In this episode, Katie talks with CRR Global faculty member Chris Howell about the improvisation in relationship. Across the conversation, they discuss:
Chris Howell is an experienced team and leadership coach known for his energetic presence, empathy and engaging style. His understanding of systems emerged through his experience in designing information technology and managing change in organizations. He always focused on the people and relationships in the system. His awareness of Psychology, NLP and Organisation Development helps him to make the connections between heart, mind and all levels of emotional intelligence within the human system. Chris now facilitates leadership development and accredited coach training as well as coaching executives and teams for international corporates. He has supported people and teams across a wide range of industries, including finance, manufacturing, technology, pharmaceutical, government, construction, and non-profit. He uses a wide range of well-recognized assessment tools that help people to see more deeply who they are in their relationships. He is passionate at supporting community and non-profit organizations. He founded a community organization in a deprived area of South-East London which continues to support members of the local community to express their voice. He has also supported leadership development for teenagers in the same community, helping them find purpose, confidence and who they are as leaders. Chris continues to enjoy learning about relationship based in Kent on the South coast of the UK.
For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to build stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time
We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity to nature, to the larger whole.
In this episode, Katie talks with CRR Global faculty member Chris Howell about the improvisation in relationship. Across the conversation, they discuss:
Chris Howell is an experienced team and leadership coach known for his energetic presence, empathy and engaging style. His understanding of systems emerged through his experience in designing information technology and managing change in organizations. He always focused on the people and relationships in the system. His awareness of Psychology, NLP and Organisation Development helps him to make the connections between heart, mind and all levels of emotional intelligence within the human system. Chris now facilitates leadership development and accredited coach training as well as coaching executives and teams for international corporates. He has supported people and teams across a wide range of industries, including finance, manufacturing, technology, pharmaceutical, government, construction, and non-profit. He uses a wide range of well-recognized assessment tools that help people to see more deeply who they are in their relationships. He is passionate at supporting community and non-profit organizations. He founded a community organization in a deprived area of South-East London which continues to support members of the local community to express their voice. He has also supported leadership development for teenagers in the same community, helping them find purpose, confidence and who they are as leaders. Chris continues to enjoy learning about relationship based in Kent on the South coast of the UK.
For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to build stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time
We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity to nature, to the larger whole.
Key
KC – Katie Churchman
CH - Chris Howell
[Intro 00:00 – 00:06]
KC – Hello and welcome back to the Relationship Matters podcast. We believe relationship matters, from humanity, to nature, to the larger whole. I’m your host, Katie Churchman, and in this episode I’m talking with CRR Global faculty member Chris Howell about improvisation in relationship. Across this conversation we discuss a range of topics including the golden rule of improvisation and how it applies to relationships; the benefits of improvisation for system’s coaches; how the ORSC tools and techniques can help us to embrace an improviser mindset; the benefits of an improviser mindset when co-coaching and co-leading; and the importance of a ‘yes, and’ mindset in leadership, love and life. Chris Howell is an experienced team and leadership coach known for his energetic presence, empathy and engaging style. His understanding of systems emerged through his experience in designing information technology and managing change in organizations. He always focuses on the people and relationships in the system. His awareness of psychology, NLP and organizational development helps him to make the connections between heart, mind and all levels of emotional intelligence within the human system. Chris now facilitates leadership development programs and coach training courses as well as coaching executives and teams for international corporations. Chris is passionate at supporting community and non-profit organizations. He founded a community organization in a deprived area of South-East London which continues to support members of the local community to express their voice. He has also supported leadership development for teenagers in the same community, helping them find purpose, confidence and who they are as leaders. Chris continues to enjoy learning about relationship based in Kent on the South coast of the UK. So, without further ado I bring you, Chris Howell talking about improvisation in relationships.
KC – Hello Chris, welcome to the Relationship Matters podcast. I am so excited to have you on the show today.
CH – I’m excited to be here Katie, thank you.
