Imagination and Fluid Leadership: A Powerful Concept for First Responders

On Tuesday, March 25th, our Heroic Improvisation team (Gabe, Dingdong, Ariel and I) did our first run of the Level 2 workshop -- focusing on Spontaneous Team building.

I have run the Level 2 workshop in the US with national service volunteers.  But this time, we had the privilege of running the workshop for seasoned firefighters and police officers in the Subic Bay area.  These emergency responders are well-known in the Philippines to be the best emergency rescuers in the country.


See more at: http://www.mysubicbay.com.ph/news/2013/10/21/sbma-rescue-team-wins-2013-gawad-kalasag

We wanted to give these well-trained first responders a different training experience.  So we engaged their imaginations right away.  We had them respond in 5 minutes to a fictional, unimaginable event - right out of a Hollywood script.

It was amazing to see two groups firefighters and police work together to shelter in place quickly.   I haven't seen a championship athletic team come together so quickly for a common purpose.

I knew that imagination was a good resource for disaster practice.  And I was still blown away at how powerful imagination was for experienced professionals.  Using their imaginations, the participants played hard and played for real.   Therefore, they were able to respond to an unimaginable experience right on the spot.

During the workshop, we put them through a more difficult improvisation exercises, since all of them had deep experiences in working as a team in crisis situations.  And still we could challenge them with the exercises.

The biggest insight that the first responders described for themselves was the idea of fluid leadership.  In the workshop, we demonstrate this with a mirroring exercise in pairs.  We have the participants face each other and alternate leading the movement.  They start with their eyes open, with one leader designated at a time.  Later, we have the partners alternate quickly, until there is no obvious leader or follower -- they are just in the flow.  The final part is for the participants to close their eyes.  The miracle is when the facilitators asks participants to stop and open their eyes -- most are exactly mirroring each other.  Those pairs that are not exactly mirroring have complementary movements.  It is a powerful demonstration of fluid leadership.

We challenged them with a more complex exercise.  All thirty were scattered in the room.  Then we gave them the instruction that only one person could walk.  When another person had the impulse to walk, the first walker stops.  Therefore, all have to have a hard focus on who is walking and a soft focus on who might move next.  It was amazing to see how smoothly it worked with this group.

Then we moved into two people moving.  The complexity increases dramatically with two walkers because there is double the amount of action to watch.  Eventually, the group gets into a rhythm that is responsive to the moment.  It is not a dance. Yet to watch this movement feels like the group practiced their moves well in advance of the moment.

Our workshop was so well received by the responders, that a high-level emergency responder leader said he was willing to devote his weekend to bring Heroic Improvisation to schools in the area.  This leader's interest in Heroic Improvisation is a true testament to the ability of the workshop to harness imagination to help people get ready for disaster!

It Takes a Village to Bring Heroic Improvisation to a Native Village

My Filipino Heroic Improvisation partners are amazing.  Gabe Mercado is deep observer of human nature, organizer of innovation and funny.  He has attracted fellow Silly People’s Improv Theater members - Dingdong Roseles and Ariel Diccion -- to work as Heroic Improvisation facilitators in Tagalong and other regional Filipino languages.  They are experienced improvisors, great actors and have a heart for the work.  It is amazing to witness my ideas in a different language and see people make connections.  Although I haven’t studied Tagalong, I am learning to understand it.  It is a musical language spoken by expressive people, so I’m getting the gist and even some of the humor.  Amazing!

A friend and colleague of Gabe was able to create two opportunities for us to take Heroic Improvisation workshop in the Subic Bay area.  Americans might remember that Subic Bay, Philippines was an important American Naval Base during the Cold War.  In the early 1990s and in the wake of the volcano eruption of the Mount Pintabo, the Americans left the base and transferred ownership to the Philippines.  Since that time, the area is now known as Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, which is a national economic zone.

After leaving Manila at dawn on Monday 2/24, Gabe drove us (Dingdong, Ariel and me) to Subic Bay.  It was a fun ride to see the countryside.  The remains of the volcano destruction of the 1990s look like a barren moonscape -- gray and lifeless.  Still dramatic and humbling to see Mother Nature's destruction after all these decades.  

After lunch, we brought the Heroic Improvisation workshop to a small village of an indigenous Filipino tribe on the former Subic Bay property.  This area is a pristine rainforest.  We had 24 participants, from senior citizen women to teenage boys.  English comprehension was low, so I had only small speaking parts that were translated.  

It was so fun to see Ariel facilitate the workshop in Tagalong.  Ariel’s day job is a Filipino literature professor, so he can express the concepts simply and clearly.  Seeing the connection arise between Ariel and the participants validated my choice to use performers and improvisors to deliver the workshop.  When the connections are made, it is powerful.

Also, some older villigers shared their volcano erunption stories, which informed the vilage and the visitors about the viliage’s disaster history.  Many of our games are non-verbal, so I was able to participate with the villagers and they got a kick out of me playing the games also.

