Lead Story?主要故事
My introduction to the benefits of improvisational leadership was a very personal one. Back in 2001, in the very first year Business Improv became incorporated, my company was hired to run the afternoon sessions of a four-day intensive executive education program being presented by the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. Business Improv had already run many successful programs for MBA students and professors and had gotten great feedback from our participants. This particular program presented a new challenge in that it was the first time we were addressing a group of top-tier executives—sixteen VPs, presidents, and CEOs representing large, well-known companies from all around the country.
我對即興領導的好處的介紹是非常個人化的。早在2001年，即Business Improv成立的第一年，我的公司就被聘請參加杜克大學Fuqua商學院舉辦的為期四天的強化高管教育課程的下午會議。Business Improv已經為MBA學生和教授運行了許多成功的計劃，并獲得了參與者的好評。這個特殊的計劃提出了一個新的挑戰，因為這是我們第一次與一群高層管理人員會面-代表來自全國各地的大型知名公司的16位副總裁，總裁和首席執行官。
We were riding high on the tremendous success of the MBA programs and went into this new one confidently. After our first three hours of workshops on the first of the four-day “Creative Leadership”program, the participants took a dinner break and over the course of their meal decided that Business Improv had failed utterly in providing them with anything useful in either creativity or leadership. These top executives felt that our attempt to blend improvisation techniques with corporate skills was a complete waste of time, and they were not interested in seeing any more of what we had to offer in the remaining three program days to follow.
我們對MBA課程的巨大成功充滿信心，并充滿信心地參加了這一新課程。在為期四天的“創意領導力”計劃的第一個工作坊中，我們進行了前三個小時的培訓后，與會人員共進晚餐，并在用餐過程中決定，Business Improv完全無法為他們提供任何對創造力有用的東西或領導力。這些高管認為，我們將即興技巧與公司技巧相結合的嘗試完全是浪費時間，并且他們對接下來的三個計劃日中看到的我們所提供的更多內容不感興趣。
Their decision was no doubt influenced by a number of factors,including what I would later deduce to be a bit of ageism and some culture clash. I was only 29 and considerably more fresh-faced than I am now. I dressed like a very business-casual improviser in khaki pants and a short-sleeve polo shirt and often played awkwardly with my name-tag lanyard when I talked. To a room of gray-haired corporate titans I may as well have been wearing rainbow suspenders and a propeller beanie. I speculate that to them I didn’t look like I had the experience to lead them to any insight. So at the end of day one—a day ironically themed “Suspension of Judgment”—they simply stopped listening and judged, harshly.
毫無疑問，他們的決定受到許多因素的影響，其中包括我后來推斷為有點老齡化和某些文化沖突的因素。我當時只有29歲，比現在的面孔新鮮得多。我穿著卡其布褲子和一件短袖polo衫時非常隨便的即興演奏，當我講話時，我經常用我的名牌掛繩打尷尬。在一個滿頭白發的企業巨人的房間里，我可能還穿著彩虹吊帶和螺旋槳無檐小便帽。我推測對他們來說，我似乎沒有豐富的經驗來引導他們進行任何見解。因此，在第一天結束時（具有諷刺意味的主題是“審判中止”），他們只是簡單地停止了傾聽和判斷。
?My age and demeanor did?not explain the entirety of the failure though. The course was supposed to begin with an introduction to improv techniques (postponing judgment, loosening of inhibitions, and introducing “Yes, and”) and then gradually, over our four days of workshops, make clear how and why these techniques could be relevant in the workplace. That sort of approach worked perfectly well when I was leading a “team” of MBA students through a program. This audience was very different though,and in not letting them know exactly what we were doing, why we were doing it, and where we were going right from the start, I failed them as a leader.
我的年齡和舉止并沒有解釋失敗的全部原因。該課程本來應該從即興技巧的介紹開始（推遲判斷，放寬禁忌，并引入“是和”），然后在我們為期四天的研討會中逐步弄清這些技巧如何以及為何與之相關。工作場所。當我帶領MBA學生“團隊”通過某個計劃時，這種方法非常有效。但是，這些受眾截然不同，他們沒有讓他們確切地知道我們在做什么，為什么這樣做以及從一開始就在哪里發展，所以我沒有使他們成為領導者。
The morning of the second day of the program my coteacher and? I were fired. Sort of. Rick Staelin, the wise, steady associate dean of executive education at Duke, informed us that Business Improv’s services would no longer be required in the four-day creative leadership program. This was a horrible professional gut punch—the first time I had ever been terminated from a real job. It was an awful feeling that something I had taken so seriously and had put so much effort into could result in rejection. However, I say I was “sort of ” fired because Rick Staelin engaged me in a way that I have come to recognize as a tremendous life-changing moment of leadership.
