The Improvising Restaurant: Made (Up) to Order!

I was struck by an account I read in the book A Perfect Mess (by Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman) of a New York restaurateur named Danny Meyer – a classic Daily Improviser who has shaken up the very concept of dining out with his various (and wildly varying) Manhattan eateries.

Abrahamson and Freedman describe the loose operational philosophy instituted by Meyer for his enterprises – an approach, say the authors, that runs against the traditional notion of the top chef as “absolute, heavy-handed ruler, if not raging tyrant” in the kitchen. As they describe it: “Meyer wants the kitchens of his restaurants to be scenes of rampant and collegial improvisation, not dictatorial consistency and rigidity.”

This improvisational spirit applies even more to the wait staff, who interact engagingly with patrons and make spur-of-the-moment offers such as free samples of menu items (to help the wavering diner decide) and complimentary bottles of wine.

Sounds like a total “just-wing-it” sensibility as applied to an organization, right? Well, not exactly – because, as the authors observe:

“[A] restaurant can’t run well as a glorious mess of improvisation…. [D]ishes have to be completed and delivered to tables with impeccable timing – a mechanically complex process that, if marred in any way, will ruin a dining experience no matter how brilliant the menu or engaging the waiters.”

So how do improvisation and structure coexist in Meyer’s restaurants? As the authors say, Meyer realized that spontaneous “happy surprises” could only be delivered to customers in the following way:

“[W]aiters would need to be able to rely on a highly ordered, highly predictable system of preparing and delivering food, leaving them free to improvise with customers on everything else. And that notion of a measure of randomness supported by a layer of order is the final pillar in [Meyer’s] philosophy.” [emphasis added]

This “layer of order” in Meyer’s restaurants can be found in exhaustive, explicit systems for preparing dishes and assigning waiters to tables, with processes facilitated by an expediter who manages the interfaces between the randomness and the order. As an associate of Meyer's says, "Danny's model for a restaurant is a jazz ensemble. There's a background theme that's predictable, and the instruments can improvise around it."

For the leader who may be skeptical of how improv relates to the business world, Danny Meyer's restaurants serve as a model for what the improvising organization can look like. In a business organization, "layers of order" can include company mission statements, core values, processes and procedures, and other structures that serve to point the organization's members in a common direction. Those structures, however, just serve as the unifying theme within which people can improvise to serve the needs of the moment. Within the improvising organization, the leader can see her role as being an "expediter of the interfaces between randomness and order," thus maintaining the flexibility-within-a-framework approach that leads to "happy surprises" for customers and employees alike!

Saying "YES! And" to Impossible Requests

It’s Monday morning. You run a company that makes custom-designed magic markers for walk-up customers. A man rushes into your store holding a blue marker and a red marker and says, “I need for you to make me two markers that look exactly like this by 5:00pm tomorrow. I can pay you $10 for the job. How about it?”

Doing a quick mental calculation, you realize that it will take you three days to make the two markers. Even if you could make them in two days, it would cost you $15. The customer’s request is impossible to fulfill.

Now, let’s consider some possible responses you could give, and the potential impact of each:

a) “No, it can’t be done!” By saying this, you cut off all further conversation. The customer leaves unsatisfied, vowing never to bring you his business again.

b) “Yes, I’ll git ‘er done!” You say this in order to gain the customer’s business and to show a positive, “can do!” spirit. Even though you have serious doubts about succeeding, you maintain hope that things will break your way. However, when your original doubts are confirmed and you miss the deadline, the customer leaves unsatisfied, vowing never to bring you his business again.

So how can you maintain a positive yet realistic stance that will be more likely to satisfy the customer? By using the following response:

c) “YES! AND …”

We’ll reveal the rest of the response shortly. First, though, I’ll point out that saying “YES!” doesn’t mean that you Agree with the person’s Position – the “position” in this case being the exact terms of his offer (a blue marker and a red marker, by the end of Tuesday, for $10).  What it does mean is that you Acknowledge the Possibilities in the customer’s offer and Advance with Positive Purpose. And, in this situation, you have a powerful tool that lets you Acknowledge and Advance.

It’s called the Tradeoff Triangle. As shown below, the Tradeoff Triangle depicts the three components of any work effort: 1) The Outcome desired; 2) The Resources required to produce the Outcome; and 3) The Time it will take to produce the Outcome. The depiction of the effort as an equilateral triangle – all sides the same length – reinforces the fact that the “size” of any given Outcome must be supported by a proportionate amount of Resources and Time.

