John Cleese
In a perfect world, a friendly gesture is just what it seems. In the real world, what a prospect says may not match what he or she expresses nonverbally. In the following PSP exclusive conversation with actor, writer, director/producer, creative genius John Cleese, readers are treated to a rare glimpse of this talented British wit.
Although Cleese is best known for such highly successful comic escapades as Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Fawlty Towers and A Fish Called Wanda, he has made an equal success in the business world. In fact, Video Arts, the training film company which he cofounded in 1972, was just purchased by management for 50 million British pounds.
This versatile superstar has a rare ability to apply his multifaceted talents to practical pursuits. He has created wealth by teaching us how to laugh at ourselves.
With his guffaws on hold and his keen sense of the human spirit at work, Cleese models some of the poses prospects strike while trying to avoid making the decision to buy.
John Cleese may have gotten his first instinctive lessons in the art of persuasion from his father, who sold insurance. Cleese views his early years as traditional and, as he says, rather uneventful. Although his parents are loving and attentive, they were also typically reserved and even inhibited. His father, who spent a great deal of time traveling around the Gloucester countryside to see clients, did impart certain basics to young Cleese.
"I got the impression from him that there was a lot of psychology to selling. Sometimes, to tease potential customers who had been a little bit rude or insensitive or something like that, he had very subtle ways to confuse them. I can remember driving down a narrow country lane once and a car came screaming around the corner – very much on the wrong side of the road – it came screaming to a halt. To our astonishment (my mother was in the car too), the guy leapt out at us and started shouting all sorts of abuses and accusations at my father, who was a very careful, orderly driver. When he finished, there was some silence. My father looked at him and with a big smile said, "Ah, I see you are a fine old English gentleman. The guy’s expression absolutely changed. He stared at my father for about 15 seconds and then said, "As a matter of fact, I am, yes!" And then he got back in his car and drove off. It was an absolutely inspired thing my father said. When customers gave my father a difficult time, he could deflect their difficult behavior in much the same way.
"My father had been working in that particular part of England for a long time. He had a good reputation because he was a very honest and honorable fellow and very, very good at his job. Every year he sold more life insurance than anyone else in the company. It was a good company. And he did that simply because all the local bankers knew him and liked him. And when their customers wanted to buy insurance, they would send them to John Cleese."
Cleese once described himself as a gawky, very uncomfortable teenager, especially when he started growing so tall (he is six feet five). When he realized that he had a unique way of using his body – a way that was funny to people – he began to develop a presence around that skill. He began to feel self-confident enough to make presentations to fellow students and friends. Much later in life, Cleese formed his own company to use some of those same skills to train business professionals.
"The only way that you can develop your own presence is to get out and do it. And then try to get people to give you honest criticism. I’m not particularly keen for my daughter, who wants to be an actress, to go to drama school. I would much rather that she started to work in something and then start to take some specific courses. I believe you can learn about audiences by getting out there in front of them. And it’s absolutely essential afterward to get feedback.
"You know I think people don’t understand what rehearsal is. Rehearsal is actually getting up there and doing it and discovering that at this point you constantly misread this particular line. And then you have to have feedback. And it’s difficult to get feedback."
To get that essential feedback, Cleese has developed questioning techniques that reveal more than a simple "Oh, I liked it just fine." In his structured and precise method, he has created a way for his critics to help him build a better mousetrap.
"You have to ask people in a crafty way. I organized a charity show in London two weeks ago and I did a piece of a sketch which I thought was very funny. I showed it to all the people who were helping me put the show together and they all said they thought it was funny. But I could sense that they weren’t deep down comfortable about it. And I said, ‘I don’t think you think it’s good.’ And they said, ‘No, no, yeah, I think it’s fine. It’s ok.’ But I knew, although no one said anything negative about it, that it wasn’t good enough and so I cut it.
"You see, they don’t want to hurt your feelings. So it’s very hard to get feedback. The way you ask for the criticism is very important. If you want to hear that it was fine, you will hear that it was fine. I’d have a question like, "If I were shooting this movie again, what two things would you advise me to change?’ And somehow then it becomes a positive act…a helpful act rather than a criticism."
