Stressdoc: The Dangers of Work-Related Stress

Public Speaking as Interactive Improv: Taking Leadership (and Your Audience) to Inspiring Heights

The Stress Doc designs a new, hybrid public performance concept:

Interactive Improv Speaker-Leader

When I think of improvisation, my typical association is players in an improv troupe announcing a general skit theme, then asking audience members to free associate specific topics.  The players want the audience to help flesh out the original premise.  This is followed by the troupe evolving a “spontaneous” skit based on audience ideas and imagery.  However, this past week, another conception of improvisation emerged during a program with food service workers from the five high schools of the Fremont H.S. School District in San Jose, CA.  (The district borders on Silicon Valley.  In fact, Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, went to one of the high schools.)  And, as I’m typing, the background Ravens-Colts football game may be providing a performance arena analogy to help flesh out this variation on an improv theme.

Sports Improv Illustration

For example, a quarterback may have a “run play” sent in by the coach.  But, after assessing the alignment of the players on defense, he may decide to audible, that is, change the play at the line of scrimmage.  The QB now decides on a quick slant pass play over the middle.  And this decision has to come quickly, within thirty seconds, if he doesn’t want to waste a timeout.  Also, a quick decision may heighten the element of surprise, sometimes alas for both members of his team as well as the opposition.  (Now, his teammates, akin to an improv troupe have to know the change of direction signals, and be able to rapidly and smoothly get on the same page.)  In essence, the QB uses his oppositional audience, their positioning and body language, and sometimes verbal expressions, as a feedback source for his individual and team performance options and decisions.  And clearly, it takes some practice and experience to pull this off effectively.

With all this in mind, let me first outline the sequence of events leading to the Stress Doc’s interactive improv process, before illustrating my improv insight.  And, putting it all together, here are your “Seven Key Steps for Designing “Public Speaking as Interactive Improv”:

1.  Initial Audience Engagement.  Like many other speakers or high impact communicators, I often use memorable language and humor to start the connection process.  For example, “My goal is to help an audience ‘Get FIT’:  this program will be FUN-Interactive & Thought-provoking.  And ‘Get FIT’ will be achieved through my Triple ‘A’ method:  you will grapple with some Anxiety, act out a little Aggression (oh, I see some people are already getting excited), and, finally, engage life’s slings and arrows with some playful yet purposeful Absurdity.  FIT… Triple ‘A’… You know something about me.  You know I’ve been living in the DC-area way too long.  (In fact, almost anyone who works or interacts with a government agency is a candidate for my new 12-Step, AA Support Group:  Acronyms Anonymous!  I suspect a number of you need to sign up.”

I then finish this opening gambit with a tongue-only-slightly-in-cheek warning:  “Hey, we’ll have fun, but it’s not all fun and games… I can be tough.  I recall a somewhat pompous State Dept. Manager during one of my workshops challenge me with, ‘What do you call it if you don’t have any stress?’  My immediate reply: Denial!... I’m sure none of you are in denial, but as my mother would say, ‘Mark, I trust you but I worry.’  And being a dutiful son, well, let’s see how you all are doing when it comes to stress.”  And this leads to the first exercise.

2.  Three “B” Stress Barometer Exercise.   The Three “B” opening exercise breaks the large group into smaller groups of four or five, and then asks:  “How does your Brain, your Body, and your Behavior let you know when you are under more stress than usual?”  A recorder in each group captures the responses, followed by several groups reading off their stress lists.  Invariably, I begin to play off the group responses, for example: 

“What about these mind-body warning signs:

a) sleep disturbance: aren’t there folks who some mornings just don’t want to get out from under the covers; then there are those who at 3am know all the best buys on e-bay or QVC Home Shopping Channel

b) eating patterns: be honest, anyone out there tend to eat more when under stress to numb that anxious feeling in the pit of your stomach?  Are there any folks that lose their appetite and eat less when feeling stressed or depressed?  And, of course we hate those people, don’t we!

c) finally, what about muscle tension?  You know, real tightness or soreness in the shoulders, neck, or back.  Oh, what about TMJ?  You know what TMJ – chronic clenching of teeth and painful jaw strain – really stands for?  TOO MANY JERKS!“

3.  Recognizing a Change in Atmosphere.  My playful transition from engaging with stress to the new yet related subject is delivered through a question:  “What is the b-word associated with stress… and it’s not ‘boredom’ or the b-word that rhymes with witch?  That’s right, it’s burnout.”  (Boredom, alas, can lead to burnout, e.g. When Mastery times Monotony provides an index of MISERY!)

After establishing my own burnout bona fides, burning out while working on a creative doctoral dissertation that was off the academic wall, I introduced my “Four Stages of Burnout, a truly powerful self-assessment tool, that just might have you, like others, feeling a little vulnerable.  Let me explain.  In the middle of a stress program held in N’Awlins, during a break following a discussion of burnout stages, a gentleman came up to me and asked if I’d been to N. Louisiana.  I shook my head, ‘No,’ and gave a puzzled look.  He then said, ‘Cause you been lookin’ in my window.’”

