Thinking Upside Down
Improvisation grew out of the realization that theater and music could happen without a script or score. Actors realized that with collaboration, they did not have to be bound to the convention of another person’s form or ideas. To further that concept, improvisers strive to use “the third idea.” That means never going for the obvious—but instead using ideas or angles that no one expects. If the first thing that pops into your head is expected, the second thing will probably be more interesting. To push the envelope, improvisers strive to use the third idea, and not what the audience would expect. Reverse your assumptions and take the least-likely approach. Avoid hitting the audience over the head with the obvious. If they shout out “Potato chips!” as the suggestion for a scene, the last thing a good improviser would do is sit down and pantomime crunching on chips. Now if they suddenly start playing poker or chopping down a tree, there’s a lot more room for something interesting to happen, and for potato chips to show up later in a completely surprising, and hopefully hilarious way.
One of the most impressive attributes of creative innovators is their ability to look at things differently. They think backward and upside down, often to amazing results. That tenacity to challenge the status quo, look beyond the obvious, and think differently is something that can be improved and learned over time. In this chapter, we’ll explore a few aspects of thinking upside down that come directly from improvisation: thinking differently, justification, and creative constraint.
Thinking differently and challenging the status quo is one of the most important improvisational principles. One of my favorite examples of turning conventional thinking on its head is occurring not in a corporation or school, but in a prison in New Hampshire. The New Hampshire Department of Corrections has a mission statement, as do all state prison systems: “We treat all employees, offenders and the public with fairness, honesty, and dignity, while recognizing individual diversity.” That sounds very promising, but our perception, and many of the news stories that come out of prison systems, certainly don’t seem to be about dignity and fairness. But this prison system is different. It actually strives to reach its mission, and one county’s prison system even achieves its goal.
Rick Van Wickler is the warden at Cheshire County Correctional Facility in New Hampshire. When he took over in 1993, the prison was bogged down in a massive corruption scandal that resulted in a murder-suicide committed by the last warden. Van Wickler spent the next 13 years visiting prisons around the country, picking and choosing components of the models he saw while also developing something completely new. He started to ask himself, what if we treat the prisoners like employees? What if we treat corrections officers as not just enforcers of the law, but as colleagues of the offenders? Van Wickler designed a different type of incarceration experience, and it has paid off.
Van Wickler’s model altered the motto of the American Correctional Association, “Care, Custody, and Control,” to “Care, Custody, and Management.” When I interviewed Van Wickler, he talked about helping people change, by changing for them.
He also decided to put limits on the amount of punishment any one person would have to endure; even the highest level of confinement within his prison (lock down for 23 hours a day) comes with a time limit of 15 days.
Remember the discussion in chapter 2 about how to prepare the right environment for innovative success? This is exactly what Van Wickler did. First, the prison has no fences, no barbed wire. He wanted to integrate the prison into the community in the best way possible. In a 2014 interview with Vice magazine, Van Wickler explained, “Nobody wants a jail in their neighborhood, and we didn’t want to make it obvious. Most people don’t even know it’s a jail. They think it’s a school” (Morin 2014). He also wanted to alleviate the suffering of families and children who came to visit inmates, so the visitor lobby is bright and clean with inmate artwork hanging on the walls. Language plays another major role in creating a better environment. Inmates and officers refer to each other as “Ms.” or “Mr.” instead of “Inmate” and “Officer.”
These foundational, up-front changes allowed Van Wickler to create a completely new atmosphere in the prison system, with lower rates of recidivism and violence. Van Wickler has also never had an escapee. He does his research: Inmates are classified by the type of crime they commit as well as their behavior reports. Each offender’s level of freedom (while limited) is tailored to past behavior. This evaluation pays off in exponentially higher levels of compliance with rules and expectations.
The inmates are constantly supervised, but not through a double-sided mirror or a watchtower. Officers share space with the inmates and interact with them constantly, not just during inspections or roll call. Officers do bed and room checks, but when they “toss” a room (the act of completely taking a room apart to check for weapons, drugs, and so forth), they put it back the way they found it. The inmates note this as one of the most rare and surprising aspects of life in the facility. It fosters an environment of mutual respect that has a profound impact on the culture of the prison.
