You are an Actor in the Theatre of Business

Mar 23

What Audience Experience Are You Creating At Work?

We think of actors as existing only in the theatre or streaming through the TV. The truth is, you are also an actor. Every day, you are playing a role, stepping onto a stage, navigating the cast of characters around you, and impacting an audience. You are an actor.

Be intentional about the role you’re playing and

your impact on the audience when you take the stage.

In every moment of business, you are creating a shared experience, sometimes intentionally, most often a bit mindlessly, as you go about your day, checking off boxes and getting things done. For example, if you join a Zoom call late and others have been waiting on you, there are a few options.

The Center of the Universe. You join late and waste even more time explaining the details of why you’re late. “My call with client X ran over.” “I ran into the SVP, and needed to catch her while I had the time.” Here you project that you’re late because the prior engagement was more important than all those who joined on time or you didn’t respect the impact your poor planning has on others. Here, the subconscious intention is to show you had no choice but to be late, and you continue to waste time with the dramatic details.
The Hijacker. You join hurried and may be a little flustered since you’ve been running behind all day. You hijack the team vibe with your rushed frustration. Here, the subconscious intention is to let off steam by venting a little about how busy you are. As if no one else is as busy.
The Leader. You apologize, genuinely, for wasting people’s time, acknowledge everyone present with a simple greeting, confirm the meeting will end at the planned time, and get to the task at hand. Here, the goal is intentional—to acknowledge the impact your lateness has on others and use the remaining time respectfully and productively. The third option requires intention—being intentional about the experience you want to create in the business moment. It requires that you are thoughtful about the desired experience, as a director would be in staging a play, and then perform that intention.

Think about these moments in business:

Presenting a big proposal
Hosting a town hall meeting
Conducting a workshop to create next year’s business plan
Job interviewing
Meeting someone for the first time
Giving or receiving feedback
Leading or attending a Zoom meeting

These examples vary by degree of formality, by internal or external audiences, by how high you perceive the stakes to be in that moment. What they all have in common is that you will make an impact in each of these scenarios—but are you making the impact you intend? Your magic as a leader is in creating the experience you intentionally want to share, and the best place to turn for lessons in creating experiences is the theatre.

I have a Master of Fine Arts in acting, a three-year terminal degree. Terminal sounds like it’s fatal, and I guess in some ways it is fatal if you consider that about 90% of actors are out of work at any given time. In addition, resilience, complete surrender to feedback, and fortress-thick skin are required to complete such a program, so when you graduate, you really feel as if you’ve survived something. Terminal here actually means it’s the highest degree achievable in its field. From the theatre field of study and acting for ten years, I learned all that goes into creating the audience engagement and shared moments of a theatre experience. Every day, I bring that knowledge to my corporate work. I’m passionate about leaders bringing the disciplines of theatre into business to improve impact.

Consider the theatre components and how they show up in the business environment. The major disciplines that come together in a theatrical production to create a shared experience are director, script, cast, audience, set design, costumes, lighting, sound, and props.

Here’s how these disciplines apply to business meetings:

Director: the sponsor of the meeting; the person who has decided why this meeting, why now.
Script: the key messages to be conveyed during the meetings.
Cast: the people presenting, sharing the key messages.
Audience: the people who need to absorb the key messages.
Set, Lighting, and Sound: the vibe, the tone you want to establish with the physical or virtual space.
Costumes: the dress code.
Props: the materials required.

With a business-theatre mindset, you become intentional about the experience being created.

For a recent internal meeting, which was very large and virtual, two teams came together from an acquisition. Many people were meeting for the first time. The “director” had an intention of creating one team where everyone felt valued regardless of their legacy company. She asked Company A people to wear blue and Company B people to wear green so it would be immediately clear who was coming from which legacy company. Team members from each company paired up for virtual breakouts to identify something the pair had in common and something they could teach each other based on their various experience. Yes, this is an example of a facilitation technique, but not for cute reasons. The technique was used with strategic intention to create a shared experience.

You are an actor. Be intentional about the role you’re playing and your impact on the audience when you take the stage.

A coach can help.