Catch Your Hare

So here’s something I realised.

Here’s an example of accepting someone’s idea and building on it:

Player: I throw the gun at the gangster, as a last desperate attempt to bring him down!

GM: It does! It hits him squarely in the middle of the forehead! He’s out!

Now, in some stories, that’s good. Note it’s not necessarily realistic, but it’s narratively satisfying.

If we change the gun to something else, it becomes less satisfying:

Player: I throw the bread roll at the gangster, as a last desperate attempt to bring him down!

GM: It does! It hits him squarely in the middle of the forehead! He’s out!

Why’s the second one less satisfying? It’s still building on the idea. Obviously, because it’s less realistic.

Now, admittedly, we could build on the idea in a different way:

Player: I throw the bread roll at the gangster, as a last desperate attempt to bring him down!

GM: OK, sure. He instinctively flinches, not knowing what you’re throwing. But that means he pauses in the middle of the road. A car gets him.

Still, it feels far-fetched.

One problem with building on ideas is that, if you build on every idea, you can sacrifice realism. Some ideas, realistically, just wouldn’t have much effect.

You can block, then, to create realism:

Player: I throw the bread roll at the gangster, as a last desperate attempt to bring him down!

GM: Yeah, that’s not going to work. It just bounces off him.

This comes with a caveat: ensure you’re deliberately blocking for realism, not just killing ideas that don’t correspond to yours. Often, ideas are more realistic than they first appear.
Imagine a realism dial. Near the bottom, anything goes! You can knock out gangsters with bread rolls!

When the dial’s in the middle, reality is sometimes sacrificed for narrative impact. You can knock out the gangster by throwing your gun.

Near the top, we block anything unrealistic.

Player: I throw the gun at the gangster, as a last desperate attempt to bring him down!

GM: Yeah, guns don’t really throw that well. It falls to the floor.

All of these approaches can work well. None are “better” than the others, although they’ll suit different groups better. Near the bottom of the dial, we’re in fairy tale territory: anything can do anything. Near the top, we’re in gritty realism.

Note, too, that blocking like this creates challenge. By saying:

Player: I throw the bread roll at the gangster, as a last desperate attempt to bring him down!

GM: Yeah, that’s not going to work. It just bounces off him.

I’m effectively saying: think of something else. Blocking for challenge can be useful, too.

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Did you do that exercise? Pick a quality you’d like to display more, then observe someone with that quality. What do they do? How do they behave?

I did the exercise. I want to appear more reliable and trustworthy. So I observed the woman in the office next to me, who’s reliable and trustworthy. Let’s call her Sarah.

Before I describe her, imagine how you’d act reliable and trustworthy if I asked you to. Here’s what I’d do: I’d slow down, speak in a deep voice, be stiller, speak more monotonously, sit in a contained way.

Here’s what Sarah does.

• Sarah moves fast: walking controlledly, rather than running. She bursts into our office, grabs stuff from the printer and leaves within seconds.
• She makes jokes and laughs a great deal. She’s extremely sarcastic.
• When she has something important to say, she slows down and her voice becomes deeper. She looks at you very directly. She doesn’t embroider her words: she’ll state what she thinks, very directly. (”That’s really bad.” “That’s dangerous”).
• Her voice is generally confident, perhaps slightly lower than a normal female pitch. Her rate of delivery is slightly fast, even when it’s important.
• She doesn’t often face you directly. Often, she’ll talk while facing nearly 90 degrees away from you. However, she’ll turn to face you when it’s important.

Now, note how this differs from the “acting reliable” stereotype and how it resembles it. If you asked me to “act reliable”:

• I’d move slowly and stolidly. Sarah moves fast.
• I’d speak seriously. Sarah jokes.
• I’d speak slowly. Sarah speaks fast.
• I’d lower my voice. Sarah does that, but only when she’s serious.
• I’d face you almost directly, perhaps at a slight angle, to show how serious and reliable I was. Sarah faces away.

The lesson here is: people don’t act like we think they act. Reliable people don’t act as we think “reliable people” act. That’s an early indicator that, when I try to “act reliable”, I’m acting differently from the way reliable people act.

Before we move on, remember that exercise. It’s invaluable. If you want to display a quality, observe people with that quality. See how they behave.

In the next post, I’ll carry on thinking about this. How do confident people act? How about people who are in control? How about intelligent people?

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Before we go on, a quick exercise. Don’t worry, it’s interesting.

Choose a quality you’d like to display at work. Confidence is a good example, but choose one you’d like to display. For example, I think I appear confident already, but I’d like to appear more relaxed.

Then, over the next few days, find someone whom you believe has that quality.

Now, forget about that quality, and dispassionately observe:

1. What they do with their voice.
2. What they do with their body.
3. How they stand.
4. How they use their arms.
5. Their eye contact.

As you observe, forget about the quality. Don’t try to deduce how they communicate, say, confidence with their voice. Just observe how they use their voice.

Equally, don’t choose the person based on your preconceptions about how one should best communicate that quality. If you think that a loud voice is important to appearing confident, make sure you don’t choose someone because they have a loud voice. Choose someone who just, to you, appears confident.

I’ll do this too. Actually do it and tell me the results. Don’t worry, there’s no trick. And then I’ll follow it up in the next post.

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So, here we go. This section is about how to appear confident, in control, reliable, reassuring or any of the things you might want to appear at work. Of course, it’ll take more than one post to do this. But this is a start: and I’ll start with an acting metaphor.

Young actors like to act angry. When, in a play, their character is angry, they shout, screw up their faces, point and so on. To them, it feels good. To the audience, it’s excruciating to watch: it’s like watching someone who is trying to look angry.

Acting tutors call this, dismissively, “angry acting”. They advise against it: and, similarly, against “sad acting”, “romantic acting” and so on.

You see this, also, in the workplace. When managers want to appear confident, they speak louder, smile more and use expansive hand gestures: “confident acting”. The result is: they look like someone who wants to look confident. This, of course, makes them appear less confident.

The rule is: never act a quality. Don’t act “confident” or “angry” or “in control”. You’ll look like someone who wants to look like that.

Over the coming posts, I’ll expand on this, and I’ll start to explain how to effectively act confidently, or angry, or in control. First, though, an exercise. Don’t worry, it’s a fun one.

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