Translator: Rebecca Phillips Reviewer: Ivana Korom
Listen up, prepare well,
do your homework the evening before,
Reread your text before going... OK, OK.
That is all very good advice -
very useful for succeeding, learning and advancing.
But I think that it's also very useful to know how to improvise.
Because knowing how to improvise is knowing how to take risks.
The risk of giving an unexpected answer
because you haven't prepared it.
The risk of expressing yourself in an original way
because you've been caught off-guard.
And knowing how to improvise is also knowing how to bounce back.
Bouncing back after having been disappointed.
Bouncing back after having displeased someone.
That is to say, bouncing back after what is commonly called a failure.
Don't get me wrong, I am not telling you
that in order to succeed at what you undertake,
you don't have to work and simply expand your experiences.
I don't think that. I in fact think the exact opposite.
Before being able to go off the beaten track,
you have to first thoroughly know the well-worn paths.
Before inventing a new form,
you have to time and again go through the tried and tested motions.
Nor am I telling you that,
in order to invent, you have to systematically
put yourself in danger,
especially if it's to flee reality.
Facing reality rather than fleeing it
often demands more courage,
especially if you realise that you do not conform with the majority,
and that it's going to take effort to find your niche.
Finding your niche is often more difficult than being put in one,
but it's also more interesting.
To illustrate my points I will draw on an example from my experience.
The business which I manage today,
Théâtre à la Carte,
was, at the beginning, an improvisation.
Today, it's a business which employs over 100 people -
actors, teachers and consultants -
and which operates over 5 continents
in almost every language.
And yet, at the beginning, we had our work cut out
because theatre and business
are two words - two worlds - that we do not naturally want to combine,
and which do, however, work very well together.
It works because we don't use
artists' knowledge and talents
to make art out of business -
to transform every employee into an artist.
No. We use these talents and knowledge
to free speech, to diffuse sometimes contentious situations,
and to stimulate and develop professional behaviours.
In short, thanks to theatre, we create management,
but a form which puts all its importance back on the human dimension.
And it also works because businesses today
increasingly rely on stereotypical procedures -
on globalised norms which reassure them.
But at the same time, they paradoxically want to emancipate themselves,
as they realise that they are lacking creativity.
We therefore offer them,
thanks to a reverse way of teaching,
an original solution:
go and search deep down inside yourself
for unknown resources,
and make use of them to advance.
That is to say, we put the importance back on
the following principle which is essential to successful learning:
confidence.
Learning how to improvise
is useful for accepting failure and bouncing back with courage.
How do you learn how to improvise?
You have to work on what we call the pillars of improvisation -
there are 5 of them.
I am going to introduce 3 of them to you:
acceptance, leadership and letting go.
I am also going to try to show you that these are three very useful skills
in the professional world.
First of all, acceptance.
Rejection is natural for man.
It's instinctive, a form of self-protection,
and a force of inertia against change
and everything which is different to me and my opinions.
On the other hand,
acceptance demands effort; it's not natural.
That is why it's useful to work on your ability to accept others.
A good improvisation - a successful, theatrical improvisation -
is one which is first of all
founded on the acceptance of your colleagues' ideas.
Because if you refuse them,
the improvisation stops and immediately comes to a dead-end.
In the professional world, this skill is essential
when it comes to teamwork.
You have to perceive your colleagues -
different stakeholders -
as partners rather than
as enemies or challengers.
Now for leadership.
A leader is someone who knows how to unite a group
and set them off in the same direction.
In a theatrical improvisation,
the improviser is constantly alternating
between the position of the person who is leading,
who is giving the impetus,
and the position of the person who is receiving the impetuses of their partner
and adapting to them.
We therefore learn that having leadership
is something fleeting;
it's a position which is useful to have on some occasions but not on others.
It is useful in a professional context when it comes to organising a group
and giving that group an impetus.
It unleashes proactive behaviors
and taking initiative; in short,
managerial leadership.
Finally, let's look at letting go.
Being creative is not reserved for artists.
Everyone can, I believe, be creative.
You just have to be relaxed, trust yourself,
and let things come to you.
It's essential in an improvisation
because it's about creating a story out of nothing.
In a professional context,
it's very useful for getting out of situations where you are at stand-still.
You have to then find new initiatives
and create new alternatives; in short, act outside of the box.
With these three skills,
I have tried to show you that improvising is very professional,
because it makes us consider failure and the unknown
not as a punishment or a danger,
but rather as levers from which you can develop.
I also hope to have given you,
with the theatre of business,
an example of a new line of work,
created out of a successful improvisation.
There are plenty of new lines of work to be created,
and not only for geeks and I.T. enthusiasts.
So, get thinking of them!
(Applause)