Improv AtWork and AtLife

Snakes on a Plane

I finally got around to watching "Snakes on a Plane" last weekend. More hype surrounded that movie than any I can remember in recent history and if the amount of web-driven chazerei was any indication, "Snakes" should have been a massive hit. It flopped. And I think the reason it flopped is because the most creative thing about the film was a catchy title...which the studio wanted to change to something really boring but I won't get started on that. I bring this up because I see the same thing happening in business. I've worked with clients who are ready to roll out what they see as some fabulous new change initiative with a catchy title. But when you take a hard look at the program, there's nothing new there. All they've got is a catchy title. How does this happen?

Brainstorming sessions. The whole point of a brainstorming session is to come up with new ideas, new approaches, new ways of thinking and doing. What about the last one of these sessons you attended? Did you throw out ideas? Was everyone participating? Were any of you shot down? How long did you brainstorm? How many solutions, ideas, etc. did you come up with before you called it quits?

You've heard the old saying, "There's more than one way to skin a cat." (I don't know why I referenced that saying, I hate it and I can't imagine how it came about or who would be skinning cats.) Well, there's more than one solution to a problem, more than one way of thinking about something. Too often, when a group hits on a solution they stop brainstorming. They should keep at it. Find six solutions to a problem, then take a break and come back and find six more. My experience has been that the solutions we find at the end of a lively, second brainstorming session are often better than ones we identified early on. They're always more creative. And they've always got much more going for them than just a catchy title.

Blinds

I tried to raise the blinds in the den yesterday and they got stuck. I couldn't get them to go up or down. I called the store where I bought them and they sent over Tom, their blind troubleshooter. He fiddled with them a minute, then turned to me: "Do you raise and lower these alot?" Was that a trick question?

Perception of Perfection

I've had a Christmas tree every year for my whole life. I don't remember the trees the first few years but I know I had them because there are pictures of me in front of them, including one where I'm five months old and propped up against one of my dad's golf bags. I don't know what kind of trees they were, but they were green and smelled good and appeared by magic on street corners and vacant lots just after Thanksgiving. I thought each tree was the most perfect tree in the world.

When I was 12, I moved to the country where there were no street corners or vacant lots and hence no trees magically appeared after Thanksgiving. Instead, hearty pioneers trekked through wilderness to fell mighty timber with an axe. Okay, my best friend's dad drove a 4 wheeler out to some property they owned and took a chain saw to a couple of cedar trees, one of which he generously donated to my family each year. And I thought each and every one of those trees was the most perfect tree in the world.

Of course, I was wrong. I discovered the real most perfect tree during my first Christmas on my own in San Francisco when I drug home a noble fir. From that day forward, a noble fir has stood proudly in my home every Christmas, the embodiment of perfection. I could no more have imagined celebrating Christmas without a noble fir that I could have imagined a life without chocolate.

By this past December, I'd left the west coast to return to my roots in the midwest. As Christmas loomed, I went in search of the perfect noble fir. I finally tracked 3 down at a tree lot 80 miles away. I was digging out from 13 inches of snow, trying to get the SUV out of the garage, when I looked up and saw the love of my life approaching.

loml:  "What are you doing?"

me:    "I need to get to the tree lot before all the noble firs are gone. Grab a shovel."

loml:  "Are you insane? Part of the highway's closed."

me:    "And part of it's open. Dig."

loml:  "It doesn't have to be a noble fir. I saw some nice looking trees at Lowe's."

Now who's insane?

me:    "Maybe we just won't get a tree."

loml:  "Glad to hear you're being flexible."

The loml went back into the house where it was warm.

Later, trying to thaw out in front of a fire, I realized I was being a hypocrite. I coach people on how to live their lives more creatively, with greater flexibility, and here I was, being inflexible. I reminded myself that we're each responsible for our perception of perfection. As long as I was fixated on a noble fir as the perfect Christmas tree, I'd be disappointed. But if I changed my perception of perfection, all kinds of possibilities arose.

This last Christmas, my perfect tree was a 9 foot Frazier fir we hauled home Lowe's. I think it's the most beautiful tree we've ever had.