 Your success depends on your ability to collaborate. It's true. Your personal, your professional success depends on your ability to collaborate. Collaborate. Together to do something. The bright side of collaboration is that you can achieve more than you ever could by yourself. The dark side of collaboration is that there's a lack of clarity and there's no accountability. You can hide in a collaborative team. So your success is determined by your ability to collaborate. So let's take a look at the fact that you're built to collaborate. Let's take a look at who you partner with when you collaborate. And let's see what we can learn and what we can do to improve our ability to collaborate. And then I'll end with a little story of hope about a job interview. And then perhaps we'll participate in a little collaboration when I say thank you and you will applaud at the end. It'll be our part. So let's take a look at your built to do this. You don't have to be a brain scientist to know that when you walk down a busy street, you're collaborating in a fantastic way. Hundreds of people are passing by you and you're not bumping into them. Negotiate the intent what's going on. And, you know, no one's actually looking at each other just passing by. Everyone's collaborating. No one's bumping into each other unless they have cell phones and they're sort of down. But if we take a look at the hands for just a second, we can begin to see that inside of our brain are motor command neurons, neurons, motor command neurons up at the frontal cortex. So that when you reach to shake someone's hand, those are the things that spark up. They light up and they go, lift arm, muscle tension, reach out, open palm, right? But about 20% of the neurons are called mirror neurons. And they operate in an interesting way. When you watch someone else shake their hands, shake hands, those neurons inside of your head are firing too. So in a way, you're experiencing them and their actions just by watching them. So that level of empathy is built into our bodies. Empathy reads collaboration. And again, we can move away from science and know that when you look at a baby's face, that shows up when you make a face of the baby and the baby makes the face back at you. In fact, our whole species is dependent on collaboration. The whole birth process is collaborative from beginning all the way through. Right? It's collaborative. So let's take a look a little bit about what we mean about your partners with collaboration and take a look at partnership for collaboration. Let's take a look at the improv model. You know, improvisation is beautiful because it all happens one time and one place. The conception, the execution, the display, the enjoyment, it's all one time, one place. And what this means to us is that the feedback loop is really fast. Really hard to hide when the feedback loop is that fast. It's a beautiful thing about improvisation. So who do we partner with in improvisation? Well, let's take a look at you. The first person you partner with is you. How do you sort of be your own best partner? A couple of years ago, I did a fringe festival show here in San Francisco with my friend Tim Aronetta. We decided only three things about the performance. It would just be the two of us. We would play no games and we would get no suggestions. Yep, just go out there and see what the heck happens. About 20 minutes before our first performance, I'm backstage and I get a phone call. Tim is on the Bay Bridge, not moving. There are two ball games this day. So he says, I don't know what's going to happen. I said, we'll call back in 10 minutes and we'll see. He calls back in 10 minutes. He says, I haven't moved very much. I think I'm going to be late. I said, I don't think you're going to make it at all. The owners of the festival found out and said, we're going to have to cancel. And I said, no. They said, what are you going to do? I said, I don't know. They said, we're going to have to cancel. And I said, no, no, no, no, it's improv. I don't know what I'm going to do anyway. It'll be fine. And I knew in that moment that the only way I could lose this situation is not to try it. And I'm waiting that 15, 10 minutes or so for the show to begin. I see people moving into the theater and it's becoming real for me. And my brain is freaking out. It's talking to me. Hey, William, do something with gibberish. That'll be good. You don't have to talk. It's just gibberish. And so it's like lining up these things for me to do. And I finally had to just stop and turn to my brain and say, thank you. Those are great ideas. But I don't think I'm going to use them because you've come up with them now. Let's put it all in the same place. Gives me more ideas. I go, wait, wait, wait. This thing that we're doing right now, let's do this out there with them all in the same place. So finally my brain started to quiet down. I trusted myself that I could go out and do this process. I went out there, began the process. 30 minutes later, Tim walks onto the stage, sits down at the chair and we just keep going. The first partner that you have to attend to is yourself. They're wanting someone to show up. You're the first person who has to show up. Your voice is necessary in collaboration. Here's one way that I want you to test it with yourself. The next time you're with a group of friends maybe later and there's a discussion about where are we going to go eat. And you hear yourself saying something that might be familiar, which is something like, I don't care. Any place might be fine. I want you to suggest that that's a way of hiding. I want you to see if you can't ask yourself what does your voice want? If it was you making the decision, what would you want? In collaboration we need micro leaders, leaders to pop up at any given moment. We don't know when they're needed, but we know that your voice is necessary. No hiding. You're going to have to stand up for yourself. I have an idea. The other partner is with others. How do you partner with others? You've got yourself now as a good partner. Partner with others. My origin story for Back to Improv starts like this. I'm cooking pasta with my friend Rebecca Stockley in my apartment a couple blocks from here in 1985. Rebecca was a friend. We were both actor bastards and no improv at all. She'd cast me in a couple of plays. We were visiting. She was coming back from Seattle. I said, what are you doing? She said in a remarkable way, she said, I'm writing a lot of really fun short stories. We're cooking pasta. I said, well, that sounds