Wait! Why Should I Listen to You?：等待！我为什么要听你的话？
Hold on though. Before I begin to tell you specifically how improvisation can serve business needs, let me answer a question that may have occurred to you a few pages back: “Who the heck is this Kulhan guy and why should I listen to what he has to say about improv or business or business improv?”
等一下在我具体告诉您即兴如何满足业务需求之前，请允许我在几页后回答您可能遇到的一个问题：“这个库尔汗家伙到底是谁？为什么我应该听他说些什么？即兴表演还是商务或商务即兴表演？”
To put it quite plainly, I am a businessman and a professional improv comedian, and I absolutely love the art form of improvisation with all my heart. I learned about comedic improvisation the first week of college at Illinois State University when I read a “Local Girl Does Good” newspaper write-up about Megan Moore Burns performing with The Second City in Chicago. Reading about what The Second City actually did—improvisational comedy—was a revelation.I promptly tracked down Megan (which in 1990 took a fair amount of sleuthing). Megan’s advice to me was to begin learning the art of improv at the Players Workshop of The Second City.
简而言之，我是一名商人，也是一名专业的即兴喜剧演员，我全心全意地喜欢即兴创作的艺术形式。我在伊利诺伊州立大学上大学的第一周就学到了喜剧即兴创作，当我读到一篇关于梅根·摩尔·伯恩斯（Megan Moore Burns）与芝加哥第二城市的演出的报纸文章时。读一读《第二城市》的实际作文-即兴喜剧-是一个启示。我迅速找到了梅根（在1990年花了很多钱侦查）。梅根给我的建议是在第二城市的玩家工作室开始学习即兴演奏的艺术。
The next summer I moved roughly four hours north from my hometown of Effingham,Illinois, to Chicago to take classes at the Players Workshop. For two punishingly hot, humid months I slept on an ever-deflating air mattress on my cousin John’s living room floor and ate past-expiration pies and cupcakes I’d bought for 35 cents from the Hostess Thrift Shop across the street. I walked about a mile to and from improv class.That summer I studied solely under Martin de Maat, the man who would eventually become my mentor and who is credited for cocreating The Second City Training Center with Sheldon Patinkin (also a brilliant and kind man who I’d have the good fortune of working under at Columbia College roughly ten years later). I could not have been happier.
第二年夏天，我从家乡伊利诺伊州埃芬汉（Effingham）向北大约四个小时移到了芝加哥，在Players Workshop上课。在两个令人痛苦的炎热潮湿的月份里，我睡在表弟约翰的客厅地板上不断放气的气垫上，吃了我从街对面的女主人旧货店以35美分购买的过期馅饼和纸杯蛋糕。我在即兴班上走了大约一英里。那个夏天，我只在马丁·德·马特（Martin de Maat）的陪伴下学习，这个人最终成为我的导师，并因与谢尔顿·帕丁金（Sheldon Patinkin）共同创建了第二城市培训中心（也是一个出色而善良的人）而闻名大约十年后，我有幸在哥伦比亚大学任职。我再快乐不过了。
I became so impassioned and committed to this art form that when an opportunity arose for me to accept my very first term of employment with The Second City I jumped at the job—as a walking trash can. Technically the job was to be a “mascot” for The Second City, a costumed character who would walk around the grounds of the famously rambunctious Taste of Chicago festival handing out flyers that announced the theater’s new show. And it just so happens that the show The Second City was doing that summer was called “Winner Takes Oil,” playing on the Persian Gulf War.
我变得如此热情，并致力于这种艺术形式，以至于当我有机会接受第二城市的第一份工作时，我跳槽了工作，就像走垃圾桶一样。从技术上讲，工作是成为第二城市的“吉祥物”，他是一个穿着古装的角色，将在著名的ra亵芝加哥音乐节的场地周围走动，分发传单，宣布剧院的新演出。碰巧的是，第二个城市在那个夏天正在做的节目被称为“胜利者吸油”，在波斯湾战争中播放。
The mascot was to be a cross between an oil barrel and the old Depression-era cartoon caricature of a guy who had lost everything. I was directed to wear nothing but shorts and shoes, and hoist a giant plastic keg over myself, which would be held up by two lengths of tug-of-war rope over my bare shoulders. If I kept that barrel on and spent a day handing out Second City flyers, I’d make $5.50 an hour. This sounded like an unbelievably sweet deal at the time.
