Always Say Yes
Improve Your Work and Life with Improv
Comedy entrepreneur Norm Laviolette may have started his career making people laugh, but now he wants to help his audience live their best lives.
The co-founder and CEO of Improv Asylum is now also the author of “The Art of Making Sh!t Up: Using the Principles of Improv to Become an Unstoppable Powerhouse.” The book explains how the skills used in improvisational comedy can improve everyone’s daily life, not only at home but also at work.
He and his partners realized pretty quickly after founding Improv Boston in 1998 that the rules of improv could be used to improve team-building and communication in corporate settings. IA Innovation, the corporate training arm of Improv Asylum, was born. They’ve presented trainings for such companies as Guinness, Google, Fidelity, Twitter and Bank of America.
There’s an art to making things up, Laviolette said in an interview, that can help you achieve your goals and explore your wildest dreams.
Stage experience
On a personal level, he believes that improv training can help people break through the fear that holds them back in life. So many people let a fear of judgment or failure prevent them from pursuing their goals, but performers have to learn how to move past that fear if they’re ever going to succeed on stage.
“The first step to succeeding is sucking,” he said; you just have to take that first step. Most audiences are far more forgiving than you expect, especially with beginners. Stage experience can get you accustomed to speaking publicly and being in the spotlight.
“Yes, and”
A cornerstone of improvisational comedy is the response “yes, and,” where a performer takes a partner’s idea and builds on it. The necessity of a quick response derails the natural fear of saying something stupid or being mocked; there’s no time to be afraid.
“On stage, we don’t have time to overthink it. We have to keep it moving, and if we always negate and say no on stage, nothing happens,” Laviolette said.
That’s true in life, too: “yes” moves ideas forward but “no” shuts ideas down. Want to write a book or start your own company? “Yes, and” changes the message from “I couldn’t” to “How could I?”
“But if you’ve always wanted to give it all up and sail around the world, how do you take steps to do that? It’s more about those skills.”
In a work environment, improvisational training helps teams learn to collaborate, he said. Whereas stand-up comedy is one person telling jokes, improvisational comedy requires an ensemble to work together and feed each other lines and ideas. The scenario doesn’t work without cooperation.
Active listening
And because you’re saying “yes, and,” no one can shut out another team member’s idea. It’s a way to teach teams to listen to one another and give each other feedback. Even if you’re working alone, you can use this technique to take your ideas to the next level: “We need publicity.” “Yes, and we need a multi-media attack.” “Yes, and maybe we should hire a publicist.” “Yes, and we should design a website.”
“Really, what improvisation is based on at its core is listening to other people and building off of each other’s ideas, as opposed to just constantly railroading your own idea,” Laviolette said.
In sales, active listening helps you understand and respond to objections. When brainstorming, it helps you take a team member’s idea and expand it.
“Ultimately, I’m a professional communicator,” Laviolette said. He is also, however, an entrepreneur who has recently opened an Improv Asylum in New York and has branched into stand-up comedy with Laugh Boston and gaming with Asylum Gaming and E-sports.
Laviolette’s corporate clients had been asking for years for a takeaway product after his trainings. When Wiley Publishing contacted him about writing a book, he had to say yes.
As Shonda Rhimes wrote in “Year of Yes,” saying yes to every opportunity offered her was occasionally stressful, but ultimately broadened her career tremendously into the “Shondaland” that occupies our Thursday nights. It has certainly done the same for Laviolette, but he emphasized that positivity can expand your personal life, too.
“I think the message is ‘how do you achieve more out of life that you want to achieve?’ It can be business; there’s plenty of business applications. But if you’ve always wanted to give it all up and sail around the world, how do you take steps to do that? It’s more about those skills.”