There’s another reason why this culture of respect is so meaningful. Across the United States lack of respect in offices and warehouses results in lower retention rates and worse. Employees report higher numbers of sick days and lower job satisfaction when they do not feel respected (Prather n.d.). Management experts Christine Porath and Christine Pearson (2013) wrote in the Harvard Business Review that employees who are on the receiving end of incivility and disrespect report decreased quality of work, a decline in performance, and decrease in work effort. In a prison environment, lack of respect to prisoners can lead to violence not only against fellow inmates, but also against officers. The mutual environment of respect fostered in the Cheshire County Correctional Facility protects everyone and creates an environment of safety.
One inmate commented, “Here they’re teaching us to be respectful of ourselves and one another, which of course, a lot of us need to learn.” Mutual respect is so difficult in even the most ideal work environment, and Van Wickler is building a new type of incarceration program: one that results in less violence, fewer escapes, and a better working environment for prison employees. By turning every stereotype we have about prisons on its head, he’s building a new way for every prison to reconsider incarceration.
In improv, we have a million ideas. When we get a suggestion from the audience, it can look like a Black Friday rush to the front of the stage there are so many ensemble members dying to leverage their ideas. Many times, two improvisers start doing something at the same time, even though they are not sure what the other might be doing. Two people, with two different ideas, suddenly find themselves in one scene together, and they have to make it work. Often, one of the actors will justify, or adjust, what they are doing.
Justification in improv is different than justification in life. When you justify something in life, it usually means you are proving a point, giving the motive or facts behind a situation to show why you are right or your actions were reasonable. In improv, it’s all about making dichotomous situations work together. An improviser might be doing something, not knowing a totally different thing is going on at the other end of the stage, only to turn around and realize he suddenly has to make what he thought was rowing a boat look like sweeping a floor to make the scene work.
One of the most brilliant moments of justification I’ve seen was in a tiny show in a no-name black box theater in Chicago. The suggestion from the audience had been “construction.” The first actor onstage chose the obvious and started applying mortar to bricks with a back and forth hand movement, as if he were using a trowel to slather on the mortar, then kept stacking the blocks. Unbeknownst to him, another ensemble member was doing the same back and forth hand movement next to him. He looked over at her, as she stacked her imaginary bricks together, then suddenly she took a big bite, taking her scene partner by surprise. She had been smoothing mayo on a sandwich, not stacking bricks!
He immediately justified the scene and his larger movements by asking to borrow her knife, using it to slather something on the top of his “wall,” then picking up what we originally thought was a wall of bricks and taking a bite of his huge sandwich! The audience just went wild. Yet there was more to come. As they looked at each other, chewing their gigantic bites, the woman double-justified and said, “Nothing like a mortar in the morning!” So, although we thought it was only sandwiches, she let him justify her eating and she justified his concrete and bricks. Her scene partner immediately agreed and asked if he could pour her a nice cup of concrete. She accepted, and they went on to create a really funny scene about giants who ate bricks, mortar, concrete, tile flooring, and lumber, and saved sheetrock for dessert.
When innovators see something they did not expect and have to justify how it will work, they usually discover new possibilities. Have you ever played Pass the Pen? In that game, a common object is passed around a circle and everyone has to come up with a different use or explanation for the object. In the case of a common pen, it can be a pen, but it can also be a jar opener if you use it to wedge under the lid, or a tiny spear you throw, a little baton to twirl, a limbo stick for a Barbie doll, and on and on. The players keep justifying the object’s many different possibilities.
Two examples from business history stand out as justifications: Avon and Wrigley. In both instances, the original founders set out to sell something completely different. In 1886 David H. McConnell set out to sell books door-to-door. However, because he usually spoke to a woman of the household, he began to offer small free bottles of perfume as an enticement. Those women became far more interested in the perfume than the books, and McConnell realized he needed to start selling more cosmetics. One remnant of McConnell’s start is still evident, however; Avon is a global brand that built its success on door-to-door and in-home sales.
