Blog Line

The GCI Canada summer party was this past Friday and while there was alot of yawning due to a busy week working on the Mattel recall and the Belkin Streetcar media event, it was great fun. Because we try to be a continuous learning organization, rather than directly heading to a bar of going for a boat cruise we all trooped to Second City for an afternoon class on driving creativity and innnovation by improved improvisation skills. Second City Communications is an offshoot of the well known Second City comedy troupe.

Kudos to our staff training and development committee for proposing this initiative. It was a great afternoon. Nothing like learning how to hone your improvisation skills in front of all your co-workers to promote fellowship.

Aside from the pure hysterical laughter that ensued there were also some points made by the facilatators that cause reflection. All of us run from risk when risk is really how we grow and challenge ourselves. And, most of the time there really is very little risk as everyone wants us to succeed - our co-workers and most of all our clients.

Also, we tend to communicate in sentences that begin with “No, but…..” rather than “Yes, and….”. We did two exercises, breaking into groups where we did conversations that were built on “No, but” the first time around and “Yes, and” the second time around. The difference was profound. The first conversations really didn’t go anywhere except in some cases they became increasingly antagonistic. The second conversations caused excitement as the participants began building off of each other’s statements and ideas and collaboration took hold.

Over the weekend I have been experimenting with answering “Yes, and…” rather than “No, but…” even in circumstances where I would normally respond “No, but…” the difference in response has been very interesting. I am looking forward to experimenting with “Yes, and..” more this week.