I won’t go into detail here about these stages; but feel free to request my classic essay, “Combat Strategies at the Burnout Battlefront.”  FYI, the Four Stages of Burnout:

1.  Physical, Mental, and Emotional Exhaustion

2.  Shame and Doubt

3.  Cynicism and Callousness

4.  Failure, Helplessness, and Crisis

Again, I use some humor in the early going.  But as I succinctly yet powerfully bring to life the four stages, the atmosphere in the room is palpably changing.  By the fourth stage, there’s a seriousness on people’s faces, a rapt look in people’s eyes, a self-absorbed/self-reflective energy.

I know the next slide is, “The Six ‘R’s of Burnout Recovery.”  A perfectly logical progression from describing the problem, that is, the four stages.  But my intuition says no.

4.  Reading the Audience, Trusting One’s Heart and Gut.  Ironically, the audience is so absorbed in their own personal associations and emotions to the “Four Stages” material… I realize they would not be maximally receptive or responsive to cognitive information.  They need an experience that will touch the heart more than the head.  They also are primed to act out, if not work through, this self-absorbed energy.  It’s time to flip the energy and exercise improv switch!

But before doing my magic trick, I don’t want to minimize the experience, skill, and trust required as a public presenter to engage in improv.  First, of course, many speakers are very self-conscious, trying to deliver the message in a clear and logical, thoughtful and heartfelt manner.  Coming across as polished and well-prepared may dominate the focus.  Of course, these qualities are often the foundation for effective presentation.  However, to build upon your foundation, to create an interactive and inspiring platform, may well require a capacity to read your audience.  It’s vital not to cling to a “life jacket” script; doing so, alas, helps it morph into a straightjacket.  A higher-level speaker can be both self-conscious while still evolving audience awareness – that is taking in verbal and nonverbal audience cues, filtering this information through the presenter’s own head, heart, and memory bank, and trusting one’s gut to venture out in a new direction.  And if you’ve already made some meaningful connection with the room, the audience will be ready to follow.

Actually, to my way of thinking, such a mutual feedback loop, is essential if the goal is not to simply inform and include, but to motivate and inspire.  And this loop is only heightened when a presenter orchestrates an interactive process that pairs thought-provoking content with mind-to-mind, heart-to-heart engaging small group exercise.

5.  The Improv Pivot:  Flipping the Script.  Unlike the traditional improv scenario outlined in the opening, (more akin to the football/reading the defense analogy), this improv turning point does not ask for audience feedback… It’s triggered by the audience already providing “next step” data through facial expressions, the serious and attentive looks and body posture, their radiating emotional energy.  Speaker experience, non-verbal sensitivity, and confidence in going “off script” allows for an alternative, “spontaneous” method of engagement.  Actually, I switched to a power struggle exercise that was planned for a later program segment.  The change in strategy adds an element of surprise to the engagement equation.  The audience senses that the speaker is undergoing some kind of metamorphosis.  People are on the edge of their seats… What’s coming next from this edgy guy?  Utilizing surprise and shift, raising pregnant questions, whether planned or in a spontaneous manner, heightens the connection between speaker and audience.  This interactive swing often places both the presenter and the room on the performance edge.

The “You Can’t Make Me… Oh, Yes I Can” exercise pairs two participants.  While eyeballing each other, the individual antagonists are thinking of “someone in your life who is or has been a pain in your butt.”  And when instructed, Person A says “You can’t make me; Person B says, “Oh yes, I can.”  Now I announce:  “The only instructions are, you can’t get out of your seat… You can be aggressive or passive-aggressive.”  (My tone of voice and body posture prove illustrative.)  Then I add:  “If the person you are looking at is also the imagined “pain in your butt”… we have a problem.  Invariably, tension-relieving group laughter ensues.  And my final directive:  “After a few seconds of the You Can’t/I Can” volley, while still in eyeball mode, say what you’d really like to say to that person in your head, that ‘pain in the butt.’”  (I call out the shift to the spontaneous, unscripted “say what you’d like to say” encounter.)  You might say one improv process fuels another!

