Make More Mistakes? Up to a point – the point where they matter

In a recent exchange on Facebook, one of my friends told another of my friends, in relation to a comedy workshop she had taught,?‘Everyone loved your (advice) be weird, make more mistakes.'

Both these wonderful people are reputable teachers of improvisation, who like many others, say this provocative thing:?‘Make more mistakes’.?And they report, presumably accurately, that their learners like this advice. The big?idea?seems to be:?‘We sometimes feel pressured (by others or by ourselves) not to make mistakes, and such pressure (often described as?‘fear') inhibits good performance. So, if we want good performance, we have to relieve the pressure - and one way of doing so is to encourage mistakes.

We’ll encourage you to make more mistakes, they go on, by celebrating them - typically with a shout of?‘woohoo!’. So far, so good. The?desired?outcome is that the participants go on to?make more?mistakes, but they are less inhibited and so on balance are performing better.

The sort of mistakes they are making in these scenarios might include:

• making the?‘wrong’?gesture or move in a physical game
• stumbling over a word in a?fast-talking exercise
• not rhyming when making up a verse or a song on the spot
• telling a joke that doesn't get a laugh

These are welcomed as evidence of having a go. They are encouraging a process, rather than emphasising the quality of results.

The sorts of mistakes that are perhaps less likely and certainly less welcome, include:

• Getting the time wrong and not showing up for the session
• Falling off a stage and breaking your arm
• Inadvertently (perhaps out of habit) making sexist, racist or other offensive comments

The encouraged mistakes belong in the narrowest and safest of contexts. They are small slip-ups that occur during an activity, with the only consequence being a less-than-perfect performance. It’s a neat way to challenge habits of unnecessary perfectionism which might inhibit their having a go for fear of falling short or being judged as insufficiently competent.

There are other improvisation teachers who re-define such in-activity moments as something other than mistakes. They say,?‘There are no mistakes’. They are aiming to lower the stress in that moment, encourage people to keep playing, perhaps exercising less caution, greater speed or more risk-taking spontaneity. All of which are designed to produce better performers of on-stage improvisation.

These teachers are like parents telling a child not to be frightened of getting on an escalator for the first time or jumping into a swimming pool or riding a bike. The pupil is?encouraged to?overcome an initial hesitation in order to discover that the task is achievable and perhaps even fun.

Encourage mistakes to reach success

There’s a?version of this in current organisational thinking too that says it’s only by encouraging mistakes and failure that the firms will reach success. They want their people to take more chances and go out on enough limbs to generate a wide range of results.?If they are not?‘failing’?enough, it indicates that they are not having enough tries. Note here that it’s not the failures that are celebrated. Rather they are tolerated as the price of the desired successes. The failures are, rightly, discarded, while the successes are developed and promoted.

That’s also what happens in?a good science?lab. It’s not about success or failure as such during the experimental period. It’s about testing, getting results and using the feedback until something worthwhile is produced. As with venture capitalists and drug development firms, investment is recognised as a risky game in which there will be losses as well as wins.

Now few parents would be so cavalier as to tell their children that it is wrong to be frightened of anything. For one thing, that would be to deny a legitimate emotion. And parents know that strong underwater currents, fast-moving traffic and aggressive strangers are all worthy of fear, for one good reason or another. What parents want is for their children to deal with a?variety of?dangers with confidence and due respect to the hazards they present.?

Even fewer parents would encourage their children to make mistakes in circumstances where mistakes have significant unwanted consequences.?No one wants mistakes or failures when crossing roads, choosing between safe and poisonous foods or wiring electrical devices. And even in less life-or-death cases, mistakes such as putting a wrong password into a computer or forgetting your ticket for a show are - at a minimum - annoying and frustrating.

'Celebrating failure'?turns out to be a useful tip in special particular contexts such as improvisation workshops, but it’s clearly not a universally-applicable?strategy. It's rather like saying ‘there are no bad ideas’, which - while temporarily believable in a brainstorm - is blatantly false. And although, ‘The customer is always right’ may be a helpful opening stance for a sales assistant, it’s one best kept on the?shop floor.?

When an improvisation teacher next tells you to celebrate mistakes, remember that this advice may not serve you well outside the workshop. It is a tip, not a principle. And this is a distinction that matters because our?interest here is Applied?Improvisation. We want concepts in our practice that we and?our?clients can apply away from the stage, in our lives and in our work.?'Make more mistakes' rarely fits that need - at least not without a lot more explanation than we get from cliches and slogans.

It matters too because it turns out that there are versions of improvisation principles that you can?apply?to settings like exams, conducting surgery, driving cars and password-filling. These are places in which it’s a great idea to be?improvisational - that is to say, in the moment, responsive and ready to put your resources to good (and - when needed - innovative) use. If improvisation is about making and celebrating mistakes, then it can’t be applied in all sorts of places that we want to apply it.

Actually,?making?mistakes is of limited use even as a direction for on-stage improvisers. No one really wants performers making significant mistakes like speaking too quietly for the audience to hear, keeping the show running for too long or not listening to fellow players.?

So what mistakes do you want people to make???And?would you rather they kept making these mistakes, rather than eventually getting things right?

Let’s propose that it is more productive and honest to say, 'Have A Go'. Then if mistakes then occur, treat them as lightly as possible, and not as an excuse to get miserable or to stop trying.

Oh, and in the Facebook conversation, I replied, ‘My daughter is taking a maths exam in which she needs a good score to get the job she wants. How many more mistakes are you recommending she makes?’…?Which may have been a mistake!

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