3. Perhaps Continental did practice customer surprise for its top-mileage customers without publicizing it to the rest of the world (something that would only have set expectations for frequent fliers who fly frequently enough to rate this level of customer surprise!), as Delta has done. See Nancy Keates, “The Nine- Million-Mile Man,” Wall Street Journal, July 24, 1998.
Chapter 6
1. Michael Shurtleff, Audition: Everything an Actor Needs to Know to Get the Part (New York: Walker and Company, 1978), 162–164.
2. Selling shares to the public in 1998, the Cleveland Indians Baseball Co. stock prospectus (p. 4) explains: “Fans at Jacobs Field are offered a customer-focused experience in an attractive, comfortable environment featuring a variety of amenities, concessions and merchandise options and a courteous, well-trained staff.”
3. George F. Will, Men at Work (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1990), 6.
4. Others go even further by taking Shakespeare's proclamation, “All the world's a stage” to heart. For example, musician and sculptor Anthony Rooley, in Performance: Revealing the Orpheus Within (Longmead, UK: Element Books, 1990), 2–3, expresses “a philosophical view which understands that from birth to death, our entire 70-year span (or whatever is our allotted length) is nothing, but nothing, other than a play, a performance. Each of us plays a part, or a series of parts, more or less willingly, more or less consciously, more or less capably. Every action, interplay of relationships, pursuits of all kinds can be seen as ‘performance.’”
5. Preston H. Epps, trans., The Poetics of Aristotle (1942; reprint, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1970), 13–29.
6. Books could be written interpreting Aristotle's Poetics—and scores have been. We take this brief exposition primarily from Richard Hornby, Script to Performance: A Structuralist Approach (New York: Applause Books, 1995), 79–91.
7. Peter Brook, The Empty Space (New York: Touchstone, 1968), 9.
8. Brenda Laurel, Computers as Theatre (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1993), xviii.
9. Ibid., 32–33.
10. Ibid., 86–87.
11. For an excellent treatment of the importance and role of “being watched” in human performance, see Paul Woodruff, The Necessity of Theatre: The Art of Watching and Being Watched (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).
12. Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New York: Anchor Books, 1959), 18.
13. Ibid., 73–74. Goffman's ideas were used to analyze the noncustomer work situation in labor negotiations in Raymond A. Friedman, Front Stage, Backstage: The Dramatic Structure of Labor Negotiations (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994).
14. A number of articles in the services literature use the “dramaturgical perspective” to analyze service work. Although theatre is used more as a metaphor than a model, this line of inquiry provides a great wealth of information along these lines. See in particular Stephen J. Grove, Raymond P. Fisk, and Mary Jo Bitner, “Dramatizing the Service Experience: A Managerial Approach,” Advances in Services Marketing and Management 1 (1992): 91–121; S. Grove and R. Fisk, “Impression Management in Services Marketing: A Dramaturgical Perspective,” in Impression Management in the Organization, eds. R. Giacalone and P. Rosenfeld (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1989), 427–438; J. Czepiel, M. Solomon, and C. Curprenant, eds., The Service Encounter: Managing Employee/Customer Interaction in Service Businesses (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1985); Christopher Lovelock, Product Plus: How Product + Service = Competitive Advantage (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994), 86–96; Ron Zemke, “Service Quality Circa 1995: A Play with Many Acts,” in The Quality Yearbook 1995, eds. James W. Cortada and John A. Woods (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995), 119–126; Carl Sewell and Paul B. Brown, Customers for Life: How to Turn That One-Time Buyer into a Lifetime Customer (New York: Pocket Books, 1990), 113–117; T. Scott Gross, Positively Outrageous Service and Showmanship (New York: MasterMedia Limited, 1993), 89–106; and Sam Geist, Why Should Someone Do Business with You … Rather Than Someone Else? (Toronto: Addington & Wentworth, 1997), 86–116.
