The Dance of Collaboration - excerpt from Improv to Improve your Business

“There are people
who prefer to say ‘Yes,’
and there are people
who prefer to say ‘No.’
Those who say ‘Yes’ are
rewarded by the
adventures they have.”
~Keith Johnstone

CHAPTER 1:
Benefits
of Improvisation
improvise: [verb]
create and perform spontaneously
or without preparation
from Latin improvisus ‘unforeseen,’ based on provisus,
past participle of providere ‘make preparation for.’

The speed of business is increasing. The best plans in
business require creativity and flexibility to recognize new
opportunities as markets shift. Are you keeping up?
It is more important than ever for entrepreneurs,
leaders and business professionals to implement innovative
solutions, engage employees and communicate effectively
with customers.
Dr. Robert Epstein, Harvard-trained researcher and
professor and former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today, is one
of the world's leading experts on creativity and innovation.
In a Psychology Today article, he says, “One way to accelerate
the flow of new ideas is by challenging yourself – that is, by
putting yourself in difficult situations in which you're likely
to fail to some extent.”
According to innovation consultant, Steve Shapiro, “Your
big breakthroughs will come by looking outside your area of
expertise, by making connections.”
The principles of improvisation can help you make new
connections and navigate the challenges of businesses,

1

Improv to Improve Your Business

regardless of your position within an organization. The
stories and experiences collected in this book share how a
variety of entrepreneurs and business leaders incorporate
improv into everyday business interactions to stimulate
creativity, nurture innovation and achieve more effective
communication.
In gathering information for this book, this LinkedIn
question was posted:
“Have you taken an improvisation class or workshop?
If so, how do you incorporate the principles of improv
into your business interactions?”
Here are some of the ways respondents felt training in
improvisation has been of benefit to them:
- Helps me think more quickly on my feet
- Helps me deliver presentations more effectively
- Helps me be more spontaneous
- Helps me gain sensitivity to my audience
- Helps create an environment of support with
members of my team
- Helps me seek win-win outcomes
- Helps me think more creatively
- Helps move an idea along with each team
member contributing along the way
- Helps me be more comfortable taking risks
- Helps me creatively problem solve
- Helps encourage better communication
- Helps sharpen problem-solving skills
- Helps me see change as opportunity
- Helps me eliminate self-doubt and self-judgment

2

CHAPTER 1: Benefits of Improv

- Gives me confidence and ability to quickly refocus
and alter my message when a prospect has a
different agenda than expected
- Helps me organize thoughts more quickly and
speak coherently off the cuff
- Enhances critical thinking to quickly pull the most
important piece of info from a group of details
- Helps me listen, process quickly, respond
- Helps me expand on points I want to make more
easily
- Helps me become comfortable with following my
intuition
- Helps me self-correct on the spot
- Helps me read situations more accurately
- Increases my confidence and charisma
- Transforms the way I interact with others
- Helps me interpret interpersonal dynamics more
accurately
- Reminds me to have fun and incorporate play
into my day
- Helps me focus on the task at hand, make fewer
mistakes and increase productivity
- Helps me switch gears easily when something
unexpected happens
- Helps encourages collaboration
- Helps foster flexibility
- Helps makes new connections
- Helps generate new ideas
The next chapter outlines the 10 COMMANDMENTS OF
IMPROV. These are basic principles of improvisation that all

3


the authors of this book used as common ground to describe
their improv experience. This particular list of ten commandments
was created by Brent Brooks of Blank Stage Productions.
Many of the authors in this book have been players at Blank
Stage as part of their improv training.
This pdf contains the chapter from a single author. You
may purchase the complete book on Amazon with chapters
from eight additional authors. In addition, the Amazon version
of the book contains comments from business professionals
who answered our LinkedIn question (and gave their
permission to have their comments included in this book),
along with a list of recommended books, blogs and improv
games.

