Over the course of the last decade, I’ve been grateful for the opportunity to work with some mighty smart people, at remarkable companies and places. I’ve gained an insiders view of the world of employee and service training. I was a spokesperson for the Fish! Philosophy, a dynamic video and book on creating customer connection and service, and so I was able to see first hand what kind of training they (mostly young) people were getting.

A large amount of what I’ve seen as customer service training programs, with its scripts and routines, is more likely to create constipation than creativity. It processes the human encounter, inserts ideas and agendas from others not present and attempts to rig the outcome. It often shunts the local impulse in favor of a distant director. It tends to take the multi-colored pallet of the human encounter, and the idiosyncratic, and turn it monochrome and generic. It’s not done maliciously, but a class of good intentions can’t replace what could be a vital conversation about the nature of service and personal values.

We are caught in the tension between two competing energies, between what is necessary and what is vital, between structure and chaos. On the one hand we want to minimize mistakes and interpretation, on the other hand we want the encounters to be alive and relationships that are tangibly real. All too often there is an intolerance of ambiguity and an over inflated value put on being responsible. While the thought of cultivating modest irresponsibility may seem counterintuitive, there is evidence that such irresponsibility can lead to innovation, new products, ideas and behaviors. If we don’t have a tolerance for those that want to disrupt the class to challenge the conventional wisdom, acting irresponsibly and being a bit out of control, we need to at least find a way to channel that energy where it can be useful. Being “responsible” is after all, a subjective interpretation. An act of defiance can be courageous and can often be the start of a new conversation about what is possible. Spontaneity contains raw and unfiltered energy that needs direction not control.

Training is necessary, information on how our businesses must operate must be transposed into profitable actions. Perhaps we might consider training that also cultivates creative deviancy, balances the focus on business practice and preparation, with discussions about freedom and conformity.

If we can cause others to Claim what they do in a way that is consistent with what lives inside them, to see their work as something more than a job, but a place for self-expression. We can have workplaces where people can flourish creativity, and where artistry may replace processes and the customer is embraced as a collaborator to the remarkable.

Rob Reiman, in his lovely new book “Nobility of Spirit,” makes an elegant case for revitalizing such universal values such as “truth, goodness, and beauty,” as well as “freedom and justice, love and charity.” One of his muses is Thomas Mann, the German novelist and philosopher who became disgusted with western intellectuals and their willingness to embrace moral relativism and the abandonment of timeless values at times of war. Though this little book also delves into some political commentary, it is a read I would recommend to anyone that would believe that beauty, art, goodness and joy are the kinds of “traditional” values we all could use a bit more of.

In the part of the conversation I occupy in the world of business, service and training, I talk about authentic service and the necessary cultivation of humane and creative cultures; I put processes, planning and strategically designed hierarchies in the second chair. While these things are important and vital to running a business, they all too often hold the artistic impulse hostage, as something to be managed, imprisoned, scripted and scheduled. It seems to me, that in the world of right angles and sure things, where outcomes are calculated, beauty is seen as something that can be designed and bought, and art is simply background noise, something to hang on the walls or held at a distance.

To build communities that are vital and alive and more deeply human, we should be cautious not to trivialize “universal values,” like art, joy and beauty, ideals that are so important to the cultivation of a more spiritual life. This shouldn’t be read as trivializing the importance of business planning or processes, nor to suggest we need new age silliness or religious practice in the workplace. Perhaps, it is little more than coming to accept the human messiness and the wonderful ambiguity that art, beauty and yes, truth, bring with being fully human and to let them infiltrate our communities at work.

Do we need a new world, as author Eckert Tolle suggests? Are we in need of an “awakening” that will usher in a new world consciousness? It seems unnecessary. We aren’t asleep; busy and distracted maybe, but not sleeping. So then, do we really need a wake-up call or another world that must be birthed into existence in order for life here and now to be good? No. What is wrong with the one we have now? Sure, it’s messy, sure it’s full of problems big and small. But the world we have, here and now, has never ceased being beautiful, even as the shadows and the sharper edges of human darkness brew at the margins, tempting us to consider otherwise. Perhaps we would do well to take a simple breath, and see what great things we already have, within us, and without.

Natural Energy, the cornerstone of my work around human engagement, can be found in its most pure and precious form in works of art, music, and nearly any post of human self expression. These things happen when human beings are free, when they feel a sense of love and acceptance, when they sense goodness is greater than control and anxiety. If we want to unleash the energy in our organizations, we would do well to create the possibility of freedom, rather than weigh it down with well-intentioned but often unnecessary processes, policies and procedures.

If what you seek is to train and create human beings capable of delivering great service to others, stand tall on your values, share them, and listen for them in others. Learn to live with the ambiguity that comes with working with others, and don’t be afraid of words and ideas like bravery, truth, beauty and celebration. Don’t expect or seek conformity, let it alone. I’m advocating exposure of your own unfinished and sometimes unpolished self, to reveal the unique and unspoiled grain that only you have. This can sometimes require trust and courage, as true self expression is so often held in contempt in the political world of work.

It’s not hard. See your job of training and hiring others as a way of cultivating these timeless traits in others and in yourself. Through conversation and actions, rather than processing, we can explore the beauty that is blooming around us, and to finally let the human in the being, be truly free.

I invested nearly 30 years of my life as a professional street performer, traveling the country, mostly working renaissance festivals as a solo street comedian. I earned a good portion of my yearly income from tips, or what we pros call “Passing The Hat,” and enjoyed the luxury of only having to work weekends.   It was this environment that taught me so much about the nature of business, change, and management.

Renaissance festivals were ushered into existence by the counterculture hippies of the sixties, and are sustained today mostly by the new counter culture of pierced and tattooed heavy metal misfits.  No matter what decade, it has always been home to the fringe, delightful, and a bit strange.

But it’s easy to dismiss this type of theater, or any street-performing venue, because it is so unfinished, rough, and seemingly without much control.  In truth, the value of these odd-performing spaces is because they are rough and bit unrefined.  The top performer understands that the unpredictable and the rough are gifts, and recognize the best ideas are often discovered when things seem to be a bit of a mess.

When I was performing, I carried no props and didn’t have a script.  My performance was built on the notion that everything I might need for a performance would be present in the audience or the environment.  The most powerful insight I gained in the years I spent on the street was when I realized that if I enrolled my audience, a performers version of a customer, in partnering with me, I was never for lack of inspiration because I no longer was working alone. I saw that the environment itself was often rich with provocation, and that nearly any intrusion or disruption could be used to the benefit of the show.  In this way, everything was material, and nearly everyone my collaborator.

It’s easy to see economic disruption as a sign of impending doom and the end of good things.  But our anxieties may betray us into believing things that aren’t really true.  Perhaps we’ve cultivated an unrealistic belief in stability and symmetry, though we know life doesn’t roll that way forever. Roughness and disruption are just hecklers, reminders that life, like the street performance in the park or on the dirt lanes of a festival, leans towards emergence.

As a performer, I have learned to embrace the mess, be comfortable with the roughness and the unfinished, and become inspired to collaborate with others in new and interesting ways. We aren’t alone here, and there are so many resources to draw from, even when it feels we’re in a bit of a jam. It is likely when we look back on this rough patch in our nations economic history, we’ll recall just how many useful ideas were born and we improved our businesses.  We may also recall, in retrospect, that we had everything we needed, that we had one another, and a big, beautiful rough and tumble mess called life.