#TechModTuesday - Improv Rules!

I recently blew through a Netflix series called Middleditch & Schwartz (no link because I have no idea what your taste in shows are and this one is definitely NSFW). The entire series is 2 comedians (Thomas Middleditch of?Silicon Valley?fame and Ben Schwartz of?Parks & Rec?and?Sonic the Hedgehog) live in front of an audience. They create an entire world with multiple characters, based on a 2-3 minute conversation with an audience member, using no props other than 2 chairs, and absolutely zero prep time. This type of comedy is known as Improvisation comedy — or improv — and you might be wondering where I'm going with this. Well, the real magic in improv is the actors' commitment to the default of "Yes". Ready yet? In improv rules, you have to say "Yes", so let's go!

The Rules of Improv

Tina Fey's (Saturday Night Live,?30 Rock) first rule of improv is "You Must Agree." Imagine you're in a meeting and someone proposes a terrible idea. If You Must Agree, you're required to better understand the other person's point of view — you might say you're at least at the Curious level on the Mood Elevator. That looks like, first and foremost, assuming it's not a terrible idea. Instead, we should try asking questions — why would he propose something like this? What do they know that I don't? And since you're already mentally trying to agree with the person (remember, it's not a terrible idea), you're forced to understand where they're coming from. "You Must Agree", while asking questions about why the other party is posing a solution/idea/problem, forces you to keep an open mind.

Ms. Fey's second rule of improv is "'Yes' Isn't Enough, You Must 'Yes, and..'" So, even though you may not actually agree with the proposal we set up in the previous paragraph, our second rule requires that you have to accept it AND contribute something of value. You don't get to say "No", or even "Yes, but..." It's a "Yes, and.." That looks like building into the initially proposed scenario rather than dismissing it because of one detail or another.

Taken together, these two rules of improv create a super powerful mechanism for inventing solutions that couldn't exist otherwise.

But This Is Insurance

But this is insurance! Wait...I mean,?AND this is insurance. We do actually have regulators to deal with. We do actually have to pay and deny claims. We do actually have to charge premium rates that align with the risk we're taking on. We do actually have to deal with HIPAA and CCPA and a million other acronyms. AND yet there's still opportunity to do all those things and build a customer/employee experience that is truly world-class. It takes the creativity and willingness to work under the rules of improv to do so.

The risk managers in us (including myself here as I did work in Enterprise Risk Management for awhile) don't particularly like this. We like order, predictability, a defined process that doesn't fail, so exploring something that might not work is uncomfortable at best and downright terrifying at worst. If I've learned anything through my time in innovation and now in Tech Mod, however, it's that we're nearly at the place where anything involving technology can be built and automated. But don't take my word for it...Marc Andreessen, one of the world's leading venture capital investors at Andreessen Horowitz,?puts it this way :

"We need to *want* these things. The problem is inertia. We need to want these things more than we want to prevent these things. The problem is regulatory capture. We need to want new companies to build these things, even if the incumbents don't like it, even if only to force the incumbents to build these things. And the problem is will. We need to build these things."

While Marc is talking about businesses and infrastructure generally, the same exact elements apply at a local level. We need to want to improve our customer/employee experience. We need to want it more than we want to prevent it — and we need to find others who feel the same.

Near the end of the essay, Marc adds this, "Instead of attacking my ideas of what to build, conceive your own! What do you think we should build?" Now, doesn't that sound a lot like he's also advocating for the improv rules as well?

The Usual Questions

So Brian...what's this have to do with Tech Mod again? This goes WAY back to one of the first Tech Mod Tuesdays, as well as an Education Series I've been running. Technology Modernization is as much about Business Modernization as it is technology. Meaning, it requires us to rethink WHY and HOW we're doing work as much as WHAT technology we're using to execute it.

In order to rethink WHY and HOW we're doing work, we've got to first accept that there might be another way to do something. That doesn't mean that you're doing something wrong at the moment, but just that someone else (which could be you, btw) has proposed a scenario of doing things differently. Assume we're following improv rules and now You Must Agree — "You know what? There COULD be a better way of doing this!" And then building on top of that, "Yes, there IS a better way AND here's how we'd do it!" This magical mind trick can lead you out of the path of incremental improvement and to real transformational effort. And while you still have to do the hard work of actually building it, you've envisioned a new way of working that didn't enter your mind.

Let's assume for a minute that we're working on improving underwriting. Some joker named Nairb Eppop shows us and says, "We can underwrite instantly for 90% of our customers, regardless of product." Our natural reaction is to recoil and list all of the reasons why we absolutely cannot do that — here, I'll get us started, "We don't have the data, we don't have the systems to do that, we will take on too much risk, what about our underwriters, different products have different rules, etc."

Under the improv rules, however, we have to say to Nairb, "Yep, I think we can do that too. AND, we'll have to get data faster in order to do it. AND we'll have to improve our systems and processes to account for it. AND we'll have to codify our rules (or backtest) to ensure we're not taking on any additional risk." See the difference? We're still acknowledging the elements, but not immediately shooting them down. We're operating under the impression that everything can be done and if we're to accomplish the goal, it will be done. AND that leads us to real transformation.

Interested in rethinking business processes AND building the technology to go along with that? Join us here: careers.mutualofomaha.com

(ir)relevant Music

Missy Elliott - Work It

Silk Sonic - Leave the Door Open