4

CHAPTER 2: The 10 Commandments
of Improv

“The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking
new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
~ Marcel Proust

“When we live life as an experiment,
we are far more willing to take risks,
to acknowledge failure, to learn and develop.”
~ Peter Bregman

5


COMMANDMENT ONE
TRUST
Let’s get started with our first commandment, trust. A
painter trusts his tools to execute his vision. An actor has to
trust that his tools, which are the other actors on stage, will
adhere to the fundamentals and basics of improvisation. The
difference here is that a painter has control over his paintbrush,
whereas an actor has no control over his fellow actors. This is
why trust is essential in improv. An actor has to be able to
trust the other actors on stage.

“You can’t have success without trust.
The word trust embodies almost everything you
can strive for that will help you succeed.
You tell me any human relationship that works
without trust, whether it is a marriage or a
friendship or a social interaction; in the long
run, the same thing is true about business,
especially businesses that deal with the public.”
~ Jim Burke

6

CHAPTER 2: The 10 Commandments of Improv

COMMANDMENT TWO
AGREE ON STAGE: DON'T ARGUE
The second commandment of improvisation is agreement,
or the notion of agreeing on stage. Beginning players tend
to disagree on stage – they think that conflict creates an
entertaining scene. This is correct, but the execution is
wrong. When you disagree or argue on stage you destroy
the scene. All the audience sees is a power struggle between
two actors. Instead, agreement allows a scene to progress
and makes the audience curious about what will happen next.

“The more diverse the workplace, the more
powerful the fuel for creativity.
Instead of viewing differences as obstacles,
we can acknowledge and accept them
(say, ‘Yes!’ to them) and build on the ideas,
perspectives and energy they provide.”
~Pamela Meyer

7


COMMANDMENT THREE
LISTEN
The third commandment of improv is listening.
Without listening, improv is pointless. The players in a scene
need to respond to one another in order to move the scene
forward.

"Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a
creative force. The friends who listen are the
ones we move toward. When we are listened
to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand."
~ Karl A. Menninger

8


COMMANDMENT FOUR
DON'T BE FUNNY
The fourth commandment of improv is don’t be funny.
Many people learning improv believe that they need to get
on stage and automatically make the audience laugh. This is
not true. You don't want to TRY to be funny at all. You
don't want to force the audience to laugh. What you do
want to do is follow the 10 Commandments of Improv and
as a result, the audience will automatically be entertained.

“Life’s more amusing than we thought.“
~Andrew Lang

9


COMMANDMENT FIVE
AVOID QUESTIONS
The fifth commandment of improv is avoid questions.
When you ask a question on stage, you force the other actor
to come up with a new idea. This is a bad habit because you
are forcing the other actor to create the scene on his
own. Instead, both actors should be participating and
building the scene together.

“The nice thing about teamwork is that
you always have others on your side.”
~Margaret Carty

10


COMMANDMENT SIX
BE AVERAGE: KEEP IT SIMPLE
The sixth commandment of improv is be average, in
other words just keep it simple. Don’t try to steal the scene,
but at the same time don't fade away into the background.
Every actor on stage holds an equal part in every scene. No
one person is more important. Think of improv as a team
sport. Nine times out of ten, it is a simple phrase or situation
that cracks the audience up. Long, drawn out lines and
scenes become too complicated and you lose the attention
of the audience.

“It is the essence of genius to make
use of the simplest ideas.”
~ Charles Peguy

11


COMMANDMENT SEVEN
STAY IN THE MOMENT
The seventh commandment of improv is stay in the
moment. In improv, all that matters is the here and now.
Don’t even think about what might happen next. This
distracts you and takes you out of the moment. Often actors
predetermine their characters, environment or situation.
A scene can go in any direction at any moment, so it is
important to keep an open mind and pay attention to what
is going on around you. It is also easy to predetermine what
reaction you will get from another actor. This is dangerous
because if you don’t get the reaction you expected, you
get stuck.

