When Anne S. Miner worked as assistant to the president of Stanford University more than 20 years ago, she noticed that certain leaders had the skills to act successfully without planning.
She's been researching that skill ever since.
Dubbed "improvisation" in the early 1990s, today it's a hot topic among prominent business schools, university researchers, consultants and startup businesses searching for the tools needed to succeed.
Miner describes improvisation as "making things up as you go along." She is the Ford Motor Co. distinguished chair in management and human resources at the Wisconsin School of Business, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
"Something new is being created, but it's being designed at the same time it's being carried out," she says. "You make up the melody while you play it."
Miner cautions that improvisation is not a substitute for good planning. But it can be used to start new businesses and prevent existing startups from failing.
Miner cites one example of a startup that had a contract to develop software for a major company. The startup planned to import software units from another business, then tailor them to meet its client's specific needs. The company soon discovered that its plan wouldn't work. So a few days before the contract deadline, the firm's founders stayed up all night programming an entirely new set of software elements. By fulfilling the contract requirements, they saved the startup from folding.
Improvisation is also useful, Miner says, when a new opportunity arises that must be exploited quickly. For example, you're an entrepreneur with a particular market in mind, but you find out that another, potentially better market exists.
That happened to a major motorcycle manufacturer just entering the U.S. market. The company had focused its marketing efforts on high-end, large motorcycles. But the larger bikes began having technical problems, and customers told the firm they liked smaller bikes.
Seizing an unanticipated opportunity, the company switched its marketing efforts to a smaller model and made enough money off those sales to fund its overall entry into the United States.
Here are additional examples where improvisation resulted in entirely new businesses:
- A project manager at a training and consulting firm saw that a group of potentially successful services was generating only a handful of customers. After arguing about it unsuccessfully with the owner of the firm, the project manager decided on the spot to start a new business selling these services. By the following Monday, the new business was up and running out of the project manager's home, with the boss's blessing.
- One manager at another company saw editorials in the local newspaper complaining that students at area schools had insufficient access to computers and computer training. At the same time, the manager noticed a proliferation of ads for computer training for adults. The manager promptly signed up for the training, then started a new business that traveled from school to school giving students in low-income areas access to computers and training.
Miner offers the following tips on developing the skills for successful improvisation:
- Improvise in your areas of expertise. For example, if you play a musical instrument, make up a new melody at the same time you play it. If you are scheduled to give a presentation in an area of expertise, add to what you say as you go along.
- Practice the separate parts of improvisation so you'll be ready to implement them later on. These include:
- Creativity. Participate in brainstorming in small groups, for example.
- Making do with what is at hand. Look for extensions of a market you are already in. Tweak your marketing or your product design to make it attractive to children, older adults or other special groups.
- Paying close attention to incoming information from all sources in networking and in other groups. Such information may include what people say, how they look and the body language they use. "Do this all the time," Miner suggests. "Take notes for possible future action." Also, she adds, "Pay close attention to information on emerging new markets, such as retirement markets, where you might be able to sell byproducts of your existing products in the future."
- Ensure that you have a focal point. If you're going to improvise a talk, don't improvise everything else that day, such as how you will get to work and what you plan on doing the rest of the summer. Improvising everything at one time will not give you the best results.
Barbara Mulhern, who improvises on a regular basis, is president of RB Editorial & Consulting Inc., a family-owned business started in 2005.