KC – And we’ve got a wonderful topic today – improvisation in relationship. I wonder if we can start by talking about, well firstly, what is improvisation? What does that mean to you?
CH – Yeah, well I think it comes out of, I first heard it listening to the Comedy Players on radio and how they were using improv as the way that they were coming up with lots of different ideas, and I had over the years opportunity to actually go and do it myself, there are groups and people who run this sort of thing for fun, and the key rule in improvisation comedy is that it’s called the ‘yes, and’ rule, which means that anything that the other person says, you basically say yes, you accept everything that they, accept it as being true, as being right, and then you add to it, so there’s ‘yes, and’ then there’s this.
KC – And so I’m curious then, why improvisation and relationship. Or we’ve called this improvisation in relationship, why do you feel that’s so important?
CH – Well that’s a beautiful question and I think for me those two words are just so powerful. I think about the first word and what you’re doing there with the first word, what it implies, well the first thing is that your listening to the other person, you need to listen if you’re going to accept what they say and then add to it, you need to listen to what they’re saying. So, what you’re doing there by listening to them is you’re hearing the person, what they’re contributing, you’re acknowledging what they’re contributing, you’re valuing what they’re contributing and through doing all that you’re acknowledging them as a person. So, their presence and what they’re bringing, you’re including them in what’s happening in the process just by yes to what they have contributed. And all of these things, some of these things are basic human needs of needing to feel that you exist, that importance of feeling acknowledged, that what you contribute is of value, that sense of being included rather than excluded. So, all of these things are just the basic things with that word yes by hitting some of our basic fundamental human needs, so I just feel that is so powerful. And then the listening we’re just increasing just by doing this we’re increasing and developing our skill of listening, listening in relationship with the other person, and by doing that listening we’re really respecting the other person, all of this acknowledging of their contribution and valuing, we’re respecting who they are and where they come from through doing that. Then the ‘and’ that we bring in, that then emphasizes that inclusivity, that including everything that they’ve said, including them and their contribution in what it is that we say. That’s fascinating then, the and bit, because we can add something to what they say and it could be something that continues the same idea further along a journey or it could be something that we bring in and go in a completely different direction, adding in other ideas to what’s been said before and then you can end up, and I love this thing about when you bring in things that are very different, like this is sort of where creativity comes from, you talk to anybody who writes a play or writes a book, especially people who, I mean I’ve done some research into people doing comedy and how they do it, what’s the structure, the thinking, the mindset to do comedy. The essential bit is bringing in two very different ideas and then working out how they can be connected. And this is sort of exactly what you’re doing in improvisation, it creates that creativity and it loops in, there’s some neuroscience behind this as well which is like hedonic, which says ‘what fires together wires together’. So you’ve got two different parts of the brain which may be having very different ideas, which fire at the same time with these two paradoxically, mutually exclusive (apparently) ideas, and then because of this the brain starts to connect these together and the way that you find for the brain to connect, this is where the sort of creativity comes from. The brain being so amazing that it's this quantum engine in your head that comes up with these ideas that we wouldn’t be able to think of previously. And this is all happening in relationship, all happening out of relationship. In ORSC we talk about the third entity, and so what we’re saying, those two words ‘yes, and’, we’re just manifesting the creativity, we’re manifesting the third entity through this improvisation process.
KC –I love where you’re pointing us to, the magic of this. It goes way beyond the language of ‘yes, and’. I remember years ago when I started to learn this in my acting training, people told me that this isn’t just a language, it’s a way of being. So, you can’t just say ‘yes and I think you’re wrong’ because that’s not a ‘yes, and’ attitude or mindset, it’s a real way of being and I think it can be so invaluable to us, well yes as coaches but as human beings in general.
