Chapter 10

Small Decisions Add Up

For me, the joy of doing improv comes from the fact that as a performer I am allowed to follow wherever the scene goes without any real expectation to end up anywhere. Once we get the suggestion and the scene is set in motion we have no idea what is going to happen.

The absolute freedom in creating this way is intoxicating. There are very few constraints, and you are not only allowed but encouraged to ride the creative wave wherever it takes you. The unknown, far from being scary, becomes limitless opportunity. When you are improvising on stage, the unknown is alive with possibilities. The sheer pleasure of diving into that pool is exhilarating in the freedom of creativity it allows.

Yet, much like ordering off a menu at The Cheesecake Factory, you may enjoy having hundreds of choices but eventually you have to make a decision.

The ability to make decisions is the catalyst for being able to make shit up. Performing improv requires constant decision‐making. Because there is no script explaining stage directions, or director telling the actor where to go or what to say or do, the individual is required to make all of those decisions for themselves.

Indecision on the stage will result in absolutely nothing happening, which will be boring as shit to the audience. The actor is required to make decisions at every step of the way to help move the scene forward.

Improv actors are trained to limit their questions onstage and instead make declarative statements. The reason for this is that strong, clear statements are action oriented. Statements presume action. Statements lead to decisions being made and with each decision made there is a corresponding reaction or results.

Questions, while good for presenting possibilities, slow the action down to a crawl and in some instances can completely stop it. Let me illustrate this concept in a scene.

The scene is a fast‐food restaurant. A woman rushes in and quickly glances around. Seeing the person at the counter she quickly steps up to that person and asks:

While we can certainly find humor in the scene if we were to keep it going with just questions, the scene would eventually die out and the audience would lose interest. While the game of not giving Kate the keys to the bathroom is at first kind of fun, eventually everybody would become frustrated, including the actor playing Kate. If no declarative statements are stated and no decisions are ever made to take action, then we will just continue to repeat more or less the same idea. In this case the repeating loop is:

· “Can I have the keys to the bathroom?”

· “No.”

· “Can I have them now?”

· “No.”

· “Can I have them now?”

· “No.”

Let's take a look at what the scene might look like if the actors use declarative statements and make decisions.

In this scene no questions were asked and the action was driven forward by declarative statements. Because strong statements were made this lead to decisions being taken by the actors, which advanced the action and the story. Instead of being stuck in a scene that keeps repeating itself, we see the actors go from the interaction at the counter to the bathroom, where we hear all kinds of sounds, then back to the counter where Kate orders one of everything on the menu. This is a far more interesting scene to both be a part of as well as watch.

Statements and decisions drive the creative process outside of improv as well. If we are going to make shit up we have to become comfortable with making decisions. Maybe in your life you are not in a position to constantly make big or important decisions. No matter. Like everything else we have explored in this book, the way to get better at doing anything is to start small.

Making regular small decisions is far more practical then making big ones. Realistically, the need to make “big decisions” is much more rare than the need to make the little ones. It is the little ones that steadily drive the action forward toward whatever goal we have set for ourselves.

The beauty of making small decisions again and again is that the consequences of these decisions tends to be less, so therefore we do not perceive these kinds of decisions as quite as stressful as having to make big or life‐altering ones. The other benefit you get is the confidence gained from repetition. The more decisions you make, the more reps you get, the more confident you get at making decisions. Hey, if you haven't figured it out by now then you are definitely not paying attention. It is all about the reps. The more reps you do at anything, the better you will get at it. Making decisions is no exception.

Making statements and practicing small decision‐making is something you can do every day in your own personal life. Some of this may sound like semantics, but take a look at the subtle difference when you change a basic question into a statement:

Now take a look with the dialogue changed to statements.

By making something a statement instead of a question, you are more likely to steer the conversation or the action toward your own ends. On a very basic level it is just harder for people to deny a statement. Questions, particularly closed ones, can elicit a yes or no response. To make shit happen we need to get more yeses than no's, so therefore we need to drive our ideas forward whenever possible with strong confident statements.

Am I saying we should never ask questions? Of course not. Open‐ended questions, questions of possibility, the “What if” or “How might we” or “Why does” type of question helps us discover new information. Open‐ended questions are excellent tools in the ideation phase of the creative process. Questions help us with clarity on things we don't understand or that might be confusing. Once you get to the “making shit happen” phase, though, they can slow the decision‐making process down to a crawl.