To apply the Tradeoff Triangle to the marker example, you would first mentally plot the stated Resources ($10) and Time (2 calendar days) on the appropriate sides of the triangle. But then you realize that you can’t then plot “one blue marker and one red marker” on the Outcome side, because that would throw your triangle out of balance.

Rather than give up altogether, though, you think: What Outcome could I generate with that combination of Resources and Time? Quickly mulling over the options, you realize that by 5:00pm Tuesday you can make one blue marker and give the customer an orange marker from your inventory on hand, at a break-even cost (which is acceptable to you) of $10.

So now you’re ready to give the complete response to the customer:

“YES, I understand your request, AND here is what I can do for $10 by 5:00 tomorrow: I can make a new blue marker and give you an orange marker from stock.”

By giving the customer an alternative, you are accepting his offer to engage in dialogue and advancing the interaction by making your own offer that builds upon his original request.

Now the customer can consider whether the revised Outcome you’ve offered is acceptable to him. And he might, for example, say, “Well, I guess the other marker doesn’t have to be red, and it doesn’t have to be custom-made. I only need a bright color for highlighting purposes, and orange will work just as well.”

This is how the Tradeoff Triangle helps you respond positively to even impossible requests: It allows you to think and act in terms of what you can do rather than what you can’t do! By keeping the dialogue open, you can reach a mutually agreeable result – one that never would have been discovered had you just said “No!” or “Yes!”

We're All Consultants!

What do leadership, sales, education, negotiation, and medicine all have in common? They’re all about moving someone toward a different way of acting or thinking.

In fact, as Dan Pink makes clear in his book To Sell Is Human, “moving” others may be the one core foundational skill that underlies all others in our business and personal lives. And it’s not “moving” them in the sense of being a dictatorial leader, a pushy salesperson, or a rap-on-the-knuckles teacher. It even goes beyond getting their “buy-in” to your predetermined solution. Yes, you probably have a solution in mind for them (an initiative, a product, a learning point, a health program), but it’s not about “pushing” that solution on them. It’s about truly listening to them, seeing the world through their eyes, being attuned to their ideas, and being open to their influence on you – even if that means adjusting your solution to meet their needs.

If this sounds like approaching leadership, sales, education, etc., as a partnership – being a consultant rather than a solution-pusher – you’re right! And that, I think, is the key insight in Pink’s excellent book. In fact, one of the frequently cited themes of the book – “We’re all in sales now!” – could just as easily be expressed as “We’re all consultants now!”

The type of “consultancy” to which I’m referring here echoes a distinction that Peter Block makes in his book Flawless Consulting about two different types of consultants, an Expert and a Collaborator.

An Expert Consultant determines the problem, decides on actions, and implements decisions to solve the problem. As Block notes, “Two-way communication between the Expert and the client is limited. The consultant initiates and the client responds.”

By contrast, a Collaborative Consultant’s interaction with the client is characterized by Block in the following way:

• ·         The consultant and the client work to become interdependent. They share responsibility for action planning, implementation, and results.
• ·         Decision making between consultant and client is bilateral. It is characterized by mutual exchange and respect for the responsibilities and expertise of both parties.
• ·         Collaboration is considered essential.
• ·         Communication is two-way.
• ·         The consultant’s goal is to solve problems so they stay solved. That is, the consultant establishes a helping relationship designed to broaden the competence level of the client to develop and implement action plans. Next time the client will have the skills to solve the problem.

I think that the Collaborative Consultant role described by Block tracks precisely with the roles and skills that Pink describes in his book as essential for “moving others.” In the sales context, for example, the “client” (the prospective buyer) no longer looks at the seller as “the expert,” since (as Pink points out) the internet makes available the type of information about products and services that used to be exclusively held by sellers. (Consider how easy it is to go online and find the invoice price of new vehicles and the maintenance history of used vehicles.)

For a variety of reasons, people tend to be more on guard than they were in the past to efforts to manipulate or coerce them to “move” in a certain direction. The classic quote “People like to buy but they don’t like to be sold to” comes into play here. Instead of being pushed into a sale, people want to lead themselves to the buying decision out of their own informed choice, with the seller playing the role of the guide. Similarly, class participants want to partner with the facilitator in order to self-discover learning, patients want to partner with the doctor in order to self-create a health program – and employees want to partner with their leaders in order to self-determine their work and career goals. All of these partnerships involve the seller / facilitator / doctor / leader playing the role of a Collaborative Consultant.

