Few tricks of trade from the performing arts for entrepreneurial MBAs!

Businessmen thrive on exposure and so do actors! While improvisation, acting and comedy do not have much to do in business, but they can still inspire innovation in the trade. After all, CEOs are no short of stage actors... imagine keeping a straight blank face in hilarious interviews and board meetings or negotiating patient deals with arrogant clients!

Business is all about theatrics, you need to make a grand entry and a graceful exit with crisp timing to help save your name. So, learn from the master stage performers about managing creativity while in keeping with the bottom line.

Here are the few ways you can learn to do so:

Say yes to yes:

This is a rule of thumb when it comes to improv, when performers do not adhere to it; it practically guarantees that they will be doomed from the very beginning.

Never contradict ideas as they ruin the flow of improv and stunt the creative juices from flowing. Instead keep saying yes, like the improvisational actors and help colleagues expand on their ideas. This collaborative spirit is the very foundation of innovation when it comes to business. When a team member has an idea that seems a bit off in the beginning, do not immediately rush to say no, instead we recommend you help shape it into something more useable.

Learn to play the opposition:

The main thing that helps to make a movie or a play seem more interesting comes from a concept dubbed as ‘subtext’.

Imagine a scene where George and Sarah are actors in the scene. George walks into Sarah’s apartment –

Sarah: Hi George, please take a seat

George: Oh Thanks!

But what if the actor playing George took a seat much before Sarah could invite him to do so. Then Sarah’s invitation to sit will get a sarcastic tone. This will then create a completely different and more interesting dynamic in the scene.

Wondering how actors and directors create these off beaten path choices? The secret is that they have perfected the art of examining the opposite! And as an entrepreneur you must learn to do the same.

So, the next time you are inclined to take a decision, stop for a second and consider what would happen if you did the opposite of what you were naturally inclined to do. This may not make much sense most of the time, but at times it does lead to massive breakthroughs.

Imagine that in your company you are struggling to grow your sales team. Try thinking about the opposite and imagine what would happen if you not only stopped hiring, but also completely eliminated the entire department itself.

While that may not be an option, asking such out-of-the-box questions will lead you to be significantly more efficient by combining technology with outsourcing and action with the help of your existing in-house team which you would not have considered otherwise.

Lend an ear before you react:

A popular name in the world of acting of the 20^th Century is Sanford Meisner. Meisner believed that the secret to great acting is reacting, or in proverbial terms “to be in the moment”. You should not be thinking about what to say next, and should instead really listen to the words. More importantly, one must listen to the non-verbal nuanced cues as Meisner himself counselled.

There are meetings where people are only a pair of dead eyes and deaf ears, where they constantly keep thinking about what to say next; when instead they should be feeding off of each other’s energies and ideas. Listening with a keen ear to what their colleagues are saying and not spend time pre-planning their responses, this will lead to astonishingly creative reactions and better innovation.

Learn to ask the right questions:

May-a-times when an actor is trying to get into the essence of the character, the most important part of the job is to ask the right questions. Such questions will help to stimulate the creative choices and allow the actor to understand the motivation behind the character. But the truth is, it is often more difficult to find the right questions than the right answers.

Sometimes companies face issues with working-capital, because their customers did not pay on time. They spend their time wondering how to make their customers pay on-time, which is an extremely limiting line of thought that is focussed solely on the present clients. A much better question is – “How can we find customers who will make advanced payments?” By changing the question, people get to see the situation more clearly and shift their thought process into a new and more profitable line of commerce.

The taming of the...mind!

In the performing arts, people tend to be more in touch with their bodies which allows them to make more creative decisions. Sometimes an actor feels that they should move around the stage in a certain scene, when the stage directions ask them to be static completely. But they often ignore the feeling and do not overanalyse the situation. They trust their impulses and lead, which often result in completely new ideas about the play they are performing.

Likewise in business as well, bodily awareness can be highly beneficial. Corporate giants like Ford, Target, Google and Adobe have all embraced this phenomenon to boost their creativity. Taking a break from thinking proactively and instead lending an ear to listen to what impulses we have inside may often set the stage for a more creative output.

Hope the above mentioned tricks of trade help to bring out your company from behind the curtains and into the spotlight for maximum success. Set your stage with the right pace of innovation and bring out the best in your players.

As for your post-MBA future, all we can say is break a leg!