The most basic concept in all of improvisation is ‘Yes and’. If we are in a scene together and you make a statement, it is my obligation as an improviser to ‘yes-and’ your statement. By ‘yes-anding’ you, I not only agree to your reality, I add to it with perspective of my own. In this way, we can ‘triangulate’ on the problem to be solved, and also bring dimension, and new levels of collaboration to the scene.

The words ‘yes’ and ‘and’ do not have to be spoken literally, of course. It is the spirit of the phrase that matters. A common improv exericise invokes this spirit by having players begin every exchange of dialogue with those two powerful words, spoken literally.

If we are in a scene together and are ‘yes-anding’ one another, by the third line of the scene, it will not be about your reality, or my reality, it will be about our reality. Now we have the ability to work together toward an objective. It is the ‘and’ that makes all the difference. Anyone can say ‘yes’. It might get me a reputation as a being a positive person around the office, but it will not necessarily make me a productive player.

Let’s put it this way: ‘Yes’ is agreeing to a marriage proposal. ‘Yes and’ is agreeing to a life together.

Pay attention to the people in your network who are skilled communicators. Analyze your scenes with successful entrepreneurs and top salespeople. They never deny their scene partners’ reality. They add to it. They augment it. They build on it.

‘And’ is the catalyst, the propellant, the push. What are you going to add to the scene that will advance it toward its objective? It’s not always as easy as it sounds. Business scenes can turn into a battle for control of the narrative. They can fall victim to players who play ’status games’ designed, for example, to give the top-ranking player in the scene the last word. They can get derailed by players who insist on being the naysayer (or the ‘Yes but’ ter), and conversely by players whose flights of fantasy (’Yes and it’s where Israeli girls can go to meet Palestinian dudes’ ) hijack the team for a trip to Crazy Town.

Some tips for ‘Yes-anding’ in your scenes:

1) First listen. If you don’t hear what your scene partner is saying, your ‘and’ won’t mean much.

2) Add in increments. The ‘and’ does not necessarily have to be some earth-shattering addition to the scene. It does not have to have the drama of a marriage proposal. It can be simple. Small. A show of support. In improv theater, this is known as ‘playing slow’. It takes skilled, disciplined, patient players to play slow. Slow and steady progress toward the objective is preferable to lots of dramatic, news-making behavior that ultimately lands you right back where you started.

3) Agree to the underlying game. If you and your scene partners are at cross purposes–you’re in it to learn more about a problem, and they are in it to eliminate the problem–no amount of yes-anding can turn it into a productive scene. First agree to ‘why’ you’re in the scene, then you can deal with ‘what’ the scene is meant to accomplish.

4) Deal in objective reality. There are times when unfettered bouts of brainstorming are helpful. At the beginning of a project, I usually invoke the ‘No Bad Ideas’ Rule, in which any idea, no matter how far-fetched, extravagant or unlikely, can be put into play. But business gets transacted, for the most part, in the Real World. What do I have, how much am I asking, how much are you willing to pay? That’s reality. The yes-anding should acknowledge reality and work with it as the raw material of a scene the way a sculptor works with clay.

Tags: communicators, Crazy Town, Dialogue, entrepreneurs, Players, Positive, Productivity, reputation, Sales, salespeople, Scenes, yes, Yes And, yes man

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 1:51 pm and is filed under Additions and Edits, Agreement Principle, Communication, Dialogue, Entrepreneurship, Fundamentals, Games, Objectives, Sales, Scenes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.