CH – Yes, I love that, that’s exactly, for me that’s part of why it’s so resonant with us as human beings that valuing each other and then how can we add to what the other person has said. And it’s like you say, if you say ‘well I’m disagreeing with what you say and I’m adding something that disagrees with you’ - that’s not the mindset. The ‘yes, and’ mindset is about everything is connected and that’s like a presupposition of that statement, that everything is connected and that everything we then say is building a pot and because it presupposes that connection and when we’re doing it we’re looking to see some sort of or explore some sort of connection, just the fact that we’re doing that, that openness to a connection between the two, and if they are very different ideas or we go in a different direction then it creates that sense of that paradox. It has been called a creative tension or a dissonance in psychology, there’s actually a theory about that, that the fact that the two ideas might be different creates this energy where we seek, our brains seek to find the connection or to connect the two or to make it up and then that’s what then brings that magic in.
KC – Yeah, and it’s amazing to think that so often we’re putting up those blockers, that ‘yes, but’ mindset is probably getting in the way of all of these incredible moments of creativity and I think what really struck me was when I learn that actually you don’t have to say anything at all to embrace this ‘yes, and’ mindset and how can I bring that as a coach or a leader to my work and to my life, just by being there with a ‘yes, and’ stance.
CH – Yeah. And I think, certainly for us as relationship systems coaches, when we’re working with systems to inspire them with this idea of having that ‘yes, and’ mindset. In ORSC we’ve got this thing we call the one-del which is the everyone is right partially. And I think ‘yes, and’ is actually like the practical manifestation of that. When we say ‘yes, and’ we’re saying yes you are right, you have a rightness and we accept what you’re saying, and we are right too, I am right too, and so I’m adding in my rightness. Obviously in the improvisation, the comedy, you take turns in doing that ‘yes, and’ and it builds, and you can do the same in teams, it’s even more exciting in teams when you get that story passing on from one to the other, doing that ‘yes, and’ through the team. It’s just amazing and wonderful. Because we don’t know what’s happening and obviously, as we’ve said, it’s not coming through either one person’s idea or another, the ideas that have been generated are coming out of our third entity, they’re coming out of our relationship, and because they’re coming out of relationship nobody can anticipate what’s going to happen, we don’t know what the outcome is, we don’t know what’s going to happen next. And it’s coming out of that, the relationship, and so we can manifest the essence, that sense of reality of the third entity through, and we talk about different levels of reality, it’s through… it’s like it is the dreaming layer of the third entity as we’re coming up with these new ideas and it’s emerging from the energy within the third entity so that energy that we create as we use the yes and, and at the to and fro of the conversation, there’s an energy that’s produced in our connection. You know, we’re building rapport as we do that, we’re working on how we’re collaborating, we’re building trust as we work together in this. And there’s an essence level, there’s an energy of connection that happens between us as we do that, that trust builds up and as we get more confidence in that trust through the creative process, that’s where we start to try more, to be more imaginative, to have more and different ideas and actually that’s a hugely rewarding and fulfilling process. People who go and do this improv just find it so much fun and as coaches when we’re working with systems it’s a positivity tool that we can bring to the systems for them to be able to find this connection, find a way of collaborating at those sort of dreaming and essence levels of reality.
KC – It makes me realize how often we’re blocking this, this magic or this power that we have in relationship. If we think about our work, so often we can get stuck with our assumptions or expectations about what we expect the system to show up with.
CH – Yes, when you are in the flow of it you sort of do have to let go attachment to your idea, so you have to go with the flow in some way and yet there’s still a connection with your idea in the sense that where you’re coming up from, you’re coming from yourself. These ideas are coming out of you somewhere, in your resources and your entity, your own entity, and we’re into that space of where we let go of attachment to something, that we’re in that space with the potential of the third entity as where we can go together. One of the things about it is it reminds me, we have a tool in ORSC called Our Lands Work where we go and visit each person’s lands and then we create the third land called our land which is the us land, and that’s what I sort of sense with where ‘yes, and’ goes as it evolves, that you start off in each person’s lands and you may have some sort of an attachment to what your idea or you want your idea to be, but as you start to build that connection and that empathy and that trust, then as you continue with that process you get into this our land, you create this new space which neither of the parties or none of the parties in the team would initially had any sense of.