So a very simple way to practice this technique is to try to turn simple questions into declarative statements. You can use this technique on coworkers, your spouse, your kids, your boss, or whomever. If you are not used to being assertive, these kinds of statements may initially feel a bit aggressive. But what you'll find is that the statements themselves will boost your confidence and the people around you, subconsciously or not, will begin to perceive you as more competent.

While statements drive the action forward, it is the ability to make a decision that sets the agenda as to where the action or idea goes to next. By focusing on making small decisions about things that are within our control we then keep the action going and continue to move toward our end goal. It keeps us focused on what is in front of us and what we can actually get done and helps us worry less about the “Big Hairy Scary Picture.”

Making small decisions gives us confidence: It keeps us focused on controlling the things that we can control and not worrying so much about the things we can't.

What does making a bunch of small decisions look like? It might look something like this:

End goal: Open an improv theater

If you look at all of the decisions, it wasn't until number 7 that any of them had any major consequences. Each decision was small and was mostly within our control. If we wanted to look at neighborhoods we could. If we wanted to look for spaces we could. It was within our power to call the real estate agent to set up the tour and find out what the rent was. Each of those decisions was within our power and making them led us to the next logical step in the story.

The power of small decisions is that individually they hold very little risk, but taken collectively they propel us toward our final destination. Small decisions consistently ensure that we continue to make gains that lead us to our end goal. It is easy to become intimidated by looking at a huge task before us. Breaking it down into small manageable parts makes whatever we are working on feel like it is much more doable.

In improv the actors on stage are constantly making small decisions. Once the actors get the suggestion from the audience they don't worry about what the entire scene is going to look like, they just begin with the small decisions that they need to make that are right before them. Where am I, who am I?

Once that basic information is established, then they listen to their scene partner and make small decisions based on what they hear. If they find that they are on a sailboat, an actor may decide to hoist a sail. They do not need to worry about where the sailboat is going or what can happen to the sailboat or why they are even on the sailboat. They just need to take that one action, in this instance raising the sail. Their scene partner then makes a decision for themselves. Maybe they decide to scan the horizon with binoculars. They then decide what they see. Maybe they are being approached by a party boat. One of the actors decides to make contact with the party ship by calling out to them. An actor offstage decides to respond. An actor on the sailboat decides to throw them a line and pull them in. One of the actors on the party boat decides to tie the line off. The other actor on the party boat decides to step onto the sailboat with a cooler full of booze. The actors on the sailboat proceed to chug all the booze and get drunk. The actors on the party boat decide to tie up the actors on the sailboat and steal all of their stuff, because they are party boat pirates.

Clearly there would be dialogue throughout the scene (although you could probably do this entire scene with no dialogue and communicate almost everything through physical actions), but that dialogue either justifies a decision or leads to another.

Each small decision builds upon the last one leading to a full scene that nobody knew was going to happen. The actors are never worried about what the final outcome of the scene would be because they are focused on being in the moment, listening to what is being said, and then continuing to make a series of small decisions.

Decision‐making can be practiced. Here are a couple of easy ways to practice decision‐making on a small scale:

The next time you go to a restaurant read through the menu once. Immediately decide what you're going to order, then close the menu and put it down.

When you are at the bar, look at your beer choices once, and then pick one.

When you get dressed in the morning (or whenever you get dressed – comedy people are typically not morning people so it is more like the afternoon for us), see how fast you can pick everything out. Try not to overthink it. Just grab your clothes as fast you can and get dressed.

Whenever somebody asks you a basic question, something like “Where do you want to go to dinner?” or “What movie do you want to watch?” immediately answer with one suggestion.

Since each of the examples above are low‐risk decisions, there is no harm in trying to make them as fast as you can. So what if you end up with an IPA when you really would have preferred a stout, had you taken more time to think about it? We are practicing fast thinking and decision‐making, not considered thinking in decision‐making.

What you will eventually find is that you can start to make simple decisions much faster without the need to endlessly consider your options and with far less anxiety. You will also stop annoying the crap out of your friend at the bar who just wants you to pick a beer and get on with it.

And that is a key component of making shit up. Make a decision and get on with it.