ENCOURAGING CREATIVITY IN THE WORKPLACE BY SAYING YES…AND is the target of this Motivational Monday. By simply changing your response from “Yes…BUT” to “Yes…AND” you encourage creativity, leverage new perspectives, and turbocharge innovation!
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Sometimes a leader responds to an idea with the following statement. “Yes, I like that idea, BUT we tried it five years ago and it didn’t really work.” The YES…BUT response has just steamrolled the person’s idea and introduced obstacles to, basically, close the door of creativity. SLAM! That idea was just flattened and so was the energy and enthusiasm of the person who shared it.
Instead, Karen Hough, CEO and Founder of ImprovEdge, has found that the most powerful technique they train business leaders in using is known as the YES…AND PRINCIPLE. An idea is shared and the leader, knowing that all innovation comes from encouraging new perspectives, says, YES! We tried that a few years ago AND I’d relish the opportunity to see your thoughts on it!” The YES…AND just opened the doors, encouraged the creativity, and showed the leader’s strong belief in a good outcome. Do you hear rockets going off??? I do!!!
Try this activity adapted from the work of Silvio Corti. It only takes about 10 minutes, it’s fun, and it just might unlock the power of YES…AND in your team!
Activity to Promote Encouraging Creativity in the Workplace
1. Prepare flipchart sheets ahead of time for Team Webbing Processing of the partner sharing. In the middle of each sheet write one of the three following statements: Benefits & Costs of “YES, BUT.” Benefits & Costs of “YES, AND.” Impact This Could Have on Our Workplace.
2. Assign partners. Tell each set of partners they must plan a company party. After each person’s partner takes a turn sharing an idea, the other person responds with “YES, BUT” and blocks the idea by saying why it won’t work. Do this for about 2-3 minutes.
3. Stay with the same partners, but this time each person will respond to an idea with a sentence that begins with “YES, AND” and accepts the other’s idea. Again, do this for 2-3 minutes.
4. Have pairs group into 3 teams to respond on the Team Webs. A flipchart sheet with statement is in the middle of each table. Each person has a marker or writing tool and moves to a table with their team and webs off the statement for 2 minutes.
5. After 2 minutes, each team switches tables until all teams have webbed ideas off of all 3 statements.
6. Teams select the 3 most interesting ideas off of their original web to share with the entire group.
7. Each person writes how they are going to apply what they have learned from this activity on a sticky note and places it on the flipchart as a CALL TO ACTION & to review at a later time.
8. Celebrate! By engaging in this activity your team has already begun encouraging creativity in the workplace!
Ten years ago I wrote a blog post about encouraging students to think. Take a minute to read about my student, Reggie, and me as we learned to “THINK ABOUT IT” together! I hope Reggie is still thinking as he continues to transform the world into a more positive place!
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