KC – Yeah, that’s such a good point. At the beginning we’re almost in that shopping list of ideas and you can see that in certain conversations where people are just talking at each other and it’s this and that and this and that, and actually what the ‘yes, and’ mindset encourages us to do, and the third entity with that, is the building a chain of ideas together, it’s that collaboration, and I think that is so powerful because now we’re in a very different space together, we’re not just in our own little boxes trying to prove ourselves right. We’re working together to find… I guess this is in many ways a tool for alignment - that just struck me.
CH – Yeah. It is. You’re creating that our land and our land is that space of alignment. And you mentioned about alignment, so alignment in ORSC is a process for coming from a place potentially of conflict, obviously different positions, and then finding something in common and through finding something in common we take the problem or issue out of the relationship so that we can design around a way to go in the future, an aligned path to follow in the future. And, so I think the beauty of the ‘yes, and’ process, and as a way of resolving, I would use the word conflict but I mean like different perspective or different ideas, differences of point of view between people, it’s like, I mean first of all to be able to do it you need to have some sort of trust and rapport and sense of what you’re doing, and also the desire to have some fun and to create something. It is such an enjoyable process, it’s just such a fun thing to do, where you find there’s a connection with somebody and you create something together. Just as you say, you mentioned that it’s about relationship, it is relationship, because you are, it is relationship in the sense that - I mean I work a lot coaching in organizations and with leaders particularly, and leadership is quite often this balance, you have to find this right balance between task and relationship. And one of the things about task, and it probably relates to that part of the brain we call task mode network which is very structured, so you have that structure part of your brain and then you have the part where you can organize your time and everything’s very precise, it follows a process. But then we have what we call the default mode network or the relationship, you can never necessarily predict what’s going to happen in a relationship. And this is the challenge for leaders to be able to strike this balance between predicting what’s going to happen and controlling it and then letting go so that you can be there with the people where you don’t have control and you have, maybe, influence where you’re looking for that control. And this yes and, it’s in that space of not having control of improvising with what’s happening in the moment. And like you said earlier, it gives you that sense of mindset of finding people right and accepting them for who they are as human beings and then adding something and being able to handle what’s happening in the moment. And even for us as coaches, like you mentioned about this, us as coaches, about how we are, the stance we’re taking when we’re working with a system.
KC – That’s so fascinating about how we can use this as a way to help relationships find alignment and it makes me think of what we say - alignment we hold is always available but not always accessed. And this isn’t about agreement necessarily, and I know the language of ‘yes, and’, it makes it seem like we’re always agreeing, but actually it’s aligning so we can move forward together and what a powerful strategy for leadership, love and life I would say because so often we’re not in alignment. We’re in different spaces trying to fight our corner, hold our ground around something and turning away from relationship, I would say.
CH – Yeah, it’s interesting because you’re touching on quite a lot of what’s happening in the world at the moment. I read an article about artificial intelligence, talking about how, the thoughts in that were how you’ve got this process going on of drawing people away from that time of being in relationship with others and developing the skills of being in relationship. You know, first we had television and people spent hours watching that, then there were computers, then there’s the internet and now we have artificial intelligence. I’m hearing about these stories about you know you’ve got your push button friend on your mobile. Any time you want someone to talk to you push a button and you’ve got your friendly chat bot to speak too. There’s something a little bit scary about that because working in organizations now, a lot of people have that that sense of wanting things to happen immediately, especially when you’re talking about relationships, this is not how it works, you’ve got to go through that process and especially when people do things that you’re not expecting and then how do you work with that? How do you work with somebody who’s got a different perspective? And then if you haven’t got the skills there like the emotional intelligence to manage that, have that sense of patience and be ok in the discomfort, there are skills there that we’re losing as a society and that ‘yes, and’ is something that can help in a fun way to bring that, to represent what’s needed in relationship, that sort of valuing, acknowledging, accepting, and adding our own perspective so that you’ve got multiple perspectives represented.
