Hire Dynamics Mastering Agile Leadership Session Recap

“You can always pay closer attention to someone than you thought you could.” Alan Alda

First off, thank you ALL for being vulnerable and putting yourselves out there for something of an unorthodox learning experience. We have compiled takeaways for you here. The goal here is to provide ways to continue the learning, because this kind of learning and behavior change requires PRACTICE. We spent a lot of time discovering the power of applying improv skills to your work, so let’s not lose anything, but instead keep building on it.

Session Recap
Reinforcements to keep up the Practice
Other Recommendations

Let’s connect/follow me on LinkedIn. I put a lot of stock into growing my network, sharing knowledge and would love to have you there. (all the other fancy social links are at the bottom of the page for easy access)

Improv classes for professionals Fall Session Begins in Sept. Sign up for our next session -note that the exact start date will be confirmed once class is full, we do this to accommodate the masses, if you have any questions, just email me.

1. Session Recap

Session Objectives:

How to be an Agile leader who readily adapts personal, interpersonal, and leadership behavior
Being Present and Truly Listening as a Leader
Helping your people find their voice and supporting and encouraging them to use it
Taking the time to get to know your people on a deeper level creates trust and loyalty

Improv Anchors:

Being Present, Aware, In the Moment
Adaptability, Pivoting, Being Others Focused
Empathy, Adjusting to the needs of the room
Listening for Values-How they feel

Taking care of each other "Making each other look good and insanely smart"! Improvisers learn quickly that in order to take creative risks and collaborate at the levels needed to create improv on the stage, you must become each other’s caretaker. We support and take care of each other so there is no worry of failing or looking silly. What if we all encouraged and supported each other this way at work?

Accept and Amplify, “Yes” and….When we practice being spontaneous, we learn to accept our own ideas. It is equally important to accept others’ ideas. The “yes, and…” rule is a foundational one in improv. We build trust by accepting others’ “offers”, and then, using our spontaneous responses, we build on those offers to create something. Let’s look at the “yes” part: Organizations lose speed and opportunities, because ideas are rejected without really being explored. This happens for a variety of reasons. New ideas may mean more work;others might get more credit; the idea feels risky; someone thinks he has a “better” idea of his own.However, every time we say “no” to an idea instead of “yes”, an opportunity is lost. That does not mean,of course, that evaluation is not useful. Or that we should commit to every idea. When we depend on our judgment muscles exclusively, though, we throw the baby out with the bathwater, the electricity out with the light bulb.

Adaptability and Resilience Our brains develop patterns quickly and how even minor changes in patterns can feel disruptive. Habits are powerful and playing games that purposely disrupt patterns can increases mental agility and psychological adaptability. These are essential for doing improv but even more important to a successful life in which we will have to navigate change that we do not see coming.

Developing Leaders in a VUCA environment white paper.

Listening and Empathy

Video on Empathy Listening and Empathy go hand in hand, sometimes we think we are listening but we aren't truly making it about the other person. We can't fix it, sometimes we just have to listen, show empathy.

Video on Listening- Sometimes listening is silent. People want to he heard not fixed.

If you want to be liked, loved and respected, listen like your life depends on it.

Most people think that they are good listeners, however more often than not, we are not really listening, we are just waiting to respond.
I think we also forget that listening is more than hearing the words that someone is speaking, and we are not listening to the whole person.
Something like 93% of all communication is nonverbal. This means that words aren’t as important than we might think. Tone, facial expression and body language are all powerful forms of expression.
Research suggest that we remember 25-50% of what we hear. That means when we talk to our boss or colleagues for 10 minutes, they pay attention to less than half of the conversation.
We all underestimate the power of being a good listener.

Listening Challenge Challenge yourself to try this exercise as much as possible throughout your day. It works best when you are in a one on one meeting or in a casual capacity with a colleague or work mate. You might not want to use it in a staff meeting, or folks might go thinking you've been hitting the happy stuff. It's simple. When someone is speaking to you, wait 5 seconds before responding. Count in your head down from 5, and then respond. Sounds easy right? Just you wait and reap the results of what might surprise you.

2-Practicing Reinforcements

Take improv classes, it’s the gym for your social skills and strengthening those muscles will allow you to more easily access them in the moments that matter in your work and life.