Follow the Follower跟随追随者
In theatrical improv the goal and the means to that goal are always clear: a group of improvisers is performing to explore their art, having fun and entertaining their audience. In the business world goals are constantly shifting and new teams are being assembled every workday. Even if the members of a team are capable of working together beautifully, the team is pointless without a leader to articulate its goals and process. That’s not to say the team is pointless because it can’t do anything by itself. It can, and left alone it might just find its way toward a useful goal.
在戏剧即兴演奏中，目标和达到该目标的手段总是很明确：一群即兴演奏者正在表演以探索他们的艺术，玩乐和娱乐他们的观众。在商业世界中，目标不断变化，每个工作日都在组建新的团队。即使团队中的成员有能力出色地合作，但如果没有领导者阐明其目标和流程，团队也毫无意义。这并不是说团队没有意义，因为它本身无法做任何事情。它可以并且不去管它可能只是朝着一个有用的目标前进。
In most situations, however, someone has to step up and give a team direction and focus and deadlines, or things don’t get done. Parameters have to be put into place for a team to function—and to know how to function—and someone has to set those parameters and police them when necessary. In business settings any work being done by two or more people working together will require leadership.
但是，在大多数情况下，有人必须加紧努力，为团队提供方向，重点和截止日期，否则事情就没有完成。必须为团队发挥作用并知道如何发挥作用而设置参数，并且有人必须设置这些参数并在必要时进行管理。在业务环境中，任何由两个或多个人一起工作的工作都需要领导。
From a sort of business-feature headline perspective the term “leader” is sometimes defined in the grandest sense: a leader is a visionary, an innovator, a game-changer, an iconoclast. Henry Ford.Richard Branson. Steve Jobs. These kinds of leaders are measured by the size and success of their big ideas, or perhaps simply by the size of their market share.
从商业功能的大标题角度来看，“领导者”一词有时是最广义的定义：领导者是有远见的人，创新者，改变游戏规则的人，偶像破坏者。亨利·福特·理查德·布兰森史蒂夫·乔布斯。这类领导者是通过他们的大创意的规模和成功程度来衡量的，或者可能只是通过其市场份额的规模来衡量。
However, in a day-to-day business sense when we talk about leadership we’re really talking about the ability to work with people. There are of course many different ways to lead, that is,to get people to achieve at their highest potential. In business the current leadership trajectory combines emotional intelligence (EQ) with rational intelligence (IQ)—relationship building that is based in empathy as much as in rational, analytical, strategic intelligence.2 Beyond vision, leadership is about connection and engagement, so all the skills required for engaging with others are crucial whether one is guiding a team, heading a department, or managing a crisis.
但是，就日常业务而言，当我们谈论领导力时，我们实际上是在谈论与人合作的能力。当然，有许多不同的领导方式，即使人们发挥最大潜力。在企业中，当前的领导轨迹将情绪智力（EQ）与理性智力（IQ）结合在一起，这种关系建立基于同理心以及理性，分析性和战略性智力。2超越愿景，领导力是关于联系和参与的，所以一切与他人交往所需的技能至关重要，无论是指导团队，领导部门还是应对危机。
In improvisational leadership the concept of “Follow the Follower” shifts a bit. The “following” doesn’t imply a surrender of authority.Instead it refers to a leadership state of mind in which a leader is capable of leveling status and fostering talent. The improvisational leader is still a person in charge; however, that person is also open to ideas, opinions, interactions, and actions from his or her subordinates.
在即兴领导中，“跟随追随者”的概念有所改变。“跟随”并不意味着放弃权威。相反，它是指领导者的心态，即领导者能够提升地位和培养才能。即兴领导仍是负责人；但是，此人也可以接受下属的想法，观点，互动和行动。
The most enlightened leaders I know actually pay very close attention to the people they lead and are inspired by them. That doesn’t mean that leaders need to be dismissive of their own vision, goals, drive,tenacity, and motivation. It simply means they operate with a heightened awareness of exactly whom they are leading. The required level of awareness in leaders has evolved significantly over the last 15 years or so, at least partly in response to the prevalence of social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram), crowd sourcing, and the internet and the evolving ways that we communicate with each other. The younger generations are dictating how we communicate with each other like in no other time in human history. “Follow the Follower,” to an enlightened leader, means that by focusing on the people you lead, they will focus on you in return.