Not much later, William Wrigley Jr. tried to launch his baking powder and soap company. The freebie was a stick of gum. No one wanted the soap, but everyone wanted the gum.
You may think these are simple, obvious examples. But don’t underestimate the tenacity of the mind. Two examples of innovations in the scientific world are practically the inverse of each other when we consider justification.
The first, anesthesia, reads like a centuries-old game of Pass the Pen. Performing surgery has always been a problem, due to the terrible pain and recovery it inflicts. But humankind also has a very long history of using substances recreationally for their drug-induced effects. So, ancient scientists began tinkering with drugs. The Sumerians used opium as a painkiller as far back as the third century B.C., the Chinese recorded intoxicating people to perform surgeries, and the use of inhaled narcotics can be traced back to the Persians.
Doctors and scientists were constantly trying to figure out how to deal with pain. But it was accidental observations and justifications that led to some of the most important outcomes in this arena. Believe it or not, there was an inhalant party culture in the Victorian era. In the 1800s, people were fully aware of the effects of ether and nitrous oxide—they made you feel drunk and funny, so they were used for “ether frolics” and “laughing parties.” However, modern pain management was born when Horace Wells attended an exhibit in 1844 and saw a man injure his leg under the influence of laughing gas. The punch drunk subject reported he felt no pain, so Wells used the substance on himself to test the theory. In this case, the doctors followed the partiers and found a justification for the use of ether and nitrous oxide.
The reverse proved true for LSD. Swiss scientist Albert Hofmann spent many years experimenting with the capabilities of compounds derived from the fungus ergot. One compound was called LSD-25, and garnered little to no interest from the scientific community, so Hofmann shelved it for several years. When he took it out again, he accidentally ingested some of the compound. He began to feel strange, and during his bike ride home experienced wild and colorful visions. He had discovered one of the most powerful psychotropic drugs of our time, and the term psychedelic would forever mean kaleidoscope-like visions and experiences.
He wanted the drug to remain the territory of the medical psychiatric community. But, that sort of trip was not going to stay a secret. Where a scientist saw medical use, the populace justified another form of recreation. LSD became incredibly popular as a recreational drug in the 1960s. Hofmann hated that fact, and referred to the drug thereafter as his “problem child.” This time the partiers followed the scientist, and justified his discovery as a mind-blowing new way to experience visions and the psychedelic landscape. That drug culture is credited with some of the most innovative music, literature, poetry, and art of the 20th century.
Justification, in the improvisational sense, is an innovative behavior. Something that looks wrong or off to the rest of the world, looks like something new to an innovator. What you intended to be one thing doesn’t fit the current situation, so most people figure it can’t work and throw it out the window. But innovators continue to ask, “How can this work?” or “How can I apply this differently?”
“I refuse to be intimidated by reality anymore. What is reality? Nothing but a collective hunch.”
—Lily Tomlin
Where do great ideas come from? Many of us imagine creativity comes from an environment of boundless possibility—no rules or restrictions. We also have a stereotype of “creatives”—they work in cool studios rather than office buildings, wear jeans instead of suits, play table tennis most of the day, and are filled with endless creative solutions. And yes, there is a section in this book on the importance of environment and how openness can influence creativity. But remember our initial argument about innovation? It has dichotomous aspects, as does creativity.
Why should creativity be the province of a totally open environment or a certain type of person? We falsely think that if our world or profession is constrained, we cannot enjoy wild creativity. That just isn’t the case. There are many benefits to boundaries when working creatively, and honestly, so many innovations came about because of boundaries. Something couldn’t be done a certain way due to boundaries, so an innovator came up with a creative solution.
It sounds counterintuitive, but boundaries can actually boost creativity. Think about procrastination—deadlines are often the single factor that ensures projects get done. As Dave Gray (2005), author and blogger, commented, “Creativity is driven by constraints. When we have limited resources—even when the limits are artificial—creative thinking is enhanced. That’s because the fewer resources you have, the more you are forced to rely on your ingenuity.”