KC – Yeah. In so many ways this helps us hold all of the principles and I’m starting to realize that both improvisation helps us as ORSC coaches but also improvisation seems to live within the ORSC material. And I wonder, let’s start firstly with how you feel improvisation can help us as systems coaches, because I know you do a lot of this work, you’re also a front of the room leader, so how does improvisation help us to do what we do?
CH – Well I’d say one of the places I use it most actually is as a front of the room leader because we co-lead, so it’s always in the design with a co-lead that we’re always bringing in that sense of that ‘yes, and’ in the way that we work together. Because co-leads quite often have different ideas of how the course could happen or what could happen at any particular point or even some different ideas about some of the concepts, some of the ideas in ORSC, and so the ‘yes, and’ allows us to represent and to lead through that third entity and finding each other right in every moment. And then adding on, so there’s a breadth and a range to our delivery. And it works the same when you’re co-coaching for a system, to create that third entity and funny enough when you’re co-coaching with a system it’s even more important, I’ve found, to have that ‘yes, and’, because on an ORSC course you can predict the sort of, you’ve got an agenda and a timeline and you know more or less where you’re going, with a team, with a system you never know what’s going to happen next and so it’s even more important to have that ‘yes, and’ with your co-coach and have a sense of that with the system as well. To be able to hold them right and to be able to hold them in the space of that ‘yes, and’ with each other, work with them.
KC – I think that’s such a good point around how this is so powerful in co-coaching and co-leading and I think it’s a magical experience to co-coach or co-lead with someone that actually you don’t get on with that well, they’re not someone that you’d be friends with and yet you can have this magical third entity experience together that the room also feel, and that’s taught me so much in my life. Obviously Lori’s work, Lori Shook, created alchemy, she talks a lot about how you can use this for parenting as well and partnerships, and you can see how all of those differences actually that divide us, when we use this we can come together in different ways.
CH – Yeah, absolutely, I love that. I use the idea in my personal relationship as well but I think it’s a super idea to bring this into personal relationships. Personal as in personal intimate relationships but also relationships at work with colleagues, so that idea of respecting each other, I’ve always had this sense of relationship where relationship is at its fullest when both individuals or all individuals are fully present and engaged in the relationship. When you accept someone, particularly in a personal relationship, it’s accepting the whole of them, even the bits that they, that maybe we don’t get on with or don’t like and we have this idea from Gottman’s work that there’s about 69% or something percentage-wise of issues or differences between you are perpetual differences. How do you work with that? If you’re using ‘yes, and’ then you can use that in a creative way, ‘there’s that idea, yeah, and there’s this idea too’. I use that with my partner, we have enormous fun I have to say when we have a disagreement as to how we are having a disagreement, and some of these disagreements can be completely hilarious because we’re improvising on what’s happening and we’re having ideas to find a way of what’s coming out. One of the things that this most important, like in work I talk about this balance between task and relationship for leaders, but actually in ORSC one of the things that I think is so valuable about what we do is recognizing that any sort of problems can be resolved when you’re in right relationship with somebody. This ‘yes, and’ keeps you in that space really enjoying, just really enjoying being in relationship with somebody, and then once you’ve got that it builds that acknowledgement, that trust, that rapport, that sense of collaboration and it gets you into that creative mindset space where almost anything is possible and then any challenge you’re faced with you can find the answer.