Boldly Go! (But Carefully Plan)

A well-known tenet of improvisational theater says: “Fall first – then, on the way down, figure out what you’re going to do next!” In other words, take action – any action – and trust that your native wit and intuition will solve the problem of what to do afterward.

This is probably the one improv tenet that prospective Improvising Leaders have the most trouble accepting. With visions of Wile E. Coyote firmly in mind, they might say: “What?! Throw myself into the void, without a net, no lifelines? Leave myself to the mercy of hope, luck, and the vagaries of the Universe and the Acme Company? You go first!”

Well, to take a "both-and" approach here, I think we can respect both sentiments – “fling yourself headlong into an uncertain future”AND “keep your ankle tied to a bungee.” Even performance improvisers don’t expect to splat against a blank canvas when they leap. They rely on multiple supporting structures – ideas they’ve used in the past, aspects of their character, rules of the game being played, guidelines such as "Yes And" – as a loose framework within which they can improvise a solution to their onstage challenges.

These thoughts were prompted by an intriguing Harvard Business Review article titled “The Institutional Yes.” The article comprises an interview with Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos in which he describes many ways in which Amazon keeps its sights on both imperatives: “leap” and “aim for the mattress.”

As to the Leap Imperative, Bezos says:

“One useful habit [in setting strategy] is to ask the question ‘Why Not?’ When something seems like an opportunity … you will always get asked the question ‘Why? Why do that?’ But ‘Why not?’ is an equally valid question.”

But if that sounds like the voice of the thrill-seeking, ready-fire-aim, leap-think-act personality, consider Bezos’s follow-on statement:

“And there may be good reasons why not …. In that case, if somebody asked ‘Why not?’ you would say ‘Here’s why not.’”

And even if you proceed, it’s not with reckless abandon, as Bezos makes clear:

“[S]ince the outcomes of all these things are uncertain, if you can figure out how to conduct an experiment, you can make more bets. So the key, really, is reducing the cost of the experiments.”

Experiments. Prototypes. Parallel processes. As you boldly go forth with your strategy, these are your supporting structures, your lifelines, your institutional mattresses. The Improvising Leader must not be afraid to take the leap, but, as Bezos indicates, she also needs to consider how to mitigate the possible dangers of the landing.

Saying "Yes And" to Idea-Chillers

From Day One of their training, performance improvisers are taught to say “Yes And” to onstage offers as a way to build upon each others’ suggestions and create interesting scenes in the moment. For example, if your partner says, “It’s pouring down rain today,” it’s better to respond “Yes, and I forgot my umbrella” than “What do you mean? The sun is shining!” Experience shows that audiences prefer to watch improv performers work together to create a scene, building on each other’s ideas rather than engaging in “Oh yeah?” “Yeah!” types of verbal duels.

Similarly, in business organizations, taking a “Yes And” approach can go a long way toward keeping possibilities open while also maintaining positive relationships. By contrast, adopting a “No” attitude can keep us grounded in the status quo while blocking teamwork right out of the gate.

There are many subtle ways for people to say “No” without actually using the word. Listed below are some phrases that people often use in meetings to immediately pour cold water on new ideas. Chronic use of these Idea Chillers – especially when accompanied by dismissive laughter and sarcasm - is guaranteed to stop innovation in its tracks, perpetuate Groupthink, and belittle and disrespect people. (To counteract the effect of Idea Chillers, try the responses in parentheses.)

“We tried that before and it failed miserably.” (Let’s look at why it didn’t work and do it differently this time.) 

“It's too expensive.” (How much do you think it will cost? What are the costs of standing still?)

“It’ll never work.” (How can we make it work?)

“We've never done it that way.” (The old way may have worked fine in the past – but maybe it’s time for a change.)

“Great idea, but not for us.” (Why aren’t great ideas for us?)

“People just aren’t ready for that.” (How can we gain acceptance for it?)

“Here’s why that won’t work …” (How can we address those challenges?)

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it.” (If we’re not moving ahead, we’re falling behind.)

“That won’t fly in our culture.” (Let’s consider if it will help us meet our strategic objectives and live our organizational values.)

“I don’t like it.” (What are your concerns, and how can we address them?)

“You have got to be kidding.” (It might sound a little “out there” – a lot of new ideas do.)