6.  The Emotional and Nonverbal Outpouring.  Needless to say, what had been a room of self-absorbed energy, perhaps bordering on tension, feelings of vulnerability, and free-floating discomfort, is suddenly transformed.  In addition to the verbal confrontations, energy explosion, and cacophony of sound, including palpable laughter, there’s also a seeming infinite variety of interpersonal body language, gesture, and movement.  (More than once this exercise has elicited an “emergency response” from individuals outside the room, but still in hearing distance.  For example, I was facilitating a US Army leadership pre-deployment retreat at Ft. Hood in the early stages of the Iraq War.  After my workshop work with the soldiers, they retreated into their private, deployment strategy session.  In an adjacent room, I facilitated a support workshop for sixty spouses.  Not surprisingly, this group of women, maybe one or two men, knew stress!  It’s tough being on the home front when your soldier is deployed faraway, in harm’s way.  And it’s even tougher when you are given the message, time and time again, “Be strong for your soldier!”  Anyway, when we did the “You Can’t Make Me” Exercise, the volume in the room practically raised the roof.  Pent up frustration was pouring out.  Later, at dinner, a number of soldiers came up to me saying, “We were about to storm the room.  We could hear the uproar.” We thought a riot had broken out!”)

Tapping into and harnessing audience energy, whether purposefully or spontaneously, encourages all kinds of engagement.  This occurs both during the experiential moment as well as in the post-exercise debrief and follow-up learning forum.

7.  Reaching Closure and Taking a Break.  The power struggle exercise lends itself to some processing of learning concept questions, such as:

a) Why is it so easy to get caught up in power struggles?

b) When did we first engage in power struggles?  (My answer for the audience… “Certainly, by toilet training,” usually gets a laugh.  “It means we all are susceptible.”)  And,

c) Why is it so hard to drop the proverbial rope?  (I literally engage in a tug-of-war with a participant using an imaginary rope.  When I tell my antagonist to pull on “three,” and I drop the rope on “two” (and then start running away as I “suspect he’s coming after me”; actually, a face-saving gesture for the role-playing volunteer), this leads to a powerful discussion of the aforementioned question, and constructive alternatives to having a full blown, pride-driven tug, including purposefully letting go of the rope.

After getting feedback from the group about how they dealt with the “You Can’t/I Can” role-play, relevant conflict problem-solving tools and techniques are itemized. I then reconnect these tactics with the power struggle dynamic while providing a possible disarming sequence.   This begins with me playing Person B (as a supervisor or manager) and saying:  “I don’t know if I can make you or I can’t make you… that’s not where I’m coming from.”  (I then ask the group, “Have I given up my power or authority, or have I momentarily put it on the shelf?”  Email stressdoc@aol.com for the whole conflict defusing sequence.)

And, again, by the time I have completed my role model approach, the room has an aura of intensity.  I realize that in a fairly short period of time we have experienced a wave of emotional highs and lows, aggression and reaction, laughter and poignant reflection.  And, though it’s only a two-hour program and, potentially, still have much to cover, once again I consider energy levels.  Suddenly, I improvise, and call for a five-minute break. Both parties to this rapidly shifting interaction can use a timeout to reflect, recharge, and regroup.  I want folks to have time to let these emotional experiences sink in, both consciously and subconsciously, before hitting them with new info and interaction.  And I know reading the audience will again help determine some of the upcoming go to content and exercises.

Closing Summary

The best speakers aspire to be orchestra leaders, helping both individuals and the collective bring out their finest music! Yet, sometimes, another leadership role may be needed to help achieve this goal: the Interactive Improv Speaker-Leader. This is a speaker-leader who is able to read and relate to her audience. And then this leader takes interaction to another level. A process has been outlined: through the purposeful and planned use of engaging, perhaps compelling, content and exercise, such a leader has transformed the energy and attention level in the room. Then based on spontaneous audience assessment, it seems hearts need to be more engaged than heads. Or, folks are ready for an opportunity to truly act out and emotionally work through the individual and group intensity so palpable in the room. Trusting her capacity to read individual body language and the audience aura, trusting her speaker instincts and experience, the leader is willing to flip the script. She will suddenly plug the audience into an activity that allows one and all to engage in real interaction. Or, perhaps, it’s an interactivity that is slightly larger than life. For example, engaging in a power struggle role-play exercise that reveals how even aggression and laughter can be strange yet insightful bedfellows. And this improvisational pivot, by releasing this individual and collective intensity, by creating a shared experiential moment, has helped transform an audience into a learning and sharing community. Amen and women, to that!

Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, a nationally acclaimed speaker, writer, and "Motivational Psychohumorist" ™, is a founding partner and Stress Resilience and Trauma Debriefing Consultant for the Nepali Diaspora Behavioral Health & Wellness Initiative. Current Leadership Coach/Training Consultant with IjonaSkills/US and for the international Embry-Riddle Aeronautics University at the Daytona, FL headquarters. A former Stress and Violence Prevention Consultant for the US Postal Service, he has led numerous Pre-Deployment Stress Resilience-Humor-Team Building Retreats for the US Army. Presently Mark does Cross Cultural Facilitation and Presentations for organizational/corporate clients of HR Consulting Firm PRM. The Doc is the author of Practice Safe Stress, The Four Faces of Anger, and Preserving Human Touch in a High-Tech World. Mark’s award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" – www.stressdoc.com – was called a "workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR). For more info, email: stressdoc@aol.com.