Episode 28: On Team Development Through Improv (with Joel Silverstone)

Good day, friends, and welcome back to another episode of Weirdos in the Workplace, where we discuss how authenticity, transparency, passion, and purpose leads to more visionary organizations. I'm your host, Erin Patchell, and today I have a very special guest with us, my new friend, Joel Silverstone. Welcome to the podcast, Joel.

Thank you, Erin, and thank you for— I've moved up to the status of new friend, so I appreciate that. Thank you.

Oh, absolutely. And, and soon friend, I think. And, and colleague.

And colleague. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we, when you go from colleague to being a friend, that's, that's like a, that's, that's a, a game changer. 'Cause that means that it, when we're not working, we can still reach out to each other and say hi.

Oh, then we're already friends.

All right. Perfect.

Perfect. Okay. So everyone, um, Joel, I'll, I'll introduce Joel in a minute, but first I'll ask Joel, what are we talking about today?

We're talking about improvisation, and it does— improvisation doesn't mean about being funny. Improvisation means a way to think differently in how we work and how we connect with others.

Amazing. And I have a lot to say about this topic too, so stay tuned, everybody. All right, everyone. Let's meet Joel Silverstone. With a playbook honed over 2 decades across the globe, Joel supports individual talents to become synergistic dream teams through the art of stellar communication, empathy, and interpersonal influence. What you might not know about Joel is that he is also a Second City Advanced Conservatory alumni and has been a performer instructor with improv troupes Theater Schmieder, Back Alley Players. He's taught film, TV, and improv acting across the country and in the United States and uses a lot of the techniques to break down different barriers, like develop trust and communication and innovation in teams. And so, Joel, thank you so much for joining me today.

Well, my new friend Erin, thank you for having me on the show. And this is something where you and I have— we found something in common. As soon as we said the word improv, it triggered something with us, and we've developed this bond over that. So this is— I'm really looking forward to having this discussion and sharing with everyone Some of the ideas about how improv can help them in their work and in the way that they communicate and help them with their leadership as well.

Fabulous. Well, I know you and I met at Disrupt HR just a few months ago. It feels like— how long has it been now? When was that? June?

It feels like another season. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. Why is it— has it only been like 3, 4 months? It feels like it was a lifetime ago now. But yeah, so meeting you at Disrupt HR was a real highlight for me because You just have such a calming presence. You're obviously a very talented and interesting person. But then talking to you about how we can integrate kind of like this— I want to say fun, but improvisation isn't always fun, but it becomes more fun as you practice it, right?

Yeah, you really got that. So well, like we we really complement each other, Aaron. You you bring the insight and the you have this authority. You have this voice of authority. I don't know if anyone's ever given you this feedback, but when you speak, it's like oh, Aaron's speaking. Everyone let's listen. And and I noticed that when you were doing your disrupt speech as well. And and this ties in with with you know what we're going to talk about today as well because sometimes we're not sure how to demonstrate our authority, and we get into the trap sometimes of being a boss. And and I like. said about improvisation. It is fun, and we want to bring that element. But it's also learning a little bit more about yourself and how to be yourself in different situations.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I think I said this in a previous podcast, but I feel it's relevant here. It's like, I really feel like that we aren't necessarily the person who we become by accident. We get to know ourselves better when we become really intentional about who we are and how we're developing and what we want in life. Yeah. So I don't think we accidentally become who we're supposed to be. I think we do that through intention. And I think improv is actually a huge piece of this puzzle. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm looking forward to discussing this.

Yeah. So let's do it. Tell me how you got into this space.

You know, I want to say I got into acting and improvisation was a part of it. I always was. or always have been an actor, starting, you know, as a little Joel. So like little Archie, little Joel, I was always an actor. And then when I was maybe 13 or so, my mom put me in an improv group, which actually wasn't really an improv group. It was for teens, and it was run by social workers.

Hey!

