What can improvisation teach us about the art of life and, more specifically, the art of difficult conversations? Plenty, it turns out. Join me in this provocative and thoughtful interview with Stephen Nachmanovitch — world-class improvisational musician and author of the iconic book Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art, and more recently, The Art of Is: Improvising as a Way of Life.
A few excerpts from our conversation:
"The process of listening presupposes the process of being able to be quiet...In a conversation, if there's a pause of 10 seconds, that’s wonderful. Because you have a chance to not assert something, to not prove something, to not be excellent. To not be right. And sometimes you can hear what the other person says.”
"What seems to be a person is [an] assembly of stories....And if we're lucky enough to be in a conversation with someone from "the other side" of whatever difficulty we are in, and we can tell some of those stories, that's a lot easier than having a position, a lot easier than having a white paper, a lot easier than having a slogan on a sign, a lot easier on the vocal cords than screaming."
"When you're stuck, you're stuck. And you ain't ever gonna get out of that in that moment...but as soon as you perceive yourself as sticky...that shifts things a little bit, to sort of see the process, to see the verb."
"So the question is, which kind of world do we want to live in? The kind of world where things can be fluid and move and change and evolve? Or the kind of world where everything is blocked and stuck?"
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Kern Beare is the founder of the Difficult Conversations Project and the author of Difficult Conversations: The Art and Science of Working Together. He also facilitates a workshop based on his book, which is free for non-profit organizations and community groups.