intensive listening. Do you think I can move to California? Listening with intent. I'm intending consciously to use something that you have given me in the way that I respond. Now, of course, in the real world, it's not as easy as Dr. Nurse. The offer may be an unconscious one in the way you say something. Your nonverbal offer. Your unconscious offer of what you don't say or what you imply or actually what this person hears. The offer is often in the eye, the heart of the beholder. But that diversity is creative. So, here we go. I'm going to do a story. The story is the day I went to the zoo. So, what's going on here in their minds right now? There's somebody going, oh, no, I know nothing about zoos. I'm going to be shown up. I must quickly go Google zoos, Wikipedia zoos stuff, because I'm the queen of content. On the other hand, there's somebody over here saying, oh, look, I know all about zoos. I'm full of zoos stuff. I go to zoo all the time. Hey, and their problem is they know too much about the subject. They don't see what it is for somebody who doesn't understand zoos or doesn't know much about zoos. And of course, a great team is one that has different technical expertise, perhaps. In fact, John Maynard Cain said, it may be easy to learn something new. It's harder to unlearn something old. Remember what Mark Stevenson said to us this morning about those who are over 35. It's hard for us to learn things. I'm annoyed with people who are young. Discover that many people don't even wear a watch who are under a certain age. My children don't believe me when I say, well, we had two phones in the house, one downstairs, one upstairs, both connected to the wall. And were they dinosaurs? So one knows nothing, one knows everything. On the other hand, there's somebody in the middle. There we are, Helen maybe. She's a great improviser. She's thinking, look, I've done some zoo work. I'm familiar with the ideas of zoos. I'm going to leverage my zoo understanding in this complex socially adaptive system. If you want the business school jargon, but we don't have to have it. What was the title of the zoo? Can you remember? I went to the zoo. Yes, Caroline? Yeah. Oh, sorry. Have we started? No, we haven't, but I'm just... I'm just testing. Just notice that you're probably not going to give your best like that. So come forward. Come together, so you've got a little peripheral vision as well. Because we listen with our bodies as well as with our ears. So why don't you start to get into a rhythm with, I went to the zoo, just to get into a rhythm. Off you go. I went to the zoo. There was a small, amazing zebra named Georgia. Full stop. I wondered whether Georgia was really as fun as she told me. And then, horrifyingly, Georgia fell over the hippo. Excellent work. Really good. Okay, really good stuff. Thank you. Thank you. That's really wonderful. Stay there though. Stay there. Stay there. It's going really well. That's fantastic. What they're doing is they are listening. They're trying to work with each other. They're not trying to do the one word that wins everything. They're working together. They're really collaborating, aren't they? Now, of course, you may have an agenda. Who's Georgia O'Keefe? And is she likely to sue? That's all I'm worried about. Why did you say zebra? Of course. Of course, you see, that's why I chose you. Bad top. But look how easy it is to be influenced by that. Nancy, were you thinking of a particular animal? Giraf. Giraf, but it wasn't mentioned. Because these two are losers. They just don't understand. So Nancy, how did it feel to not get giraffe in? It wasn't that bad. I was okay with the zebra. You're okay. It's okay. That's fine. So you see, a friend of mine who works in advertising often uses this in meetings to start off with, we all come with our own stories, our own favourite animals, and can we create one story together that all of us own but none of us can claim soul authorship of? So collaboration is difficult. Because did you have an animal in mind? Hippo. Which you said. But I knew I couldn't say hippopotamus without embarrassing myself. So I went hippo. You just did and didn't embarrass yourself. There you go. How lovely. So who here was thinking of another animal? Lion. Monkey. Pig. Okay. So you can't help but think of something. The improviser says, okay, that's what I'm thinking, but I'm going to be really in the moment. I know I'll think of one step ahead, but I can just leave that for a moment and see what's emerging here. You can live comfortably with this ambiguity because we live in a baruca world. Vuca. Volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous. Because I was thinking, if it was a baruca world, what would the E in the R stand for? Eggheadery. Wrongheadedness. Righteousness. Also, I want to move this M, don't you? And then it'll be Ein Mang. What does Mang mean in German? We don't know. Never mind. So what I want you to do now is to just turn around, get into groups of three or four, turn round, get right to it because I've got a few of my 37 minutes left, and you're going to do a story which is the day I went to the airport. The day I went to the airport. You're going to carry on just here without the mics. Just to see how it feels because you're nicely warmed up. Turn round, off you go. So start with I went to the airport. Go. Okay. Good. So, let's just hear. Let's just hear from you. I want to hear what happened because many things are happening, there's the content. Is it a good story? There's the process. Trust the process, remember Stefania told us the trust the process. My friends at Ashridge Business School use improv as a metaphor, a directly applicable technique for strategy because strategy isn't, we must start here and go there, it's much more messy than that. We often, as Kierkegaard said, we live our lives forward, we understand them backwards. In hindsight you realise the offers you thought were blocks or blocks you thought were offers turned out to be in hindsight a way of helping you. And what offer it was for that soldier to meet Coley? What was he called? Coley. Coley means light at the end of the tunnel. How beautiful. And isn't it marvellous that Veruca means wake up. Veruca. And there's a