âThere are people who prefer to say âyesâ and there are people who prefer to say ânoâ. Those who say âyesâ are rewarded by the adventures they have. Those who say ânoâ are rewarded by the safety they attain.â6
âKeith Johnstone
Yes. And. Two short, simple words which, together, define an entire approach to living, working and playing. âYes, and âŚâ is the beating heart of all improvisation. It is the elixir that allows improvisers to create something out of nothing. There is magic in these words. Except ⌠itâs not magical at all. Itâs a simple rule of thumb that anyone can use to build almost anything. In this chapter Iâll show you how âyes, andâ can help make you more creative at work, have better conversations at home and be more adventurous everywhere.
But what exactly is this âyes, andâ concept? For improvisers, it is many different things. First, itâs a practical technique: a tool we use to build scenes or ideas together as a group. Second, itâs a way of thinking that will set us on a path to every other key concept in improvisation. By the end of this chapter weâll see that the best way to think of âyes, andâ is as more than either a methodology or a philosophy, but as a Tao: a way of being in the world. Youâre either a âyes, andâ sort of person or youâre not â but âyes, andâ people are 24made not born. Thatâs what this book is all about. Ready to start? It all begins with âyesâ.
ALWAYS THINK âYES, AND âŚâ
The best way to understand how this works is through example. So, hereâs how it looks onstage. Say you and I are doing a scene together. I get the first line. I crouch on my haunches, pat the stage with my hand, and say:
You listen carefully to this blistering piece of dialogue. Then, having basked in the warm light of my celestial talent, itâs your turn to speak. How might you respond to my line? Here are two options. Choose the one you think is better for the scene:
Or:
Which line did you go for? Line 1 is a âyes, andâ response, whereas in improv parlance line 2 is a âblockâ. Admittedly, âMy name is 25Barnabus, King of the Uber driversâ is an amazing line. Itâs just not an amazing line for this scene. In fact, itâs a terrible line for this scene. Because, first, youâve thrown me under a bus by denying the reality of my âofferâ. (I told the audience we were on a farm, not a spaceship!) And, second, you totally ignored my idea and steamrollered it with your own. As improvisers we now have two totally different ideas of whatâs going on in the scene. Without agreement weâre not building anything, weâre moving sideways. A hard job has suddenly got harder and the audience is not impressed.
This disaster is very easily avoided. In improv, instead of blocking or negating other peopleâs ideas, we accept and build on them. This is the meaning of âyes, andâ. By saying line 1, you have accepted all the details contained within my initiating line (the âyesâ): your characterâs name is Jack; weâre on a farm; itâs hot. Youâve also built on them by adding some information of your own (the âandâ), which allows us to move the scene forwards. First, youâve endowed me with a name, adding that my character is called Ted. Second, youâve intimated that your personal hygiene is a disgrace. This fun offer is something that I can now build on with my own âyes, andâ response. For example, our scene might grow like this:
26Now, admittedly, weâre hardly at Will Ferrell levels of zinger yet. But we do have the acorn of a fun situation. By accepting each otherâs offers, weâve established a platform from which we can build the rest of the scene together. Weâve established that there are two gruff farmers, one of whom has a body odour problem, which the other thinks he needs help with. Whatâs more, to the audience, we look telepathic, when really all we are doing is paying close attention to each otherâs offers and then responding in kind with our own. You might continue this scene as follows:
And so on. Youâll have your own views about the comedic potential of this scene. But the point stands that we would never have got to this level of complexity and fun without the simple practice of agreeing with, and then building on, the established reality. We certainly would not have got there this quickly. Weâd obviously need to push things on further in order to reach comedy nirvana. But this simple process of âyes, andâ will get us there eventually.
APPLYING THIS OFFSTAGE
You can see that the philosophy of âyes, andâ is crucial for improvisers because it is an effective and efficient way to develop action onstage and therefore satisfy an audience. But not everyone treads the boards. So, letâs turn our attention now to offstage applications. Why should you care about this âyes, andâ thing? Weâll discover that âyes, andâ thinking can help you:
- Lead happier and more collaborative teams.27
- Be more creative.
- Overcome conflict and negotiate effectively.
- Own the room (or screen) in meetings.