I teared up a little when I told them how happy I was to bring the workshop to them.  One came up to me and gave me a hug and said “Thank you Mama Mary.”  The villagers also played the games with a lot of commitment, which I was grateful for.  

We lost participation after the afternoon break.  We delivered the workshop in a shelter without windows, so the afternoon heat was a factor.  Plus participants had afternoon chores to do and some had long bus trips back home, so they were anxious about the time.  Therefore, we need to come up with strategies to amelierate the effect of afternoon heat on the activities and groups greater than sixteen.

However, the 16 hardy participants stayed to the very end.  I believe we planted some seeds that all citizens can be a leader, if we work together in a crisis.  There was a brief ceremony when we finished and I got an official Certificate of Appreciation from the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority.  And no Filipino event can be complete before there are some pictures taken.  So fun and gratifying!

To celebrate, our team and our Subic Bay host and his wife had a meal together during sundown on the West Philippine Sea at Gerry’s Seafood outside on the sand.  So fun, so relaxing, and so unlike my regular Februarys in the US.

Go Slow to be Fast: The Joy of Repetition in Improvisation

So I have been in the Philippines for a week plus. What a week it has been! We have done four runs of the workshop: 2 pilots with improvisors and trainers; 1 run with a eco-resort staff in Tagalog and 1 run with a special needs school staff in Tagalog and English. Whew! I feel like I'm in a benevolent greenhouse called the Philippines and everything is ripening quickly. What a joy it is for me to devote myself fully to this labor of love. 

Just like in improv, our Heroic Improvisation team started out slow to speed up later.  Now the Heroic Improvisation workshop development is clicking away at warp speed!  Many repetitions can improve action, when done to serve improvement.

The ability to do 4 repetitions of the workshop -- with trainers, with eco-resort staff and special education staff in a week  -- has helped up to tune-up the workshop delivery.  The workshop is setting participants up to use their imagination to practice disaster response together.

The Sunday, 2/23 workshop was a mixed group of 13 educated folks from Manila, including another trainer and an American relief worker.  Another participant had limited sight.  However, if he didn’t disclose that I would not have noticed.  His awareness in the  room was keen and limited sight did not affect his level of play or interaction with the group.  With our tuned-up workshop, this group was able to play in the workshop at a high-level.  This group played together and very creatively.  I was impressed!

Here is their one-word summary of what they learned: play, communication, fluid, trust, preparation, connection and perspective.

The workshop is exceeding my expectations!  Hooray!

Create Theater or Live Melodrama! Implications of Large Groups for Experiential Workshops.

(This observations have a caveat of an American and first-time visitor to the Philippines.  I could be misinterpreting or missing cultural cues.  These are exploratory observations and open to revision!)

My Cabin John neighbor -- Caroline Casey -- says:  "Create theater or live melodrama!"  When we are in melodrama, we are passive and driven by outside forces.  When we creating theater, we are active and moving in harmony with interior and exterior forces.

Creating theater instead of living melodrama is the core of the Heroic Improvisation workshop.  Participants create their own moves to disaster instead of being driven by fear or passivity.

We completed our largest Filipino workshop yet:  24 people in a special needs school.  We went over our maximum workshop participation of 16 by 8 people.

These extra eight people made a difference in the quality of the experience we could create with the Heroic Improvisation workshop.  It appeared to me that because the intensity of the experience was diluted with the larger group, that participants could have been more passive during the worskhop.  The larger group slowed:

• developing trust in the group
• sharing of feelings and
• building momentum towards group action in the workshop.

Our ending exercise was an unimaginable, dramatic event in the school.  The participants' feedback stated that they wanted more drama associated with simulation.  We were holding back our theater special effects because we didn't want to freak anyone out. 

I'm wondering if participants wanted more drama because the size of the group lent to passive participation.  That in the larger group people feel the need for more MELODRAMA, because the participants did NOT create their own THEATER in the workshop.

Just an exploratory observation...would love your thoughts here or dr.marytysz@ymail.com

Heroic Improvisation in the Philippines - Frequently Asked Questions!

My collaborator -- Gabe Mercado -- pasted these Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on Facebook.  This is how much progress we have made in 7 days....whew!

Our fast prototyping of Mary's Heroic Improv program is exhilarating. We are learning so much as we roll out and rapidly fine tune the program.

We are doing 4 runs to various communities over the next 4 days, with 8 more runs scheduled in the days after that directly to the Haiyan hit communities.

Here's a FAQ I prepared regarding the program

FAQs about HEROIC IMPROVISATION

1. What is Heroic Improvisation all about?

It's a process that was created to help citizen groups prepare for unpredictable and unimaginable disaster and emergency situations by learning group improvisation skills.

The workshop invites the participants to know the steps of the Heroic Improvisation process and allows them to experience the dynamics of fluid leadership, quick decision making and moving efficiently as a group through improvisational theater exercises and disaster simulations.

2. Who developed the Heroic Improvisation process?

Dr. Mary Tyszkiewicz, a disaster research professional based in Washington DC developed the process. Her many years of experience working with FEMA, the Homeland Security Institute and the US Congress and her recent work with Hurricane Sandy and the FEMA Corps resulted in the creation of the Heroic Improvisation process.