So they— what they did is they used improv activities for us to be able to share what we were dealing with at the time. And what was the aha about that? And, and I continue to bring that into, into workshops here is that that's the idea of improv isn't about being funny, because here the topics we were talking about, you know, drugs, alcohol, pregnancy, sex, all those kinds of topics that we're dealing with, peer pressure, were, you know, are generally not funny. As I laugh about them as I say it. Yeah, that uncomfortable laugh. But that was the aha that improv is about, kind of what you just said, which is about learning about yourself. And when we're put into this situation of there's an audience in front of us, and we can't really hide, and we have to say what's going to come instinctively to us. And this is what I love. This ties me into one of the first rules of improv, which is your first thought, best thought, first thought, best thought. And when we start to trust our instincts of our first thought, best thought, interesting things start to happen. It's not about being Perfect, but it's about taking the steps towards getting there and maybe discovering I never realized that until I said it out loud. And that's that's basically what happened in these workshops. So from there, I continued the journey with improvisation with in being in Montreal with a group called Theater Schmieder, which you know such a great name, and it was so much fun. We do improv on the weekends in in different bars, and then that led me to Vancouver where I was doing improv with the Back Alley Players, which was in downtown Vancouver. And then led me to Toronto where I became a member of the, uh, or took the Second City, Second City, uh, master program, conservatory program. And we did, uh, performances there on Sunday nights or Monday nights, something like that, at Second City. Uh, and then bringing this world of improvisation now into, into corporate training. So there we go. There's the— I'll leave that with you, Aaron. That's a lot. There's the world of improvisation in 3 minutes.

You didn't tell me though, why?

Yeah, that's a good point. I never really thought about the why, except for that, I guess I had fun doing it. So did I have fun doing the social work one? Not so much. But I did enjoy the performance aspect of it. So I did enjoy getting up on stage and seeing what would come next, the camaraderie that happens with the other improvers. And yeah, and basically I do enjoy, you know, even though I said it's not about being funny, I do enjoy having fun and I do enjoy laughing. So I do enjoy that part of it.

Okay, that's good. I mean, you've been doing this for, I mean, quite a while. When 13 years old, we're not gonna age you or anything, but it's been at least a couple decades. Yeah, we'll say.

Something like that, yeah.

Something like that.

Yeah.

And then corporate training, how does that integrate?

Well, whatever we do, we get stuck. And so one of the things about bringing it into, into the training was how do we get unstuck? How do we change up the way that we think? And improv is— and this takes me back to, like, specifically, I could think back to, uh, doing some work with, um, A very difficult audience, and they were coming for a 4-day in-person customer service training. So, Erin, even as I say that, you know, 4 days in person, I, I, yeah, eyes start to roll. I'm outta here.

Yeah.

Uh, so people are already arriving that attitude. On top of that, these people on average had already been doing customer service for 20 years. They were in a unionized environment. There was 50 of them coming to the training. Um, and their job was changing. They were basically, their job was basically being demoted. And they were in an environment on top of that where they often dealt with a lot of verbal threats and, and, and even physical threats, uh, often. So there's a high-stress environment. So it'd be crazy to go, hey, let's do— why don't we bring some improv into these extra activities? But the beauty of, of that is that, like I said, it's changing your thinking. Because when you come to a training, what you really want is you want to learn a little bit more about yourself and what can I learn about myself that I can actually use and use from this training? And improv is that, which is some of the activities we're going to do changes the way that you might see things, hear things, react to things, and forces you to look at things from a different perspective.

Absolutely. Yeah. And it's reciprocal. You know, it really is, or has the potential to be.

Absolutely. It really— well, the same way that it created a bond with us as we talked about some of the values within improvisation, it goes within the culture. And Erin, I'll turn it over to you for a second here because I know you also bring a background and some experience with the world of improv because this was a passion idea of yours to bring this into the corporate world.

It has been, yeah. It was when I was working with the federal government, probably about 3 years ago, that it kind of struck me like a bolt of lightning that we have folks who— all of the challenges that I was seeing with the different teams, with their leaders, the sometimes lack of trust or distrust even, the conflict, the—

Yeah.

...intellectual nature of the roles a lot of the time where everyone's sort of living up in their heads, kind of very academic in a lot of different departments, and really needing to get brought down back. And also this culture where it's like a highly governed culture, lots of red tape, everyone knows that. But what people don't always know is that Like, it creates this culture where it's like a culture of perfectionism. Right? And so I was seeing this, I'm like, what tools, what, you know, solutions could we develop? And it literally, like, like I said, a bolt of lightning. Improv, you know, gets people out of their comfort zones, helps us get back into our bodies, builds, you know, we're learning to use our instincts again, like our gut instincts.