When there are no boundaries, the possibilities may seem too large. Almost everyone has been faced with the terror of the endless blank page when writer’s block sets in, or a project with no clear scope and no idea where to start. When there are no boundaries, the possibilities may seem too large. Boundaries don’t simply provide swim lanes for definition; they create issues that must be overcome. Puzzles challenge the mind and when constraints create blockades, the brain kicks into overdrive.
That’s why some of the greatest art and innovation has come from a situation of constraint. The fewer resources you have, the more you must rely on your ingenuity—creative thinking is enhanced when all the obvious options are off the table. As author and strategist Adam Richardson (2013) discussed in the Harvard Business Review, “Constraints have a Goldilocks quality: too many and you will indeed suffocate in stale thinking, too few and you risk a rambling vision quest. The key to spurring creativity isn’t the removal of all constraints … you should impose those constraints that move you toward clarity of purpose.”
One incredible example of the tenacity to keep trying options in an extreme environment of constraint happened in 1970 during the Apollo 13 lunar mission. The launch was successful, but a fault from inside the space module caused an explosion that turned the exploration into a test for survival for the crew. Due to damage caused by the explosion, the astronauts were forced to stay in the lunar module. However, the lunar module wasn’t built to house that many men, and the carbon dioxide they exhaled began to build up in the module. On the ground, an engineering team had to figure out a way to clean the air with only the equipment on board and very little time. It was the unbelievable constraints and the pressure of lives at risk that drove them to a totally unexpected solution. They figured out a way for the command module’s square air cleaners to be used in the lunar module’s round receivers. Who says a square peg can’t fit in a round hole?
Improvisation provides a perfect template for constrained creativity. Improvisational performers have none of the common tools of theater—such as a script, props, or costumes—that would be the open and unedited side of the equation. The blank stage is the blank canvas. However, improvisers also have to follow important rules: Every contribution must be accepted and used, you cannot deny anything that happens onstage, and you must integrate and acknowledge the contributions of the audience (which are often difficult and contradictory). While “improv” seems to imply the absence of constraints, most scenes are based around suggestions from the audience. This is what makes improv so enjoyable and creative. Yet within all these constraints, improvisers find the most creative outcomes. Improvisational performers see the dearth of resources as a golden opportunity rather than a problem. By adhering to these boundaries, improvisers know they can be wildly creative in other ways.
As a matter of fact, many professions that are seen from the outside as extremely constrained are peopled by the highly creative. Attorneys and software developers work within extreme boundaries and the most successful are often those who are most creative despite the limitations of their fields.
So how does this apply to you, your work, and your efforts to learn more innovative behaviors? Here’s one example: My company was once tasked to stretch the thinking, strategy, and creativity of the distribution leadership team of one of the largest retailers in the United States. We found that the executives were often lazy in their brainstorming. This was around 2003-2004, and they had gigantic budgets, huge numbers of employees, and seemingly endless resources. You would think that with that surplus, anything would be possible. On the contrary, they seemed to care very little for innovation because the entire enterprise was fat and happy.
In our practice exercises, we imposed ridiculous boundaries of time and money and demanded high-level outcomes. We called it the Ultimate Challenge. For example, we asked them to light an entire warehouse with only one light bulb, $5 for supplies, and two hours of work. Or we asked them to take a high school juvenile delinquent and make her able to run a new division of their company in 48 hours or less, with a $100 budget. I finally saw them lean in, work hard, and come up with a few startling ideas—but only because they were forced to.
When constraint becomes mandatory, we suddenly have to recalibrate how we work. The economic downturn in 2008 forced us to realize that business will never, ever be conducted in the same way again. We must be more innovative, leaner, faster, and smarter. Companies have started collaborating with former competitors, building unforeseen relationships with their clients through social media, and creating products that are better, yet cheaper. They’ve discovered creative ways to address unexpected constraints.