“It's all right in theory, but...” (How can we turn theory into reality?)

The British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead once said, "Almost all new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced."  Whitehead recognized that most creative advances grow from the seed of an idea that might seem strange and even outrageous at first (and thus susceptible to Idea Chillers) but can be nurtured and shaped through open-minded consideration of the possibilities. By taking a “Yes And” approach to ideas – that is, seeking to build on them rather than rejecting them out of hand – we can avoid the Idea Chillers that keep us from progressing as organizations and as individuals.

Resolving (Seeming) Contradictions: The Essence of the Improvising Leader's Art

What’s the one essential skill that any performance improviser must possess? Being quick-witted? Hilariously funny? Totally unflappable?

Many if not most people (especially those who have seen Whose Line Is It Anyway?) probably equate improv with thinking fast and making audiences laugh. When regarded this way, improv can seem as relevant to the lay person’s daily life (especially on the job) as the Three Stooges. But the entertainment factor is really a byproduct of the skills involved in improv – for example, listening fiercely, being completely present, and fully supporting troupe members. These types of skills are most definitely applicable to the everyday effectiveness of organizational “performers.”

But even more central to the improviser’s art (either onstage or in the meeting room) is a skill I call the ability to resolve contradictions.

On the improv stage, contradictions usually take the form of incompatible roles and situations that audiences pitch to the perfomers (e.g., a first-grade teacher as a master drill sergeant). Savvy audiences know that the entertainment comes, not from hearing wisecracks and jokes based on the situation, but from seeing how the performers weave the incongruities of the situation into a seamless scene.

Similarly, a leader’s effectiveness in his organizational performance is largely determined by how well he can resolve the jumble of contradictions presented to him each day. For example:

·         Being drivingly collaborative. Influencing the direction of events – while being open to the influence of others.

·         Being doggedly flexible. Being resolute in following a certain course of action – while staying alert to the need for course corrections as events warrant.

·         Being skeptically accepting. Showing trust in others at the start of a working relationship – before they’ve demonstrated how trustworthy they really are.

·         Being deliberately authentic. Flexing a natural behavioral style in order to adapt to certain situations and certain people – without becoming insincere or manipulative.

A leader’s success in navigating these shoals is largely a matter of shifting her responses between the two incongruous actions at different times to meet the needs of different situations. For example, she might follow her natural take-charge style when urgent action is needed but defer to another person’s ideas and judgment when she’s coaching the person to develop his problem-solving abilities. In most cases, this is preferable to taking the easier course of always applying the same style in all situations with all people – an approach guaranteed to fail at least some percentage of the time.

Just as the successful improv performer can resolve the incongruities of the situation without missing a beat, the successful leader can nimbly shift his actions throughout the day to effectively address each circumstance. At first, a new leader may have to stop and reflect (and often stumble) as he grasps for the best response. But with time, practice, and commitment, he can develop his own inimitable style that handles the ambiguities, dilemmas, and contradictions of organizational life without letting the seams show.

Why Aren't They Doing What I Want Them to Do?

A leader frequently finds herself at wit's end trying to understand why her people won't perform up to expectations. There are really only four possible reasons why people fall short:

1) LACK OF SKILL: They don't know how to carry out the tasks required to perform as expected.

2) LACK OF WILL: They aren't motivated to do their best.

3) BARRIERS: They may know what to do and have the desire to do it, but there's something in the environment that blocks their performance - for example, lack of needed tools and resources.

4) GOAL CONFUSION: They may not actually know what's expected of them, often because it hasn't been clearly communicated to them.

Unfortunately, when a person isn't performing successfully, the most common approach to addressing the situation is to treat it as an issue of skill or will. This approach tends to put the responsibility on the performer to remedy the situation. However, as W. Edwards Deming once said, "A bad system will beat a good person every time." Rather than treating every performance issue as requiring a training solution (skill) or calling for a "fire" to be lit under the performer (will), the leader might also consider the possibility that she bears a big part of the responsibility. After all, Reasons #3 and #4 are factors largely under her control.

A Few Quick Thoughts About Empathy

1) Empathy and sympathy are not the same thing. Sympathy means being affected by the feelings of others. Empathy means making the effort to understand why others think and feel the way they do.

