Chapter 17
Often when I hear people discuss how to build teams, I hear the term diversity. For anyone who wants to create new ideas it would seem obvious that the more diversity you have, the more creative avenues you will have to explore. Yet some people look at it and say, well, “diversity” is code for not taking the best people.
That is absolutely bullshit. To give you an example, this is the cast we put together for Improv Asylum New York: We have a gay man, a black man, a white man, a woman from Iran, and two other extremely talented women. Does this mean that because they are diverse they are somehow not the funniest people that are available? Hell, no.
They are all funny, as well as being talented writers and singers. They earned the job for those reasons, and those reasons alone. But that can't happen if leadership is not working with intent to find a diverse team. Those of us in charge have to be willing to ask, “What am I doing?” Am I not only hiring for talent and ability but for different experiences and life perspectives as well? Am I looking hard enough? Am I making sure that those people of diverse backgrounds know that they are wanted, know that they are welcome? Know that we want to see them audition? Because if we do not do that, if we just constantly bring on talent through traditional methods, we will continue to get the same results.
This is what it often looks like in my industry. You put out your audition notice, great. Everybody comes in, they audition, and you take whoever you feel are the best talent for the show you are creating.
Here is a fact: In the improvisational comedy business, there is a disproportionately high number of medium‐sized brown‐haired white guys. I am one of those medium‐sized brown‐haired white guys. I'm giving myself medium‐sized billing, but I might be a little smaller than medium size. I know that. So if I am going to use traditional methods for casting, that is going to be what I get. That is who I'm going to see.
And there is nothing wrong with seeing medium‐size white guys with brown hair. But if that is all I get to see, I am completely missing out on gigantic numbers of other talented people. So it becomes important in my role at Improv Asylum as a producer or director to make sure that if I am not getting the diverse turnout that I want, then need to make sure that other kinds of people know that they are welcome. Where should we be posting these auditions to attract diverse talent? Are we personally going out and speaking with the communities that we want to see at the auditions? Are we asking the diverse talent we are already working with where they think we should be posting audition notices to attract the talent we are looking for? Are we committed to training those diverse voices if we are not seeing them in any general talent pool?
We need to sit back and use our brains a little to consider different ways to get the results that we want. It really is not all that hard, it just takes a purposeful decision to do it.
Diversity is not a code word for, oh, well you didn't take the funniest person. That's just not true. We do take the funniest people. I also need to make sure that I am not limiting the company to only what I think is funny because as a producer, I have my own sense of humor. I do not think everything is funny, but if I am not careful, I am going to craft a show that only I think is funny, and only I will like that show. If the entire show only reflects my worldview and comedic sensibility, well sure, I am going to think it's super hilarious. Other people might be like, no, it is super lame, right?
Hey, I may love dad jokes. But maybe a whole hell of a lot of other people don't. Since I am responsible for leading an ensemble and not just creating a solo performance, I need to be very careful that the show doesn't just look or sound like one perspective. This is something we as leaders of any organization need to keep in mind. And if we do that right, if we do that in our small groups or if we do that in our larger organizations, we get access to so much more talent, so much more funny than you could ever think of.
When we improvise onstage, we quickly have to get on the same page, working through many, many different comedic sensibilities, worldviews, world experiences, and come together and put out a product immediately, which is hopefully hysterical comedy that makes that audience laugh. So how do we do that? Sure, we work long and hard and are funny, and have developed a comedic voice, but to survive on that stage, we have to rely on each other.
We have to support and keep each other's ideas moving forward. It isn't about only moving your own idea forward. If you only want to move your own idea forward, there is standup comedy, or one man/woman shows. Those are great venues to explore your own voice and concentrate on your own ideas. In improv we are focused on listening to the other person. I am listening to you. I am truly trying to understand the gist of what you are saying and I am now going to build off of what I heard from you, and if I know you are going to listen to me and then you are going to build off of that, then together we can fly, right?
Listening allows us to have all these different voices come together to create one show that works for an incredibly large amount of people. We cannot do a show for 200 people and have all of their same senses of humor. It would be impossible. Your sense of humor is going to be very different from mine, hers from his. But together as a group, when we go onstage, we are essentially crowdsourcing everybody else's talent and sense of humor.
So if I am a performer in a cast, sure I'm funny and talented, but man, with five other people from five different points of view from five different backgrounds, now I have access to all of that material. Now I can tap in to her funny, and his funny. I have got access to what those other performers can do, their stories and experiences. When we think of it that way, we now can crowdsource this idea of diversity to create something much more original. We have the ability to connect with and reach more people in the audience. We can create a show that is accessible to a much wider group of people
I had the opportunity to lead an improv workshop in Dubai, and it was one of the most amazing things I've ever been apart of. These kinds of sessions are very hands on. I have people come up on stage and actually experience doing improv. Most everybody there was from the Middle East or Africa, they did not know or were not all that familiar with improvisation.
They were very buttoned up and the conference itself was called the International Association for Internal Auditors. The conference was even more boring than the title makes it sound (for all you internal auditors out there, I'm sure you are all great and super dynamic).
The coordinator of my session told me I was never, never going to get people to volunteer. And I said “I will,” because I am quickly going to create a culture that will show them that it is perfectly okay for their voices to be heard. Within minutes I had, I think, 250 people up, shouting, shaking their hands and kicking their feet. People in full‐on dashikis and burqas and abiyas all up doing improv, participating in all these kinds of exercises that professional improv actors do. It was absolutely amazing.
As we continued to do different improv exercises on the stage, members of the audience became more and more empowered to put themselves out there and take a chance in a way that none of them had ever done before. The different sensibilities and ideas that were presented were incredible, and though there were close to 50 different countries represented in that audience everybody was laughing because together, for just a little while, we were able to create a diverse community that accepted and supported each other.
When a team, company, or community can enthusiastically support each other, the ability to create and get shit done is exponentially increased, whereas a team, company, or community that is mired in divisiveness and negativity will always have an incredibly difficult time moving anything forward. By creating a culture where there are many voices that know they can be heard, the creative life of the team or organization has far more potential than one where it all looks and sounds the same. If your organization has looked and sounded the same for too long, look for places where you can discover new talent. Your team will be all the richer for it.