Have you ever been responsible for a group of people who, try as they may, just couldn’t seem to gel into an actual team?
I had this experience years ago in Scotland when I directed a one-act production called Impromptu, in which the real-life actors were playing roles, each with lines and a script. Their characters were also actors, drawn together in an unscripted scene depicting an organic experience of human development and interaction.
Actors playing actors playing real people not acting; it was multi-layered and brilliantly written, with a level of complexity that, I now realize, was a bit much for a first time director. Fortunately, I didn’t know better.
The problem was that no matter what we did, how I directed, or how we collaborated, the performance came out stiff and scripted rather than natural and, well, impromptu.
Two-thirds of the way into our rehearsals I had an epiphany that dramatically changed our course.
I realized that we were seeing these characters as characters, rather than as people with lives and pasts, loves and conflicts, dreams and hopes, failures and ideas all their own.
So I asked the actors to write the autobiographies of their characters, everything from where and when they were born to what their parents and friends were like.
I then invited the actors to a new location and asked them to come without their script, dressed in a manner completely befitting their character. When they arrived, there was a sign on the door explaining what to do next:
“Upon entering this room you are to remain silent until instructed to do otherwise. You may move, sit, look, eat, drink or do anything socially acceptable, so long as there are no words, and so long as you make no move, gesture, expression or act that would not be exhibited by your character.”
The energy changed entirely. Suddenly they got it. They all began to carry themselves differently. The demur character melted into the background. The arrogant one became a presence larger than himself. One by one, they began to transform themselves and their characters became real, personified, and understandable.
“From this moment forward,” I then explained, “whenever you walk into rehearsal, you are your character. I don’t care if you’re tired or cranky, or want to goof-off and mess around. You can do anything you want, so long as it is in character. You want to tell me off? Do it as your character would do it. You want to joke? Go ahead, but only if it’s the kind of joke your character would tell. When you are outside, be whomever you want. When you are in this room, you are your character. Period.”
When we finally pulled the script back, there was very little work left to do. The group gelled. We connected. We had so thoroughly become our characters that no one needed to act like they were improvising. We were simply being who we had become. The play came alive, the actors disappeared and the characters stepped up on stage. The production was voted “Best One-Act” in the series.
So what’s the leadership lesson? Cultivate the “character” of your people and you give them two of leadership’s most powerful gifts: understanding and connection.
People don’t pretend very well. We are all asked to play roles in our work and in our lives but seldom do we take the time to develop and cultivate them, fully understanding their depth and impact or how we are meant to engage and respond. Too many people are going through the motions in life because they either fail to understand the emotions or they can’t connect with what is being asked of them.
As a leader, when asked to head up a new project we might look at the responsibility as a simple series of tasks or maybe as a burden on top of an already full plate. But there’s another way to see it. Our challenge is to cultivate greatness in others by giving people the opportunity to understand their role completely; to see how it fits the organization, the team, the mission; to discover how they want to be in the role, how they want to respond to others in the process; to decide how they want to react to the challenges and frustrations that are sure to arise.
We need to do this within ourselves as well: define our role, name it, fully understand its character, ask how this leader would react to the situation, hold others accountable, and respond to opposition, to name just a few behaviors.
Playing a given role then becomes a very powerful tool for engagement, authenticity and connection. Far from being mechanical, the role becomes human and real, embodying a level of understanding often overlooked.
As leaders we play many roles in our lives. While there is integrity and a core set of values that runs through all of them, there are differences in behavior and responsibility within each. A corporate leader doesn’t hold her friends accountable in the same way as her vice presidents. The roles of president and friend are different, and the key is to understand how they are different and who exactly we want to be in each of them.
Just like my actors on the stage I ask you, “Who are you being? And how deeply do you understand that being?”
