Asked about his plan for getting out of trouble, the movie hero Indiana Jones replies ‘I don’t know, I’m just making it up as I go along’. It’s what many successful leaders also do in running their organisations. The ability to improvise, be adaptable and find unexpected solutions will make you particularly valuable as a leader in organisations in the twenty-first century.

If you want to make God laugh, goes one reliable aphorism, ‘Tell her your plans’. Regardless, conventional executives devote serious time and energy trying to remove uncertainty about what is over the horizon. In practice, the future continues its never-ending ability to spring surprises. If you lead the way you will fully realise this. Your answer will be to adjust, change direction, adapt and constantly seek creative solutions. This commitment to improvising is strength not weakness. It realises that just because something worked last time, there is no guarantee that it will work again.

Describing strategy, for example, the renowned leadership guru Rosabeth Moss Kanter uses a compelling simile. ‘It’s like improvisational theatre’, she argues. ‘The players must be willing to take on unfamiliar roles, think on their feet, pay attention to several things at once, walk into situations for which they are not prepared.’¹

The drive for improvisation

Consider what most of tomorrow’s companies will be facing. On the one hand will be constant uncertainty, risk and paradox. On the other, in the cause of faster responses to deal with what the future throws at them, will be pressure to network, collaborate and reduce hierarchies. So, you will need to become skilful at rapidly adapting and playing it by ear. This will be true whether dealing with strategy, making decisions about new products, agreeing a marketing campaign or helping a team in trouble. In some places this is now the default way of getting things done, solving problems, winning engagement and generating innovation.

In such an environment, relying on issuing instructions or automatically expecting obedience or even attention is doomed. To succeed, your leadership must tap into the creative benefits of diversity, ever-expanding networks and constant collaboration that will undermine or subvert hierarchies and formal lines of control.

“Our emerging workforce is not interested in command and control leadership. They don’t want to do things because I said so; they want to do things because they want to do them. The captain of industry who continues to run his business in a militaristic, siloed way cannot compete in this global economy.”

Irene Rosenfeld, CEO of Kraft Foods

In times like these, the clear requirement will be greater tolerance of risk than in the past. Once, being risk-averse won plaudits. Looking ahead though, handling uncertainty and risk will partly define the nature of progressive organisations. It means responding far more flexibly than in the past.

Our own company, Maynard Leigh, has pioneered the use of theatre techniques in management development, so it should be no surprise that we draw on our own experience of improvising in the performance arts for ideas about tackling uncertainty. For instance, frequently treating risk as an opportunity for creativity and innovation is behaving rather like a great stage performer – as outlined in the box.

For 40 years, the renowned film and stage director Mike Leigh has employed his own particular method of devising plays and movies using improvisation. Along the way he has gathered plenty of praise and prizes. His approach has important lessons for leading the way, since leading organisations can be just as messy as theatrical improvisation. ‘First, the actors take part without any idea of the process,’ he says. ‘Second, each actor only knows what his character would know.’ The rest is created through interaction and creativity. As a leader you will only know your part, not what everyone else can do. Finding out is part of improvising.

“Don’t ever think you’ve arrived, and remember that what you don’t know is so much more than what you do.”

Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo

Leadership improvisation is doing something that has not previously been done. For instance Karen Bradley, chief executive of West Ham United, became the first woman to run a top-flight football club, Birmingham City. When it floated in 1997, she became the youngest managing director of a UK public company. ‘No one had thought of football as an industry before,’ she says. ‘The business of football hadn’t been fully explored and its ability to build relationships.’²

And when the creator of FedEx based the delivery company’s approach around a wheel and spoke principle, he was improvising. He did not know for sure it would work. Many in the industry who knew the concept had previously dismissed it. Yet it worked, as today’s vast number of FedEx vans, planes, ships, boxes and hub-centres shows.

Source: Adapted from The Center for Creative Emergence, www.creativeemergence.com, reproduced with permission.

