Some years ago, we were asked to put on a leadership development program for a small group of exceptional achievers who all shared a similar challenge: a perceived lack of ‘presence’.

In the dusty, cobwebbed corridors of my memory, something stirred … oh yes! I had once hooked up an immensely-competent-yet-somehow-understated professional with an actress (now called ‘actors’, I understand). Over a few one-on-one sessions, she managed to help my colleague ‘project’ a more powerful persona, and that in turn made me recall what I had learned in my university minor in drama: that we can show, or ‘project’ behaviors that shape the perceptions of others, even though those behaviors may not initially flow from our default modes. These were good memories to put to use!

So … we decided to reach out to Jim Wuest, our long-time deeply-trusted Industrial Psychologist, to see what/who he might suggest. He put us onto Vancouver Theatre Sports League and we subsequently met Ken Lawson. What a great door we walked through that day! Thank you Jim! Thank you VTSL! And, OMG … thank you Ken!

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Ken Lawson,
“leap and the net shall appear”

Where to start with Ken?  First, he appears here in our Enable Others to Act section, not because he is teaching us what actors do, but because he is enabling PCL’s leaders to become powerful, impactful communicators by carefully strengthening their competence and their confidence. Until we met Ken, we had no idea that presence is a full contact sport!

Don’t get me wrong, we don’t just do Improv classes, we make them an integral part of the fabric we weave into our high-potential leadership development programs.  Improv might take up about 25% of our agenda in every one of our face-to-face get-togethers.  But that 25%?  Wow!  And BTW, we are still doing Improv in our new virtual world, but more on that in another blog …

Here are our learning objectives for Improv:

  • building a powerful presence, through increased awareness of, and skill in, delivering verbal and non-verbal messages
  • increased abilities/speed to hear/think/respond on one’s feet, particularly in uncomfortable/new situations … thus the special meaning to “leap and the net shall appear”
  • focus on personal creativity and teamwork
  • greater skill in storytelling

The results we are seeing from Ken’s contributions, his patience and perseverance, to say nothing of a never-wavering “Yes, Lets!” attitude are remarkable. And … how fun is all this?

Photo by Tim JT on Unsplash

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