節目第二天的早晨，我和我的老師被解雇了。有點。杜克大學高管教育的明智，穩定的副院長里克·斯泰林（Rick Staelin）告訴我們，為期四天的創意領導力計劃將不再需要Business Improv的服務。這真是糟糕透頂的職業直覺，這是我第一次被失業。令人感到可怕的是，我如此認真對待并付出大量努力可能會導致拒絕。但是，我說我之所以被“解雇”，是因為里克·斯泰林（Rick Staelin）以一種我已經認識到的巨大改變領導生命的方式與我互動。
Instead of instructing us to pack our bags and get the hell out of the lovely R. David Thomas Center on the Duke campus, Rick told my coteacher and me to stay. He informed us that we would be paid for our time at the rate we had agreed on in our contract with Fuqua,and instead of facing the C-levels again we were to spend the next three days rethinking and revamping and redesigning our program.
里克沒有指示我們收拾行裝，從杜克大學校園里可愛的R. David Thomas中心下地獄，而是??告訴我的老師和我留下。他告訴我們，我們將按照與Fuqua簽訂的合同中約定的時間來支付我們的時間，我們不花錢再面對C級員工，而是要在接下來的三天中重新考慮，改進和重新設計我們的計劃。
We were grateful for that chance to redeem ourselves and consequently worked our tails off over those next three days. We gutted the program,transforming every aspect of it—from preprogram communication to dress attire to our language to our exercises and course materials to our learning outcomes and business links to our wrap-up discussions—and ending up with an immensely improved program that is still the basis for all our multiday executive education intensives. Rick met with us on the final day to talk through the changes, and what resulted was?a new program for Duke Exec Ed: a three-day, Business Improv intensive called “The Workshop in Managerial Improvisation.”
我們很高興能有這個機會來贖回自己，因此在接下來的三天里竭盡全力。我們對程序進行了徹底的修改，從預程序溝通到著裝，語言到練習，課程材料，學習成果以及與業務總結的業務聯系，都進行了徹底的改進，最終改進了程序仍然是我們所有全日制高管教育密集型課程的基礎。瑞克在最后一天與我們會面，討論了這些變更，結果為Duke Exec Ed提供了一個新計劃：為期三天的商業即興培訓密集課程，稱為“管理即興研討會”。
More than just influencing the content of our program, this experience was a huge lesson to me in the power of positive failure—a lesson made possible by Rick’s improvisational approach to his own leadership role. On a strictly strategic level we had not delivered to his “customers” what we had promised, and he had every right to send us packing without pay. Rick was thoughtful though and saw enough potential in what we were doing to take a small risk and invest some time and money in us. He provided us an opportunity to fail and challenged us to learn from that failure. We answered that call to action.
不僅僅是影響我們計劃的內容，這種經歷對我來說是一次積極失敗的巨大教訓-里克（Rick）對他自己的領導角色的即興方法使這一教訓成為可能。在嚴格的戰略層面上，我們沒有將我們所承諾的交付給他的“客戶”，他有權將無償包裝寄給我們。不過，瑞克（Rick）考慮周到，并在我們所做的事情中看到了足夠的潛力，可以冒險并在我們身上投入一些時間和金錢。他為我們提供了失敗的機會，并挑戰我們從失敗中學習。我們回答了號召性用語。
We created a much better program on every level and completely redefined my company’s (and my personal) mission. The real kicker came a year later when one of the executives who had watched us die our long, painful “Creative Leadership” death returned to Fuqua for one of our three-day, Managerial Improv intensives and ended up raving about how much he had learned in those three days.
我們在每個級別上創建了一個更好的程序，并完全重新定義了我公司（以及我的個人）的使命。真正的踢球發生在一年后，當時一位看著我們去世的高管死于我們痛苦而漫長的“創意領導力”之死，回到了富夸，這是我們為期三天的管理即興知識密集型課程之一，并最終對他學到了多少東西贊不絕口在那三天內。
My point is that it took enlightened, improvisational leadership to turn a rough failure into an eventual success. Our terminated pro?gram was Business Improv’s very first step into executive education,and if we had been summarily dismissed by Rick I’d say the chances of my company’s going on to become what it has become would sit somewhere between nil and no way. Because of Rick’s leadership in that moment of crisis, not only has Business Improv had a chance to thrive; we’ve also been able to maintain one of our strongest, longest?lasting academic partnerships. Today, as a leader of my own business,I endeavor to create the same opportunities for the people I work with that Rick created for me.
我的觀點是，開明的，即興的領導才能將粗略的失敗轉化為最終的成功。我們終止的計劃是Business Improv邁入高管教育的第一步，如果我們被Rick暫時解雇，我想說我公司繼續發展的機會將介于零之間，絕不可能。由于在危機時刻里克（Rick）的領導下，Business Improv（商業改進）不僅有成長的機會，而且我們還能夠維持我們最強大，最長久的學術合作伙伴關系之一。今天，作為我自己企業的領導者，我努力為與Rick為我創建的人一起創造同樣的機會。