Improvisation in organisations is now a vibrant area of study, moving from a marginal activity to mainstream.³ Many traditional businesses are bringing in comic improvisers and theatre practitioners to work with their managers in order to improve their ability to create spontaneously and respond flexibly to change. And even those peddlers of management science, the business schools, realise they can hardly sound convincing on how to lead unless they acknowledge the increasing role of improvisation. For example, MIT Sloane School of Management has launched a course applying it to leadership. Students practise improvisation techniques and then apply these concepts to business situations.

“The improvisational model throws out the script, brings in the audience, and trusts the actors to be unpredictable – that is, to innovate.”

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

Principles of improvisation

The notion of creating something out of nothing may sound like a recipe for undisciplined chaos, and suggest that anything that is created is a matter of chance. The opposite is true. Underlying the apparent messiness is a set of principles that improvisers in the performing arts use all the time. Jazz musicians, for instance, will use keys and chord structures as the basis for their improvised embellishments. It is these underlying structures that give performers the freedom to let go. It is a very disciplined process.

So, what are the underlying principles governing acting improvisation, which can be applied to organisation life? Here are three of them:

1. Accept and build. This means you behave in a ‘Yes, and . . .’ way. You accept other people’s ideas and suggestions and add value to them. ‘Yes, and . . .’ assumes creative potential, where alternatives, contradictions and paradoxes are embraced, because they are often the source and stimulus of invention. If you can hear another team member’s contribution as an offering that might allow you to create something of value, then you remove the impulse to kill it off. You can accept it for what it is, without having to criticise it, and instead just build on it. See if you can say ‘Yes’ to ideas and comments made by colleagues and create with them. That way, you value their input and see it as an opportunity. And it is more likely that you will then invent something quite unexpected. It’s the best route towards what people often refer to as ‘out of the box’ thinking.
   

   Dealing with ‘Yes, but ...’

   If you are dealing with people who habitually respond with ‘Yes, but . . .’ (rather than ‘Yes, and . . .’), there are various tactics that you could try:

   • What’s really going on? Understand where their reservations are coming from. Really try to address their needs and concerns.
   • Make them aware. Point out their habit of saying ‘Yes, but . . .’, rather than ‘Yes, and . . .’. Do they know they’re doing it?
   • Impact. Tell them how it makes you feel. What is the potentially demoralising effect their response has on you and others?
   • Give up. Simply say, ‘Oh, OK, I won’t do anything then’, and see how they react.
   • Ask for alternatives. Rather than trying to further defend your idea in the face of their opposition, ask for their suggestions. In other words, try to get them to turn their ‘Yes, but . . .’ into a constructive suggestion.
   • ‘Yes, but . . .’ back. No, not tit for tat, but a way to try building on their objections and working creatively with them.
2. Make the other person succeed. Actors improvising on stage know how exposing and humiliating it is if something they do does not work. Therefore, they are totally dependent on their colleagues for support – during their performance the actors are interdependent. This is sometimes not the case in organisations. Often so-called teams are actually groups with conflicting interests – for instance, sales teams may have bonuses that depend on their individual success. So, first of all, seek areas where your team members depend on each other to deliver results. And if there isn’t an area, create one – for example, ask the team for suggestions about how to raise performance, or how to make the company a great place to work. If each person is committed to the success of others, then there is mutual benefit and the chance to become more than the sum of the parts. This approach is also essential in the new world of collaborative working. Often competitor companies have to work together on projects. If they can learn to improvise together, they stand a better chance of success.
3. Take risks. We have already talked about the need to be risky if you are leading the way. It is particularly true when improvising. You are stepping out into the unknown, into uncharted territory. That’s what it takes to be creative. And this is where the two principles above can support you. They encourage people to work together by committing to each other and by accepting and building on each other’s ideas. You can lead the process and yet are part of it as well. It may be a bit scary, but you are not alone.

Although we can identify certain principles of improvisation, much of it depends on trusting instinct or gut feel. Leadership improvising also focuses on three key areas:

• creativity
• flexibility
• presence.

Creativity

When organisations consider creativity, many regard it as strictly the territory for artists or confined to narrow areas like new product development or marketing campaigns. They even refer to ‘the creatives’ as if they are a different breed of employee, with their own peculiar behaviours. Leading the way means you understand and relish creativity far more broadly. You see and welcome it as relevant just about anywhere – in relationships, systems, processes, environments, and so on.

