When the traditional business equations start to fail, top managers must take the chance and try finding other viable solutions. And the techniques borrowed from theatre could help them discover a new philosopher’s stone of leadership.

“What we do here is not necessarily theatre, or leadership, it’s an intermediary area, of interference between the two “, explains for us the director Dan Vasile, minutes before assuming the role of MC for the seven “top executives” who agreed to take up a somewhat unusual training class, a sort of „demo“, taking place in the attic of Cafepedia club in Romana Square. This workshop, he adds while reevaluating, slightly unsatisfied, the final details regarding the working stage, presents to the managers another way of exploring the world; the attendants are invited to explore the world through theatre, leaving aside the set of rigid rules imposed by their socio-professional roles: you must do this and that, this is the way to do it. And beyond these things, there lies a frail, intangible human quality: intuition.

„What we try to accomplish here is to realign man with intuition, with himself “, cuts in Adriana Boşcănici (photo, next to Dan Vasile), Managing Partner at Trainart and the initiator of the project, totally convinced that this offer, at first sight slightly frivolous from the perspective of someone who’s always “buried” in concrete tasks, aroused the managers’ interest. And it’s not that far from the truth. „Major danger and maximum uncertainty“, these were the words that Eugen Voicu, president of Aviva Investors, chose to describe the business environment in Romania, during an online debate on crisis leadership in April 2009.

When the only certainty is uncertainty itself, added during the same debate Adrian Stanciu, consultant and partner at Human Synergistics Romania, the most important thing for a manager is to give up the reflex of living in secure and predictable environments and to learn to treat uncertainty as a way of living and to find opportunities in chaotic situations. Or, this is exactly what theatre offers. Improvisation.

The reason for which the seven top managers left aside for three hours, their busy daily agendas, could be exactly the instinct of looking for „something“ to guide them emotionally through chaos. „What we are about to experiment here is work in progress. It’s fresh & squeeze“, says Dan Vasile, who explains the fact that he has prepared a set of exercises and of presentations for the training class, but he will put them together „live“, depending on the reaction and the energy of the audience. „We’ll let ourselves be surprised as to how this workshop develops “, says the director, assuming his own uncertainty factor.

BACKSTAGE. In the room next to the „stage“, in the Cafepedia attic four guests have already arrived. In the order of their arrival, they took a seat on the cozy couch, adorned with many pillows; the guests were Mirela Palade, Deputy General Manager at Transfond, one of the most powerful providers of financial services, Constantin Iordache, Country President at Securitas Services Romania, division of Securitas AB – world leader in security services, Laura Arghirescu, CEO of real estate, business and services divisions of RTC Holding, and Florentina Taudor, Executive Manager at Suport Colect, a debt collection company, part of the Austrian group Erste via BCR. Although the scenery is relaxed, the atmosphere is pretty cold: the managers are busy with their smartphones, although they have been kindly invited to leave aside their CEO roles. The monotony is interrupted by the appearance of a new character: Sergiu Neguţ, Deputy General Manager at Unirea Medical Centre, who makes his entrance, greeting everybody with an infectious good mood and a few gay replies. He gives everyone his business card, thus launching a networking session. Yet, the brief socializing episode doesn’t manage to break the ice. The overwhelming silence is interrupted by Marius Dan, the owner of Measure and Go start-up. At the last moment, Antoaneta Curteanu, CEO at UniCredit Leasing makes her appearance. The team is now complete, and the improvisation game may begin.

FRESH&SQUEEZE. Once the guests have taken their seats on the chairs arranged in a semicircle in front of a small stage, the director explains to them the first improvisation exercise. He asks everybody to draw their hand contour on a sheet of paper. The fingers get an existential meaning, once everyone has written on the paper who he is, what he does for a living, what he wanted to become when he was a child, where he sees himself ten years from now, something good about himself, one quality and something less OK, something he or she would like to change. The managers are reserved when they have co come forward and show the others their drawing, but, once the first volunteer breaks the ice, the atmosphere lightens up. Funny aspirations unveil, by association with the CEO position: crane operator, astronomer, surgeon, scientist, priest, pilot. Each of them appreciates a different quality in themselves: optimistic, perseverant, kind, cheerful, but „still serious even when cheerful “, empathic. As to “what they would change”, a few fingers overlap: more patience, more patience, more patience. The attendants become more open and relaxed. They make jokes. They tell stories. They interact. The „Agreement“ suggested by the director– expectations vs. workshop contributions– starts to work. The managers want to learn “how to slalom through emotions and clichés , to discover something they didn’t know about themselves (giggles), „to be more convincing, influential “, „any kind of learning“, „your experiences“. At the contributions chapter, the assessment of one manager “I’ll do anything” excites laughter. The others, less generous, offer to share their own experiences, enthusiasm, willingness.

