Texas Pages

From Business pages of The Dallas Morning News, Oct. 14, 2007

By CHERYL HALL
cherylhall@dallasnews.com

Joel Zeff believes Shakespeare was right: All the world is definitely a stage, and all of us are merely players.

But life (and business) isn't a scripted play, he says. It's improv, and humor is its poetry.

So that's what the 39-year-old management consultant uses to help executives, employees and managers see the light and hear his messages about communication, teamwork, creativity, passion, change and leadership.

There's nothing quite like performing comedy without a script in front of colleagues to release your inhibitions and get your creative juices flowing.

And there's nothing quite like watching co-workers act like comedic idiots to loosen people up and help them learn.

"Laughter is a huge part of what I do," Mr. Zeff says. "Every time people laugh, there's a mental release. The endorphins make them more open and ready to receive the message. If you do nothing but look at interlocking triangles for three hours, people aren't going to take away much information."

Mr. Zeff has written a book that's selling well locally called Make the Right Choice: Creating a Positive, Innovative, and Productive Work Life.

In it, he shares his improv how-to along with his insights into human behavior.

Mr. Zeff didn't go looking for a publisher; John Wiley & Sons Inc. came looking for him. And senior editor Laurie Harting is glad she did.

"Joel delivers common-sense business advice in a way that his audience can relate to and also apply," she says. "So many business books take themselves so seriously that readers don't finish them. Joel makes you laugh your way through the lessons."

Three truths

Mr. Zeff's management philosophy boils down to three simple truths.

Everyone wants opportunity.

Everyone wants positive support.

And everyone wants to have fun.

Yep. I'm there.

"Joel views the world through a different set of glasses than most," says Kellie Goodson, events planning manager at VHA Inc. "It is fun to be in his world, even for a short period of time."

In the last 10 years, Mr. Zeff has worked with nearly 1,200 companies and organizations, including Clear Channel Communications Inc., KPMG International, Washington Mutual Inc. and Sonic Restaurants Inc.

At his seminars, he asks employee volunteers to act like trapeze artists without a net. It's scary, yet liberating and exhilarating. It takes teamwork. Most people don't fall.

"Either everyone is successful in an improv game, or everyone fails," says Mr. Zeff, who figures he's performed with about 20,000 employees-turned-actors. "All of a sudden they're creative, they're leaders, they're helping and supportive, and they're good teammates. They're productive, and they're having a blast."

Repeat client Tom Faust, vice president of sales and distribution for Omni Hotels in Las Colinas, agrees: "Joel has a way of delivering a serious message in a not-so-serious style. He's got a simple message: Play nice."

"He is Red Bull in human form," says Suzanne Cottraux, employee communications principal at Sabre Holdings Inc.

"His greatest strength is helping execs remember what it feels like to laugh and let go, which allows them to relax, connect with their peers and be open to new ways of thinking."

That's what he did with Sabre chief executive Sam Gilliland - heckling him about the executive's stiff (OK, boring) presentation style.

Mr. Gilliland relaxed and laughed at himself.

"Sam took it in stride," Ms. Cottraux says, "but the audience was in absolute hysterics."

The demise of the Dallas Times Herald was the best thing that ever happened to Mr. Zeff's career - although he didn't think so at the time.

The Kansas City native joined the newspaper's metro reporting staff in June 1991 as a 23-year-old.

"I jumped on board the Titanic just as it set sail," Mr. Zeff says. "I was at the Times Herald for the last six months of its voyage."

Mr. Zeff freelanced, then went into public relations, then worked for an advertising agency before starting his own consulting business in 1994.

The year before, he started doing improvisation for fun on the weekends. (He's still a cast member of Ad-Libs, which performs in Deep Ellum.)

One of his clients, the notebook computer division of Texas Instruments Inc., thought it would be fun if Mr. Zeff used comedy to lighten up a management retreat.

He did, and they loved it.

For the next several years, Mr. Zeff put on free improv seminars for nonprofits and chambers of commerce, hoping to rope in paying clients.

By 1997, he was getting such a kick from his improv workshops that he decided to go at it full bore.

Stage appeal

Today he does nearly 100 gigs a year and charges from $2,000 to more than $10,000, depending on how long he speaks and how far he has to travel.

He's also a sucker for doing pro bono work for worthy nonprofits.

"I always tell my clients, 'The time I'm onstage is free. That's what I love to do. You're paying for me to be away from my family, to travel and deal with the airport, the accounting, the paperwork, the taxes and the research.'"

Some clients are clearly hoping for magic tricks, too.

Mr. Zeff once had to follow the human resources director of a telecom company after she announced that the company was eliminating comp time and overtime but expected everyone to work just as hard.

"Then she says, 'And now, here's Joel. We're going to have some fun,'" Mr. Zeff recalls. "I had to go onstage as the company villagers were grabbing their torches and pitchforks to go after the HR Frankenstein."

Talk about having to improvise.

Mr. Zeff likes to think that everyone can be creative and passionate.

But even he warns about the "creative zombie" - an idea-eater who threatens to turn everyone else into zombies.

"He's always saying, 'This is the way we have always done it.'"

His advice: Run like the dickens when you spot one.