As a leader it’s your job to harness the creative energy that lies within your immediate sphere of influence – and even beyond it. There are numerous ways to do this, including encouraging innovation, establishing a ‘try it’ environment, problem solving, ensuring people’s ideas are valued, and embracing the whole idea of play. Whatever way you choose, you will require a clear understanding of how the creative process works and know how to encourage it.

Innovation

“When you innovate you’ve got to be prepared for everyone telling you you’re nuts.”

Harry Ellison, co-founder and CEO of Oracle

Innovation turns improvisation into tangible results. Even if you don’t see yourself as a particularly creative person, you will need to know how to encourage this process by legitimising a culture in which others feel able to innovate.

For instance, Google is famous for its informal ‘20 per cent time’ initiative. Under this system, Google employees are free to devote about one day per week to a project they feel passionate about, regardless of whether it relates to their usual job duties. These initiatives are then filtered and new ideas selected to be pursued.

Paul Clarke, director of technology for Ocado, is similarly well aware of the need to constantly break new ground in terms of IT, as well as keeping his team of extremely bright people engaged. So he has put in place various initiatives to encourage creativity. For instance, he has established a bottom-up forum for developers to propose a new idea and get the support they need to develop it to the point where it can be decided if it has legs; a sort of ‘Dragon’s Den’ style of internal venture capital fund. He also fosters a spirit of healthy competition by organising ‘hackathons’ and other such technical contests.

Supporting innovation also means tackling obstacles to it. For instance, you may need to put your head above the parapet and challenge existing processes and systems that inhibit people’s freedom to create. This can be uncomfortable, and you really have to believe in what generates innovation to do this. For example, many companies claim to value creativity and innovation, yet are locked into restrictive practices that discourage fresh thinking, punish failure and reduce the chance of generating breakthroughs.

In creating a drive to innovate, people are far more important than processes, money, research or structures. That is why leadership plays such a crucial role in ensuring the right climate exists in which innovation can occur.

A ‘try it’ environment

Sheryl Sandberg, a 37-year old vice-president, made a mistake that cost Google several million dollars. When she informed the founder Larry Page, he replied, ‘I’m so glad you made this mistake, because I want to run a company where we are moving too quickly and doing too much, not being too cautious and doing too little. If we don’t have any of these mistakes, we’re just not taking enough risks.’⁴

To really encourage a creative approach to improvisation you need to ensure you encourage a ‘try it’ environment. This is one where mistakes may not be welcomed, but are not punished either. In the case of Google, Page saw the expensive mistake as an important learning experience. Mistakes are part of any learning process and should be acceptable – within agreed limits. That’s the ideal. In practice it’s a hard freedom for some organisations to tolerate. Some never make the necessary switch to a culture that resists punishing mistakes. They find it impossible to remain non-judgemental, or to keep asking: ‘What did we learn from that?’ As a leader you can help promote that shift by how you treat mistakes.

Organisations hoping to raise production standards often set high quality standards that promote fault-free actions. While commendably disciplined, the result can also close off ‘try it’ opportunities, leading to even worse problems. Toyota recognised this danger when it allowed any worker on the production line the freedom to act if they saw something going wrong. This led to far higher quality standards than previous attempts to impose quality through post-production inspectors and the like. Other companies arrived at a similar conclusion, regularly turning mistakes and errors into positive learning experiences.

Vicki Updike, president at Miles Kimball, a US direct-marketing company, describes the firm’s ‘ask me’ suggestion scheme. ‘If someone has an idea, our attitude is “Let’s try it”.’ She continues: ‘We are very proud of our employees . . . We are not the kind of company that will spend time criticizing what will not work. We learn and we move on.’⁵

In a ‘try it’ environment the only unacceptable risks are those that damage people or ‘hole the ship below the waterline’, that is, put the entire enterprise at risk.

“If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.”