gentleman over there. I've just given you a mic. Would you mind standing up because you look rather demure? I must say. What's your name? Ian. He's on the red mic. Ian, what happened in your story? You can't breathe. You said knickers, is that right? Can you tell us the context of knickers? So we tried to trust the process. We went slightly wrong because we started playing word association instead of telling the story. However, once we got beyond that, I think we got beyond that, we got to a story of the bag got lost but we were okay because we hand carried certain things including toiletries. And then I suggested we might hand carry knickers. Can everyone hear what Ian's saying? He's just kind of a loose lounger. We did this. It's fine. He could do it a bit in there. So let me ask you this, Ian. You said knickers because you thought... Oh, knickers, you saw that. Hang on, this story needs a bit of spicing up. I'm stuck with these losers. We need... Say again? There's a bit of rebel in all of us. No, there isn't. Just you. Okay, give it in your round of applause. Thank you. Matt, can you retrieve his mic? Can you retrieve his mic, Matt? Matt is going to be my mic monkey. So, talking of monkeys, who had a character or an animal, thank you, from the zoo come up in your airport? There's a legacy issue, isn't there? You might not know it, you're thinking, oh, in that zoo, why didn't they say the thing that I wanted them to say? Because a zoo is quite a big image. How many times has that happened? How many times in your meetings are people thinking a whole bunch of other things compared with what you think they're thinking? I read this the other day in 40% of meetings it tends to be people saying what most people in the meeting already know. How many of your meetings are just kind of, well, we've got to have a meeting. It'll be an hour and then it'll be over after 61 minutes and we'll go along our way. I'm going to really learn something from this. In an improv scene we try and say how is your character, the character you're playing in the scene, altered during the course of the scene? What has she or he learnt? If you imagine your conversations and business and your meetings were like that, what would change? Many conversations and business tend to be well, this is what I'm thinking, this is what I'm thinking, this is what I'm thinking. Well, good, now I know what I think. And the worst kind of listening, non-intentive listening is simply waiting for your turn to speak. Or as a friend of mine who does a lot of conflict management, the worst kind of listening is not listening in boardrooms, it's simply reloading. Simply reloading. Okay, who here, let's just see, in your airport, who had, did you end up in some wonderful holiday exotic location where you could have a meeting in some wonderful holiday exotic location? You're laughing, is that because you did, or because, no, you're saying I did, it was in my head, but these schmucks around me failed dismally. Lady in orange, are you in orange? I think yes, you were going like this with the most obvious body language. So what was the story that happened for you? Shout it out because we don't have a mic near you? Devon. Okay, so you ended up somewhere nice. Who never even got to the airport? Down here. Who was at the airport, but was frustrated or actually delighted because you spent the whole time shopping in duty free? Yes, there you are. Thank you. Who here experienced a delay? Yeah, I find that when I work with international groups who travel a lot, the first thing is in their delay, these sort of, these assumptions, as soon as you say airport, there's a kind of, you go straight to, oh delay. Who had a terrorist incident? Quite a few because what's the third thing you do at the airport? Take off your belt, take off your shoes. There's a little embedded in instruction terrorism. So you see, it's wonderful to discover that a man called Daniel Carnham, have you heard of him? Thinking fast and slow. Somebody said no, thank you for being honest. Most of us haven't read the book but we've asked somebody who has. Thinking fast and slow. So system one versus system two. System one, you don't think about it. Four times three is twelve. Thank you Helen. Okay. You don't even think, so I sit on that chair? Yes, I'll sit on that chair. The old technology to Mark Stevenson. You don't even think about it, the old technology. I'll sit on the chair. System two, what do we do with the National Health Service in this country in terms of times of austerity? Or 492 times 397. You have to break it down into chunks. You have to work it out, sit down. In fact I was doing this once with a group and after about five minutes the man put his hand up and told me the answer to that. Which I loved because he couldn't not think about it. Do you see? And I wonder how many times of our conversations, how many offers we're giving out and the person picks up one. That's why Karen Pine was right. How much of this are you going to remember on Monday? You don't even remember the number do you? She said you'll forget 98%. So I'm going to down well make sure the 2% you do remember is Intentive Listening. You're intending to listen and link what you say to what somebody has just said. It's the best way to create something together. To co-create. The best way to create rapport. The best way to deal with a negotiation situation. Exeter Street Hall. Are you really listening or are you just preparing your rebuttal? So let's go back to you Ian. System one, system two. Nickers was system two, wasn't it? You were thinking this needs a bit of jazzing up this story. It's a bit boring. I'll throw it a system. I'll have a meta thought. Is that right Ian? Yeah. Because you said we're all a bit rebellious. Whereas there might have been some system ones. Who had a system one where they just said a thing. I don't know why it came out like that. Does anyone have that kind of feeling? Any particular words? You there. You're waving at me nicely. Hot dog. Which is actually two words. Did somebody say hot then dog? It's a hot dog. Did you then go, why did you say hot dog? What's that got to do with anything? Shake and Steens. Hot dog. Our visitors from America are saying what the