The basic building block of improvisation is ‘Yes and.’ The premise of every statement improvisers make is one of agreement and addition. Scenes move forward by ratcheting along with the ‘tool’ of yes-and like a climber finding holds on the side of a mountain…
Yes, we are here, and I see a place we can grab over there. Yes! A new crack reveals itself, and we grab it. We see another hold and we make the move. Yes, and now we’re experiencing the mountain from a new perspective. Multiple new holds appear, and one hold at a time, with each move accompanied by a thousand little calculations that are faster than conscious thought, we move up the face of the mountain.
Beginning improvisation students tend to use the phrase ‘Yes and’ literally. Skilled players discover infinite ways to ‘Yes and’ without necessarily using the words themselves. This keeps technique in the background where it belongs. A scene in which every player begins every contribution with the words ‘Yes and’ will get sing-songy in a hurry, and that’s not what we want. We want nuance. Refinement. We want technique to be second nature so that it becomes invisible to our audience, and we can pay attention fully to the realities of the environment and our fellow players. That’s gamechanging leadership.
Gamechanging is the art of doing what’s best for the scene. That means knowing a lot of different ways to yes-and. GameChangers yes-and artfully, with technique taking a backseat to the scene’s objective.
They can do it with a smile and a supporting comment. Or
A reaction and a correction. Or
With constructive criticism. Or
By giving gifts to their scene partners and making them look good. Or
By seeing and adding to the environment. Or
By joining in the shop talk of the scene. Or
By keeping the scene focused on its objective. Or
By supporting the scene from offstage. Or
By making declarative statements instead of interrogating scene partners. Or
By energizing and heightening the emotional level of the scene. Or
By emphasizing convergence on a solution when a divergence of ideas gets unwieldy. Or
By doing what our friend Kristen Parrinello calls ‘invisible work’ (@invisiblework is her Twitter handle), the little moves that are so subtle as to be invisible to the audience.
Walt Disney used to call yes-anding (and Pixar Animation has taken to calling it) ‘plussing.’ Add something to the scene, and if you don’t have anything to add, get off the stage.
Not that you shouldn’t practice yes-anding by literally using those two words. You should. Use them as a kind of warm-up or rehearsal, like you’d practice the basic forms in ballet or the scales in music. When the game is on, and you’re in the heat of a big scene, ‘Yes and’ may not literally pop up in your dialogue, but the technique will be there, invisible and inaudible, doing its work, ratcheting you and your team to the summit of whatever mountain you choose to climb.
initated the scene when he sent me this email
In my role of Commentor On All Things About Improvisation in Business, I responded to Jeremy’s email with 
in which i point out that ‘the first rule of improv’ if there even is such a thing, which itself is debatable, is not to say ‘yes’ but to say ‘yes and.’ ‘Yes’ is a state of mind. ‘Yes and’ is action. The most fertile ground in the world is useless until it’s planted. ‘Yes’ is the ground. ‘And’ is the seed. My blog post inspired Jeremy…
To Marty’s credit, he tweeted back within 15 mins. This already puts @martysg and JetBlue way ahead of most CMOs in brand narrative game. It also tells me that this is one vigilant, sensitive cat. Dude’s running it like Ochocinco
By acting as if I’d said something I hadn’t–that ‘The Posi-ffiti Game’ would have to be played without ‘John’s’ permission–Marty kills the scene. This was probably his intention. He also implies that quoting people without their permission is MY style. In one statement, he refuses my gift and pimps my character. Nice. This is classic old school management style, a familiar corporate game I call, “Parry and Thrust.” It’s played by stalling, and staying non-committal (”Hm…if….I might…”) and then landing a knockout blow (”Do something unethical? Not us. YOU maybe. Not us.”)
It’s easy enough to see that in a selling scene, a Customer is your Audience. You, in your role as Seller (and make no mistake about it, everyone in this world sells something) need the customer/audience to support you at the boxoffice, the gift shop, the showroom, the supermarket, the website, or anywhere else you can translate their ‘applause’ into revenue. This has been true since studly village smithies were putting on a good show by hammering out horseshoes under the spreading chestnut tree. A good performance gets rewarded by the audience. Selling doesn’t get any simpler than this.
A few years ago, I was asked by a network executive to videotape interviews with the alumnae of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, including Betty White. The show had been off the air for many years but Mary clearly maintained her star status, and the rest of the cast deferred to her as such. I, however, only had eyes for Betty. Then, as now, she lit up the room with those smiling, sparkling eyes, and the sincere attention she gave to those around her. Listening, I am more convinced all the time, is the secret to relating to the world, and Betty listens with the best. Her ego does not get in the way of her reception, and as a result, her picture is always crystal clear. What you experience is not the illusion of a human being, it is human. It is not a portrayal, not a role. It is true character.
Brands who emphasize consumption contribute to obesity, both mental and physical. They represent an ever-larger drain on the planet’s resources. They introduce a lot of useless crap onto the world by manufacturing illusory needs. They associate levels of consumption with status. The biggest of this. The most of that. The hardest. The shiniest. The latest and greatest. These brands pay for the audience’s attention. Most significantly, they define the relationship between the brand and the audience using numbers.
I, Customer, am an individual. One of a kind. All my friends are one of a kind. I got my thing, you know, just like you got yours, just like everybody’s got their own. I am basically awake 24 hours a day, because I got plates in the air, you know. My homies in Bulgaria are coding some tracks we’re going to run off a honeypot server for which we are getting paid by a new label in Atlanta call Tso-Tso that does B-Boy tracks for mall shows and competitions all over the Southern U.S., Australia and the Philippines. Shit is off the hook. We get a dollar per download, and already this month we’ve made five thousand dollars. First thing in the morning, I am catching a plane to Fort Meyers to work with some friends down there who have a band and play clubs at night, and weatherize houses during the day for twenty bucks an hour. I’m producing their next album and they are paying me by getting me a job weatherizing houses for the summer. And on the weekends we take out one guy’s girlfriend’s family’s boat and party like animals. Any brand that’s down for this scene is welcome to roll with me.