By Clemens Rettich, on November 1st, 2011 
We all procrastinate. But most of us are not procrastinators.
When was the last time you put off eating that ice cream because it was too much bother? How about finding all kinds of excuses not to cash in that cheque for 10K.
No?
How many of us pack the car in a flurry to hit the road and get to that fishing or camping spot before everyone else? Gardeners getting lost for hours in their gardens? Those of us who love to cook, unwinding in our kitchens, cooking 4-course meals?
Where are the procrastinators?
Every time I work . . . → Read More: There are No Procrastinators
By Clemens Rettich, on October 10th, 2011 
Whether you are Canadian or American, it is not the exact date of Thanksgiving that matters as much as the commitment we make to express our gratitude for what we have been given.
My Thanksgiving list this year is long, but I’ll focus on four things I am grateful for:
That I have the opportunity to do only what I love every day. Two weeks ago I attended an evening staff meeting at the production facility of a client. In the few moments before I took my place at the front of the room, my client and I were . . . → Read More: Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving – My Gratitude List
By Clemens Rettich, on October 4th, 2011 
Engagement has become one of those nod your head buzzwords. We all suspect it’s a good thing, but most of us have no concrete understanding of what it means.
What engagement does means:
The feeling that we matter at work; that the unique skills and experience we bring to the team are valued, and would be missed if we weren’t there The deliberate act of engaging with employees to share their input and feedback to improve the organization. Done right, this leads back to #1!
The decades-long work by Marcus Buckingham and the Gallup organization have provided irrefutable evidence that the absence . . . → Read More: Tell Me I Matter & We Both Win
By Clemens Rettich, on August 26th, 2011 
Meeting with the production team of a client this morning, we explored the implications of being a luxury brand, which this company is.
One of the points I made was that for luxury brands, the stories & the myths matter as much as the products themselves. The creative, labour-intensive process combined with the challenge of producing or sourcing extremely high-quality materials makes for a compelling story.
One of the team members commented that she was comfortable writing about the process on their blog, but felt that she needed to work hard to keep herself out of the story. “I . . . → Read More: It’s Your Story… Using Stories to Market Your Business
By Clemens Rettich, on August 4th, 2011 
Patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time…
Carrying on a conversation with a customer while preparing their complicated order at the counter…
Calling in sick when you are actually on your way to the beach for the day…
Coming up with a new idea when all around you people are trotting out clichés…
Throughout life we are asked to do more than one thing at once, and be creative about it to boot. To do any of those things successfully requires that we get past the normal ‘grooves’ of behaviour that are our first instincts.
. . . → Read More: Improv in a Suit: What are you Doing? (Dissociation)
By Clemens Rettich, on August 2nd, 2011 
One of the fundamental tactics for success in improv theatre is to use the “Yes and…” approach. This means that instead of rejecting an offer made by a member of your improv team, you accept it and attach the word “and” to move the scene forward. Read more about this and its connection with good management here.
It turns out that not only does the ‘yes and…’ approach make for better teamwork, it actually is a key to authentic authority in the 21st century.
Historically, in the world of top-down hierarchical structures, what was valued in leaders was the ability to . . . → Read More: Yes And… The Root of Authority
By Clemens Rettich, on July 20th, 2011 
We spend our life waiting for cues.
It’s all about trying to get the timing right. We look for cues to speak our turn, to ask for a raise, to lean in for a kiss…
Act too soon, and it sends the wrong signals of pushiness or desperation. Too late and the moment slips by.
Getting it right takes skills they don’t teach at school. It’s one of those things we have to figure out on our own, usually painfully. It takes empathy, good listening skills, confidence, some intelligence, and a fair degree of luck to make our entrances . . . → Read More: Improv in Heels: Exit Game
By Clemens Rettich, on June 21st, 2011 
In the movie Being There, Peter Sellers, in his last major role, plays Chance the Gardener, a dim-witted gardener who through a series of accidents ends up being seen as a sage with answers to life’s deepest questions.
Chance the Gardener [Riding in a car for the first time]:” This is just like television, only you can see much further.”
To get a sense of the dialogue and of the other characters’ desperate desires to hear answers where there are none, read this excerpt at IMDB.
Meaning is determined by the audience. As speakers or ‘broadcasters’ we can try . . . → Read More: Improv in the Cubicles: The Oracle
By Clemens Rettich, on June 2nd, 2011 
“There was never enough bread in the house.”
“She jumped as high as she could, and finally saw what she was looking for.”
“You really should go get that checked out you know.”
Three unrelated sentences; an infinite number of possibilities when combined and used as material for a story.
That is the magic of the creative process where you take a number of deliberately unrelated items and bring them into proximity to see what surprising new options emerge. The author Edward de Bono has made a career out of an approach called lateral thinking that uses this approach . . . → Read More: Improv in a Suit: Three of These Things…
By Clemens Rettich, on April 8th, 2011 
A little girl is taking dinner to her grandmother. A wolf intercepts her and finds out where she is going. The wolf arrives at the grandmother’s house first, eats the grandmother, disguises himself in her clothes, and waits in bed for the little girl. The girl arrives, is a little bit suspicious, impolitely comments on her grandmothers’ appearance, and is promptly eaten. Drowsy after his meal, the wolf falls asleep. A woodcutter arrives, slices the sleeping wolf open, rescues the grandmother and the girl, fills the wolf up with rocks, and sews him up. The wolf wakes up thirsty . . . → Read More: Act Fast! Fairy Tale in 60 Seconds
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