Improv Doesn’t Mean Don't Plan
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
A recent keynote I delivered went well, if I do say so myself, and I do. The crowd was energized and engaged, the client was pleased, and even my husband and business partner at Mopco, Michael Burns, said I nailed it.
But I knew something no one else did: they had put up the wrong deck. By slide three, I realized the slides I was presenting from were an old draft, without any of the updates and customizations I had sent along.
Cue: A flex in the moment
The good news is that I was able to flex, and play a sort of Powerpoint Karaoke game of “I wonder what slide comes next!” and succeed in looking smooth and speaking “successfully.” But had I been a little more vigilant, this mistake could easily have been avoided. I wasn’t irresponsible — I had checked in with the tech folks, did a sound check, reviewed my slides again myself. But I also approached the session with a relaxed confidence that might have benefited from just a drop of worrying more about what might go wrong.
Sometimes, people think that improv is the opposite of planning — and to some extent that’s true. We exercise our capacity to be present in the moment and co-create without working on a set script.
We work on adapting to the unexpected and releasing our ideas of how the scenes we’re in should go. But, when at our best, this doesn’t mean we are unprepared.
Like athletes we need to strengthen our muscles and build individual and collective skills that serve us, even if we don’t know exactly how the game will flow.
Not everything in a good improv show needs to be improvised: the intros to our games and formats, for example, benefit from scripts that serve the audience. Cleaning the theatre, running the opening music and light cues, are all things we can and should prepare and do consistently.
When the Best Laid Plans Don’t Include… A Blackout
Sometimes, we need to improvise with our structured production values, too. One of my favorite improv shows was a night of a format I created, Spontaneous Broadway, that was done in the dark with flashlights when the power in our city went out. But, when we approach the technical, scripted parts of our shows with too little planning, and too much improvisation, we undermine ourselves.
I should have checked the deck. Perhaps if I’d had a little less faith that I could deal in the moment with whatever, I would have. Or perhaps just giving myself a checklist, rather than trusting I’ll remember everything important, would have helped.
It’s an interesting polarity to surf.
When we coach speakers, we often help them to reduce their anxiety and nerves by working on their confidence to adapt in the moment. When we train improvisers we do work on letting go of pre-planned ideas. And, like any good tool, improv is not the only (or always best) way to get to success. When there is a right way that is known and can be prepared for, why not give oneself the best odds of having things go that way?
To quote former U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Plans are worthless, but planning, is everything.”