Many salespeople feel that if you look good – look like you’re in control – you’re going to be successful. Some cast themselves with motivational techniques to fend off the feelings of inadequacy that often accompany selling rejections. Cleese relates that to a theatrical performance and how an actor first develops the role.
"I immediately think of some actors who work inside out and some work outside in. The British tend to work outside in and the Americans work from inside out. And I can somehow just imagine all of these salespeople sort of coating themselves because they’re scared and they want a kind of armor. In the beginning of my career, I had a good act and you get to know how to carry the act off. And you can run into trouble if you get too spontaneous, too loose during a performance. It’s much tougher to do that act if you have to hang around afterwards. You know what I mean – talk to people. And then if you’ve got to act just to get along, it becomes more and more obvious.
"I think also that as you get older, you get a bit more comfortable with yourself and then your own presence. You just say, ‘Well, this is who I am. It’s not perfect, but it’s fine.’ In my case I think it’s come from analysis. The more you know about yourself, the more you accept yourself.
"Anyone who is doing cold calling has got to have some sort of personality to present to the people that he calls on. It’s just too tough to go in naked. And, at the same time, the more they use that, the more it’s going to repel. My opinion is you certainly have to rehearse. You have to regard a presentation to people as a bit of a performance. But at the same time when you’re writing it, try to write it in your own language. Say it the way that you would want to say it yourself and try to perform it in as natural a way as possible."
Director Cleese has coached many talented performers in structuring a particular bit or character. On when and how to drop the rehearsal text and improvise he is, as ever, practical.
"It’s a question of personality. I mean some people can improvise and it’s marvelous if you can do it. But I think most people can’t. I would always try to structure it as much as possible. Unfortunately a lot of people who think they have a facility for talking are simply people who talk too much.
"If you want to maintain composure under pressure, I recommend that you don’t fiddle. Try to keep your hands still. Move as little as you possibly can because it looks better. If you’re going to make a gesture, make it an easy, fairly big one. Try it in front of the mirror. Don’t make short, small, jerky, restrictive movements.
"But the final thing that we keep coming back to, which is so fascinating and so difficult, is how do you become better and more spontaneous? Through practice…and the rest comes down to your self-confidence. Are you getting to know more about yourself? It is not necessary to present this rather tough, invulnerable facade. It’s a tremendous help, and also very appealing to people, to sometimes say, ‘I just don’t know, I’m really not sure about it.’"
On such complex long-range projects as the movie A Fish Called Wanda, external forces are always present pulling at the creative person’s focus. It’s much the same when a salesperson is trying to sell to a committee or land a large corporate customer. The world seems to conspire to put roadblocks in the path – obstacles that can pull you off and make you forget your way.
"I was executive producer on Wanda. I was almost the CEO on it. I set the thing up, helped raise the money, chose the crew, supervised the script, sat in on the editing, was in on the viewings, did the publicity. I was in on almost every aspect of it.
"I accomplished all my goals mainly by having excellent people out there. In the early stages it was not difficult. Getting the script together was very simple, working with Charlie (Charles Chrichton, coauthor with Cleese of the original Wanda story) and then Jamie and Kevin (costars Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline) to get the script out. I was able to supervise that and once we got the script out, then it was the job of raising the money and putting the team together, choosing the crew.
When we started to shoot, that was when I started saying ‘You do this,’ and ‘You do this.’ I supervised the schedule because I wanted to make sure that we had the right amount of time, the right number of days for each scene, because that’s something I feel very strongly about. I didn’t bother with the budget, the production manager – that was his job. But I was the one who said, ‘Now I want four days as opposed to three for these two scenes, but here we can shoot faster,’ because I knew the script so well.
"So once I got the schedule right, I surrounded myself with absolutely the best people and then supervised it in the most general sense. We had a marvelous art designer, and he brought his crew and staff. We had a great costume woman whom I had worked with for 20 years and I knew she would get everything right.
"But when you come to shooting it, it’s much tougher. You’re so involved with the direction, the action, so there I just handed it out to people and knew that it was basically in place. And once that was over, I was able to concentrate full time on editing and getting the sound right, the reediting and all that. But the only difficult thing was shooting it and I just had to trust the people that I put in charge."
Cleese laid conscious careful plans for the writing and filming. He wanted to make it a success.