Gabe Mercado is her partner in the Philippines. Gabe is the founder and Artistic Director of SPIT, the premiere improvisational theater company in Manila and is a trainer with over a decade of experience in human and organizational development.

Mary and Gabe met through the Applied Improvisation Network and are working very closely to fast prototype the process with different citizen groups throughout the country.

3. Will it help communities with emotional debriefing, stress release and trauma release?

No. In fact we highly recommend that only communities that have gone through some process of healing take this workshop.

It may in fact produce more trauma and emotional distress because realistic disaster simulation is an integral part of our process.

4. Do I need to be an improviser for this program to work?

No. We made sure that the process will work even if you have never even heard of improv before and have been very careful to simplify the language so that it contains very little theater or disaster research related jargon.

5. Who is the program for?

We've designed this program that we are rolling out in the Philippines specifically for citizen groups, preferably on the barangay level.

It's not designed for decision makers or policy makers although they may very well benefit from the experience.

Any community, in fact, that wants to actively prepare for any disaster could benefit from taking this program as part of their overall DRRM plan.

6. I want my community to experience your workshop, how do I get you here?

Mary and Gabe will do as many runs of the program as they can until she returns to Washington DC on March 5.

Gabe and the rest of SPIT and other volunteer trainers will be rolling out the program throughout the country after that.

JCI Princess Urduja Makati will process your request and handle the logistics of getting us there through sponsorships and sponsorships that we have in place for the Heroic Improvisation program.

We should be ready for a massive rollout of the program by the summer of 2014.

7. How do you pronounce TYSZKIEWICZ?

Say TIZ - KEV - ITCH

8. How do you pronounce GABE?

Certainly not as GAB-EH

2/19 Improvisation Wkshop in the native Filapino language

On the morning of 2/19, we did our 1st Heroic Improvisation Workshop in the native Filapino language.  The participants were staff from Forest Club in Laguna Province, 2 hours south of Manila towards the mountains. More at www.theforestclub.com

Our participants were a diverse group in age from 20-somethings to 60-somethings.  The staff here run team-building courses for company retreats, and feed and house the visitors.  All the staff had personal experience with typhoons, so were very interested in the workshop.

My improv collaborator ran the games in the Filipino language.  I did the disaster part in English, which many can understand better than they can speak it.

It was really gratifying to see my workshop launched in a different culture.  It was a bittersweet moment for me...I have launched something that now has a life of its own.

The highlight of the workshop was the end.  We put the staff through an imagined fire drill and they got the fire house, first aid kit and many buckets of water in 3 minutes flat.  (No exaggeration!)  This workshop works!

Rapid Prototyping Heroic Improvisation Workshop with Social Science Instincts!

My theater improv collaborator  -- Gabe Mercado -- has a hidden talent!  He has good social science instincts.  This has been a boon to our collaboration to rapidly prototype the Heroic Improvisation Workshop.

First, as a disaster-prone country of earthquakes, typhoons, floods, landslide and vocanic eruptions, Filapinos bring a true desire to help fellow citizens in these situations.  It has been inspiring to see the passion and committment my collaborators have brought to this work.

Second,  he made sure that our pilot workshops had six experienced, best-practice trainers attend as participants and observers.  (Some came twice!)  Since the Philippines is the 3rd largest English speaking country (!), there are a lot of call centers here and the need for training is high.  And these trainers are good!  The trainers in the room helped us rapidly prototype the workshop.  The major tune-up was to connect the exercises directly to disaster attitudes.

Third, Gabe has sought out diverse participants (age, performance experience, gender) for each of our workshop runs.  

Fourth, Gabe is seeking diverse groups to experience the workshop.  We will roll the workshop to emergency workers, airline crews, special education teachers, along with the recent survivors of Typhoon Haiyan at the end of the month.  

Here are the ahas! we found so far:

Heroic Improvisation Process Works:  All participants have experience the concepts through the theater improvisation games.  The joy is the heroic improvisation process works and is validated in the US and Philippines.

Fun Together Fuels the Learning:  Disasters are intense experiences.  Learning about disaster response through fun motivates that learning.  Although experiencing uncertainity, participants learn they can "make things up as they go along".  This is a powerful experience.  It seems to open other possibilities and choices for participants when they think of themselves individually and working in a group during a crisis.

Disaster Simulation is the Text:  Each group and individual find their own lessons and learning through being in the imagined crisis situation as individuals and a group.  Just 5 minutes of an imagined crisis is a rich experience to explore over the three-hour workshop.

Responding to the Unimaginable with Action:  The workshops meet a critical gap for what citizens worry about when thinking about disaster -- How will I respond?  Disaster knowledge and skills are only useful if the person is not too freaked out to move into action.  Since the workshop gives us the experience of   chaos and confusion, the participants learn to work though fear together and practice quick action.

Working Together Can Help Us Be Heroic Together:  Our human instinct is our individual "survival of the fittest".  The workshop pushes participants to work together and they like what they learn and see together.