Weâre going to explore all the above in depth as we move through this chapter. But, as before, letâs begin with an example. Iâd like you to imagine you are part of a communications team at some glamorous marketing agency. Itâs the sort of creative company where the floor is carpeted with AstroTurf. You can write on the walls. There are no chairs; everybody just sits on obsolete washing machines. The Creative Director doesnât wear shoes, and thereâs an office turtle. A meeting has been called because your team needs to come up with innovative ways to communicate a new company strategy internally. The email goes out. Everyone assembles â including you.
All the meeting rooms in your trendy office are named after former members of the Spice Girls. Youâre in âPoshâ. Behind the door, the leader of the team goes through the usual platitudes: âLetâs brainstorm guysâ; âCome on, think outside of the boxâ; and âAll aboard the creativity train! Next stop, Ideas City.â The table is caked in Post-it notes, highlighter pens and Haribo. Things are looking good. Your boss looks expectantly at his battalion. Silence.
Sixty painful seconds pass. Your boss writes the word âIdeasâ on the wall in bright red pen and surrounds it with a cloud shape, as if this might help. Another minute passes. The wide-eyed intern James suggests a coffee run. Another minute passes. Finally, mercifully, your colleague Sindy bravely sticks her head above the parapet.28
âWhy donât we do a short YouTube video explaining what we want to do? We could stick it on the company intranet?â
Your boss laughs. âA video! Thank you, Steven Spielberg. Be realistic, guys. Letâs face it. No oneâs going to bother watching a video.â Sindy bows her head, her face turning as red as the Fizzy Fangs on the tabletop.
Another colleague pipes up: âAnd Iâm not being funny; Iâm not having a go, Sindy, but when are we going to have time to film and edit a video?â
A chorus of agreement rings out, a mumbled elegy: the idea is dead. Resting in pieces on the meeting room floor.
DELAY JUDGEMENT
The example above might seem extreme. But episodes like this play out every day in workplaces throughout the land. This blocking behaviour, anathema to improvisers, has serious short-term and long-term consequences for teams. Weâll look at the longerterm damage a bit later, but first letâs see the immediate problem that blocking has caused. The idea that Sindy pitched has been killed before it was even explored. The team has denied themselves a potentially useful solution by judging it immediately. This is a huge waste of potential because new and challenging ideas â ideas that change things â donât often come out fully formed. They are incomplete and ugly, newborn foals stumbling around bewildered in the light, trying to work out who they are.
A central part of the âyes, andâ mindset is to delay judgement. This means hearing an idea and not immediately deciding if itâs right or wrong, useful or useless. It requires you to look for all the potential in an idea before you look for all the problems. This doesnât require you to agree with the idea. (You donât 29have to become some sort of inane, grinning yes man.) But it does require you to unconditionally accept the idea in a spirit of play, to decide to explore it for a while. âYes, andâ doesnât require you to believe a given idea will work, just to suppose that it might. The difference between supposing and believing is small but profound. Improvisers quickly learn that supposing can open up the world in thrilling new ways. But what exactly does it involve?
Supposing is the central skill of an actor. If I am an actor playing a milkman in a scene, I donât need to believe that I actually am a milkman. That would be absurd. Instead, for me to convincingly play a milkman, I just need to temporarily suppose that I am one. I simply act as if it were true that I am indeed a milkman. So, I ask myself: What would I do, think and feel in this situation if I were, in fact, a milkman? In the same way, when you interact with an idea, you donât have to believe in it. Your interaction with that idea is not contingent upon you believing it to be true or brilliant. You just have to act as if the idea were brilliant, and ask yourself: If this were a great idea, how could I explore and develop it? Itâs a mind-widening business.
Although I said that we should delay judgement, that doesnât mean we should abandon it entirely. It is simply a matter of timing. Clearly, selecting the best ideas from what we generate is crucial in getting the outcome we want. However, we often jump to criticism too quickly, at the expense of genuine exploration. After all, analysis makes us look clever. We are especially inclined to do this if we bring significant expertise and experience to the problem at hand. Experience supplies us not just with insight but also with intellectual baggage. In short, experts bring with them assumptions of what will and will not work. These assumptions can shut down their thinking and also the thinking of everyone else too. After all, who are we to question them? Theyâre the experts!
30Just as bodybuilders maintain their physiques by working out in the gym, if we want to stay creatively flexible we need to constantly work our âyes, andâ muscle. This is because, just as being enormously muscular is not natural, saying âyesâ actually goes against some fundamental human instincts. We have evolved to hate uncertainty. Studies have shown that people would rather definitely get an electric shock now than wait to see...