really exciting. Somehow I think she enticed me to ask her about one of the short stories. I said, sure, tell me about them. She somehow said, why don't you guess? She said it in sort of a Rebecca way that you just can't refuse. I remember turning to Rebecca and saying, well, is it about a space alien? Oh, yes, it is. How do you think it starts? It took me about 10 minutes and I sussed out the whole story. The beginning, the middle, all the stuff happened and no way it sort of concluded. She turns to me, she says, well, what do you think? I said, well, it's a pretty good story. And then she said something really confusing. She said, you know who wrote that story? And I said, you did. And like a car accident where slow motion suddenly comes in, she says, no, you did. I answered yes or no depending on whether your questions in it and vowels or consonants. And I didn't let too many noes go in a row and I'm like blown away. Instantly everything shifts. Suddenly I know that there's stories that can come out of me effortlessly. I don't have to consider antagonist, protagonist, dramatic arc, resolution, underlying themes. I don't have to consider it all. It's all in there and it comes out effortlessly. Partnership is about bringing the best out of your partners. It's the promise that somehow I can get the best out of you. First partner is with yourself. The second partner is the other people you play with. And those of you familiar with Del Close's work might remember that he suggests, lovely, that your partners are geniuses. What they offer is perfect for this group, this time, this space. Celebrate their offers, their geniuses. And if you ever found yourself working on a team or on stage going, ah, what have they done? It's a new character. We can't handle a new character now. You're not there anymore. You're not collaborating anymore. Now you're repairing your story for afterwards about why it wasn't so good. Right? Partner with your partners. Bring out the best in them and accept whatever they have. So partnership is also about accepting the third partner is everything else. Everything that's around you. The audience is never passive. So they're always guessing. And again, when Del talks about the Herald, he talks a lot about involving them. Don't give it to them. Entice them to participate. The same way when we all read the same book, we're all reading a description of a house on a hill with storm clouds coming over and the paint that's peeling and a young woman standing out front. But we all have different houses, different hills. We're participating in it. I don't know whether you guys know this. The audience isn't passive. But when you design a building, there are certain rules about where to put the bathrooms. When Steve Jobs was working with Pixar, an animation studio near here, apparently, they were wondering where to put the bathrooms. These are the bathroom symbols at Pixar. And the architect said, well, we need one over here and one over here. And Steve said, no, I want them in the atrium. Put them in the atrium. No, no, it won't work. People have to walk too far. We know this. This is what we do, Steve. Leave it to us. Steve says, yes, yes, yes, yes. Put the bathrooms in the atrium. I want to break people out of their silos, get them out of their departments. I want them to walk to the bathrooms because everything influences everything else. And we don't know what influence might cross over and produce. Let's see. Hit after hit after hit after hit after hit after hit. Everything is a partner in your collaboration. Don't keep your circle closed. Keep your circle open. Okay. How do we get better at collaborating? Increase the feedback loop. Keep people from hiding and make sure their voice is in it. So increase the feedback loop. Add your voice. You got to get your voice in there or get off the team. Or as I might suggest to some of my students in improv, get off the stage. If you can't get in there, get off. Leave it to the people who are in there. Do it politely when you get off the stage. Inspire. Bring out the best in others. How do you bring out their best? There is a way that you can bring out an effortless contribution from them. You know, you talk to some people and you realize how smart they are. There's other people you talk to and you realize how smart they make you feel. Open to everything. We never know what the influence is going to be. Keep the eyes open. As Sean Kenley says, when we're secure and open, we see everything. And as we become fearful, that shuts down and shuts down and shuts down until we don't even see ourselves. And we're struggling with ourselves and can self-sabotage. And here's my big suggestion. If you're feeling pain in the collaboration, take a step back. Take a look at what you're getting out of it and make sure it's working for you. And if not, get out. You can achieve more. The promise of collaboration is you can achieve more as an individual, as a group, than you could as an individual. Your success will be determined by your ability to collaborate. I was working with a big Silicon Valley company recently. And this senior manager told me that a friend of his son had just graduated from business school, sent his resume out to everyone. And one company asked him to come interview, so he did. He walked into a big room, I imagine, like this. There were tables set up. That's all tables. On each table, there was Pictionary. They were told to go to the tables and play Pictionary. And they played Pictionary. And every once in a while, they were encouraged to change tables. And they played until lunch. And they went to lunch. And they came back from lunch. And they went back into the room. And it was the same. And they played more Pictionary. And they played Pictionary until the end of the interview process, in which time they were told, thank you. You'll hear from us. This young man did get an offer letter that said, your Pictionary skills are awesome. This is really hopeful to us, isn't it? It's so hopeful to us. Hopeful for two reasons. They're not looking for the resume and standard interview questions. They're looking for something else. Their communication style. Their leadership style. Their fellowship style. They're looking for other things. And the second one is the thing that I like is the name of the company. It's not a little company. It's a big company. And they need some fresh excitement. It's Microsoft. Yeah. They're looking for something else. So your future, your success will depend on your ability to collaborate. So collaborate. Thank you.