Humans On The Loop
196 - Robert Poynton on Improvisation As A Way of Life
Podcast summary created with Snipd AI
Quick takeaways
- Embrace uncertainty as a source of creativity and joy in life.
- Practice improvisation to navigate uncertainties with grace and creativity.
- Challenge rigid structures in business with improvisational approaches for creative engagement and adaptability.
Deep dives
Embracing Uncertainty: Finding Possibility in the Unknown
Uncertainty is often viewed as a challenge for humans, leading to mental struggles and efforts to avoid it. However, the podcast emphasizes that uncertainty also holds a positive and necessary side, offering a space of possibility. The speaker reframes uncertainty as a place to live, highlighting the power of living in the present moment. This perspective encourages embracing uncertainty as a source of creativity, joy, and agency.
The Practice of Improvisation: Living in the Flow
The podcast explores how the practices of improvisation enable individuals to live in the moment with what they have. Drawing parallels to Teddy Roosevelt's quote 'do what you can, where you are with what you have,' improvisation is presented as a way to navigate life's uncertainties. By applying improvisational principles, individuals can generate flow, create new ideas, and engage in graceful adaptability.
Challenging Conventional Structures: Revolutionizing Approaches to Work
The discussion delves into the role of improvisation in business settings, challenging conventional structures and fostering creative engagement. The speaker advocates for a collapse and regeneration of rigid organizational frameworks, emphasizing the need for vibrant and generative ways of working. By encouraging exploration of uncertainty and creativity, the podcast highlights the potential for meaningful transformation and adaptive responses in corporate environments.
The Importance of Developing Improvisation Skills
Developing improvisation skills is essential, even in scenarios where plans may fail or situations change unexpectedly. The podcast emphasizes that individuals often spend minimal time or effort honing these critical skills, especially noted in professions like the military. By highlighting the significance of improvisation and questioning the amount of time dedicated to its development, the podcast challenges listeners to consider investing in this skill to adapt to evolving circumstances.
Embracing Pause in Improvisation and Time Perception
The podcast delves into the concept of pausing within improvisation to enhance understanding and adaptability. By exploring the relationship between time and improvisational skills, the discussion reflects on the need to cultivate a deeper connection with time beyond conventional constraints. It suggests that fostering a more organic and fluid approach to time can lead to greater creativity and flexibility, encouraging individuals to embrace nuances in time perception for improved personal and professional growth.
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“Notice more. Let go. Use everything.”
I’ve decided Future Fossils is going to double down on its commitment to helping people navigate uncharted waters by focusing explicitly on improvisation in 2023, and our first stop together on this journey is a marvelously soulful and profound discussion with my friend Robert Poynton.
Robert is many things, including an Associate Fellow of the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, where he runs executive education programs that help leaders understand and work with complex change. He also runs Yellow Learning (“a regenerative space for a complex world”), which I recommend highly as the kind of group experience you actually WANT to be involved in online…and he’s a husband and father of three adult sons who helps his wife run an organic beef farm in rural Spain.
But perhaps the most salient point is that he wrote an amazing book called Do Improvise — one of the finest I’ve ever encountered on the subject — so that’s the focus of our conversation. Join us as we discuss how to tune in, surrender, and make the most of whatever life throws your way…
This conversation continues with lively and respectful interaction every single day in the members-only Future Fossils Facebook Group. Join us!
I'm also ISO moderators interested in helping steward the Discord server, which I am releasing into the wilds as a fan-operated platform in 2023.
PS — I’ve moved Future Fossils to Substack. There you will find my entire archives AND an increasingly-complete (but as yet not-entirely-migrated) repository of essays and blogs dating back to the Mesozoic. (If you prefer Substack over Patreon, I’m totally happy to take your support there, as well as or instead of…but I have not yet figured out how to handle posting subscribers-only content to both platforms.)
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✨ Mentioned & Related Media:
Stuart Firestein on Ignorance, Failure, Uncertainty, and The Optimism of Science
MG Twitter thread re: Weird Studies and ergodic vs. nonergodic storytelling
The Lord of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Gary Hirsch (friend of Rob’s)
Margaret Heffernan on Hidden Forces Podcast: How To Navigate an Unpredictable World
Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovitch
Everything’s An Offer by Rob Poynton (unavailable at Bookshop.org)
Exaptation of the Guitar by MG
The Future is Exapted and Remixed by MG
Episode Music: Beta Pavonis & Delta Pavonis by MG
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