I’ve used the Ultimate Challenge many times with lower level and far more creative teams than the C-level executives in 2004. One of my favorite solutions ever came from a group in a healthcare company. When faced with the challenge to light the warehouse with so few resources, they took me at my word. They used their $5 to buy a box of matches and set the warehouse on fire. When I laughed in delight and surprise at their solution, they simply fired back, “You told us to light it!”
Rather than being frustrated by compliance, legal, or financial issues, embrace them. Ask the people who impose the boundaries to join your next brainstorming session—what new ideas do they have?
When a situation seems too hard, too locked down, and surrounded by boundaries, think like an improviser. At the same time, be open to boundless possibility. Sounds like a dichotomy? It is; that’s why truly innovative individuals, teams, and organizations are so flexible. They sense the tension and embrace it. They try different tactics, invite open-minded thinkers, and see boundaries as creative catalysts. And oh yes, they improvise.
In many of the stories and examples in this book, we discussed outliers; people, teams, and organizations who went against the status quo, saw things differently, and innovated. The question for the future is, “Why are they unusual?”
Why can’t innovative and collaborative behaviors be more common? There are myriad reasons why society, education, religion, and hierarchy lock us down. But those realities are changing, albeit slowly. The future could be one in which our behaviors are radically different, and our rate of innovation accelerates exponentially. The Hole in the Wall Project is one example where that exponential innovation is happening.
Sugata Mitra, professor of educational technology at Newcastle University, decided to think upside down and conduct a radical experiment. Up to this point, education has been based on a rote memory and “tell to teach” model originating around the Victorian British Empire—teach thousands of people to learn specific skills and repeat them without question.
In 1999, he placed a working, connected, English-language computer in a slum in India; one of the most constrained places on earth, where education and literacy rates are very low and every person lives in poverty. It was installed low to the ground, so that children could see and access it. He told the children it was a computer and without further information, left. He never explained or taught them anything, so they had to justify the appearance of something new in their world. What was it, and how could they use it?
The children’s natural curiosity took over, and when Mitra and a colleague returned eight hours later, the children were browsing the Internet. That seemed impossible, so the colleague suggested that a programmer from the nearby computer school had taught the children to browse. Mitra wanted to find out. He went 300 miles away to a remote, poverty-stricken village where there was no English and installed another English-language computer in the same way. When Mitra returned two months later, he was astounded; the children had taught themselves English, used the computer daily, and asked for “a faster processor and a better mouse.”
He expanded his experiment by placing computers in remote villages where there was zero computer literacy or English, and added another wrinkle. He wanted to make success an impossibility and disprove his own experiment. He loaded a computer with college-level information about the biotechnology of DNA in English, and asked the children to learn it.
When he returned two months later, the six- to 12-year-old children in the village had gone from a 0 percent understanding of DNA biology to a 30 percent understanding of college-level concepts. As of 2015, Mitra’s experiments in education have expanded to schools all over the globe. His data have determined that children, when left alone with a computer and one another, can reach the same standard of language and computer usage as a Western secretary in nine months.
And he keeps thinking upside down! His most recent wrinkle in the experiment is the “granny cloud.” Teachers, grandmothers, and other volunteers connect virtually with children in villages across the world to offer encouragement. They don’t teach or tell, instead they ask questions, compliment the children on their smarts, stand back, and watch with awe and encouragement. That additional level of support made the children’s achievements spike exponentially.
Isn’t that the definition of improvisation? We supply a compelling idea or question, give it to a group that is collaborative and playful, and stand back, applaud, and watch what is created with amazement. It is exactly like the collaborative, improvisational nature of the children who access the computers. This incredible innovation in education is changing the way these children behave—not only toward one another, but also toward the world.
Mitra envisions a future where classrooms are collaborative spaces and tests are experiences where groups of kids interact with one another and their resources, both online and off, to come up with interesting answers to problems. He sees education being a mix of interaction and encouragement, group exploration, and self-driven curiosity.
If we are going to truly innovate, it is our responsibility to look around at our world. What institutions and expectations are we preserving that are smacking the creativity out of the next generation? We must prepare a better environment, say “yes, and,” think upside down, and play. Our future depends on it.