KC – I’m so glad you brought in personal relationships too because I think that’s where this can be so beneficial. Because in many ways in our most intimate relationships we tend to end up with fixed ideas about people, I know who this person is, we’ve been together now for 30/40 years and in my own life for example, I notice I can bring more of a ‘yes, but’ with my mother and I absolutely adore my mother – she’s amazing – and sometimes I can assume, so we were talking on the phone, I can just assume what she’s going to say. And either I’m showing up with the energy of yes but almost like I’m trying to get her off the phone, or what I actually say comes with that attitude of yes but and it’s a block, and that’s not just blocking her, it’s also blocking me actually seeing what she’s bringing in that moment and it’s such a gift, I think, to see people as they are in that moment and I think anyone that’s moved to another country and created new friends at a certain age, I moved to America in my 20s, and it was really glorious for people to meet me as I was at that age as opposed to people knowing me from really young and I think if we really embrace this we get to meet people as they are in that moment, not because of who they were.
CH – Yeah, absolutely. I love that because what was coming out to me as you were mentioning that about when we meet people that sometimes we have this pre-judgement about a situation, especially, you know, I have this issue with my brothers who still see me as the teenager, and I think they’ve got no idea what it is that I do now, so it’s interesting when we go, especially going back to family systems and all of a sudden you’re the son or the daughter or the youngest son or the youngest daughter or the oldest and you have your position in the family and everybody expects you to behave in a certain way and there’s that judgement there, and I love that idea, how you’re describing when you use this improvisation, it takes you into what’s happening in the moment and you sort of need to let go of everything that’s sort of attached you to the past or judgements or frames so that you can be there and that allows you to be in that flow of creativity with this other person, and when you get into it in the fullest and the energy that comes up, it’s just such a wonderful experience. I think that’s – it’s the experience of fulfilment in relationship, when you feel really connected with somebody, where you feel really acknowledged, where you’re sharing a contribution that’s equally valued and you’re creating something new that represents the best of the both of you in your relationship.
KC – Yeah. And in some ways we have to work harder with the people that we love and know the most because there is a bit of that autopilot, like I know this person now, and of course you do and sometimes it can be that we treat them the worst! Our clients might get this lovely improviser mindset version of you and yet we go home and it’s like ‘oh hi love, yeah, how are you doing’, very ‘yes, but’, it’s not present and it’s not embracing the principles. I think really the improviser mindset does encourage us to embrace all of them.
CH – Yeah, and I hear the resonance of coaching in what you say because trying to coach somebody you know or in a situation or issue, with issues that you’re familiar with or an expert in can be super difficult. I did in the early days try to coach my family and I had some very interesting experiences of being able to let go of my own thing about that previous relationship that I had with them. I was coaching my relationship between my mum and my dad and after an hour I sort of thought I’d got somewhere with them and then my mum said did you get what you wanted and I realized that all the way through she’d been trying to please me, trying to do the right thing for me. I love my mum, God bless her, maybe coaching wasn’t the right, I’m not the right person, maybe, to give her coaching in that way.
KC – Yeah. It is fascinating isn’t it, how suddenly we can feel more alive in our relationships, these relationships that might have gone just a bit stale or a bit meh, suddenly you start to see them in new and exciting ways because systems are in a constant state of emergence, and I think of all of the principles perhaps this is the one that the improviser mindset encourages us to embrace the most because we’re not stuck, we’re not fixed, we’re constantly evolving and that can be terrifying sometimes but I also find it quite exciting to live in that space.
CH – Yeah. I think that sort of excitement when we’re teaching the ORSC courses or leading the ORSC courses, it is that sort of sense of excitement that sometimes gets a little bit, you know we talk about it as maybe a sense of discomforts sometimes when you’re working with a system, that the system can emerge and almost anything can happen, and you don’t necessarily know what’s going to emerge. We have this metaskill of being in the lion’s roar which is when the system’s emerging a little bit too quickly, maybe in a surprising direction, it’s the feeling that the coach needs to be able to stand in to be able to hold the system as it’s emerging and you could call it exciting, it could go even further than that, but it’s certainly what we call an edge for a coach sometimes to be able to hold that. It’s certainly one of my edges as a coach.
