Improspectives

I’ve spent the last several posts describing the different types of listening that John Kline mentions in his book Listening Effectively. The next type of listening, appreciative listening, is both the most enjoyable and the most dangerous. It’s the most enjoyable because appreciative listening is usually reserved for listening to music or a story you love to hear. As the name implies, you appreciate what you’re hearing.

So why is appreciative listening dangerous? In an improv context, you can get so caught up in listening to what’s going on that you forget to contribute yourself. Even if it’s just a momentary pause, a break in the action can disrupt the audience’s experience. Appreciative listening can also affect how you do business. Think of the legendary Steve Jobs “reality distortion field.” Jobs could wrap an audience around his little finger with his enthusiasm and charisma. He had the benefit of promoting some pretty awesome products, but it’s also true that his presentation skills had a lot to do with the public perception of Apple’s work.

If you can entice a business audience to listen appreciatively, I hope you will use your powers only for good.

In my previous post, I talked about relationship listening, which author John Kline describes as the type of listening you do to establish or deepen a relationship. Typically, conversations involving relationship listening cover personal topics such as family, personal backgrounds, and activities outside of work.

How does relationship listening relate to improv? In short-form improv, where scenes typically last five minutes or less, relationship information is assumed and communicated obliquely while something else happens. Making your exposition serve double duty saves time and avoids stretches where the performers are on stage but the plot isn’t progressing.

In long-form shows the performers have more time to develop the scene, so the pacing doesn’t have to be quite as quick at the start. Scenes where the characters start out as strangers and build a relationship work much more effectively in shows lasting 20 minutes or longer.

In the business world, always assume that relationships with co-workers will last for a while. Take the time to get to know, and value, your colleagues.

Previously, I mentioned John Kline’s book Listening Effectively and talked about informative listening. In this post, I’d like to take a quick look at relationship listening.

As the name implies, relationship listening is the process you use to improve your relationship with your conversation partner. Your goal is to learn more about your colleagues and, by so doing, improve your relationships with them. There will always be a few individuals who use this information against you, or who use information as a weapon, but most of your colleagues do want to get along better. Be sure to set your boundaries appropriately, both for your own comfort and to maintain your professionalism, but don’t be afraid to offer your trust and offer more trust to someone who deserves it.

Relationship listening is important for team members working in the same space, but it’s vital for virtual teams. I’m a freelance writer, which is about as solitary an existence as you can get these days. I didn’t meet my agent until we were five years into our working relationship, and only then because I happened to be driving through his part of the country. I believe we’ve been in the same room a grand total of three times since 1996, but we know a lot about each other and have navigated some tricky waters together.

If you’re an improv performer, you should do a lot of relationship listening. I started workshops with my current group in 1995 and, over the years, we’ve developed a deep shared context. There are about 30 regular players who rotate in and out of our cast in a given month, so of course there are subgroups that get along better with each other or who have more in common. Even so, we share where appropriate and aren’t afraid to turn to each other for a sympathetic ear. Having established that comfortable, familiar base, we can push each other to improve as performers and as a team.