Yeah.

We're building trust between people because we have to when we're in Improv relationship, there's no room for perfectionism. There's no room for— we want to make each other look good. It's a positive relationship. It's not like a competitive relationship. So anyways, and that hearkens back to when I was 13 years old, because I think I was— I think it was 13, actually. When he said 13, I'm like, pretty sure I was 13 too. When I was introduced to improv in Carlton Place, where I grew up, and it was called Imaginix, the program that I did. And it was like a summer day camp kind of program. And I had what we call now selective mutism. Back then, you were really shy, but we know selective mutism is actually on the anxiety spectrum. So I had a very high social anxiety. I barely ever talked outside of my house.

Wow.

I had almost zero friends. I basically had one friend. Maybe 2 friends who I would actually feel comfortable talking to. And then I went into this improv workshop, and it literally changed my life because it gave me an environment where I felt safe enough to talk, to say what was on my mind, to be able to begin to learn how to communicate. And that was a lot of it for me because I didn't understand the social rules, right?

Right.

And so improv helps you build your framework for learning social rules in a safe environment. And I think that there's a lot of folks who can really benefit from that and teams. And I just lost them, honestly. That's where I started. I started— I mean, people look at me now and you're like, you have such authority, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, I literally didn't pretty much talk for like the first 11, 12, 13 years of my life. Like, literally.

That's— I mean, that's— that's to talk about 180. That's just amazing that that Helped you advance through that period of your life. Yeah, move forward there. And I think some key words that you said there, I think number one was that, well, you said it was about, you know, a lot of it was around anxiety. So feeling safe was such an important part of that. And I think when you say the word improv, you think immediately, you know, not safe, not safe. Arms go, yeah.

And at first, yeah, that doesn't feel safe. You know, you feel you learn to feel safe.

You do. And, and, you know, thinking again back to, um, you know, even my experience and your experiences, we're teenagers and we feel so self-conscious. And, and even when you're, as you're talking about in the government, you're going to feel very self-conscious because it's always, you've been following rules and regulations and we, it's about perfection and it's not about taking risks. And that's the beauty of improv is when you create a safe environment that this is not about performing. Because we're not here, we're not here to put on a show. We're here to do some activities in ways that we can, like you said, communicate differently, think differently. But it all starts with actually just really genuinely listening to the other person. And when people feel listened to, they start to feel understood, they start to feel safe. And that goes a long way towards, as I said, and that people are all in the same The same experience. So we're gonna be empathetic to the person getting up there. We, we, we, it's not that we want them to succeed, but we definitely don't want them to fail. We want them to, to enjoy the experience and, and they feel the energy of the team supporting them as they're going through this, uh, experience there. 'Cause we're all in the same boat. We're all, nobody, nobody's better than the other. It's not, there's no points basically.

Absolutely. Does that lead us to the second law?

Well, the, the second law is, there's a couple of them, but one of them is, um, always make the other person look good.

Yeah.

And you mentioned that too, and you were, as you were talking about your experience with improv, is take the focus. It's not the focus on yourself, really. It's you want the other person to look good. And so, uh, which leads us to the other law, which is the, this yes, and, which is when people are speaking, you're not going to answer with a but or a no. You're going to go, you know, yes, and Or you're going to agree and move it forward. And then you're not going to make— you're not going to end it with a question like, you know, all right, let's go here, don't you think? And then that's a leading question, and the person has to go, yes. They've been manipulated.

Do you know what I love the most, maybe the most about yes, and? I don't know if it's the most, but right now it's what I love the most about yes, and. It is that it validates the other person's Experience. Yes. And I think that's something that's the problem, honestly, in a lot of corporate environments.

Yeah, because we're exactly—we're—we're waiting for the well. The yes is often an empty yes when people are saying it, and then there's there's we're just waiting for the but. And we don't feel we don't feel supported. Yes, and doesn't mean you have to agree. That's where people fall into the trap. Yes, and is saying yes to the person. Yes. And offering some alternatives or offers to keep the conversation going forward before we, you know, goes into this narrow scope. We narrow it down.