我认识的最开明的领导人实际上非常关注他们领导的人，并受到他们的启发。这并不意味着领导者需要摒弃自己的愿景，目标，动力，坚韧和动力。这只是意味着他们在对领导者的身份有了更高的认识。在过去的15年左右的时间里，领导者所需的意识水平已有了很大的发展，至少部分是由于社交媒体（Twitter，Facebook，Instagram），众包，互联网以及我们不断发展的沟通方式的流行彼此。年轻一代支配着我们如何像人类历史上任何其他时代一样相互交流。“跟随追随者”是一个开明的领导者，这意味着通过专注于您领导的人，他们将反过来关注您。
We are all in people businesses, built of personal bonds and personal connections. We know there is a basic human desire to be understood and the thing that connects us in all the great relationships in our lives is that somebody “gets” us. Of the “Six Domains of Leadership” created by Duke Fuqua School of Business professors Sim Sitkins and Allen Lind, the attributes of great leadership most closely aligned with improvisational thinking center on the need to share your personality and authentic voice, build relationships, create a team that will serve a greater purpose, lead with passion, support and protect the team you create, and lead with integrity.3 When you can actually turn that around to the people that you lead—when you get them as much as they get you—you have a great opportunity to demonstrate a freedom from status bias and a willingness to learn.
我们都是以人际关系和个人关系为基础的人事业务。我们知道人类有一种被理解的基本愿望，在我们生活中所有重要关系中将我们联系在一起的是，有人“得到”了我们。在杜克·富夸商学院教授Sim Sitkins和Allen Lind创建的“领导的六个领域”中，卓越领导的特质与即兴思考中心密切相关，因为这需要分享您的个性和真实的声音，建立关系，建立合作关系。能够实现更大目标的团队，充满激情的领导团队，支持和保护您创建的团队以及诚信的领导团队。当您实际上可以将您的领导者转变为领导者时-只要他们得到的与他们得到的一样多-您有很大的机会证明自己不受地位偏见的影响和学习的意愿。
There’s no perfect equation or foolproof formula for creating a great leader (if there were we’d see a lot more great leaders out there).There are a lot of x variables in every leadership opportunity, variables that can range from the nature of the goal being pursued to the dynamics of the team being led to the natural leadership style of any particular individual. Whatever those variables may be in any given situation, though, improvisation can become a pivotal piece of leadership strategy. The very nature of improvisation is awareness and adaptability, and any leader has to be aware enough to recognize what he or she has to work with in a given team, and adaptable enough tomanipulate circumstances toward a desired outcome. A leader must constantly make sense of the shifting pieces of a shifting puzzle—exactly what an improviser does—and an improvisational leader knows how to blend EQ and IQ.
建立理想的领导者没有完美的方程式或万无一失的公式（如果我们在那里看到更多的伟大领导者），每个领导机会中都有很多x变量，这些变量的范围可能取决于追求团队动力的目标导致任何特定个人的自然领导风格。但是，无论在任何给定情况下这些变量如何变化，即兴创作都可以成为领导策略的关键部分。即兴发挥的本质是意识和适应能力，任何领导者都必须足够意识到自己在给定团队中必须与之合作的意识，并且要有足够的适应性以适应所期望的结果。领导者必须不断地理解不断变化的难题的变化部分，即即兴演奏者所做的事情，而即兴的领导者则知道如何融合情商和智商。
An improvisational leader must have fully developed the improvisational skill set we’ve discussed in previous chapters. A leader has to live in the moment (truly the essence of improvisation). A leader has to be in a state of mindfulness, aware of his or her actions, and make pivotal changes in the moment to influence, inspire, and engage others. A leader has to be prepared to listen and observe with focus and concentration. A leader has to postpone judgment. A leader has to allow for some humility and vulnerability, accepting a willingness to be wrong and a willingness to ask a team for help. An improvisational leader understands that it is not the job of the leader to always come up with the “right” answer—the job of the leader is to get a team to a desired outcome.