15. Richard Schechner, Performance Theory (New York: Routledge, 1988), 30, n. 10. While limiting his analysis to theatre and to a lesser degree the related activities of ritual, play, games, sports, dance, and music (the seven “public performance activities of humans,” p. 10), in this endnote Schechner cites Goffman and acknowledges that “performance is a ‘quality’ that can occur in any situation rather than a fenced-off genre … Or, as John Cage has argued, simply framing an activity ‘as’ performance—viewing it as such—makes it into a performance.” We wholeheartedly agree.
16. Ibid., 72.
17. Ibid., 72, 70.
18. Ibid., 72.
19. Thus the importance of understanding both the product and the representation, which together constitute any offering and yield the four approaches to customization discussed in chapter 5.
20. Schechner, Performance Theory, 72.
21. Ibid., 71.
22. Fish! Catch the Energy. Release the Potential (Burnsville, MN: ChartHouse International Learning Corporation, 1998). See also the book based on the video: Stephen C. Lundin, Harry Paul, and John Christensen, Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results (New York: Hyperion, 2000).
23. Michael Chekhov, On the Technique of Acting (New York: HarperPerennial, 1991), 71.
24. Eric Morris, Acting from the Ultimate Consciousness: A Dynamic Exploration of the Actor's Inner Resources (Los Angeles: Ermor Enterprises, 1988), 152.
25. Ibid., 153.
26. Julius Fast, Subtext: Making Body Language Work in the Workplace (New York: Viking, 1991), 3–4, provides a fuller delineation: “The subtext in any exchange is a mixture of many different elements. In part, it is composed of each person's body language, posture, hand movements, eye contact, how he or she handles space, and the ability to use subtle touch at the right moment. The way we use our voices also influences how our words are interpreted.”
27. Karen Klugman, Jane Kuenz, Shelton Waldrep, and Susan Willis, Inside the Mouse (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995), 110–111, emphasis added. Despite, or because of, this book's strikingly critical examination of Disney offerings from a leftist political perspective, the authors provide a wealth of insights about the inner workings of Disney.
28. For an outline of the “Elements of an Action,” including the “Magic If,” see Sonia Moore, The Stanislavski System (New York: Penguin Books, 1984), 25–45.
29. Michael Kearns, Acting = Life: An Actor's Life Lessons (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1996), 75.
30. Moore, The Stanislavski System, 30.
31. Ibid., 83.
32. Kearns, Acting = Life, 42.
33. Ibid., 45. Although the acting literature abounds with admonishments to infuse performances with intention, we particularly like Kearns's formulation and his straightforward description of its application.
34. Laura Johannes, “Where a Woman Lives Influences Her Choice for Cancer Treatment,” Wall Street Journal, February 24, 1997.
35. Note that the key for doctors here is to get patients to properly consider the alternatives, and not to get them to choose a particular alternative. As Michael Kearns says in Acting = Life, 43, “Many actors confuse result with intention. When I ask for an intention, I'm invariably given a result word: happy, sad, tragic, overjoyed, jealous, angry. Those are emotions that result from playing an intention; they are not intentions … An actor who attempts to play resentful, hurt, or ecstatic is acting a result and it's bad acting, usually accentuated by mugging (there's a lot of this on sitcoms). An actor who plays an intention, allowing the emotions to emerge naturally, is on the road to good acting.”
36. Quoted in Edward Felsenthal, “Lawyers Learn How to Walk the Walk, Talk the Talk,” Wall Street Journal, January 3, 1996.
37. Richard B. Schmitt, “Judges Try Curbing Lawyers' Body-Language Antics,” Wall Street Journal, September 11, 1997.
38. Barb Myers retired
in 1997. She was replaced not by a machine but by her former understudy, Joyce Lewis, who made memories for a yet another generation of Penn students.
Chapter 7
1. While not always explicitly pointed out in the text, this description of an actor at work exemplifies the following elements of theatre:
As if
Charting
Costuming
Cut 95 percent
Dragging out
Exiting all the way off
Intention
Making an entrance
Props
Roles and characterization
Subtext: body language, props, costumes
Note that some techniques (such as the use of props) appear multiple times. If you're reading this note prior to reading the vignette, we encourage you to look for exactly where Linda uses each one.