hell is this? Shake and Steens. He was a kind of cut price Elvis. Is that fair? I don't know. Okay, so we have eight and a half minutes. I want you to go back to your groups now and just work out what the assumptions were. Why are you thinking that? Why didn't you say the thing I wanted you to say? You're weird. I'm right. That's basically the emotional machine that's trying to do some thinking. That's where we start with. I'm right. I'm consistent. I'm rational. Why the hell don't the rest of the world fit into me and my way of thinking. But that's what we've seen a lot about today. About how we fit into other people's way of thinking. If I can get into your mindset then surely I double my brain capacity, don't I? So this is an idea about attention, intention, attitude. Our attitude is to say I really want to pick up what I'm hearing from you and build on it. My intention is to be fully attending to what you're saying. And from that you'll never be short of creativity. You'll never be short of ideas because you're saying it's all coming from you. I love the African word ubuntu. Do anyone know this word? You're waving at me. You're in the Nickers Airport thing. Do you know what ubuntu mean? I don't know if everyone heard that so I'll give you the mic. But you've got a pretty good voice so you don't really need it. What's your name? Miranda, come up here and just say it because I've got a slightly shorter version but I want to hear your one in case I'm sued by. It's an African saying that says I can only be at my best when you're at your best and you can only be at your best when I'm at my best. So there's mutual accountability. Brilliant. Thank you Miranda. I thought it was something like I am because of you but that may be another word. But if you can lay that down as a soundtrack for me I'll use that next time on my phone. Just go back to your group and find out what were you thinking. Why did you say that? Why didn't you say the thing I wanted you to say? You can think about it as well. Okay. So we have just a few minutes left. Anybody want to tell me why you suddenly have an inspiration as to why somebody else said a thing which at the first they thought you're sabotaging my story and they realised oh right you had your own story. Have you realised that now and of course the joy is sometimes when our stories collide and commune and we create something above ourselves. Anything interesting insights now where you thought why is that person lady there? Shout it out. Just keep saying that. Okay. So of course we have our different languages. Just finish your thought then. Yes. We do have a game where you speak gibberish to each other. You just go because you're playing the body language, the emotion. Thank you very much. Okay. I'm going to say goodbye to Caroline and Nancy. Thank you. Give them big round of applause. You're waiting. Helen. Okay. This is a very dangerous thing to do. We have four minutes ten seconds and you're going to do a little one word story for you. But the story is going to be of today. You see she's not a plant. So we're going to do it as if we. We are safe. So why don't you start with. This is just kind of bringing it all together beautifully in the summary of the day which is a really terrible exercise to do by the way because if you're focusing on the process and the content it's really hard. So we'll just go with it. We'll see what happens. We'll just remember some of the themes. Just let our mindfulness and mindfulness for a moment think about all the things we remember. There we go. Okay. We enjoyed food. We loved the I felt excited inspired by everyone especially me you maybe remember everything 98% of all content tomorrow we will forget nothing. Thank you very much Helen. Thank you. Thank you so much. Brilliant. Right Helen we have just witnessed brilliance haven't we to remember Laurie said witness brilliance and witness in the kind of almost old fashioned says witness bear witness to notice acknowledge how many times do we do that normally it's well this is a bit rubbish isn't it do you mind if I just tell you something you've done wrong and there's a really fantastic neuroscience model called a SCARF model the website is SCARF 360 where they looked neuroscience SCARF 360 neuroscience looked at what makes you stressed in these kind of a social situations rather than out in the jungle being attacked by a tiger or a zebra and they found that it brings up the same fear when certain things happen when your status your certainty your autonomy relatedness fairness are under attack and they found out that somebody saying to you do you mind if I give you some feedback is as stressful as being as walking at nighttime and hearing footsteps behind you we're trying to be nice and you are not being and so you could see how here this is not about being nice to each other the idea of an offer is oh you're nice you're right yes we acquiesce it's accepting the offer listening and linking and I also wanted to about live the question I love the idea that Laurie said live the question I think it's a quote from Reina Maria Rilke isn't it beautiful that we may happen upon the answers if we live the questions you could see in your stories how much volatility there was wasn't there complexity and uncertainty at any point the story could have gone anywhere but hold together trust the process improv is about listening and saying okay it may be a mess right now but together we will create something and look at what we really have inspiring about the makers of course I love the idea of the 15 stones we'll never quite know where it's going and there is a quote apparently from Picasso he said how do you sculpt a line he said it's easy I take some stone and I get rid of all the bits that aren't lion and often the process tells us the tells us and this is what Jerry Sternen said the positive deviance founder he said you can't think your way into a new way of acting you can act your way into a new way of thinking so you've got to get up and do this Karen's right we almost sit there right lovely tweets and notes oh yes I took lots of notes you've got to do something about it and there is meaning in our work there is meaning in our lives thank you very much indeed