The power of “Yes and….” in KM and innovation

What we can learn from Improv Theater...

How many times have you hear…”Yes…but….”

What’s this telling you? What’s the person saying? Yes but…is really “NO…here is what I think.” Or "no..you are wrong." What does this do to a conversation? What does this do to your willingness to listen and learn? What does it do to creativity and innovation?

What if instead you hear “Yes…and.” What does it do to the conversation – what does it do to your willingness to listen, to learn and to build on the conversation?

On yesterday’s NPR program Fresh Air; the shows host, Terry Gross, interviewed Allison Silverman, the executive producer and head writer for the Colbert Report. Silverman talked about how many of the writers have backgrounds in improvisational theater. As part of this conversation she talked about one of the tenants of improv is the Yes…and. In this game you are always building on what the pervious actor had to say. And I suspect that if you have been to an improv theater you have witnessed the power of this technique.

Silverman talked about building sketches for one of last weeks programs. At the morning "pitch session" two ideas presented stood out. One centered on “President Obama – and the fly swatting” and the second on how one of the networks is "dedicated exclusively to his demise."

Through the power of "Yes…and" the writers drew a connection between the two ideas – and they merged into one powerful sketch – "Murder in the Whitehouse.” The news anchor from the network that has nothing good to say about the president – starts off with praising the president for his masterful swatting of the fly – but then quickly goes to “Extraordinary negative coverage” and the flies family in morning. They then bring in Jeff Goldblum – who played in Jurassic Park and a number of other films – got his start by playing the fly in the 1986 film “The Fly.” According to Silverman – these three parts to the sketch – all came from the use of “Yes…and…” The masterful hunter, the negative network and Goldblum.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Murder in the White House - Jeff Goldblum
www.colbertnation.com
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So what does this have to do with KM? And what does it have to do with Creativity and Innovation?

Think of a scenario where a project just went very well. The conversation starts of – we did this to make this could well. Yes---and in addition we did this. Yes…and…did you know that team B did this – and it really worked well, perhaps we could add that to our process. Yes -- and next time we could do it even better if we....

Or – this project didn’t go very well. The conversation starts "here is what happened. We didn't plan this as well as we could have. We could have brough in someone with planning experience for just a few hours to get us started on the right foot - yes and I know just the person that could do that for us. We didn't didn't test this before we used it. Next time - we can build an extra day into the schedule for that testing..yes and make that day up here in the schedule where we had some extra time. Yes...and here are a could of other things that we could do to make it go better next time ---. Yes and we could do this as well ---. Yes – and if we avoided this it could be even better. Yes---and if we built in …. Yes...

Contrast this with. This project didn't go very well. We didn't plan this as well as we could have. Yes...but...it really wasn't our fault. We needed more time. Yes...but management wouldn't give us more time. We needed someone with marketing experience. Yes...but we couldn't get the person we wanted. We should have tested this. Yes...but we didn't have time...

Or think about innovation. We could do this…yes.. but…I don’t think that would work because…opps wrong technique.

We could do this…yes and if we got stuck we could to this. And we could bring in Fred who’s done this before and have him share his experience. Yes and we could talk to Laura – who tried something similar – but ran into some road blocks. We could talk to her about that experience as well. Yes...and...

The power of “Yes---and.” Do you have experience using similar simple techniques to promote sharing of knowledge – and building on ideas?