Michele DeStefano was frustrated. Her work as a legal professor at University of Miami and affiliated faculty at Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession demanded that she prepare her students and retrain practicing lawyers for a changing world of global issues and technology. She knew law students and lawyers needed to be able to collaborate, innovate, and improvise in a world of constantly changing legal realities. The problem was that traditional in-person law school or CLE (continuing legal education) did nothing to develop the collaborative skills needed by the lawyers of the future. Current legal education, and legal practice for that matter, stymies creative and collaborative behaviors. They are ridden with hierarchies (based on rank, expertise, and title), barriers to entry, and staid ways of training and learning. Think of some of the worst stereotypes of the legal industry today: They are rigidly hierarchical, risk-averse to a fault, noninclusive, and competitive to a point that shuts down collaboration even within the same firm.
“I was looking everywhere for options for my students,” DeStefano recalls. “At first, I tried to expand their perspective from within traditional courses to show them a different way to work. But that didn’t do it. As I slowly found like-minded people, who were not always attorneys, it struck me: I could build a completely different approach to how we train and upskill lawyers and how we change the future of the legal industry.”
The legal industry needs to improvise!
There was no question in DeStefano’s mind that 21st-century attorneys would require a completely new and fresh approach to training, innovating, and community building. She began to think upside down and saw an approach that was utterly counterintuitive to the protective, risk-averse culture of the legal industry. Constraints are everywhere in the law, but this only inspired DeStefano. “Sometimes, when I started to explain my ideas, people would just shut me down,” she explained. “I kept hearing, ‘But that won’t work for our firm,’ or ‘That’s not how legal education is supposed to work,’ but for every one of those, I began to find people who were as frustrated as I was and really excited about this opportunity.”
The first time I spoke to DeStefano in early 2013, she had already built the foundation of LawWithoutWalls (LWOW), an interdisciplinary teaming community to explore and solve the biggest problems in global law today, and train 21st-century skills in the process. “I think lawyers need to be out of their comfort zone—we need to understand how to improvise,” she laughed over the phone. “And not be terrified of the idea!”
My company collaborated with LWOW to bring the behaviors and messages of improvisation to this cutting-edge venture. One of the main reasons we collaborated to bring improv to the LWOW culture was because DeStefano didn’t stop with attorneys. True to form, she wanted the experience to be more than training or mentoring. Because so much of the legal industry is about looking backward, she wanted to think upside down and look forward. In addition to attorneys, law students, and law professors, she partnered with technologists, venture capitalists, and business executives. We worked with this diverse group to help them institute the behaviors of improvisation. They practiced saying “yes, and,” preparing a positive environment, playing, focusing, and thinking upside down.
This set of behaviors was critical because LWOW participants have to create a project of worth, which is the focus of a four-month collaborative project. Every year in January, law students, professors, attorneys, legal entrepreneurs, legal service providers, technologists, venture capitalists, and a diverse collection of interested people converge to discuss issues, build teams in person, and participate in a mini-hackathon. (To borrow a term from computer programming, a hackathon is an event where many participants gather to do collaborative programming.) After this kickoff, the teams spend the next four months interacting virtually across the globe to solve a substantive legal issue—a project of worth. That’s the point of all the teaming and collaborating and moving outside one’s comfort zone. It’s to be equipped to solve all the issues that are keeping the legal industry in a state of stress and decay!
The virtual work is fantastic. Once the groups identify their projects, they begin collaborating every week. A law student in China will videoconference with her team, which consists of a lawyer in England, a professor in the United States, perhaps three other students in South America, and a technologist in Germany. In addition, DeStefano hosts a virtual classroom every week featuring technologists serving the legal industry, or futurists who are writing about the next century, or a venture capitalist who understands what works and what doesn’t in business. The platform allows everyone to interact in real time with audio and video, see the speakers, come on camera to ask questions, post articles for reference, and so much more. The walls of distance, region, and language are torn down so that these unexpected groups can improvise together.
