Improvisers Toolkit

This is the first part of my Stanford experience. I will share some insights and learnings from the course “Innovative Technology Leader” that I’ve attended in June 2024.

Many strangers

Do you know that feeling when you’re having such a thing that is supposed to be going on over the next few days and you are in a group of people that you’ve never seen before? So literally you do not know anyone?

This was exactly the feeling when I entered the first lecture on the “Innovative Technology Leader” course at the beginning of June 2024. I had the good fortune to be granted this course at Stanford by the company I work for. But let’s come back to the feelings that most of us have in such an environment. The words stress or anxiety come to mind - at least for a person like me who does not enjoy being in unknown territories. What do the others think? I guess it can be considered a sign of the quality of Stanford itself and especially this course, that it was considered that all people think like this and the first class addressed exactly this. After a brief introduction from the director of the class, Lisa entered the room and presented herself as a teacher of “improv” classes at Stanford. I have to admit that I was a bit puzzled and now even more afraid, “Will she now ask everyone to do some improvised theater - here in front of all others???” Well, in the end, she did exactly this, but in a much more gentle way.

The first exercise was to find a partner. The “usual way” of looking shamelessly at the person next to you and mumbling “Hi, should we do this together?” wasn’t allowed. Instead, we were supposed to walk through the room, look at someone we had never worked with before, in the eyes, and ask loudly and clearly: “Hi, my name is Peter. Do you want to be my partner?” And the other person had to reply in an honored way, “Hi Peter (of course, fill in here your name) it is an honor for me to be your partner. My name is Zoltan.” If you hear people say, I’m not good with names, then Lisa’s clear answer is, “No, you do not care!” Make an effort to learn the name! This is the first step in getting to know each other.

After finding a partner, we started with a supposedly quite easy exercise. We as a group had to count to 3. The only complexity was that one person had to start and say “one,” then the partner said “two,” and the first said “three,” and everything starts from the beginning. Please try it yourself with someone and you will figure out it is surprisingly hard and most likely there will be some laughter because someone missed it or even failed.

The Circus Bow

What Lisa explained next was a real eye-opener for me. She asked every group to cheer if the partner fails - do a high five and shout “Wohoooo.” There is no such thing as a failure, especially not in this super low-stakes environment, so why do we try to hide and maybe even avoid doing something in the first round? The reason is actually simple, most cultures do not allow failures. They are something bad and if this happens you even need to apologize for it. But on the other hand, have you ever seen an acrobat in the circus who failed with something? Maybe a juggler dropping an item or a trapeze acrobat falling into the net? Do they flinch and try to hide? No, they bow. They do the circus bow. This indicates, “Hey I’m OK - no need to worry” and “The show must go on!” Just imagine they would try to hide and disappear from the stage... Our work environment is in most cases comparable. Most decisions or presentations are low stakes and there is even another reason why you should not try to hide after messing something up. We humans are exceptionally good at reading the body language of someone else and we take decisions based on it really quickly. We are looking for things like self-competence and security, especially in leaders! Coming back to the exercise - next round it got a bit harder. Instead of saying one, the respective person had to clap and even more importantly both had to cheer in case of an error. Next round clap, snap, and say three. Lastly, clap, snap, and stomp with the foot. Many failures and a lot of cheering are guaranteed. This was a brilliant way to meet someone for the first time.

Sharing memories - some fake, some real

Next exercise, of course, with a new partner. This means walking again through the room, looking someone in the face, and finding a new partner. This time we told our partner a fake history and they should reply in a corrective way. For example: “Hey do you remember the time that we hiked through Yellowstone?” And the partner replies with something like: “Hmmm, yeah I do remember us hiking - but this was in Yosemite.” The learning out of this was that it is quite complicated to keep a conversation ongoing with someone who is correcting or disagreeing all the time. We tend to correct people around us all the time, even if there is nothing to gain - but this comes at the cost that it can get harder and harder to find someone who wants to speak with you.

Next exercise, new partner of course. This time the task was to share a memory which was based on a given keyword. After sharing the memory, give a new keyword to the partner and try to use only keywords with a positive to neutral connotation. This helps a lot in getting to know someone if the person is telling stories about their past. The next step was to bring together two groups and continue the exercise. Repeat until there are 8 people in one group. It is pretty much magic, you don’t have the feeling anymore that you do not know any single face. There is now a full room of people who have laughed and cheered with each other and even told others about real memories that they have. After just 90 minutes I left the room and looked much more cheerful to the next classes - thank you, Lisa, for this experience!