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Empower Your People: Conversational Moves for Engaging Your Team in Creative Collaboration, with Diane Paulus, Tony Award-Winning Director
When I direct a show, not only am I trying to, with the actor and the playwright or the composer, make all the decisions about how we’re going to tell the story, but I’m also trying to engage the actor to be creative. Because if they are just following directions, it won’t be fulfilling. And I think this is something that can be applied to anything you do in life. Any kind of business, any kind of group endeavor.
You know, in our business, sometimes actors feel they’re a good actor if they say to the director, “Just tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. You know, what do you want me to do?” And to me, that is, like, the death of a process. It’s like, it’s so not about what I want.
Set the tone
Empowering people in a process has to do with the tone you set in a room, the authenticity of your willingness to really listen. Because I think too often, you know, you’re in a meeting and you’re saying, “OK, we’re going to go ahead with this decision. But if anybody has anything to say, say it now.” And people don’t speak up, because they are too scared, or they think it’s too late or no one’s really going to listen. You have to start early on to create an environment where people feel that they will be heard and that they have a voice.
Actually, I start every process with this statement. I say, “I’m going to come with an idea and I’m going to expect you to come with an idea. And I know that together we will make a third idea that is better than both of our ideas.” And that’s a really important thing to say up front, because we live in a hierarchy and people tend to feel that they don’t have space to have an idea, that they need to execute or they need to just deliver what is expected. And I think in the arts, we all know the art is going to be great when you get to the unexpected.
So you have to do a lot of talking about the big picture. You know, it can’t just be an execution. Because people get resentful when they don’t understand why they’re being asked to do what they’re doing, especially if it’s hard work. So I always feel my job as a director is to constantly point to the top of the mountain and remind people, like, we’re going there. Constantly articulate what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.
Every time I start a point in a process, especially if it’s a difficult one–and let’s say it’s a moment that we haven’t cracked and we’re going back to it. And this happens, you can have a production number that you’ve gotten wrong five times. You’ve choreographed it one way. The music’s wrong. You’ve tried editing it. You’ve done it in different scenarios. And you’ve got to go in the next day and you go, oh my God, I have a lump in my throat. How am I going to get these people to, like, forget what they did yesterday? And we’re going to go yet again.
And you do it because you share that burden. So I always come in the room and I say, “OK, I know what you’re feeling. I know this is going to feel impossible. But I know that if we go one more time we might have a shot at actually getting this. And this is what we’re not hitting. And this is what I know we need to get and we’re not there yet.” So if you can share the goal, it’s amazing how much people will come with you.
Lay the ground rules
The flip side of that is you can’t let it become a free-for-all. So you’re navigating a very fine line of driving a process forward, setting a goal. And what I usually do in a room is say, “You know, we’re going to work on the scene. We’re going to sit around a table, we’re going to read it out loud, and we’re just going to talk about it.” So it’s table work. It’s a very common thing in theater.
We sit and we read. We’re not even on our feet. We’re not even really acting it yet. We’re just using our critical analysis on the material. And that can be a very safe space for an actor to express an opinion, an opinion maybe on how is a line is written, on an understanding of a motivation. You can often get a discussion going where someone who’s not acting that role can say, “Well, that reminds me of what it was like in my life when I was in that situation.” Or “I had a cousin or a sister … ,” and personal stories emerge, and all of a sudden people start to invest in the material.
I expect everyone in the room to be engaged. So whether you’re a stage manager or you’re an intern, you’re watching. You’re not on your phone. You’re not reading the paper in the corner. If you’re in the room, you’re there and you’re invested. And then if you have an idea, I’m willing to hear it.
And sometimes I’ll definitely say, “Maybe right now is not the moment. Come back to me at the next break.” You know, of course, you have to set rules. And you have to say, “We’re not there, but we’re not going explore it anymore. Good point, but for now we need to move on. We’ll hit that tomorrow.” You know, you have to navigate bringing people along, driving the ship, keeping the ship sailing, but allowing people to be their best selves.
Create the conditions for team transformation
You know an actor is working at their best when you no longer recognize them, when somehow they’ve transformed. So it’s not just what we know. And I think in life we tend to like to rest on what we know. But actually the whole gig is about the unknown, and those moments where we go to a place where we never thought we could go in a process, in an acting moment, in a moment on stage. I’m constantly trying to create those conditions where we can go to the unknown.
And key to that is having a big tolerance for a little bit of instability. This is so important. And it’s something I do naturally in a rehearsal room. And I’ve now tried to bring it to how I manage my staff in a theater. How do you allow people to live in a little bit of disequilibrium? And again, you have to manage it. But it’s that instability where you’re not just relying on what you know, you’re not just relying on the best practice, but you’re looking for the next practice. “Why not? Why can’t we do that differently? Would it be possible?”
And if you ask it as a question and not as a mandate–You don’t issue it as a mandate, but you ask it as a question, and you engage people, you’d be surprised how far people will go with you.