“Life is about not knowing, having to change,
taking the moment and making the best of it,
without knowing what’s going to happen next.”
~Gilda Radner

12


COMMANDMENT EIGHT
MISTAKES ARE GOOD
The eighth commandment of improv is mistakes are
good. Nine times out of ten, you are going to make mistakes
on stage. You are going to forget a name, you are going to
be at a loss for words, you will bump into someone. The
catch is knowing that making mistakes is a part of improv and
should be embraced. This should help take away any fear you
have about doing improv.

“To live a creative life, we must lose
our fear of being wrong.”
~ Joseph Chilton Pierce

13


COMMANDMENT NINE
MAKE THE OTHER
PERSON LOOK GOOD
The ninth commandment of improv is give gifts. What is
meant by this? Well, a gift can be a physical gift, but more
often than not a gift is when an actor who is actively
listening and supporting the other actor provides them with
something to expand upon what has already been created
on stage. A gift helps to further develop an idea, environment,
or relationship. Here is an example. Say that player A loves
to garden and is planting some vegetables. Player B has
been paying attention to the scene and to help develop a
relationship, gives player A some pumpkin seeds to plant in
the garden. As soon as you find something out about another
character, give them a gift that supports their idea or trait.

“No one can whistle a symphony.
It takes an orchestra to play it.”
~H.E. Luccock

14


COMMANDMENT TEN
HAVE FUN
The tenth commandment of improv is have fun. If you're
not having fun, then you're not doing improv. Yes, there are
all the commandments and guidelines to improvisation, but
the spirit of improv is to have a good time. Get rid of any
stress and anger and anxieties – let go of it all. And don’t
take improv too seriously. If you adhere to the first nine
commandments, there is no way that you won’t have a
good time.

“All work and no play doesn’t just make
Jill and Jack dull, it kills the potential of
discovery, mastery, and openness to
change and flexibility and it
hinders innovation and invention.”
~ Joline Godfrey

15

“Capital isn’t that
important in business.
Experience isn’t
that important.
You can get
both of these things.
What is important is ideas.”
~ Harvey Firestone

34

The Dance of
CHAPTER 5:
Collaboration
Rob Duncan, Great Capes Consulting
www.RobDuncan.com

“Ideas are like rabbits.You get
a couple and learn how to
handle them, and pretty soon
you have a dozen.” ~ John Steinbeck

Improv is a dance of collaboration that takes the seed of
one person’s idea and builds it into an entire scene. In the
business world, the dance of collaboration can lead to a
product, a business …or a thesis. I’ve just completed my
doctorate in business leadership with an emphasis on how
businesses are using social networks for innovation with help
from one of my on-line networks.
I tapped my LinkedIn network to research and test my
premise that on-line networks were supporting innovation.
I’m directly connected to over 6000 people, which indirectly
connects me to about 17 million people also on LinkedIn.
I’m fascinated by how communities of people can be connected
who normally wouldn't meet. A CEO might meet someone
who works in the mailroom in a different location. Or business
professionals, who have thousands of miles between them,
are able to connect just through the idea market on LinkedIn.
My participation in this book is a perfect example of this
phenomenon. I responded to a question on LinkedIn that

35


co-author Vanessa Lowry had posted. She and I were not
even directly connected and now we’re collaborating on this
project. That's exactly the kind of phenomenon others shared
during the course of my research.
My thesis questioned if networks like LinkedIn are
actually creating more communication inside and between
organizations, and if that's helping people become
more innovative.
The first part of my data was collected from answers
to a survey taken by 500 respondents within my network.
The second part of my research material was collected from
interviewing senior executives to get their perspective of how
social networks have and will impact their business. The size
of organizations that participated ranged from global
mega-companies to companies with only a few employees.
I asked about things like people's habits when they use
LinkedIn, how many hours a week they spend on it, what do
they use it for, and more. I collected data on the fact that
people actually do use LinkedIn to become more innovative
and to help people solve problems. I started to see how
people interacting in on-line communities was similar to
how players interact on the improv stage.
My research showed that many people using on-line
networks like LinkedIn are instinctively using improv principles
like TRUST, MAKE THE OTHER PERSON LOOK GOOD and
HAVE FUN.
Of the business professionals who participated in my
research, 80% were open networkers, which by philosophy
means they will connect with just about anybody who seems
reasonable. This is an interesting parallel to improv as you
must TRUST enough to connect with people – both on stage
and in the audience. Only after you trust can you can see
people working together to expand ideas. That’s when the
scene or the idea can take off.