即兴领导者必须已经充分开发了我们在前几章中讨论过的即兴技能。领导者必须活在当下（这是即兴创作的本质）。领导者必须保持正念状态，意识到自己的行为，并在关键时刻做出改变，以影响，启发和吸引他人。领导者必须做好倾听和观察的准备。领导者必须推迟判断。领导者必须允许一些谦卑和脆弱，接受错误的意愿和向团队寻求帮助的意愿。即兴的领导者明白，总是想出“正确的”答案不是领导者的工作—领导者的工作是使团队达到理想的结果。
I want to stress most emphatically that the “desired outcome” is really the whole point here. I would never argue that the techniques of improvisation should be seen as any kind of cure-all or replacement for actual strategy. In a business sense effective strategy is the road map by which you will travel to execute your mission. That mission might be an expansion of territory, a new marketing campaign,a way to streamline operations, a new customer-focused approach, or a new way to generate profits. Every bit of logistics, analytics, and practical thinking that goes into your mission is a matter of strategy.
我想特别强调的是，“期望的结果”确实是这里的重点。我决不会认为即兴创作的技巧应被视为是所有解决方案或实际策略的替代品。从商业角度来说，有效的策略是您执行任务所要遵循的路线图。该任务可能是扩大领土，进行新的营销活动，简化运营的方法，以客户为中心的新方法或产生利润的新方法。进入您的任务的所有后勤，分析和实践思想都是战略问题。
A new phone system needs to be set up. Temps need to be hired. Office space needs to be converted. Budgets need to be drawn up. Teams need to be assembled and headed up. All of that finely considered strategy stays in place. The introduction of an improvisational style of leadership and teamwork is not meant to replace the thoughtfulness required for the day-to-day execution of a job. The point of improvisation is to complement such strategic thinking. In fact improvisation thrives at the pivotal intersection where planning and strategy meet execution.
需要设置新的电话系统。需要雇用临时工。办公空间需要转换。需要制定预算。团队需要组建并领导。所有经过深思熟虑的策略都保持不变。临时领导和团队合作风格的引入并不能取代日常工作的体贴。即兴的目的是补充这种战略思想。实际上，即兴在计划与策略相遇的关键交叉点上蓬勃发展。
This ties directly into the improv myth we busted a long time ago—that improvisation is making up something out of nothing. For any decent improviser and most especially for an improvisational leader,improvisation is creating something out of every resource available. A truly scatter-brained performer would soon bore an audience, and a scatter-brained leader will struggle to guide a team. Onstage as in the corporate workplace there’s a lot of structure required for improvisation to appear to be as free flowing as it looks when it succeeds.
这直接关系到我们很久以前就打破的即兴神话，即兴即兴弥补了一切。对于任何体面的即兴演奏者，尤其是对于即兴创作的领导者来说，即兴演奏会从所有可用资源中创造出一些东西。真正分散头脑的表演者很快就会吸引观众，而分散头脑的领导者将很难引导团队。在公司工作场所的舞台上，即兴发挥成功时需要有很多结构，以使其即兴发挥。
Embracing improvisation as a leadership technique does not demand any weakening of structure, nor does it demand any sacrifice of strategic awareness of mission, goals, and deadlines. What improvisation adds to the picture is an advanced approach to how you complete that mission and meet those goals and deadlines. Improvisational leaders improve the chances for team success because such leaders do not limit themselves to a single plan of action in order to achieve a desired result. Improvisation allows a leader to see a variety of opportunities for success with every challenge, within every plan.
将即兴创作作为一种领导技巧，既不需要削弱结构，也不需要牺牲对任务，目标和期限的战略认识。即兴创作增加了一种先进的方法，可以帮助您完成任务并达到目标和期限。即兴的领导者提高了团队成功的机会，因为这样的领导者不会为了达到预期的结果而将自己局限于单个行动计划。即兴发挥使领导者可以在每个计划中看到各种挑战带来的成功机会。