吉祥物将是一个油桶和一个大萧条时期的卡通漫画的杂交体，这个漫画漫画失去了所有的家伙。我被指示只穿短裤和鞋子，然后在自己身上举起一个巨大的塑料小桶，两根拔河绳将我的裸肩支撑起来。如果我继续使用这个桶，花一天时间分发第二城市的传单，我每小时的收入为5.50美元。在当时，这听起来像是一笔不可思议的甜蜜交易。
It was a fairly clever costume and I wore it in service of a really great show—the cast that summer included such incredible talents as Steve Carrell, Michael McCarthy, and Jill Talley with more than occasional doses of Stephen Colbert. I’ll be the first to say that Chicago is an amazing city that really knows how to get exceptionally festive at the Taste of Chicago. What I had not counted on was that to a crowd of several hundred thousand Chicagoans who had spent the day downing 16-ounce plastic cups of Old Style beer in the summer heat, a young, scrawny man-boy in a giant plastic barrel looked exactly like a walking trash receptacle. I spent a good deal of time fighting off the crumpled beer cups and half-eaten bratwursts that were slam-dunked in my costume.
这是一件相当聪明的服装，我穿着它来参加一场非常出色的演出-那个夏天的演员包括史蒂夫·卡雷尔，迈克尔·麦卡锡和吉尔·塔利等令人难以置信的才华，偶尔还有斯蒂芬·科尔伯特。我将第一个说芝加哥是一个了不起的城市，真的知道如何在“芝加哥美食节”上度过特别的节日。我没指望的是，在夏季炎热的一天中，有数十万芝加哥人花了整整一天的时间下来倒掉16盎司塑料杯的老式啤酒，一个年轻的，骨瘦如柴的男孩子正好装在一个巨大的塑料桶中就像一个可移动的垃圾桶。我花了很多时间来扑灭皱折的啤酒杯和半饱的香肠，这些香肠被灌洗在我的服装中。
If my budding love for improvisation had wavered, I might have just left that barrel next to a real trash can and shrugged the whole thing off as a stupid summer job that wasn’t worth the mustard stains and rope burn. However, I stayed committed, and through a bit of reacting, adapting, and communicating I worked my way to a payoff that literally changed my life: I got my employment deal sweetened to include a pass to the show on nights it wasn’t sold out. So all summer, once my barrel work was done, I watched that Second City show over and over and over, studying every little nuance of the performance and performers and falling more and more in love with the art of improvisation and sketch comedy. I returned to Illinois State University for my sophomore year and then transferred up to the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) for my junior and senior years of college, so that I could continue to take classes at the Players Workshop.
如果我对即兴创作的热爱动摇了，我可能只是把那个桶放在一个真正的垃圾桶旁边，然后把整个东西耸了耸肩，这是一个愚蠢的暑期工作，不值得芥末渍和绳索烧伤。但是，我保持了决心，通过做出一些反应，适应和沟通，我努力实现了回报，从字面上改变了我的生活：我获得了一份就业合同，使之甜美，包括在夜间出售的演出通行证出来。因此，整个夏天，完成桶装工作后，我都会反复观看第二城市的表演，研究表演和表演者的每一个细微差别，并越来越爱即兴创作和素描喜剧艺术。我在大二的时候回到了伊利诺伊州立大学，然后又转到了芝加哥的伊利诺伊大学（UIC）进行了大三和大四的大学学习，这样我就可以继续在Players Workshop上课。
Well before I graduated from UIC I also began indulging my budding entrepreneurial spirit. I served as a one-man marketing department for Michael Jackson Software, Inc. (no, not that Michael Jackson)—one of the first companies to put multimedia elements into computer-based training systems. Through that job I got my first taste of mixing improv and business through guerrilla marketing: posing as a delivery person, I got MJSI media packages onto the desk of every prominent business reporter in Chicago. Positive press coverage of the company ensued as did a Bank of America Small Business Award for Creative Marketing.
在我从UIC毕业之前，我还开始沉迷于萌芽的企业家精神。我曾担任Michael Jackson Software，Inc.（不是，不是Michael Jackson）的单人营销部门，这是最早将多媒体元素引入基于计算机的培训系统中的公司之一。通过这项工作，我第一次体验了通过游击营销将即兴表演和商业混为一谈：作为送货员，我将MJSI媒体包装放在芝加哥每位知名商业记者的桌子上。随后，公司获得了积极的媒体报道，美国银行创意营销小企业奖也获得了好评。
In the early 1990s, before American eyes had ever seen Whose Line Is It Anyway? the term “professional improviser” was an oxymoron.It did not matter—I was thoroughly hooked. I went on to coach and perform improv at iO (Improv Olympic) and the Annoyance Theatre. At iO, I got to study with another improv guru, Del Close, and cofounded the improv troupe Baby Wants Candy (“America’s seminal completely improvised musical group”), which toured internationally and won the 2005 Ensemble of the Year award at the esteemed Chicago Improv festival.Baby Wants Candy offered me a chance to fulfill my double passion for entertainment and business; while our focus onstage was improvisation, offstage the troupe had to be run just like any other small business.