"Yes, I thought about it inasmuch as I made sure that there was an enormous amount of time up front for all the planning. I think most movies go wrong because they start before the script is ready. I was working on the script with the actors concerned nearly 20 months before the cameras started to roll. I mean I sat with Jamie in a Los Angeles restaurant and talked with her 20 months before she started to shoot. So at the time that she rehearsed, which was after 19 months, she knew what the character was – she was discovering new stuff – not the basic character. And we had that kind of cooperation."
It’s the preplanning management that makes the difference, whether it’s on a movie lot, in a corporate boardroom, or in the field selling.
"Yes, tremendous pre-planning. So everybody has masses of time to ask all kinds of questions that they have to ask about this scene or that scene…what’s this about…why’s he doing this? And then the really difficult scenes we discussed several times. We talked about why he says that or makes this move. So everybody gets a clearer understanding of what’s going to happen. And that’s just a function of time. Everybody’s door is open because everybody has time for everybody else. And another thing – I do believe in a very democratic decision making process. But once you get shooting, as I’ve said I’ve been very democratic about decisions up to this point, but now that we’ve got to shooting, there’s more time pressure. And we can’t be quite as democratic."
Like any good manager, Cleese recognizes the importance of getting a positive group consensus before making final decisions. Getting the team to play it from the same game card, getting them to know their individual parts and where they fit into the whole and letting them express individual concerns and needs. And then he knows when to cut the cord, come to grips with the final effort, make the play and score.
"It’s very much orchestrated. And every person was important and they knew they were valued which is very important. And they also communicated with each other. They didn’t always have to go through the conductor, unless they needed a conductor."
Cleese knows how to get that special performance out of an actor. A great performance is not something that automatically happens. It’s a subtle combination of acting skill and the director’s expertise at drawing it out.
You have to get the feeling of each person – that you really understand where they are coming from. In other words, for each person to say, ‘now do I have some sort of picture in my mind about this person and the job that he’s doing?’ You know people often say to me, ‘Gosh, you’re asking a lot of questions,’ and I’m thinking, ‘Well do I?’ I mean all I’m doing is trying to understand. And therefore I’m asking questions. I go on until basically I understand and there comes a moment when I say, ‘Yeah, all right, I don’t have all the details but I have the overall picture and I can fill in the details later.’ And I think that’s the beginning.
"If you sit down with someone, you have to make them feel as secure as possible because the more secure they feel with you, the more they feel that you’re accepting them, the more they will give you the unbiased truth and the more you can then discuss how to solve the problem. The less secure they feel, the more they will try to conceal their problems. So the harder it will be for you to find out what they really need and how you can help them, what they need to work on. Whereas the English are far too indirect, in my observation, Americans are often very aggressive in their business behavior – in a way that I think is counterproductive. They may want to be tough. They may want to look like sort of tight-lipped granite men."
In Cleese’s view, managers who subscribe to the Rambo management school accomplish less than their more intuitive, sensitive counterparts. For certain types of salespeople, he also recognizes the value of a stronger hand with a shove in the right direction. A sales manager, it seems, must be all things to all salespeople.
"Of course, if you behave like Rambo, everyone’s going to behave back to you like that. I think you have to give people the security of knowing that you value them and basically that they’re a valued member of the team. That if they are therefore valued, they will be valuable.
"Now it’s harder if you inherit the team. And it would be difficult to manage someone that you don’t think is very good. But I still think that the way to make progress with him or her is ultimately to talk it through and not to do this Rambo management type of thing which is to try to make yourself feel good by making the other person feel bad. Also maybe by trying to find out what is good in that person even though you may not respond to that person immediately. To recognize that everybody has some potential. Say, ‘All right, is he as bad as I think?’ I mean I find it very difficult sometimes to assess the people."
Cleese, whose career began when he was hired fresh out of Oxford University to write comedy for BBC Radio, is not motivated by traditional show business values. Adulation of fans is not what brings peace to his soul. Although he has made a fantastic financial success, money is not his primary goal. He has likewise succeeded in business beyond what anyone might have predicted from his early – and decidedly zany – days on Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
"I think sometimes you find something deeply satisfying because you basically got it right. And that happens sometimes as with the scripts for Fawlty Towers, the movie Life of Brian, a television Shakespeare production, and of course Wanda. For me personally, the thing that gives me the most satisfaction is the sense that I’ve understood something which I never understood before. When I work with people, if I don’t feel like I’m learning, I get very bored."
