The Daily Improviser Is Now The YES! Leader

I am excited to announce that, with this article, I am changing the name of The Daily Improviser blog to The YES! Leader.

Even with the name change, improvisation will still be the unifying theme of The YES! Leader blog.  As I have for the past three years, I will continue to focus primarily on the ways in which concepts drawn from improvisational theater can be used in non-performance settings – especially in business enterprises. I will also continue to show how improvisational themes and attitudes weave through some of the best thinking in a wide variety of fields – organizational theory, history, psychology, language, the arts, to name just a few.

And now, in best improv fashion, I will say: Yes, And … the time has come to shift my focus to the person who applies these improvisational principles to his or her daily actions and interactions.   I call this person the YES! Leader, because, as in performance improv, being positive and open is an essential mindset for anyone who wants to successfully navigate a world of continuous change. Just as performance improvisers must focus as much on the what (entertaining an audience) as the how (working as a team with their fellow players), the YES! Leader must give equal attention to both achieving results and building relationships.  The YES! Leader can do this by utilizing what I call the ExploreFlexSupport Model as the basic toolset for his daily leadership practice.

In reframing my blog, I also plan to devote more attention to practical tools and concepts that you can put to immediate use in your YES! Leader practice.  In the spirit of coaching, though, I’ll often focus this attention more in the direction of “asking” versus “telling” – that is, rather than always giving advice, I’ll include questions, challenges, and reflections for you to consider.

As I embark on this next leg of the journey, I want to emphasize two important points:

·         Anyone – not just a people manager - can be a YES! Leader. Leadership is about influence, not position.

·         You don’t have to act like a performance improviser in order to use improvisational principles in your daily life. Improv is more about attitudes than skills.

Hang on … here we go!