KC – Yeah. And yet when we really think about it, we’re improvising all of the time. Whenever I use an improvisation exercise in a workshop, often you say the word improvisation and people get scared, they think about their drama class from secondary school and there’s that ‘oh god, I’m going to have to do some role play’, and actually, we’re making everything up all of the time, unless we’re reading a script we’re always improvising. Life is always a dance, we have our expectations and then life will throw something unexpected, a surprise. I think that’s quite interesting to come back too, when we think this might feel scary and new it’s actually very much who we are and how we live.
CH – Yeah, although, I hear you say that. See, the thing is with that is we’re dreaming stuff up all the time. I totally agree with you, life is an improvisation, we never actually know what’s gonna happen next, and our brains, we’ve evolved to be able to anticipate. We dream stuff up. We make plans or we anticipate, we’re trying to anticipate all of the time. So, we’re dreaming stuff up. So, what we’re sort of living in a way is we’re living in our dream and comparing what’s happening in the world with our dream. But I think the wonderful thing about improvisation is it says well if you let go a little bit about this dream, about what the anticipated thing might be, oh what fun it could be! If you open up the possibilities, let go of some of these expectations and be open to what’s emerging and happening in the moment.
KC – That’s great, so there’s these two players, there’s you and your dreams and then there’s life and you can either ‘yes, but’ life and it might be quite uncomfortable and feel quite unfair, or you can ‘yes, and’ all of the surprises that show up along the way.
CH – Yeah. Absolutely. And it’s interesting, I just saw you had this, you actually held your hands up on either side and said there’s dreaming and then there’s life and I was very interested because that’s a ‘yes, and’ isn’t it? It’s like well life is but a dream, I think there was a song around that, and to bring the two together. Yet the dream can also separate us from life. I’m a fan of movies, I’ll put my hand up and say that, I love reading books and yet these things like this, the film, the story in the movie often takes us away from that sense of reality, the idea that it’s predictable in some way, that somehow the outcome’s going to be ok because someone’s worked out a story for us, that they’re taking us through. So we aspire to our dreams, there’s so many things about become your dream and work towards your dream, we even talk about it in ORSC with the levels of reality and how we work with dreaming and dreaming things up and manifesting our dreams, and yet there’s something about which aspect that that balance between what is life and what is dream and how the two work together.
KC – Yeah and recognizing that dreams are fluid not fixed. Because we may have this wonderful dream or it may be a dream that’s been given to us and we don’t even realize that we’ve inherited this dream and how that can then have some dissonance and tension then with our experience, our reality, and I think ‘yes, and’ is just such a useful approach for us to hold yeah, fun moments, but also some of the challenges too because life isn’t always giggles and laughs, sometimes it can be really hard. I think ‘yes, and’ probably is very powerful in those moments too.
CH – Yeah. I love that. It’s interesting you talk about the world inheritance, in terms of our culture, our mindset, even our biology. I studied a little of evolutionary psychology and it fascinates me how we evolve as human beings that we think there’s a physical evolution. But the physical evolution is dependent upon who survives, who’s offspring survives is what that’s sort of based on, from Darwin. And the idea then that that’s related to behavior as well. So how we behave, the fact that we walk across the Savanah and got food by hunting in packs allowed us to develop the idea of organizing and communicating and emotions even evolved through that, in how we can tell if somebody’s a friend or a foe, whether they’re going to collaborate with somebody. And so all of that inherited biology. Also our bodies are in fact like a memory of our history, and when we talk about doing this creativity that’s ‘yes, and’, there’s the previous history of all of our biology from our ancestors but also then our own lifetime and the memories that we’ve had within our lifetime, so there’s many layers of different memories and behaviors that have come into us that are prompting this creativity which also gives us scope to it of course and that’s where doing it in relationship is so much better, because when you do it in relationship and create that creativity in relationship, you’re not just limited to your own ancestors, you’re bringing in somebody else's in as well who may have had a different stream, a different thread come through their ancestry. So, there’s huge amounts of fascinating land to explore in all of this.