36

CHAPTER 5: The Dance of Collaboration

I discovered a range of motivations for why people are
using on-line social networks. According to my research, 8
out of 10 professionals wanted to meet new people and
make new contacts. This reminded me of improv in the way
that it's an adventure to connect with people who have a
different perspective than yours. With LinkedIn and other
on-line networks, you are able to meet people from thousands
of miles away, working in diverse jobs, with their own unique
perspective, and you may even become friends with them.
About 60% of respondents said they use LinkedIn for
exchanging ideas. This was higher than I thought it would
be. I thought people would be using it more for helping
them prospect, but more than half were actually using it to
expand their bank of ideas.
People definitely look to their networks for help and
they also like to help other people online. That was a very
strong finding with 8 out of 10 people agreeing with that.
Further results showed that 6 in 10 agreed that their
networks help them innovate. And 7 in 10 said their net-
works help them find new business opportunities. Over half
of the people agreed that their networks help them solve
problems faster. They are MAKING ONE ANOTHER LOOK GOOD.
With a strong on-line network, you have easy access to a
group of people interested in exploring new ideas, finding
new opportunities, and collaborating on solutions. That
hooked into the improv part of me. At its best, that's what
you do in improv with each person adding to an idea and
generating something that's wildly funnier or more substantial
than you would've ever dreamed.
The Q&A community on LinkedIn in particular was
interesting to me. There are many people who go on every
day and try to help people. To me that exemplifies improv. I
participate regularly in the Q&A community and find it to be
overwhelmingly positive and cooperative. Those are necessary

37


characteristics for a successful improv session as well.
I will often pop in to the Q&A community when I need a
break and want to shift gears mentally. I'm a curious person
by nature and I enjoy people. When I've answered a question,
I check back several times to see if anyone has reacted to my
answer, has a different answer and to see what direction the
on-line conversation has taken.
There is a commandment of improv that says AVOID
QUESTIONS. That seems like a paradox when I’m talking
about the Q&A community on LinkedIn, but this is how I see
the two coming together. When you're on stage with other
improv players, the reason to avoid questions is because it
might stop the action. It forces the other player to come up
with all the ideas, as opposed to making statements that
they can easily build on. So in improv, if you're asking the
other player a question, you're forcing them to do the
creative heavy lifting.
The correlation with the Q&A community is that you
should add value for your part of the conversation. For
example, don’t just post a link to a website, but take the
time to write out what information in the link pertains to
the question being asked. It's like helping a reporter out
with a query. They want you to answer their query (question)
and not just send a link to a website that they then have to
sift through. The other part of that is that since your
perspective is uniquely different from theirs, the idea
sparked from your experiences will be different from the
person asking the initial question. That is where collaboration
can shine.
One of the key improv principles is HAVE FUN. More
than a third of respondents (37%) mentioned fun and that
they participate in LinkedIn because they enjoy it.
To be successful in your participation in on-line networks,
you have to be forgiving and just laugh. Realize that people