2) Empathizing with someone doesn't necessarily mean you're agreeing with him; 

3) Empathizing doesn't necessarily mean you have to do it the other person's way; 

4) Empathizing gives you a chance to better understand the other person's interests and perspectives so you can potentially find common ground; 

5) Empathizing shows that you care, which in turn creates trust; 

6) Even if you don't pursue the direction the other person wants, if the person feels that you at least gave her a hearing and took her interests into account, she'll be more likely to accept your decision; 

7) Ultimately, as the leader, you have the final say. But if you take action with others' views and interests in mind, you'll be more likely to win their commitment (rather than just compliance) - which means that they'll be more likely to go the extra mile for you and the organization. 

8) Empathy is a prerequisite for influence, because we need to know what will motivate a person to change before we can take action that will lead him to change.

You Need to Have a Goal - or Do You?

I've frequently seen references to a study conducted at Yale in 1953 which found that 3% of MBA graduates surveyed had clear written goals for their future, 13% had goals but had not written them down, and 84% had no specific goals at all. When these same graduates were surveyed ten years later, the 3% who had written goals were earning on average ten times as much as the other 97%.

This study has been cited for years to prove the point that specific, written goals are essential if you want to achieve your highest level of success. The idea is that, if you don’t know (and don’t document) where you’re going with total clarity, you’ll likely fall far short of your potential.

I’ve always been somewhat skeptical of this one-size-fits-all approach to life and career planning. After all, how many people can see with 20/20 foresight what opportunities will present themselves on life’s journey? And, just as situations change, people change. My burning ambition at age 21 to devote myself to an all-consuming career may suddenly be tempered by life events somewhere down the pike – say, my desire to spend more time with my family as I get older.

My sense that there are a variety of approaches to life and career planning is supported by research conducted by Annie McKee, founder of the Teleos Leadership Institute. McKee found that people use three different approaches to thinking about and planning for the future:

1) Goal-oriented: This is the style used by the 16% of the people cited in the Yale study. “Goal-oriented planners tend to focus on very specific goals and outcomes,” writes McKee in Becoming a Resonant Leader (co-authored with Richard Boyatzis and Frances Johnston).

2) Direction-oriented: Regarding this style, McKee writes: “Although they know the general path they wish to pursue, they stop short of getting too specific…. They adapt easily to changes in the environment, but stay true to an overarching set of principles, values, or a vision.” This style is similar to the approach I mentioned in an earlier post, in which a person sets an Aspirational Goal about the things she wants to realize in her life without locking in to a specific path or role.

3) Action-oriented: Action-oriented planners tend not to look very far down the road at all. As McKee says, “They choose each action according to the logic of the moment and base the next decision on outcomes of recent past actions.” I would call these the Improvisational Planners (to use a deliberate contradiction), who base their approach on a series of on-the-fly choices that just feel right at the moment.

With respect to these styles, McKee makes a telling observation:

“One size does not fit all when it comes to formulating a useful plan for your future [emphasis added]. When leadership development programs attempt to convince everyone to use the same format and propose one ‘best way’ [shades of Frederick Winslow Taylor!] to think about a person’s future and plans, it is not surprising that change is not sustained.”

I think that McKee’s research reflects a key point about the nature of change and growth: The more you’re able to chart a development path that reflects your own style, the more likely you’ll be able to follow it. The more you try to shoehorn yourself into an approach that doesn’t fit you, the more you’ll be continually struggling against yourself to sustain your resolve.

As with any change effort, of course, you’ll be well served by challenging yourself to do things outside of your comfort zone. In McKee’s words, “Each of the three styles has wisdom for the other; the point is to know and honor your preference and be aware of the others as you organize activities in your plan.”

But do McKee’s findings go against the conclusions drawn by the Yale study I mentioned above? Well, no – because in fact there is no such Yale study! Even though the “study” has been cited for years (with multiple variations in the retelling – some peg it to Harvard, some place it in the ‘60s, or ‘70s – all in true Urban Legend style), no evidence has been found to confirm its actual existence, as Fast Company magazine pointed out in a 1996 article. While “You Must Have a Goal” may sound like the only way to go, the research shows that it's only one approach to creating a career and life that will work for you.

Balancing Chaos and Rigidity: Using Light Structures to Guide Our Improvisation

I’ve found the concept of “improvisation in organizations” to often be a difficult sell.  Many people seem to think that “improvise” means “make it all up as you go along” – which conjures up images of multiple free agents setting off on individual courses of action that can’t be tracked, monitored, or controlled.  

