In the fast-paced world of business innovation, women often face unique challenges that require resilience, creativity, and a strong sense of self.
We asked Susan Harrison, Katy Schutte, and Amy Cooke-Hodgson, three of Hoopla’s improv facilitators, about how women can leverage the principles of improvisation to navigate these challenges at work, and how companies and businesses can use them to foster a more inclusive and collaborative working environment that encourages more effective innovation.
What are the challenges that women face in innovation in the workplace?
Susan: I think it’s possible for people to make unhelpful assumptions if you’re a woman. You might not be taken as seriously, more easily dismissed, or less likely to be listened to.
There are women who are really direct and say what they want, and it’s brilliant, but it is noticeable. Whereas a man being direct and saying what he wants doesn’t feel noticeable. I think we still have a long way to go in terms of equality in those respects.
I also think that women sometimes underestimate what they can offer, while I think men sometimes overestimate what they can offer. Each can learn from the other, but I think it’s great when women find the courage to go beyond that.
Across all industries, as a woman, you don’t just have to be good, you have to be brilliant in order to progress.
Katy: When I was doing stand-up comedy, often I would be the only woman out of 10 acts. We’re brought up in an environment where we are represented less, and so we’re thinking: “Well, I don’t want to represent women badly, so I’d better be perfect before I go in”. The mindset being that if I’m not perfect then what’s the point of walking in the door?
We see this pattern in business. A Hewlett Packard internal report found that a man will apply for a job or a promotion even if he only has 60% of the qualifications. If a woman sees the same job or promotion, even if she has nearly everything required, on average a woman won’t apply for a job if she doesn’t have the full 100% of qualifications.
That’s such a huge barrier. If you’re not even in the room, how do you even begin to innovate?
Amy: Without trying to be too gendered about it, women looking to innovate are often in an environment where they are faced with loud, fast-talking men. Sometimes—not always—but sometimes, women don’t communicate in the same way. This can mean that their voice is not as audible. It’s very tricky if you find yourself in that culture and have to fight against it.
When I first started working in the city, I was working for a management consultancy where this culture was prevalent. I actively practised being assertive. I started small; for example, I made suggestions in smaller teams or smaller meetings, or perhaps even one-on-one with a boss or a colleague. This continued until I built up my confidence to assert myself in larger environments.
What advice do you have for women to overcome these challenges?
Susan: My advice would be to try not to judge your own offers and contributions. Improvisers practice tuning out their inner critic in order to be able to generate a wealth of ideas on stage. Try not to judge your own ideas, particularly in the ideation phase of innovating. Try to practise embracing failure and celebrating your mistakes. The quicker you realise you can make mistakes and learn from them, the quicker you’ll learn to be more resilient, agile, and adaptable, which will help you to progress.
I would say it’s all about trusting yourself and trusting other people. This applies to both men and women: don’t judge yourself, and don’t judge other people either. Focus on the fact that innovation means building something together. It’s a collaborative process rather than a competition.
Katy: I think it’s about knowing that failure is okay, and that learning from your mistakes is a positive. Even if you get kick-back from an old-school environment, maybe knowing this for yourself will help, even if you have to put up with some crap for it.
I think finding a community with the other women in your environment is important too. Make sure other women are being heard. If they’re not being listened to around a boardroom table, try the ‘amplification’ technique popularised by the Obama administration. When a woman made an important point, other women in the meeting would repeat the idea as well as crediting it as her idea so it couldn’t be drowned out. So you’re calling out that it’s their idea, who said it, and what it is, until that thing gets picked up on and talked about. Because no one can move on if all of the women in the room are still repeating that same thing! It worked as a brilliant way for women in Obama’s inner circle to gain parity with men.
Another thing to remember is that women are not each other’s competition. There’s room for everyone, and the more we back each other up, the more space we have to be part of the team and to innovate. Get on board, agree, and have each others’ backs.
Amy: In business we often find ourselves in a competitive environment. People are often competing to be the best, the fastest, the most clever. I think in those competitive environments women have often been socialised to step back, and it can be difficult to be heard. Especially if people jump in with judgements or criticisms before you’ve finished.
Sometimes you have to push against the crowd. That might involve addressing any interruptions you receive so that your point can really be heard. If you know that this is going to happen ahead of time, then you can plan and prepare for that in advance. That might mean you write down your points on a piece of paper, so that you’re not railroaded by interruptions. Or you might need to go to your boss ahead of time and say “In this meeting, I’d like to suggest that people are given the full time to speak before taking questions”.
Practice one of the core fundamentals of improv: give yourself permission to fail and cut yourself some slack. If you are able to get to a place where you are not judging your own offers before you say them, then it can give you the confidence to make more suggestions or speak out in meetings, or approach your boss with a project you have in mind!
How do we create a safe space in a collaborative work environment?
Katy: In terms of a safe space, it’s about setting expectations. Putting people in the headspace where they know that they’re safely allowed to fail. This is weirdly harder than you imagine it is to do because as soon as you put people into the work environment, they know they have a short amount of time to deliver on something good.
However, if you create an environment where people feel that they’re allowed to say their piece without being shamed or told they’re wrong, then I think anyone is prepared to be vulnerable and say what they think.
Also, make sure there’s space for people. While there are people (like me) who are quite happy to bang on for ages about stuff, there are other people who might need a bit more permission or space. So, if there is someone who is quietly sitting there, maybe open the door and ask “What do you think?”. It’s the same when we perform improv on stage: if you see someone who has been on the side for ages, you’re going to initiate a scene that involves that person. It’s the same as in a meeting. Why have you got that person in the room? Clearly they’ve got something there that you need, otherwise why are they even there?
Make sure there’s space for them, and if you are one of those people who are assertive, why don’t you shut up for a bit and see what you can listen to? Power isn’t always in what you’re saying; it’s sometimes in what you’re hearing.
How can we be more innovative at work?
Susan: The whole mindset of improv—creating a supportive atmosphere where we accept and build on each other’s ideas, and forgive each other immediately for mistakes that are made—is one that encourages innovation. Be prepared to forgive yourself, and others, for presenting a first outline or draft of an idea that isn’t perfect (it never is!). This will create a much more positive and supportive atmosphere where more original innovation is likely to happen than if you’re creating an atmosphere where people are under pressure or being judged immediately. In those sorts of environments, it’s much harder to take risks and get a foothold on an idea.
Katy: A lot of people quote ‘quality over quantity’, but actually, the more quantity you have, the more choice you have to pick the best quality from. In corporate workshops we’ll often get people to list 50 ideas for something in a short space of time and then go back and pick the ones that work. People’s first five ideas usually aren’t the best ones. The best ideas tend to come further down the line.
At the moment I’m working for Cards Against Humanity. I’ll write 30 white cards and from that I’ll pick my favourite handful and those are the ones I’ll end up pitching.
So when it comes to innovating, start with quantity and set a time limit! It gets the juices flowing and you end up being less precious about each individual idea. Avoid letting your inner editor take over as you’re generating ideas. If your critical brain analyses every single idea, asking “Is this good enough?”, you’ll end up overthinking it and spending too long on fewer ideas. Focus on generating a tonne of stuff and then afterwards pick out the things you want to spend more time developing and innovating.
Failure is such a weird word anyway. Saying that X amount of these ideas don’t work is such a pointless spin on, “We’ve had this one good idea because you’ve spent time coming up with fifty”.
Read more about how to use improv as part of your company’s innovation strategy here.
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