Yeah, absolutely. It just validates that your perspective is valid, right? Yeah. Like, your perspective is valid and You know, let's continue the conversation from there.

You know what I'm thinking? This is a good—

I love it.

Yeah, this is a— this— let's segue in from this into, if you're up to it, Erin, let's, let's try, let's try a little yes and.

Oh gosh. Okay, sure, go for it.

Let's— what do we do? Yeah, well, what do we do? Why don't we do this? Um, let's pretend we're both working at Positivist. Yes, we're gonna— and we're on the committee to organize a, uh, Like a back-to-fall party. Okay. You're gonna start coming up, you're gonna start offering some ideas. And just so you know, at the beginning, we'll try the first round, I'm gonna say yes, but—

Okay.

So I'm not going to do yes, and I'm going to give you yes, but we're on the same committee, we're trying to brainstorm ideas, whether it be a potluck, or we're going bowling, or we're gonna go apple picking, you know, whatever, whatever that might be. Are you ready to give it a shot?

Absolutely. Let's go.

All right, people of Weirdos in the Workplace podcast, be prepared for Yes, But the Autumn Party episode.

Joel, we got to start talking about the Autumn Party. Holy man, it's coming up really soon.

Yes, but I am so swamped right now. This is not a good time.

When would be a good time, Joel?

Yeah, uh, I, I don't know. You know, reach out to me again. I don't know.

Yes, I understand. Would you like me to connect with you next week?

Yeah, but next week is when the deadline is for all those government contracts. I, I can't see how that's going to happen. All right, we'll pause there.

I was like, yes. Would you like me to do it all by myself? Would you like me to reach out to somebody else?

Well, let's, let's, let's try this again. Yes. Don't change anything. Now I'm gonna, I'm gonna always answer with yes and. All right, you ready? And now take 2 for the office party autumn harvest. Welcome back.

All right, Joel, let's get started planning that autumn harvest party.

Yes, and I am so excited, Erin, to be working with you on this. This is— I think this is a, this is a great idea. This is really, really helpful. Um, and I'm thinking, uh, I've got, I've got some ideas. Can I send you 2 or 3 ideas? Because I'm just a little bit busy right now, and then we can set a time for, uh, tomorrow.

Yes, definitely. And I would love to take those ideas. I'll think about them, and then I'll, um, you know, gather the team so that we can chat about it and figure out how we're going to divide and conquer this.

You— I, I love that. And let's, let's set a date so that we don't get into meetings, you know, a meeting about a meeting. Why don't we say Friday? Well, you know, you'll have your ideas, I'll have my ideas, and we can— and the team will have some ideas. And then Friday morning we can start to really look at this. I, I've got maybe like 30 minutes from 9 to 9:30, so at least we can get started.

Yep. Let me look at my calendar quickly, and, uh, looks like I'm also available, so let's plug it in.

Okay, this is going to be a great autumn harvest party, uh, and I'll leave you with one thought. I'm thinking apple picking as one idea.

Awesome. And I'm thinking we should bring our partners in too.

That would be so much fun, and it'd be outdoors and be active. Absolutely. Okay, I look forward to it. I'll jot down some more, but like, it looks like we're on the same page about making something active and, and bringing, bringing family and friends involved.

Excellent. So I'll see you Friday. Perfect.

And scene.

So when are we going apple picking?

Very well, very soon, apparently. So, Erin, let me, let me ask you, how did you feel when I was answering with yes, but?

Yes, but it's frustrating. That's the word that I would use. It's, it's definitely, it's frustrating. Um, and it's, yeah, it's something we've all experienced before, right? Uh, whether you've been an employee, whether you've been a manager, um, it doesn't matter. We all, we all experience that for sure. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and, uh, it seemed like from my point of view, it felt like you were, you were doing a lot of the heavy lifting, like you had all the pressure was on you. I don't know how you felt, but what I heard and observed was it just seemed like you were trying to find a way to get me to open up or to try to come to some agreement or trying to collaborate. And it was just like pushing a rock up the mountain.

Yeah. And I think that there are alternative ways. Like, if someone's super busy and they're just— it's like literally impossible, for starters, like, it's never impossible. Let's just put that on the table. It's never impossible. But if they feel like it's impossible, I think that there are still other ways where you can demonstrate that, like, yes and attitude and also make sure that you're able to manage your schedule.

