“I never realized an acting class could be so helpful to me as a Best Buy professional.” 
This August in Boston, SagePresence had the privilege of speaking and workshopping for professional women at Best Buy’s fifth annual women’s leadership conference.
Best Buy’s WOLF program (the Women’s Leadership Forum) honors and fosters the development of its professional women with speakers, development workshops and networking events.
Pete Machalek and I delivered three back to back runs of “YOU HAD ME AT HELLO – Developing Powerful Connections at Will” in order to help these professionals master instant connections with customers and staff with our system of rapid relationship building. The “room tone” was positive and we were told we created a buzz!
We were prepared, and our content is well-tested, but the real surprise came in our evening event which was a less conventional business event – an IMPROVISATIONAL ACTING workshop.
WOLF had designed the day for “serious learning,” which included our powerful connections workshop, but their evening plans placed fun and personal expression at the forefront. It was Wolf’s Pamela Punt who had the insight to provide expression workshops as evening electives.
Initially Pete and I had our corporate trainer hats on and were emphasizing learning over entertainment, which caused us concern. To our pleasant surprise, the idea was not only successful, but it contained unexpected outcomes including confidence building.
The women who signed up for our class reported that it took a degree of personal conviction and self-discipline just to step through the doors of the class, let alone onto our stage and in front of a film director and our cameras. We were glad to have participants at all since it had been a full day already, and we were competing with networking events, dinners, and evening parties.
The women reported initial “fight or flight” reactions. When we turned on the cameras, they reported fear. But when we called “action” the fear went away and they began their scenes.
We worked improvisationally, to help participants discovered that they can indeed act natural and comfortable on command, under observation, and even with some nervousness – just like operating in a business environment when you need to be yourself despite pressure and high stakes. That was the connection we were trying to make.
Our approach was to guide these corporate performers to rely on the same skills a person uses when just being themselves – you know, talking off the top of your head, responding in the moment, and maneuvering with some balance of authenticity and agenda in the hope of finding a win-win for everyone involved.
In the first round, we had people just act out a scene with no goals other than to exist in a specific scene with a setting and a situation. Once they were comfortable in the scene environment, we began increasing the pressure of observation, moving cameras around and getting right in the actor’s faces.
At first, they’d report a “paralysis” that would set in under observation. But after a little while, they discovered their ability to block it out and perform comfortably under observation pressure.
This was the kind of learning we were hoping for – learning that you can increase your ability to be normal and calm even when someone is watching you and scrutinizing you. These women were learning fast, and gaining confidence and comfort in the exact situation that made their skin crawl moments before. They were becoming desensitized to being in the spotlight!
As we moved forward in the program, we increased the heat by adding contradictory emotional goals to introduce challenge and conflict. We used to call this “scene boxing” in the old days, where two actors duke out their opposing goals in the scene. It makes acting more likelife, where you not only exist but you try to accomplish something, which may or may not agree with the environment around you.
When we played the footage back, the women’s faces lit up. They had no idea they could be so comfortable in such a previously uncomfortable setting. In fact, the acting allowed them to step beyond their normal expressive boundaries.
Some reported excitement in seeing themselves expressing more freely. “My friends told me I needed to get out of my shell, and this really did it for me,” reported one participant, who left aglow with a new lease on life.
It’s been a while since we’ve directly applied an acting program for corporate purposes, and it’s brand new to have used a straight acting class as a corporate confidence-builder. Obviously, our professional programs are derivative of acting, writing and storytelling skills, which makes them close cousins to our original acting workshops, and we’ve always known that acting practice can bring confidence.
We have always adapted performance skills into something more like corporate training or public speaking classes rather than doing it straight up like we did Thursday night. We were thrilled and surprised that the approach could build so much self-knowledge, free expression, and confidence applicable to the business setting.
Each participant encouraged us to continue this sort of programming for business use. And as long as there are innovative players like Julie Gilbert and Pamela Punt of Best Buy, we will.