The “Yes, And” rule is a guideline of improvisational comedy that suggests a participant should accept what the other person has created (“Yes”) and then add something to it (“And”) ~ Source: Wikipedia.
When you stop and reflect on this, it really is a philosophy for life and work. How many times have you been in a meeting where someone suggests a new idea and someone shuts it down with a statement like:
- “that will never work here”
- “we don’t have the time / money to do that”
- “we tried that in the past and it didn’t work”
Imagine if you embraced the idea of “Yes, And” in all your team meetings.
Let’s imagine you are meeting to discuss new stewardship ideas. The conversation might go like this:
Person A: I have an idea that we should make random thank you calls to donors at all giving levels this year.
Person B: Yes what I like about that is I can imagine the delight someone would feel if they were thanked for a $20 gift. And this would be a great way to get our board members involved.
Person C: Yes what I like about that is our board members could experience the fun of making thank you calls. And with more people involved we could do these calls on a quarterly or monthly basis.
Person D: Yes what I like about that is our donors only hear from us at year end so this would allow us to connect more often. And we could also ask our other staff members to join in and make a fun team building event out of this.
As you can see this conversation generates many interesting ideas that your team can consider to expand its stewardship program.
To use the “Yes, And” model you must:
- Be truthful about what you like about the idea
- Add something meaningful to the original idea
- Focus on generating new ideas
- Let go of how to implement the ideas for now, and
- Most importantly, do not disguise a “Yes, But” as a “Yes, And.”
A “Yes, But” conversation might start like this:
Person A: I have an idea that we should make random thank you calls to donors at all giving levels this year.
Person B: What I like about that idea is we could reach more donors and I think we should limit it to major gift donors to have more impact.
Rather than genuinely embracing the idea and building upon it, this response takes the idea and limits it. Person B says “and” but really creates a “but.”
Bring some improvisation to your next team meeting and intentionally set aside time to “Yes, And” each other. I think you will be amazed at the positive energy in the room and the creative ideas you generate.