KC – Yeah, and it strikes me that that this is so useful for meeting the system where it’s at and that might be simply our system, waking up with a slightly different body from yesterday and actually realizing that maybe we’re not as young or we’re not as agile or we’re not as sharp as we were 5, 10, 15 years ago, and that’s ok, but often I think we’re holding on to expectations and this is really a practice in mindfulness, being present, being in the moment, being with the system as it unfolds. And what it makes me realize is that this is already there and I think that’s what’s so comforting about relationship, and Sunchitza actually said this on another podcast, that relationship can be an anchor for us to come back to. Like the breath, it’s always there, it’s not something that we have to try to find, it’s there, we just have to keep coming back to it and I think that’s really comforting to realize that if we lose it which we will, over and over, every single day, we can keep coming back to relationship.
CH – Yeah. And like you say, it’s that sense that it’s there and coming back to it is like a choice, to keep it, it is that we talk about that ‘yes, and’, it’s that even if you’ve had some sort of an interruption in the flow of the relationship, holding it as a ‘yes, and’, coming back to it and the and bit is what’s next? It’s this there’s more and there’s something else and we can add to what we’ve had of our experience. There was a big learning for me about commitment in relationship, just the fact that being committed to the relationship and regardless of what happens, obviously there are things that happen, you get hurt and then, this coming back, it’s learning how to do the repairs as we call them. To have the conflict, accept the conflict and be able to do the repairs. It’s like this research that I heard about very long-term successful relationships, like 60 years plus and they did the research to find out what was the miraculous factor that kept these relationships going and healthy, and the surprising thing that came out was the most, the longest, happiest, successful relationship was corelated with the highest levels of conflict…
KC – That’s interesting.
CH – Which was not what you’d imagine. And it was just that they had the conflict but then they had the repair bits very quickly and it was that. I think that’s the thing, relationship mastery, having that, we talk about the improvisation, that’s the window we’re looking at this through, but it brings that, it says yes and let’s repair, yes there’s a conflict and we can put this right.
KC – Yeah. It’s not a ‘yes, but’ we’ve been doing this for 10 years now what a waste of time, it’s turning towards and keeping on turning towards throughout.
CH – Yes. I love this conversation, Katie.
KC – Me too Chris, thank you for ‘yes, and’-ing me so skillfully throughout this beautiful dance. I feel there’s so much more to discuss around this topic, you’ve opened up many doors for me so thank you.
CH – Oh thank you, and yeah, thank you, who’d have thought, two words, ‘yes, and’ could bring so much and mean so much.
KC – Well on that note Chris, thank you so much and I’ll speak to you soon, take care.
[Music outro begins 41:27]
KC – A huge thanks to Chris for co-creating that conversation around improvisation in relationship. Here are my key takeaways. Yes and is a rule of thumb in improvisational comedy and it’s not simply about the language we use, yes and is a way of being that can help us to turn towards relationship in our lives. By bringing an attitude of yes and we also embrace the golden rule of ORSC – that everyone is right partially. In order to bring a yes and attitude we first have to listen to the other person. We have to hear and recognize what they are contributing and acknowledge them as a person. With that word yes we hit some of our fundamental human needs, so in it’s most basic form improvisation can help us to listen better in our relationships as it stops us from pre-empting and assuming that we know who the other person is and what they’ll bring. Through improvisation we can create a new space from two different ideas or perspectives. It’s a third entity or an our land that encompasses the best of both. Improvisation can help us to stand in the principles or relationships systems intelligence and be present with what is unfolding in front of us. It’s a skillset that helps us to meet a system, whether that be our bodies, a partner or a team, where it is at, and helps us to keep turning towards relationship over and over again. For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time. CRR Global’s unshakeable belief is that relationship matters, from humanity to nature to the larger whole.
[Music outro 43:41 – end]