在1990年代初期，在美国人的目光还没见过《谁的路线》之前？“专业即兴演奏者”一词是矛盾的，没关系-我彻底被迷住了。我继续执教并在iO（即兴奥运）和烦人剧院进行即兴表演。在iO，我与另一位即兴演奏大师Del Close一起学习，并共同创立了即兴演奏团Baby Wants Candy（“美国开创性的即兴表演音乐团体”），该乐队进行了国际巡回演出，并在芝加哥备受尊敬的2005年年度合奏奖中脱颖而出。即兴演奏会。宝贝想要糖果为我提供了一个实现我对娱乐和商业双重热情的机会。尽管我们的重点是即兴创作，但演出团必须像其他任何小型企业一样运作。
I was also frequently part of other improv groups that were called in to do corporate training. After many of those workshops I began to hear the same sort of comment: “That was a lot of fun, but I can’t use any of it. In fact, now I have to go back to the office and work harder to catch up on the work I missed while we did this.”
我也经常被邀请参加公司培训的其他即兴小组的成员。在许多研讨会之后，我开始听到同样的评论：“这很有趣，但是我不能使用它。实际上，现在我必须回到办公室，加倍努力，以赶上我们这样做时错过的工作。”
It was after one of those corporate gigs that I had my Eureka! moment: Why not create a program that would be enjoyable for businesspeople and would also give them something they could use in the real world? In the fall of 1999 a serendipitous encounter with a professor of management at the prestigious Duke University Fuqua School of Business led to the discovery that one of the deans at Duke Fuqua was soliciting ideas for a one-week intensive MBA course with an experiential learning component. I jumped at the chance to develop a course that showed the true potential of improv in business, and collaborated with academic experts to create the world’s first improvisation program in a top-tier business school. In December 1999“Business Improvisation” (the course) was born.
在那些公司演出之一之后，我有了我的尤里卡！关键时刻：为什么不创建一个使商人开心的程序，并给他们在现实世界中可以使用的东西呢？在1999年秋天，与著名的杜克大学富夸商学院的管理学教授偶然碰面，结果发现，富夸公爵大学的一位院长正在为一个为期一周的密集MBA课程征求意见，该课程包含体验式学习。我抓住机会开发了一门课程，展示了即兴创作的真正潜力，并与学术专家合作在顶级商学院创建了世界上第一个即兴创作计划。1999年12月，“即兴创作”（课程）诞生。
Since that time Business Improv (the company) has created programs for top business schools in America and has served a large roster of blue-chip clients such as PepsiCo, Capital One, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ford Motor Company, the U.S. Naval Academy, the United Nations, Hilton Hotels Worldwide, and Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide. I’ve got a team of a dozen trainers, working with over 3,500 C-level executives and another 2,000 businessmen and businesswomen annually. And though I never fancied myself the academic sort, I have served as an adjunct professor of business administration at the Duke University Fuqua School of Business since 2002.
从那时起，Business Improv（该公司）就为美国顶尖的商学院创建了计划，并为众多蓝筹客户提供了服务，例如百事可乐，Capital One，百时美施贵宝，福特汽车公司，美国海军学院，联合国，全球希尔顿酒店和全球喜达屋酒店及度假村。我有一个由十几名培训人员组成的团队，每年与3500多名C级高管以及另外2,000名商人和女企业家一起工作。尽管我从不喜欢自己的学术风格，但自2002年以来，我一直担任杜克大学富夸商学院的工商管理兼职教授。
I have also held guest professor spots at the Columbia Business School at Columbia University, and I teach regularly as part of the executive education programs at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. I stay busy in classrooms and conference rooms; however, whenever I get the chance I’m back up on an improv stage, performing in New York City at the PIT, the UCB Theaters, and the Brooklyn branch of the Annoyance Theatre. Baby Wants Candy also lives on!
我还在哥伦比亚大学哥伦比亚商学院担任客座教授，并作为UCLA安德森管理学院高管培训课程的一部分定期授课。我在教室和会议室忙碌；但是，只要有机会，我就会回到即兴舞台上，在纽约的PIT，UCB剧院和Annoyance剧院的布鲁克林分馆演出。Baby Wants Candy也可以继续生存！
So those are my bona fides. I’m a professional improviser (now a better-understood vocation), a person who has worked in businesses and is now at the helm of one, and a “pracademic” who works with brilliant business professors to bring the art I love to the business classroom. Looking back over the last 17 years, I can say that I’m proudnas hell that the “crazy” notion of teaching businesspeople to do better business by way of improv techniques has led to an extremely high percentage of success stories.(To be continued~)
这些就是我的真诚。我是一个专业的即兴演奏者（现在是一个更好理解的职业），一个在商业领域工作过的人，现在是一个掌舵人，并且是一个“全景主义者”，他与杰出的商业教授合作，将我喜欢的艺术带到了商业教室。回顾过去的17年，我可以说我很骄傲，“通过疯狂的技术教商人做更好的生意的“疯狂”概念导致成功案例的比例很高。(未完待续~）