Yes And

This morning on NPR I heard a piece about Chicago’s famed Second City improv comedy group teaching their techniques to Fortune 500 groups.

They mentioned the principle of “Yes, and” as opposed to “No, but.”

Macolm Gladwell talks about this in Blink. When improvising, if another player offers you a situation (“It seems as if your head is on fire.”) you must accept the situation and build on it (“Yes, can you put another log on it?” rather than “My head isn’t on fire, it’s your eyes that are burning.”)

I think the current entrepreneurial boom is a movement of “Yes, and” rather than, “No, but.”

Yes, we can make that happen. AND we can do it quickly and cheaply. AND we can build upon software that is freely available.

Funny how things can work out.