Yeah. Yeah. So speaking of that yes and, then how did you feel when, when I changed and I developed— I had a yes and mindset as well now.

You were taking accountability for things, right? So I think that's a lot of it is I feel like the yes, and attitude, it's like it was a partnership. It's a partnership. You are open. It doesn't mean that there aren't challenges that we need to solve or dynamics or whatever, but you're open to the collaboration.

Yeah, I think that's a really good way of putting it, open to the collaboration. And so it's not saying yes, and I'm just saying yes for the sake of saying yes. And now I've put myself into a hole, and then I'm resenting you for putting me on this committee.

Yeah.

I'm saying yes, and then I'm offering alternatives. I'll give you some ideas. We'll meet later. You could look at them. Let's set a time so this doesn't— so this basically doesn't become a burden on me that like, okay, I'm waiting for Erin to send me a time. I said, I'm taking responsibility. And that's the idea of yes, and, which is Exactly that.

It should feel collaborative.

In the world of improv, it's called making an offer so that we're moving the scene forward, we're moving the conversation forward versus the other person is doing all the heavy lifting.

Yeah. And obviously both parties have a responsibility within that relationship, you know, because you don't want to be the person— like, I can almost picture, you know, the Joel from Take One As the guy who is just like, you know, maybe he's just sick of it. Maybe he's just sick of, you know, having to take all the responsibility for everything. And, you know, maybe I am the person who's, you know, constantly trying to push things forward, but then everything goes on Joel.

Mm-hmm.

You know, so in my— from my perspective, maybe that's not entirely Joel's fault. You know, maybe, maybe, maybe there's some shared responsibility in how Joel's acting, right?

Maybe. And, and maybe I'm that person. And I am that yes, but type of person. And I go take an improv workshop as part of my corporate training. And I learned something about myself, which is, oh, I never realized that I've been putting up roadblocks. I never realized that I'm not really listening, that I'm not, I'm not taking ownership. And I'm in a rut. And I guess that's what also improv does is that it Takes us, forces us to think differently. Um, you know, I was at a, a manager's conference recently, for example, and as a warmup, we just did this very, very simple activity that just seems to throw people off. And it's just called Zoom, Zip, and Zap. Zoom, Zip, and Zap. Have you ever done this?

I haven't.

Well, we're not gonna do it. It's good when we—

Maybe I have.

You have to be sort of a, a larger group of people. Yeah. Um, But the whole idea simply is you're— we're in a circle and you're literally going zoom to the person to your right and they go zoom and they pass it around. And we start off with that. And it's amazing to see the people that it slows down because they're trying to control the pace or they're overthinking. And these were consultants. So this was a really good activity for them to let go, receive it, just pass it on. It's a simple activity. Don't try to control it. Don't try to perfect it. Don't try to analyze it or give it a strategy. And it's about— it is about letting go. And you learn so much about yourself when you realize what is it you've been holding on to.

Yeah, definitely. Kind of reminds me of an exercise that I do while I'm writing. And if you Google it, you can Google it. It's called FBR. I didn't come up with it. Okay. It's called Fast, Bad, Wrong. R-O-N-G. Wrong. And literally when you're writing your first iteration, you don't think about any, like, you don't think about editing. You don't think about like the final product. It's all it is is information dump. You're literally just, it's like stream of consciousness, you know, onto paper. And I think that's kind of similar to what you're talking about here too.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you mentioned earlier about it, about in the government, like perfectionism. And I like this FBR because that's So what we do when we write, we start censoring ourselves, and then we had all these thoughts, but you're stuck on correcting that first paragraph, and then you forgot what your train of thought was, and then it comes out as mishmash.

Right, or it's just not as creative or innovative as it could be. And that doesn't mean that there aren't further iterations where you're refining and editing. But the first time you do it, you just throw it out there, you know, you just get it on paper.

I love that. And that's, that's really what happens with improv, because you kind of can't— you don't— there is no take 2. You're just— we're going through the mistakes. In the world of acting, we'll call it a stumble through. We're just stumbling through this, not because we're drunk, but because we're just, we're just stumbling through it. And we're allowed to make mistakes. And it's like an agreement. That's what creates the safety within the room. It's an agreement that this isn't about perfection. This isn't about being funny. This isn't about trying to entertain. This is about first thought, best thought, make the other person look good, and yes, and.