Tullulah Bankhead, actress

When you say to people ‘Let’s try it’ you are giving them the freedom to make mistakes and learn, not a licence to be reckless. In such an environment you do not ignore mistakes by simply shrugging your shoulders and saying ‘That’s too bad’. As a leader you grab these mistakes and use them as an opportunity to encourage yet more learning – to get it right next time and to build improved systems.

Problem-solve

Much of your work as a leader is likely to be about solving problems. The more interesting the problem, the more absorbing the work becomes. The most difficult problems will inevitably tend to gravitate towards you to resolve. You will have few precedents to guide a decision and instead need a creative response involving flair, instinct, the ability to improvise and judgement. After all, you’re a leader – you’re there to use your judgement.

Take, for example, emerging markets. For most leaders these represent an obvious opportunity, and where much of their attention may well be directed. Yet a leader with a flair to improvise may see the problem entirely differently: ‘For me, the biggest emerging market isn’t a country, it’s women. We have 600 million people living on a dollar a day and two-thirds of those beneath the poverty line are women.’ No, this is not some head of an international charity, but Andrea Jung, CEO of Avon Products, the world’s largest direct seller operating in more than 120 countries.⁶

If you’re leading the way, you need to spend less time worrying and focus instead on seeking solutions to important problems rather than what is not working. For example, with sliding revenues in a digital age and the printed page no longer core business, the big problem at Xerox was how to redefine the company’s entire purpose. Ursula Burns, the first African-American woman to lead a top-100 US corporation, tackled the problem and improvised a bold solution. With a dramatic $6.4 billion acquisition of ACS, the IT outsourcing service company, she solved Xerox’s problem by turning it into a global leader in document management and business processes.

You may not be able to spend billions to solve a problem like Burns at Xerox, but you can develop your approach to improvising solutions. For example, imagine how things could be if you simply had a magic wand; or think how someone you really admire would approach the problem; or see the problem as if it were a useful part of your situation; or brainstorm ideas for making the problem much worse!

When looking for solutions, leaders will often resort to unusual methods – anything to get a fresh perspective. For example, you might encourage people to draw the problem as a picture, a symbol or a cartoon. That way they access a part of their brain that does not think logically, but visually and holistically. Or set up a playful situation where colleagues see a problem in new ways. For example, a senior engineer in Rolls Royce, returning from a trip abroad, called his team together and placed a sophisticated Japanese camera on the table. ‘If we had to build this at Rolls Royce,’ he asked, ‘what would it cost?’ When the group produced its answer and compared it with the Japanese price, everyone was shocked at the difference. It prompted major new thinking about engine production methods.

Value ideas

In Chapter 4 we referred to the ITV engagement process that elicited 9,000 suggestions and how the leadership followed up on the ideas. It is important that you demonstrate how much you value people’s contribution. US utility Xcel Energy wanted to reward its rank-and-file for taking the initiative, so it created ‘Xpress Ideas’, a rewards scheme that paid bonuses on the spot for useful submissions. The programme was a hit among the company’s 11,000 people and in one year they offered 6,133 suggestions, most of which were implemented. If there is a single golden guideline for rewarding ideas it is: celebrate the person not the idea. People relate to people, and if you receive great suggestions then make sure you put those who contribute centre stage.

When improvising, you are seeking a state of ‘flow’ – when creative ideas are surging forward. You need to have systems in place that quickly move any viable new idea from its source to where it’s needed. Suggestion boxes, emails, networks and other open systems can process ideas, but you will need to ensure there is a constant stream of ideas flowing through your organisation. And your people need to know that you take creativity seriously.

Encourage play

“I think fun should be a motivator for all business. We’ve been successful because we’ve done things differently, and that’s made life more fun and enjoyable.”

Richard Branson, founder of Virgin

People perform at their best when fully engaged and the atmosphere is playful. An enlivened workplace tends to promote creativity and innovation. Research by psychologists shows that individuals produce more creative solutions for everyday problems in a playful rather than a serious atmosphere. A culture of play not only brings a workplace alive, it generates ‘meaning’ and makes people keen to turn up each day. Just look at the energy that is often released when people take part in Comic Relief fundraising events. Raising money for good causes is a desperately serious business, yet look at the fun people have doing it.