In fact, though, improv follows processes and rules of engagement that guide individuals in their actions without dictating exactly what they should say or do. As Cathy Salit of the applied improvisation group Performance of a Lifetime says, “Beneath the apparent chaos of improvisation is a light structure that allows it to work.” For performance improvisers, that structure is comprised of games that frame the boundaries of the actors’ onstage performance, as well as rules (such as “Say Yes And” and “Make Your Partner Look Good”) that guide the behaviors of the actors.

Without this sense of light structure, performance improv would be nothing more than individual actors trying to upstage one another by making wisecracks and calling attention to themselves as individuals. The team aspect of improv – a central aspect of its appeal and success – would be totally lost, since there would be no unifying goal for the performers’ actions beyond trying to evoke big yuks.

The value of using “light structures” is also becoming increasingly recognized by business organizations.

Think about it from your own experience: When was the last time you arrived at work and were handed the “script of the day” to be rigidly observed until it was time to go home? Improvising is the human condition – we’re constantly improvising, from morning until night. Yet organizational life requires each of us to focus our improvisations on the accomplishment of a common goal. Structures such as a company vision, mission, core values, and work objectives allow an organization to marshal all of the individual actions of its members toward the achievement of a common purpose. These structures also allow for a degree of consistency and control in the operation of the enterprise.

However, the danger of making these structures too heavy can be illustrated by certain organizations that have tried to operate by means of overly rigid requirements. In his book To Sell Is Human, Dan Pink notes that Col. John Patterson of NCR Corporation sketched the blueprint for a sales approach that depended on saying and doing things precisely by the book in interactions with customers. Quoting Harvard business historian Walter Friedman, Pink notes:  “The ever more detailed instructions … focused ‘not only on what salesmen should say, but also on what they were to do while saying it.’”

While consistency is needed in a company’s sales methods, this approach taken to its extreme has the downside of making sellers sound robotic and inauthentic. These methods may have met with success in the days when selling was largely a formulaic, cost-benefit proposition. Selling today, though, requires building relationships with customers as much as it does pointing out features and benefits of products. And relationship-building involves give and take, going where the customer wants to go, listening carefully, and treating each customer as a unique individual – none of which is possible with a completely prearranged approach. A more lightly structured selling approach that focuses on the customer’s buying steps and the actions that can help guide (not force or push) the customer up those steps allows for sellers to recognize the needs and expectations of each individual customer while still maintaining a consistent approach.

You might say, “Well, that’s fine, but my job doesn’t involve selling anything.” But one of Pink’s main themes is that we’re all in sales now. His studies have shown that up to 40% of the workday of the typical organizational member involves what he calls non-sales selling – “persuading, influencing, and convincing others in ways that don’t involve anyone making a purchase.” Whether you’re a manager trying to negotiate for project resources, a lawyer trying to move a jury, a doctor trying to persuade a patient to follow a treatment plan, or a facilitator trying to influence a class participant to adopt a new behavior or way of thinking … you’re a salesperson. And the same light-structure approach – derived from the rules of improvisational theater - that guides the actions of the modern sales professional can guide yours as well. As Dan Pink describes them:

1) Hear Offers: As Cathy Salit says, improv performers must “listen without listening for anything.” In other words, they need to suspend the mental filters and assumptions through which they hear the words of others and which can distract them from the actual message. For example, if someone you’re trying to influence responds by asking several questions, you might interpret their failure to immediately agree with you as resistance to what you’re saying. You may then react by treating them as an adversary who needs to be “defeated.” But if you listen carefully and generously, you might realize that their questions reflect a good-faith attempt to understand what you’re saying. In effect, they may be making an offer to continue the interaction and perhaps work collaboratively toward a mutually agreeable solution.

2) Say “Yes And”:  When we say “yes and,” we maintain an attitude of positivity and possibility toward the person we’re trying to influence.  “Yes and” doesn’t necessarily mean Agreeing with the other’s Position. Rather, it means Accepting the Person, Acknowledging the Possibilities in what he or she is saying, and Advancing with Positive Purpose.

3) Make Your Partner Look Good: As mentioned above, improv is a collaborative team performance that requires the actors to allow space for their fellow team members to shine. Doing so makes for a better scene, and better success for everyone. The same holds true when you’re trying to influence someone in a certain direction: Focusing on the other’s interests as much as your own can result in creative win-win solutions that allow both of you to “shine.”