38


have all kinds of different motivations for being there. It is
amazing that all these people are taking time out of their day
to add a thought or to help someone out. Time is incredibly
valuable and expertise is priceless. They’re taking time to help
out or add an opinion, so we should just take it easy.
It is the same with improv. In a scene, players go from
being on the bus, then they may get off the bus at the zoo
and suddenly they are helping a giraffe give birth. You just
suspend your vision of where you think things are going and
run with it. That's where the hilarious stuff happens. One
idea just gets wackier than the next and it is brilliant fun.
The best mindset on stage or on-line is where you don’t
care where this is going, but see interaction as creative seeds
for innovation.
One of the things becoming more apparent with social
networking is that executives at the top level of the company
don't have control in the way they used to. I see companies
that want to forbid anyone to use online social networking.
That particularly drives me crazy because how do you think
you're going to stop them? Employees are going to be in the
restroom on their iPhones twittering about you.
My research confirms this. Your staff knows their peers
and others in the companies that are your competition.
They know your customers through online social networking.
They're exchanging ideas. Smart companies want to harness
the connectedness of the staff and not try to overly control it.
The smart companies are the ones embracing social
media because they realize their employees are already
participating. They realize that folks who work for them are
connected to some amazing people and have remarkable
insights. They have guidelines for the right kinds of messages.
They may have a policy outlining three things you must not
say and five things you can never talk about, like new
product development. Beyond that, they encourage

39


employees to go build relationships.
They train employees to see that their on-line participation
can reflect well on the company and how they can each be a
messenger of goodwill. Employees may also be the first to
hear if a customer is unhappy about something that is being
done or problems that are surfacing in a particular product.
Some companies set a time limit of 20 minutes in the
morning and 20 minutes in the afternoon for their employees
to connect with their networks while they are at work. By
supporting and training their employees, the company can
build good social capital with customers as well as with
other organizations. Many organizations now have a social
media coordinator as part of their marketing department.
The guidelines established by some companies just
encourage people to adhere to the same guidelines of
behavior as if they were at a dinner party. Basics of good
taste like avoiding vulgarity and profanity.
A CEO that I interviewed said he actually relies on the
personal networks of his employees. He heads a small
software development firm with innovative social media
products. Whether they are looking for the right person to
hire or just want to reach a particular type of consumer, this
leader checks in with his employees to see who they know.
They can often go to their LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter
networks and immediately pull that person up. It is a
progressive viewpoint for a CEO.
In addition to on-line communities, I’ve use the principles
of improv extensively in my business roles off-line.
I have two business lives. I have my own business
called Great Capes Consulting. I work with companies and
organizations, training them on how to build intelligent
teams, how to use competitive intelligence to a company's
advantage and how to motivate people. I also do a lot of
public speaking from keynote addresses to workshops. I

40


recently conducted a two-day training session for one of the
ports here in Canada on the concept of competitive intelligence.
My other business life is as Director of the Centre for
Applied Research & Innovation at British Columbia Institute
of Technology (BCIT). I helped raise the necessary funds and
set up this centre for research and innovation. We raised
about 8 million in total funding from various sources.
Primarily, we work with fledgling entrepreneurs who are
just starting out – who have an idea or an invention and we
help them get it from the idea stage to the market place.
We hold commercialization boot camps where we
introduce inventors to one other. Often they have been
working solo for a long time. We put them into a team and
provide information and resources. Things like how they can
protect their inventions, how to do the right market
research so they can be sure they're coming out with the
right product and guide them on how to get a prototype
made.
We also have a prototyping facility where we can actually
help take a client from a concept to a protected piece of
intellectual property. Then we help them create a prototype
and hopefully assist in taking it to the marketplace.
Both my consulting and director roles dovetail into
innovation, collaboration and building networks.
When I got into improv, I realized a lot of the improv
philosophies were things I did instinctively as a team builder,
as a manager and definitely as a teacher. I think my favorite
commandment of improv is always say YES, and then building
on what the other person just said. It was a great validation
to see that “YES, AND” was actually a tool of improv used to
create as a team.
At the college, I manage a team of about ten people
and always need to come up with new ideas. As the leader I
want to build on every little idea. It ties into the concept of