The corporate world started taking the idea of play seriously when business consultant Pat Kane coined the phrase ‘the play ethic’ in response to the accepted notion of the work ethic. Others have built on this idea. For example, the LEGO Group created a playful experiential process designed to enhance innovation and business performance. It was based on research that shows hands-on, minds-on learning produces a deeper, more meaningful understanding of the world and its possibilities. Many other major organisations have also experimented with this approach.

How do you promote serious play to help you improvise as a leader? Here are some approaches you can try:

• Prototyping. Create a first version of a new idea, such as a new product; your prototype is successful if people make useful suggestions for how to improve it.
• Environment. Create a play space with colour and craft materials so that people can express ideas in visual ways and simply feel free to experiment.
• Games. Encourage people to play both competitive and collaborative games, so they find solutions in a lively environment and generate new perspectives.
• Fun projects. Set up tasks or challenges outside the work scene that indirectly relate to the issues you are dealing with – for example, help a charity solve a similar issue.
• Simulations. Devise situations that allow people to experience a different reality; for example, handling a sudden crisis, responding to a price war, handling a takeover.
• Forum theatre. Use actors to bring alive a work issue and invite colleagues to interact with them to try out different responses or courses of action.
• Brainstorming. Make your brainstorming sessions fun by having music playing, or provide sweets and treats, or run them in an unusual location.
• Laughter. Establish a playful environment where people can readily laugh together and enjoy each other’s company – imagine your work area as simply an extension of your coffee area.

Flexibility

“Whatever is flexible and living will tend to grow; whatever is rigid and blocked will wither and die.”

Lao Tzu, philosopher

Improvisation demands flexibility. The hallmark of an effective leader, now and in the future, is the ability to adjust and respond appropriately to each new situation. Given that situations will nearly always be new, it’s pointless to look for ‘tick-box’ solutions or to try to ‘do it by the book’. Our ability to adapt and embrace flexibility is an important reason we have survived as human beings. Unfortunately, as people move into positions of authority and power, this natural capability often becomes compromised. It starts to atrophy, replaced by more rigid thinking and a reliance on systems, procedures and bureaucracies.

Avoid being the kind of leader who shuts down when multiple demands appear. For example, one set of bosses announced to their company that they did not want any more ideas because there were ‘too many for us to handle’. Not surprisingly, the supply of ideas quickly dried up. Instead, show you are willing to deal with many demands. This could mean you welcome interruptions during your working day, or maintain a genuine ‘open door’ policy anywhere – from home to work.

Juggling several initiatives at the same time is likely to become business-as-usual. When faced with multiple and apparently overwhelming demands, you need to be able to:

• Seek help: invite others to take on important tasks; ask for help and guidance.
• Rapidly adjust priorities: don’t treat everything as equally important.
• Focus on the main problem in front of you: decide what is urgent and important.

A river finds many ways to reach the sea, going around and through obstacles. Being a flexible leader means doing the same – taking responsibility for using new information and changing circumstances, and finding a fluid and often innovative response.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, it is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

Charles Darwin, naturalist

Presence

Presence is your ability to bring your full attention and awareness into the moment. In the ‘now’ there is no past or future – only possibility. It is a moment of pure potential. Instead of concentrating on what has already happened, or worrying about and anticipating what might occur, you are free to improvise and spontaneously produce whatever you want, right now.

These days, presence is also sometimes described as ‘mindfulness’. In this you develop awareness of everything that is going on around you, as well as what is going on within you. At Maynard Leigh, we have been showing leaders how to increase their presence for many years. You can learn to reflect more on what is happening in the moment, by asking such questions as:

• What is happening right now?
• How am I feeling in this moment and why?
• What do others feel now and why?
• What is not being said?
• What is the body language of people telling me?
• What ideas are coming to mind at the moment?
• How are others performing right now?
• What is the performance data telling me?
• What needs to happen to change the dynamic around me?
• What do I want to create – right now?

Listed here, these may look fairly straightforward. In practice they prove challenging to unravel. Such questions have long been a blind spot in what actual leaders do. If you can be present and bring your full attention to any situation, you are far more likely to be able to improvise and innovate.

