Everything's An Offer: How to do more with less [Paperback]

Robert Poynton (Author), Gary Hirsch (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 10, 2008

Everything s an Offer' tells the story of one business person's adventure in the world of improvisational theatre. It explains how the practises improv is based on can help you make more with what you have, using less effort, less energy and less resources (whilst creating less difficulty and stress). It illustrates, with myriad examples and stories, how anybody leading a busy and complicated life can put these ideas into action and why doing so will help them lead a more satisfying, creative and sustainable life. It extends the applications of improv far beyond team building and offers a new language for thinking about how we go about business - a language that has been used by Fortune 500 companies such as Nike, Intel and FedEx to help them communicate better, build stronger relationships (internally or with customers), propel people into action and get to new ideas and solutions.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Improvisational theater may seem a far cry from modern business but in fact it is highly relevant. By looking through that particular lens this book offers a different way to engage with and respond to the complexities and uncertainties of leading organisations into an era when creativity and change are of paramount importance. This book wears its well grounded learning lightly and is confident enough to side step the more stultifying academic conventions and focus on clear communication. And therein lies a great deal of its value. --Marshall Young, Director, Oxford Strategic Leadership Programme, University of Oxford

About the Author

About the Author - Robert Poynton
For Robert Poynton 'career' has always been more of a verb than a noun. He stumbled through a number of London advertising agencies (including Saatchi & Saatchi, BBH, and JWT) before helping to found (and name) a marketing and brand consultancy called Red Spider. This kept him busy until 1997 when he never quite made it back from paternity leave. Then, following a rash t-shirt purchase Rob found a way to make work into play, by co-founding the international improv and business consultancy On Your Feet (the story of whose creation is told in this book).

Rob has worked with all kinds of people from accountants to zen monks and for client companies such as Orange, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Philips, and The BBC and as far afield as Singapore and Cape Town. For over five years he has been teaching at Oxford Unversity s Said Business School. At the most recent count he had worked with people of some sixty three different nationalities.

Rob lives in a solar powered house in the Sierra de Gredos in central Spain with his wife, three sons and Real Madrid football season ticket.

Gary Hirsch - Illustrator
Gary is the other co-founder of On Your Feet. He is also an accomplished improviser, wannabe marine biologist, and voracious /artist/illustrator/doodler. Gary has been teaching and performing professional improv for seventeen years, and is the founder of Super Project Lab: a long-form improv group based in Portland Oregon. His public art commissions can be seen in Portland, Dallas, and Melbourne Australia. He is the founder of Doodle House which features his illustrations and wearable art.

Gary's improv clients include GE, Nike, The North Face, Disney, P&G and others. He teaches at Wieden + Kennedy Advertising's experimental advertising grad school 12. He has just completed illustrating his first children's book called Dare. Gary lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife, two children, and two hyper King Charles Cavaliers.

Product Details

• Paperback: 282 pages
• Publisher: On Your Feet; 1st edition (November 10, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0615226183
• ISBN-13: 978-0615226187
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #643,671 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything Is An Offer, March 10, 2009

By 

Michael V. Harper "Mike Harper" (Bowling Green, Kentucky) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Everything's An Offer: How to do more with less (Paperback)

Everything's An Offer: How to do more with less

Wow.

Ok, truth in lending. I know Rob Poyington. We met at Oxford about ten years ago. He showed up on a Sunday night wearing a quiet demeanor and a Gary Hirsh tee shirt. Two hours later we had a group of senior executives from all walks of life, from all over the world, in a very different place - open to possibility, engaged, curious, and more relaxed. As I went to sleep that night I said, "Wow." I could see that there was something here, but I did not quite understand it.

In the years since, I have tried to live it and to spread the gospel to my own leadership development clients; everything is an offer, attend, create flow, let go. Wow. Not a bad way to run your business or your life.

What Rob has done is make sense of all that. There was no bibliography for Improv. Now there is.

And this is it.

And it is well written, usable, thought-provoking, and life-changing.

Thanks, Rob.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's becoming my Mantra: Everything IS an Offer, February 7, 2009

By 

P. Sullivan "yoga teacher" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Everything's An Offer: How to do more with less (Paperback)

I'm really appreciating the book and the insidious way it is all becoming a part of my working attitude towards life with all its surprises. The stories bring the author's concepts into view in a most delightful and instructive way. I've read up to and through the blocking chapter and looking forward to the rest. I think it will be a great resource for a long time to come. I'm a yoga teacher and this enhances what I can offer to my students.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must Buy Book - for leaders, managers, parents, teachers & anyone who interacts with other human beings, January 29, 2009

By 

Karen Dawson (Calgary, Alberta, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Everything's An Offer: How to do more with less (Paperback)

To situate this review in context, I'm an executive coach and consultant in the middle of a PhD program trying to figure out how cultural change happens in organizations. Everything's an Offer has become my favourite book. It offers the best exploration so far of what happens at the intersection of improvisation, organizational life, and relationships.

Provocative and stimulating (with a delightful sense of playfulness) Rob and Gary welcome us and challenge us to reflect on the way we show up in day-to-day encounters with each other. Referencing (very accurately and respectfully I might add) great writers like Wheatley, Hillman, Jaworski, Capra, and Abrashoff -amongst others - as in "holy smokes Rob Poynton is well read and super smart" - and weaving in vivid stories of real life experiences, this book teaches, inspires, tickles and delights. I keep going back to it - and will continue to do so.

What I especially love is the delicious blend of ideas/concepts/theory with pragmatic "here's how you can actually start practicing this now" suggestions. I must say, my vacation at Christmas with my feisty and fabulous teenage kids was definitely more fun because of reading this book while the holiday unfolded - I was practicing noticing more, using everything, and letting go. It worked!

A few of my favourite excerpts:

"The plan should be a springboard, not a leash."

"Remember, everything you do is an offer."

"In relationships, giving too much priority to control, regularity, and predictability is counterproductive. You can't sustain the interest (let alone the affection) of a colleague, customer, audience, or lover through control."

Citing James Hillman, "Ideas we have and do not know we have, have us."

The book is brilliant. Buy it. Buy it for your friends and colleagues & anyone who cares about living a joyful, creative, connected and human life.