Spreading the Transforming Power of Improvisation
The Three Laws of Performance
(The following is the latest entry in my blog THE DAILY IMPROVISER: Improvising in Business and Life. http://the-daily-improviser.blogspot.com/ )
Improvisational theory is deeply ingrained (even if not always so acknowledged) in the current thinking about the best ways to maximize organizational performance. A recent book titled The Three Laws of Performance, by Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan, continues spinning this implicit thread of connections between the improv stage and the world of organizational and human development.
Zaffron and Logan set out the Three Laws of Performance as follows:
1) How people perform correlates to how situations occur to them. That is, people always act in accordance with the way they explain the world to themselves, which can be quite different from the way the world “really” is.
2) How a situation occurs arises in language. That is, language is the vehicle we use to self-create our sense of reality. Zaffron and Logan use “language” in the broadest sense, to include not just words but also nonverbal vehicles such as tone of voice and body language that are used to carry “unsaid but communicated” messages.
3) Future-based language transforms how situations occur to people. Here Zaffron and Logan distinguish between descriptive language – the words we use to describe how things are or have been – and generative language – words that describe possible futures, the way things could be.
To illustrate the Three Laws, Zaffron and Logan cite several real-life scenarios involving deep-seated resentments among corporate and political factions. The core message of all these scenarios is: If conflicting groups can truly see each others’ reality through articulating their “unsaid but communicated” messages, they can then use generative language to “rewrite” their collective future.
I think that Zaffron and Logan’s Three Laws reflect many of the key improv concepts I’ve mentioned so far in my blog. For example, implicit in the process of surfacing and working through the “unsaid but communicated” messages is another concept – the And Stance – which, as I mentioned in an earlier post on the book Difficult Conversations, tracks closely with the improv concept of Yes And.
By using the And Stance, people can quit playing the “I’m right and you’re wrong” game, which seeks to assign blame to one party, in favor of a more interesting and productive game: “I’m right and you’re right!” This game is based on recognizing that we both have a piece of the “real” truth in our respective possessions and that we have both contributed to the situation in some way. Under the And Stance, “blame” – an emotionally charged, all-or-nothing term – is replaced by the non-judgmental concept of a “contribution system” that the parties can then correct or agree to put behind them.
Zaffron and Logan’s scenarios demonstrate that conflicting parties can only move ahead once they “clear out” old blame-based grievances and complaints and then change the language they use in collaborating toward the future. The And Stance, with its associated concept of the contribution system, allows them to do just that.
Improvisational theory is deeply ingrained (even if not always so acknowledged) in the current thinking about the best ways to maximize organizational performance. A recent book titled The Three Laws of Performance, by Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan, continues spinning this implicit thread of connections between the improv stage and the world of organizational and human development.
Zaffron and Logan set out the Three Laws of Performance as follows:
1) How people perform correlates to how situations occur to them. That is, people always act in accordance with the way they explain the world to themselves, which can be quite different from the way the world “really” is.
2) How a situation occurs arises in language. That is, language is the vehicle we use to self-create our sense of reality. Zaffron and Logan use “language” in the broadest sense, to include not just words but also nonverbal vehicles such as tone of voice and body language that are used to carry “unsaid but communicated” messages.
3) Future-based language transforms how situations occur to people. Here Zaffron and Logan distinguish between descriptive language – the words we use to describe how things are or have been – and generative language – words that describe possible futures, the way things could be.
To illustrate the Three Laws, Zaffron and Logan cite several real-life scenarios involving deep-seated resentments among corporate and political factions. The core message of all these scenarios is: If conflicting groups can truly see each others’ reality through articulating their “unsaid but communicated” messages, they can then use generative language to “rewrite” their collective future.
I think that Zaffron and Logan’s Three Laws reflect many of the key improv concepts I’ve mentioned so far in my blog. For example, implicit in the process of surfacing and working through the “unsaid but communicated” messages is another concept – the And Stance – which, as I mentioned in an earlier post on the book Difficult Conversations, tracks closely with the improv concept of Yes And.
By using the And Stance, people can quit playing the “I’m right and you’re wrong” game, which seeks to assign blame to one party, in favor of a more interesting and productive game: “I’m right and you’re right!” This game is based on recognizing that we both have a piece of the “real” truth in our respective possessions and that we have both contributed to the situation in some way. Under the And Stance, “blame” – an emotionally charged, all-or-nothing term – is replaced by the non-judgmental concept of a “contribution system” that the parties can then correct or agree to put behind them.
Zaffron and Logan’s scenarios demonstrate that conflicting parties can only move ahead once they “clear out” old blame-based grievances and complaints and then change the language they use in collaborating toward the future. The And Stance, with its associated concept of the contribution system, allows them to do just that.
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