2. Anthony Rooley, in Performance: Revealing the Orpheus Within (Longmead, UK: Element Books, 1990), 50, urges performers to use this technique before beginning any performance:
Another procedure is to use the eyes. Extend your sightlines to the far corner of the room, right to the dimly-lit recesses and encircle the audience with your vision. Moving further in, towards oneself, the eyes might meet those of another individual, perhaps someone who is ready to smile in recognition of this moment's importance, or someone who needs a little reassurance that it is all right to relax. Then the eyes of the front row, who are there because they choose to be there—sitting on the front row is a very conscious choice. These people deserve careful attention and a smile perhaps (certainly better, in most instances, than a stern encounter).
3. John Rudin, Commedia dell'arte: An Actor's Handbook (London: Routledge, 1994), 51. See also Scenarios of the Commedia dell'arte: Flaminio Scala's Il Teatro delle favole rappresentative, trans. Henry F. Salerno (New York: Limelight Editions, 1996).
4. See in particular Edward de Bono, Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas (New York: HarperBusiness, 1992).
5. A good guide to improvisational techniques is Brie Jones, Improve with Improv: A Guide to Improvisation and Character Development (Colorado Springs, CO: Meriwether Publishing, 1993).
6. Commedia dell'arte was also performed on a raised (outdoor) platform, but without the formality of a proscenium, much less a written-out script.
7. One of the best platform theatre books is by playwright and director David Mamet, True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor (New York: Pantheon Books, 1997).
8. “Prepping the Chief for the Annual Meeting or Other Event Can Mean P ractice,” Wall Street Journal, March 20, 1997. See also Quentin Hardy, “Meet Jerry Weisman, Acting Coach to CEOs,” Wall Street Journal, April 21, 1998.
9. William Grimes, “Audio Books Open Up a New World for Actors,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 9, 1996. See also Rodney Ho, “King of Audio-Book Narrators Makes ‘Readers’ Swoon,” Wall Street Journal, April 10, 1998.
10. “California Dream$,” Forbes, December 16, 1996, 114. Note that while most broadcast television relies on matching theatre, live productions are pure platform.
11. The term jump cut has become a somewhat pejorative term in the entertainment industry, because many directors overuse the technique to hide flaws in the script or in actor performances.
12. Richard Dyer MacCann, ed., Film: A Montage of Theories (New York: E. Dutton & Co., 1966), 23.
13. Quoted in Jeffrey M. Laderman, “Remaking Schwab,” BusinessWeek, May 25, 1998, 128.
14. Thomas W. Babson, The Actor's Choice: The Transition from Stage to Screen (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1996).
15. Sally Harrison-Pepper, Drawing a Circle in the Square: Street Performing in New York's Washington Square Park ( Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990), 140.
16. Bim Mason, in Street Theatre and Other Outdoor Performances (London: R outledge, 1992), writes, “One of the aims of this book is to show how much craft and expertise there is involved in this area of work” (p. 4). He also points out (p. 5) how much street theatre there is in real life: “There is plenty of drama outdoors and an element of performances starts to occur if the participants become conscious of spectators and ‘play up’ to them. For example, the demolition of houses in Barcelona … was watched by a large group of locals, so the bulldozer drivers began to show off their skill with exaggerated nonchalance.” Work is, indeed, theatre.
17. For a terrific guide to selling that introduces many routines, see Don Peppers, Life's a Pitch: Then You Buy (New York: Currency Doubleday, 1995).
18. Rudin, Commedia dell'arte, 23.
19. Mel Gordon, Lazzi: The Comic Routines of the Commedia Dell'arte (New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1983), 29, 43, 18, 23, and 18, respectively. Interestingly, such well-rehearsed routines are now labeled “comic stage business” (p. 4).
20. Tony Vera, quoted in Harrison-Pepper, Drawing a Circle, xiii.
21. Carl Asche, quoted in Harrison-Pepper, Drawing a Circle, 114.
22. For more on The Hartford's PLIC call center, see B. Joseph Pine II and Hugh Martin, “Winning Strategies for New Realities,” Executive Excellence 10, no. 6 ( June 1993): 20.