And that doesn't mean that there aren't obviously time and place for the polished presentation. There, of course, is. But it's not— that shouldn't be the way that we function all of the time in a team. We have to be able to know when are we doing our trust-building brainstorming? That, that is the activities. And then when and who have to be doing the polished presentation side of it and everything in between, right? Yeah. Yeah. There's time and place for all of these things.

I really like that thought because the idea again of that yes and is that we're saying yes to the big ideas before we narrow it down, which is the idea of this polished presentation, which is let's again, even your fast thinking when you're writing, it's let's get all the big ideas out. And then we could start, because what's going to happen is we're going to surprise ourselves. Totally. Because it's all in our heads. But until we verbalize it, and we surprise ourselves, and people surprise themselves, and we're like, oh, we're coming with much more creative ideas and problem solving than if we just sat there in front of our computers in our sort of silos.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, absolutely. Um, what else should we talk about? Oh, I don't know, perhaps our project that we have together. Yeah, should we mention that?

Absolutely.

Hmm, well folks, uh, Joel and I have developed a workshop series called Improv Ignition and Improv Innovation specifically for teams who are interested in sparking curiosity and communication And sustaining and deepening trust. And Joel is our lead facilitator, and we're really looking forward to working with both private and public sector to support the development of teams.

It's so exciting to know that someone's going to come to do a workshop where they're allowing themselves— they're like, oh, we don't have time for this.

Yeah.

You know, a quote I love is that, you know, and I can't remember how it goes exactly, but basically, is this the same problem you're dealing with from last year? Are you still talking about it? And that's the paraphrasing of the quote, but that's the idea of what, what improv can do in, in just, you know, a 3-hour workshop to, to come up with different perspectives, to look at different ways of thinking, to build the trust, as you say, to find different ways as to communicate with each other. The amount of progression and innovation and ignition that's going to happen from that in just a few hours of allowing— giving yourselves the gift of actually moving forward on this is just huge.

No, I think so. I think a lot of teams really need this. Like I mentioned, it's been something I personally have been thinking about for a long time and that you've been kind of actively doing for a long time, really. And so I'm really excited about this collaboration, and I think It could very well impact a lot of people in a really positive way and a lot of teams. So learn about yourself, learn about your teammates, build some trust, get a little bit silly, have some laughs, build culture, move forward.

Yes, and.

Yes, and. Yes, and more.

Yes, and more. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it does take me to To— I'll give you a specific quote on this one. And, and this is from Winston Churchill. And I assume it was him who said it, but it was, to improve is to change. To be perfect is to change often.

Ah, awesome. I love that.

Yeah, really speaks about the perfectionism you were talking about earlier. But we can't move forward unless we challenge our way of thinking or challenge our way of doing things. And we don't get We don't just go on cruise control. Yeah, we'll make assumptions.

Totally. We can't learn in a silo. We can't learn about ourselves in a silo. We need to be challenged. And we can't create in a silo either. Yeah. Yeah. Not, not as well. No, no. I mean, technically, yes, we can create in a silo, but for sure, we can't really— we can't create as well in a silo. No.

Well, it's— there's only so far you can go until, until you Your thinking is challenged, or you're put into a different perspective where you're, you know, just like we can get inspired if you leave the office and you get inspired because you went down to the beach or you walked for— went for a walk in the forest. You get inspired because you change your scenery, you change your way of thinking.

Absolutely. Yep. We all take inspiration from the external environment for sure.

Yeah. Yeah.

Awesome. Thank you for joining me, sir.

My new friend Erin, thank you for having me on the podcast. This is great.

It has been my great pleasure. Thanks again to Joel for sharing with us the power of improv. If you're interested in connecting with him, his website is thisfeelsright.ca. And if you'd like to learn more about our improv workshop series, you can connect with me at erin@positivist.ca. E-R-I-N at positivist.ca. That's all for today. Remember to stay weird, stay wonderful, and don't stay out of trouble. Stay weird, stay wonderful, and don't stay out of trouble.