Being present helps you to ignore preconceptions and old ways of making sense of what is happening. It involves letting go of certainties, along with the need to control, and instead allowing fresh conceptions and ideas to surface.

Physical presence

Simply being there makes a difference. Not only do you ‘see’ what is needed in that moment, you are also open to fresh information. Three months after being appointed chief executive of the mining company Anglo American, Cynthia Carroll insisted on visiting the group’s largest platinum mine and seeing for herself what it was like two kilometres underground. While there, she was told how dangerous and deadly the mine was, and instantly closed it. ‘It was a big wake-up call,’ she says.

As you advance in an organisation, you can easily become isolated, locked away in an executive suite, relying almost entirely on others to tell you what is happening. You can, however, make a conscious effort to stay present, to value moments when you can interact with colleagues and learn how performance can be improved. Many progressive companies encourage ‘back to the floor’ initiatives to keep senior leaders in touch with what’s going on.

DaVita, specialists in medical devices, requires key officials to do front-line stints so they stay in closer touch with their troops. Middle managers and executives must also shadow employees in other roles, such as dietician and social worker, for at least one day a year. Vice-President Carolyn Kibler in the US division went on dialysis duty, and found it sharpened her awareness that ‘even minor management decisions affect patient caregivers. I truly understand the challenges our front-line teams face every day,’ she explained. ‘It’s like a layer of my skin.’⁷

The future will almost certainly depend on leaders who stay present and enhance their awareness by taking the trouble to visit different sites regularly, speak in depth to staff and suppliers, offer question-and-answer sessions and generally stick around physically. It’s a great way of collating and sharing best practice.

John Timpson, who built the national UK chain of shoe repair and service shops, regularly visited his stores. In one case he saw the Cheadle shop displaying a whole line of leather goods on the rack above the machinery. He found that the manager there repaired more leather-soled shoes than anyone else in the business, yet his shop was in a small suburb of Manchester. Timpson encouraged every other branch to adopt a similar display of leather items and ‘in the next eight years our leather business quadrupled. No wonder it’s called “walking the talk”.’

Psychological presence

The ability to improvise starts with bringing your full attention – both heart and mind – to a situation. Being distracted, aloof, and showing little interest in what is happening around you will not only rob you of crucial information, it will also evoke a similar approach in those you lead. Being present emotionally and psychologically means you are intensely alert to what is happening around you. It’s much the same way a martial arts practitioner becomes acutely aware of the surroundings and what others are doing and thinking.

How do you become emotionally or psychologically present?

• You become entirely focused on seeing. That is, you constantly look around at what’s happening in the moment. It’s what good actors do when they stay fully present on stage, even though they have no lines to speak or actions to keep them busy.
• You listen intently, without constantly planning what to say when your turn comes. Instead, you listen with a clear purpose, mentally checking: ‘What am I hearing?’, ‘What have I seen?’ ‘How will what is happening move us on?’ ‘How can I contribute to that?’
• You allow your feelings to guide your responses and actions. By staying in touch with how you are feeling in this moment, you uncover information about how to improvise.
• You act as if every single moment is different and an opportunity to move the business on.

A useful shorthand version of this process is: see, listen, feel. Each sense adds to your ability to improvise.

¹ R. Kanter, ‘Strategy as improvisational theater’, MIT Sloan Management Review, 43 (2), 2002.

² P. Whitehead, ‘Superwoman? It’s absolute bull’, Financial Times, 15 March 2012.

³ See, for example, M.P. Cunha, K. Kamoche and R. Cunha, ‘Organizational improvisation and leadership’, International Studies of Management and Organization, 33 (1), 2003.

⁴ J. Kouzes and B. Posner, The Leadership Challenge, Jossey-Bass, 2007.

⁵ Sean Johnson, ‘Miles Kimball empowers employees’, Insight, 1 January 2011.

⁶ Financial Times, ‘Women at the top’, 16 November 2011.

⁷ J.S. Lublin, ‘How to be a better boss? Spend time on the front lines’, Wall Street Journal, 9 February 2012.