23. For how an environmental “sense and respond” capability relates to Mass Customization, see Stephan H. Haeckel and Richard L. Nolan, “Managing by Wire,” Harvard Business Review 71, no. 5 (September–October 1993): 122–132. See also Stephen P. Bradley and Richard L. Nolan, eds., Sense and Respond: Capturing Value in the Network Era (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1998).
24. The Four Forms of Theatre model derives from prior work on a Mass Customization model known as the Product-Process Matrix” in which the axes are Product [= performance] Change and Process [= script] Change. Then, the four quadrants become the four generic business models that any company can have:
Just as performers of work must cycle between each successive form of theatre to reach street theatre, companies must cycle from Invention to Mass Production—through the activities of development—then to Continuous Improvement—through the activities of linking—before reaching Mass Customization—through the activities of modularization. When mass customizers are faced with “capability failures”—customers requiring capabilities the company does not possess—they must return to Invention—through the activities of renewal—to create a new capability, just as street performers renew their capabilities through on-the-spot improvising. While Mass Customization provides the highest levels of customer value, it is not appropriate everywhere, just as street performance is not the appropriate form of theatre for every situation.
The Product-Process Matrix (figure N-1) was originally developed by Bart Victor and Andy Boynton, two University of North Carolina professors (now dean of the Carroll School of Management at Boston College and the Cal Turner Professor of Moral Leadership at Vanderbilt University, respectively) and extended in collaboration with Joe Pine, and now enhanced and applied to theatre primarily through the efforts of Jim Gilmore. It has evolved considerably over time to become a very robust way of looking at the world of business competition. To trace that evolution, see Andrew C. Boynton and Bart Victor, “Beyond Flexibility: Building and Managing the Dynamically Stable Organization,” California Management Review 34, no. 1 (Fall 1991): 53–66; B. Joseph Pine II, Mass Customization: The New Frontier in Business Competition (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1993), 215–221; Andrew C. Boynton, Bart Victor, and B. Joseph Pine II, “New Competitive Strategies: Challenges to Organizations and Information Technology,” IBM Systems Journal 32, no. 1 (1993): 40–64; B. Joseph Pine II, Bart Victor, and Andrew C. Boynton, “Making Mass Customization Work,” Harvard Business Review 71, no. 5 (September–October 1993): 108–119; B. Joseph Pine II, Bart Victor, and Andrew C. Boynton, “Aligning IT with New Competitive Strategies,” in Competing in the Information Age: Strategic Alignment in Practice, ed. Jerry N. Luftman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996) 73–96; James H. Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine II, “Beyond Goods and
Services: S taging Experiences and Guiding Transformations,” Strategy and Leadership (May/June 1997): 10–18; B. Joseph Pine II, “You're Only as Agile as Your Customers Think,” Agility and Global Competition 2, no. 2 (Spring 1998): 24–35; and, finally, Bart Victor and Andrew C. Boynton, Invented Here: Maximizing Your Organization's Internal Growth and Profitability (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1998). Victor and Boynton's book, while curiously eliminating the axes of the framework, provides a masterful look at how an organization must learn and leverage knowledge to make the transition to each successive business model.
Figure N-1: The Product-Process Matrix
Source: Bart Victor, Andrew C. Boynton, and B. Joseph Pine II.
25. In Drawing a Circle, Harrison-Pepper relates that street performers create new acts through “a process of revision, refining, and personalizing” (p. 80)—that is, flowing from improv to platform (revision), then to matching (refining), and finally to street (personalizing).
26. Harrison-Pepper, Drawing a Circle, 117.
Chapter 8
1. We agree with our friends Stan Davis and Bill Davidson in 2020 Vision (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), 113, when they say, “The best place to look for the basis of organization change is in the future business, and the worst place to look is in the current organization. The present organization, however, may be a good predictor of what will prevent you from developing the kind of organization you will need.”
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