Rod the Puppet (Avenue Q) played by Josh Gordon
This past week my son performed in his school production of Avenue Q: The School Edition. There were four shows during the week; the culmination of months of practice. When they started rehearsals in February, none of them knew the lines. Or the words to the songs. Or the stage positions. Or what their fellow cast members were capable of. Or what they were capable of. Every week since then they have practiced. They have learned knew things. About the show, their role, their fellow cast members and themselves. There is no doubt they have all grown.
This week it felt like high stakes. After all, the performances are what this is all about, right? People are paying to attend and see a show performed well. Even if it is a school production. After the second performance, my son was riding a high. The buzz of being on stage and the feeling they had all done a great job. The feedback from the audience confirming this feeling. On the drive home, he shared that he didn’t think his solo song had gone that well. He conceded the feedback was to the contrary, but it had not met the standard he had set for himself. After all, this is show time. Time for perfection.
The reality is that none of these four performances will be perfect. Perfect is an illusion. As a collaboration of human effort, these shows are invariably different each time. If someone is privy to every part of every rehearsal and attended every show, then they may notice those differences. However, as an audience member in one show, it is experienced as a stand-alone performance. For the most part, small imperfections go unnoticed.
Practice is the key to avoiding the bigger, more noticeable, mistakes. Practice prepares performers for if an unexpected, uncontrollable disaster happens. During rehearsals it’s safe for performers to try new things and it is safe to fail. When the audience experiences the performance there is no knowledge of the mistakes and failures during practice. The practice is nonetheless integral to the performance.
. . . . .
Earlier in the day, I was in with a client who expressed concern with the performance of one of their employees. The employee in question had not met her boss’s standard in the first year of undertaking a new role. In his view, she hadn’t produced a winning, new idea for her department. Nor had she received consistent feedback from some of the key stakeholders. As we discussed this in more detail, it occurred to me that we have come to see work as a constant performance. Every day is show time. Every day is time for perfection.
This view is both unrealistic and unfair.
Why don’t we see work as the entire experience? We tend to focus on performance moments. A client presentation. The product launch. A formal employee communication. To amplify the attention we also tend to see those performance moments in isolation. Each performance attributable to a single employee at a single time. By focusing on performance alone, we forget the importance of practice. We shift everyone’s focus to those high stakes moments. We celebrate (or reprimand) the performance alone.
In today’s complex, uncertain environments, practice is vital. Practice is the pathway to learning and mastery. Experimentation, discovery and innovation form part of a practice environment. Safe places to fail, get back up and try again. So that on those occasions of the high stakes performances, we are as ready as we can be.
I’d love to see more workplaces foster a culture of practice and performance. Sure, those high stakes performances are important but they’re not the whole picture. You can’t nail a client presentation if you haven’t had time to practice. Time to practice the presentation itself. But also to practice the essence of what you’re presenting. Time to practice working together as a team. Time to learn new skills and grow. Time to experiment and innovate. Practicing within an environment where it is safe to fail.
I can’t help but wonder what the show looks like when an executive team has each other’s backs. Practicing how to oversee an organisation together. Learning and growing, lifting each other up, not jostling for position. Or a marketing team who don’t feel the need to assert their knowledge, instead free to practice how best to meet customer’s needs. Safe to fail together, in practice, and not judged for how many winning ideas they each come up with. When those performance times come, knowing that it may be higher stakes, but it’s not the only stakes.
It’s a mindset shift for all of us leaders that will enable the systems and practices to follow. A culture of practice and performance is achievable.
. . . . .
When my son looks back on his time in the school production will he reflect on the entire experience? Four months of practicing and performing. The ups and downs of learning new skills and learning to work together. The tears and the laughter. Will he remember stepping out of his comfort zone and taking on a singing role despite ‘not being good at singing’. Will he recall the fear after the final dress rehearsal held two days before show time because it wasn’t yet perfect. Will all of that practice, and the learning from it, be as much of the experience as the four, high stakes, under the spotlight performances?
I watch my son, along with the entire cast and crew, smile, hug and high five each other after the final performance is complete. I am hopeful this group of young students will carry the importance of practice and performance through life.
What about you?