Finding meaning in that daily grind is a challenge for all of us. We tend to think of the glamour of show business and we forget all the repeated rehearsals, failed shows, repetitious performances and dark, dusty dressing rooms where none of the thrill of cheering crowds greets the veteran performer. Professionals can’t say, "Well, I’ve had enough of this," and walk off the set, any more than a salesperson can walk out of a prospect’s office when the going gets tough.
"I’m not talking as a trainer but I think meaning has to come out of the personal relationships you have with the people that you work with. I mean when I’m getting ready to do my 81st training film after 17 years with Video Arts, and my personal relationships within the company…you know…going on the floor to make my 81st training film is not something that sets the adrenaline pumping. But going on the floor and seeing all my old friends, enjoying working with them, that’s what motivates me."
Any manager who has struggled to motivate a team of salespeople has pondered the problem of how to get each one going. You must be a coach to this one, a mentor to that one and a pest to the other. One is motivated by dreams of riches, another looks for the satisfaction in the job, and someone else likes dealing with the people. For Cleese, motivation is not a matter of cheering and singing company songs, but of commitment.
"You know, I don’t think of it so much as building up a corporation. I don’t think in those terms. To me, it has a lot more to do with the particular faces of the company. And a sense of commitment to them. I have the feeling that I will go on working with them because these people do this job well and they enjoy doing it and it’s a good deal for everyone concerned. As far as the motivation, it has more to do with the idea that we’re putting out ideas and training. This is a general culture which, in our own small way, may make slight improvements in the way people work.
"We think it’s a much greater motivation to teach people skills that make them that much better at their jobs than to just give them a cheering session that will fade in a short time."
As a manager who has worked with business people, a director who has worked with actors, a writer who has worked the production end of the business, and a comedic genius who has enthralled audiences, Cleese is in a unique position to talk about what motivates people to give their best.
"My policy with people who work for me is always to be very supportive and encouraging and I’m told that this works very well with introverts. Whereas extroverts work much better if you cheer them along a bit. One of my friends, who is now a psychiatrist, was captain of an all-England cricket team and he was very, very successful and they had two very good fast fellas. And they used to treat them quite differently. Every time one guy would walk back before running out after the ball, they would say, ‘Come on, let’s go, that was great,’ and that’s how he got better. But the other guy, when he walked out they would be saying things like, ‘What’s the matter? You’re walking like an old woman today. What’s the matter with you?’ Completely different treatments for both.
"I think really the key there is to get your own ego out of the way so that you can appreciate the qualities that you don’t really have yourself. I mean I am an introvert and if I have to deal with an extrovert, I have to try to do it without letting my own tendencies get in the way."
For managers who have difficult situations to deal with, either within the sales team or with disgruntled customers, Cleese offers these words of advice.
"I would suggest to sit back – sort of take the pressure off – so he doesn’t feel that he’s being pursued and almost deliberately say, ‘Can you talk a little bit about what’s bothering you?’ or ‘It’s very helpful to me. It may be helpful for our business, if I know what your problem is.’ He may say, ‘Oh, I don’t like this, I don’t like that.’ Then you say, ‘Can I ask you why?’ Always ask them an open question.
"You see, if you are getting a difficult response, or if you can’t make any sense out of the nonverbal cues you’re getting, you just fiddle with the picture that you see in front of you. If you don’t get it or you can’t understand, try to find out.
"Don’t put him under great pressure and ask open questions. Keep asking the open questions until you really understand him. It may be an objection that is actually nonexistent. It comes out of misunderstanding or something that you can fix and they didn’t think you could fix it. Try to get a real picture of where they are. It means that you have to be open and relaxed yourself and not the driver or the pusher."
If you use humor to make a point, use it with caution. It can be a dangerous tool when applied with too much force or at the wrong time or in the wrong circumstances. It takes finesse to be able to wield a funny ax.
"I think it would be quite incorrect to use humor as a way of scoring a customer or making them feel smaller. I think you could laugh at almost anything except the customer."
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