ME, CEO. YOU? The topic about limits and patience comes up again and deepens, throwing into debate issues like the elementary rules of relational hygiene, set forth by French psycho sociologist Jaques Salomé. Dan Vasile exemplifies the idea of relation through a scarf which he hands out to Antoaneta Curteanu. The same people can communicate through different types of relations: personal, business relations, family relations. The relational hygiene should help balance the dissonant emotions, as top managers are exposed to emotional stress induced by the unpopular measures they have to take, but also by the swiftness of their decision making. Constantin Iordache reveals in an interview with MONEY EXPRESS ulterior to the workshop, that he is trying to discharge people in a delicate manner: „Someone said about me that I am too humane “, he adds. Laura Arghirescu, CEO at RTC Holding – a group which has already gone through two insolvencies, Diverta and TCE Logistics –, experienced the internal tensions induced by the drastic measures relating to salary cuts, restructuring, or incentives cuts. The only motivation “tool” in these conditions, says Laura Arghirescu, is the relationship one builds with the team. The stress came from the outside too, from the relations with our business partners who kept delaying their payments.  In both cases, the relations who resisted the pressures became stronger, and the difficult ones were let go– this here is an example of “hygienization“.

DANCING WITH RISK. „All the experiences tell us that one learns only when he finds himself in unhinged situations“, says the director, explaining that all the improvisation exercises he is to present during the workshop aim at achieving the lack of balance, in order to break the limits of comfort, which only levels the individuals and makes them go in circles. Again, a theatre lesson. „Let yourselves go, enjoy the lack of balance, it’s only a game and nothing bad can happen here. It’s what actors always do “. But what do managers do? In the real world, one needs intuition, trust and courage in order to throw a company out of balance, in order to reorganize it at another level of balance, more fit to the present. It’s extremely difficult for a manager, who is always faced with urgent matters, to start building in a completely new direction. „Each new business situation which comes up must be treated as a major emergency. The crisis makes you treat a lot of things with great importance “, says Constantin Iordache from Securitas. „I can’t afford to waste time “, describes Marius Dan, entrepreneur, his own stage of siege, „it’s all about pure efficiency, we all have to do our best “. Antoaneta Curteanu says that the most difficult situations were those when she had to explain „the harsh reality“ to people who didn’t realize the gravity of the crisis and “refused to admit the fact that they had to make a change”. „The tensest crisis situation “, remembers Laura Arghirescu, „was the restructuring process “. The RTC Holding Executive had to re-dimension entire lines of business or even to cancel some of them “simply because long term results were involved there, and resources were assigned strictly to support the business “.

If there is a matter of survival, can one risk to make a change? Adrian Stanciu from Human Synergistics Romania thinks it is compulsory to do that: you have to accept your losses and to see how long you can manage to survive in these conditions. Then you must try and do new things, completely different, until you find something that works and „hope that this happens before it’s not too late “. After all, this happens also in the theatre world: only when you realize that you play a role you can play it at your best.

A different kind of theatre

Theatre techniques were imported, in the ‘70s by psychotherapists, who used drama therapy for clinical cases. Later on, they were used in personal development programs, coaching, then they were adapted for soft skills training, in the business field.

1) OBJECTIVES. Generally, those who attend this kind of training classes develop abilities of public speech, presentation skills, emotions control, the ability to focus, leadership. The main purpose is focused on specific objectives, as opposed to drama therapy, where the aim is a harmonious personality development.

2) PRECEDENT. In the western business field, professional training through theatre is very popular. The training companies guarantee the attendants a miraculous transformation into a charismatic leader, capable of mesmerizing the audience and play with emotions like a genuine actor.

3) RISK. In Romania, the „trend“ is just beginning to take hold. Area Training&Consulting suspended in 2009 a training class of this kind, which had been launched on the market in 2007, from lack of demand, although the program had been very popular in the beginning. The reason: dramatic training budget cuts and high costs per attendant, a few thousand Euros. Ascendis also has a team building program named „Oh, Shakespeare“.

Leaving the stage

Curiosity was, for most of the top managers who attended the class, the reason for their participation at the training class organized by Trainart. But each of them “left the stage” with different impressions and benefits.

1) THE KEY EPISODE. The scarf exercise, answers Antoaneta Curteanu. „It gave me a whole new perspective on the idea of relationship and the comfort margin in a relationship“, explains the manager of UniCredit Leasing. „The example with unforeseen situations which can put the actor in an awkward position “, says Marius Dan, who remembered the lesson of spontaneous reaction. The trainer. His spontaneity. His capacity to keep the audience focused, answers promptly Mirela Palade. The knowledge exercise, which was original, in Constantin Iordache’s opinion.

2) TRANSFER. What Could a CEO learn from an actor? Mirela Palade would borrow the spontaneity and the self control, Antoaneta Curteanu, the ability to concentrate in front of a hostile audience, Laura Arghirescu, the creativity and the freedom. Iordache would like to possess the ability to convey in a clear and empathic manner a message that could reach the receiver unaltered. And Marius Dan would borrow the instinct to spontaneously generate a plan B in unforeseen situations.

3) LEARNING. The techniques borrowed from theatre can unleash creative inner resources, thinks Curteanu, which one could use when taking major decisions, in a time when uncertainty and discomfort are the rule. Learning from others’ experiences, it’s something that theatre offers more than any other vehicle of knowledge, and this is the type of learning the best assimilated, says Mirela Palade.