In April, everyone reconvenes at ConPosium. The students, along with two mentors (the team leaders), present their solutions, receive suggestions and feedback, and have the opportunity to grow professionally, personally, and intellectually. And sometimes, their solutions are so interesting, they receive funding from the technology and venture capitalists who also attend the meeting.
For example, Advocat was an idea born of the issues lawyers deal with in attempting to protect and represent their minor clients during immigration trials. Minors are often deported by choice because they are scared and alone and do not trust the system. The technology in Advocat is a revolutionary, multilingual interface for minor immigrant detainees and their advocates, which uses gamification to build trust and explain and safeguard the best interests of the child. It helps the children understand what is happening, and gives their advocates the best information to represent them.
“I couldn’t believe the support and excitement that poured out for our project,” said one of the students involved in the project. “I learned more in four months than I have throughout my entire law school experience, and I feel like I’m making a difference. This legal issue, for vulnerable minors, made me anxious and frustrated. And we’re already seeing positive outcomes; it’s been incredible.”
WhiteHatters (now incorporated under Fissure Security Limited) increases cybersecurity protection and builds awareness against targeted phishing attacks through simulation and deconstruction learning. From their partnership at ConPosium, they are currently meeting with multiple law firms who are beginning to beta test their product.
Enterprises, law firms, and universities such as Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Spotify, Bupa, Ricoh, Barclays, Harvard Law School, University of St. Gallen, IE University, Legal Zoom, Eversheds, Pinsent Masons, and King & Wood Mallesons have sponsored LWOW. And some have hired Michele and her team to lead internal programs based on the LWOW model to create learning and teaming projects for their employees.
As exciting as ConPosium can be, DeStefano is quick to remind people, “Although a few projects have been brought to market and LWOW has inspired some participants to become startups, the real value (and mission of) LWOW is to change mindsets and behavior. Over time, the experience of leading a global team in a project of worth helps these legal professionals and students to hone the skills of future leaders and complex collaborative problem solvers. LWOW creates a vehicle to connect those interested in changing the law market to work together to solve real issues through technology, collaboration, innovation, and improvisation.”
Get your team engaged and out of its normal work frame of mind. Let individuals discover how critical it is to use their own strengths to help their teams. This activity moves participants from relying solely on themselves to relying on their teams. Words fly back and forth, the challenge becomes more difficult, and teams realize they can’t go it alone.
1. Arrange your group into two or more teams. Give each group paper and a pencil, and have them nominate a scribe.
2. Have the group choose a three-letter word; for example, dog
3. Each team has two minutes to come up with as many different phrases or sentences following the letters in the word.
Example: Denise Owns Gardens. Dragons Only Growl. Don’t Out Grow.
4. Repeat words are NOT allowed.
Example: Dragons Only Growl. Dragons Only Grow. Dragons Only Grump.
Only one of those sentences counts. The phrases must make sense.
5. Let the teams work for two minutes, then count their phrases to determine the winner of the first round.
6. Ask them how they worked. Very often, you’ll hear that one person did all the writing, several people came up with phrases, and sometimes a person or two didn’t participate at all. Sometimes they laugh and say something like, “Samia did all the work! I just had to offer support.” Invariably, individuals usually contribute entire three-word phrases.
7. Second Round: Use a five-letter word. You’ll see a bit more collaboration on this one, and the list may be shorter.
8. Third Round: Use an unexpectedly long word, like your company name. Especially if it’s Nationally Recognized Engineers. Remind the teams that every entry has to make sense as a sentence or phrase.
You’ll find that people can work alone on the short words. As they get longer, the whole team pitches in, trying to build cohesive sentences in two minutes. Greater challenge demands greater involvement. When the going gets tough, you need your team.
It’s a Wednesday afternoon and Improvisation looks out at the city below from the 30th floor of the FlipPhysics headquarters. He nervously adjusts his tie, thinking that while he’s never worn one before, he really liked the feeling of strength he got when he’d looked in the mirror that morning. When Innovation walks in the room, he gasps with surprise at her hiking boots, messy hair, and huge smile. They’ve been planning this day for months but he still can’t believe it is happening. He and Innovation are about to make a big announcement.
