4 days ago
The Future Of Work Will Not Be Scripted
Kelly Leonard is the Vice President of Creative Strategy, Innovation and Business Development at The Second City.
There is only one thing we can be certain of in the future, and that's the fact that we don't know what's going to happen. We can surmise probabilities and make educated guesses, but the future is unscripted. Given my life's work in the field of improvisation, it makes sense that I would want to find the connective tissue between a skill in ongoing, improvised co-creation and what experts highlight as the most important qualities for navigating the unknown at work and in life.
As Deborah Perry Piscione and Josh Drean forewarn us in their 2023 article in the Harvard Business Review, 'Buckle up, because the world of work is on the verge of seismic transformation. The 20th-century norms that still govern our professional lives are about to be shaken to their core. Those who harness these forces will unlock new realms of productivity and creativity, while those who resist will risk becoming relics of a bygone era.'
There might be no way to fully future-proof yourself and your organization, but you can double down on the skills needed to become more change-ready. Here are three specific skill sets and exercises that can help you harness the ability to be more agile in the face of what's next.
When speaking to groups, I often ask for a show of hands if they think the world would change for the better if we improved our listening by just two percent. All of those hands go right up. Although it's something we do every day, very few of us practice listening. That's not true of improvisers. When we are creating a scene out of nothing, all we have at our disposal is the information others are giving us. It becomes vital, then, to listen not only to the end of sentences but to what might lie underneath what's being said. But isn't what's true for our stage performers just as true for ourselves?
The improv exercise 'Last Word' is a terrific way to practice deep listening. In a conversation, require yourself to start your sentence with the last word the other person said. You will find yourself more fully present, considerate and engaged with the person across from you.
The ability to successfully work in groups is essential in times of uncertainty. As futurist Gary Bolles writes in his 'The Next Rules of Work' book, 'A team is a band of problem solvers.'
Harnessing a diversity of strengths, skills and knowledge lies at the heart of effective change management. We have a phrase in our work: 'All of us are better than one of us.' The improv principle of 'Yes, And' is the starting point for successful collaboration within a team. When your group is brainstorming something new, it's vital that you say, 'Yes, And' to every idea at the beginning. There will be plenty of time to weed out the bad ideas from the good ideas later. 'Yes, And' creates a space in which all ideas are vetted and played with, ensuring that early-stage novelty is protected.
The modern workplace is drowning in communication: emails, texts, phone calls, Zoom calls, chats and DMs. The ability to create sticky messages in such a noisy environment is wholly dependent on one's skills in storytelling.
'As social creatures who regularly affiliate with strangers, stories are an effective way to transmit important information and values from one individual or community to the next. Stories that are personal and emotionally compelling engage more of the brain, and thus are better remembered than simply stating a set of facts,' writes neuroscientist Paul Zak.
Here's a storytelling practice you can try on. Pick an accomplishment of yours and tell it to someone in 60 seconds. Have the listener repeat that accomplishment back to you in 30 seconds; now, offer that accomplishment in 10 seconds. What information were you left with in the final round? The skill to scale up or scale down our communication is incredibly useful if we are to meet the moment we're presently in.
In an unscripted future, our best strategy is to lean into our most human-centered skills: generous listening, collaborative teaming and communication grounded in rich storytelling. But these skills don't just show up. It's essential that we find ways to practice them in order to co-create the scripts we want to see in the world.
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