41


“YES, AND” in improv and the principle of MAKE THE
OTHER PERSON LOOK GOOD. I want to give other people
credit. Even if I might have wanted the idea they ended up
coming up with in the first place, I don't lead with that. I
share the challenge and the creative process with them.
One benefit to being part of a teaching institution is
that the culture is about helping everybody become better
at something. As a teacher you don't say “That's a dumb
idea.” You say, “I see where you're going with that, but
would you also consider this?” It's a very supportive “YES,
AND” type of improv thing.
That runs counter to very traditional micromanaging,
commanding kinds of cultures under which some businesses
operate. For leaders who are innate micromanagers, it is
hard to release control to the group. It can be very scary
and, unfortunately, the most innovative ideas get stifled.
The commandment DON’T BE FUNNY is key from an
improv collaboration standpoint. In improv class, we used to
say you don't have to hit a homerun when it comes to you.
Your contribution to the movement in a scene can be
something small like saying, “then she got on the bus.” It
still can end up being an amazing improv scene. You don't
have to have the last word. And there is no way you can
control everything. Have the intent of just adding something
small, instead of feeling like you have to add something big.
Adding your small contribution to the scene or the idea can
give other people space to engage their creativity and to
build on it together.
There's so much pressure on managers to be the decider
and the person who knows best. I think DON’T BE FUNNY is
also saying that you don't always have to have the last word.
Let things develop and let the ideas bounce around. That’s a
huge element for innovative ideas.
Some of the meetings where my team accomplishes a lot

42


are when I say almost nothing. My contribution might be
just a nod or smile as I acknowledge someone and then look
at someone else who I see has something to add. I become
more like a focus group moderator. The less I say as a leader
the better. The team generates the ideas and I'm just there
to keep the ball rolling.
Another key principle of both improv and innovation is
that MISTAKES ARE GOOD. In the innovation field, you have
to take chances. One of my favorite quotes is “Fail early. Fail
often.” There's no reason to shut anything down at the idea
stage. The philosophy of successful companies is, “Let's try
it, but let's try it fast. If it's not the right idea, we can
quickly move on from that idea to something else.” To have
an innovative culture, you have to encourage people to take
chances.
That's one thing I've enjoyed being able to do with my
team at the college. We say, “Let's try it and see how it
works. Let's invest two days in this. Let's have one of these
boot camps. Let's try it this way and let's learn from it.”
Take a risk, exchange ideas, contribute in ways that
make your fellow collaborators look good, try something
new, be creative, make mistakes, engage life and have fun
along the way. Let the dance of collaboration move you.

43

"Serious play is not
an oxymoron; it is the
essence of innovation."
~ Michael Schrage

44

About the Author

Rob Duncan
www.RobDuncan.com

Speaker, author, actor, thought leader,
manager and college teacher – Rob Duncan
has done it all. Rob’s career spans several
decades as a management consultant, college teacher, senior
manager and professional speaker. Duncan holds a BA in
Economics, an MBA and has just completed a Doctorate in
Business Leadership in the area of social networking and
collaborative innovation.
Rob is the author of the books “Haul Away! Teambuilding
Lessons from a Voyage around Cape Horn” and “Competitive
Intelligence: Fast, Cheap and Ethical”, which was selected as
one of the best business books of 2008.
Whether describing his adventures in teambuilding
gleaned from sailing on a tall ship around Cape Horn in
forty-foot seas, or imparting timely and actionable information
that audiences can immediately put to use, Rob has been
delighting speaking audiences the world over, from Beijing
to Chennai, from Orlando to Whistler.
Drawing on his professional theatre training, Rob is a
genuine and enthusiastic speaker who leaves the crowd
stimulated, thoughtful and entertained.
For your next event, contact Rob for a speaking experience
that will leave your troops inspired, uplifted and informed!

Contact Rob:
www.RobDuncan.com

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The Dance of Collaboration - excerpt from Improv to Improve your Business