My Life Before "Yes, And"

My life before “Yes, And”:

I was working as a bank manager, and that meant I often got to handle the difficult customer situations.

I dreaded conflict.

I would absorb the negativity of customer and feel flustered and defeated.

Sometimes, that negative experience would spill over onto other customer interactions because I was so frustrated with what happened and I wasn’t able to serve the customers or be as present and aware with my team.

I didn’t even realize that I was doing that! I was letting a negative interaction dominate me, and it was because I didn’t have the right tool to navigate POSITIVELY and PRODUCTIVELY in a heated moment.

I was in people-pleaser mode, eagerly trying to end the conversation as quickly as I could without bloodshed.

I would be on the defense (“Yeah, But”) in these conversations, because, after all, it wasn’t the bank’s fault they overdrew their account!

Everything changed when I learned “Yes, And.”

By taking?improv classes?for a fun personal outlet, I learned tools that transformed me professionally.

I learned how to turn “Yeah, But” conflicts into “Yes, And” solutions.

Using YES to acknowledge someone, particularly when they are angry or sharing an opinion different from yours is the first step. It gives them validation for their feelings and let’s them know you hear them EVEN when you don’t AGREE with them.

AND, is the action to move towards solution. What are the options? How can we WORK TOGETHER to navigate out of this discomfort.

I used “Yes, And”:

• to diffuse heated situations.
• to be more effective in managing my team meetings and communications.
• to be strategic in delegating tasks.
• to increase MY emotional intelligence, one human interaction at a time.
• to finally recognize where conflict was hiding in my life when I hadn’t been able to identify it before, even when I felt something was “off.”
• to be a more active participant in my own life and career.

This is a taste of WHY I am so incredibly passionate about IMPROV.

I get to help people transform from a “Yeah, But” attitude to a “Yes, And” mindset.