In this episode of Creativity and Compliance, Ronnie and Tom discuss the philosophy and technique of the improv principle, YES-AND, and share it’s application to ethics and compliance.
“The philosophies behind improvisation are so wonderful. If you ever meet someone who studied improv, they’re the most interesting, empathetic, thoughtful, collaborative, good listeners kinds of people because the philosophies and training that improvisers do have a great application to the business world, and I think even a tighter application to ethics and compliance.”
- YES-AND – We discuss the improv concept of YES-AND and how it is used to create comedic theater on stage without a script.
- The connections between Improv and Psychological Safety are discussed.
- YES – appreciation, acknowledgement, validation, encouragement, acceptance
- AND – adding, building, connecting, collaborating
- Improv Philosophy and Ethics & Compliance
- It’s about being welcoming and approachable
- It’s about being positive contributors, where we solve problems together
- It’s about being a value add
- It’s about creating and environment of trust and support
- Professional Development – E&C professionals can benefit from soft skills training. Improv is a great tool that provides practical techniques for:
- Active listening
- Word choice and body language
- Collaboration
- Creativity
- YES-AND your E&C Program
- Build E&C solutions around the business need
- Create policies, training and communications that are simple, short, easy to find and easily consumable
- Make it easy for others to help carry these important messages forward within their normal work patterns
- Meeting-in-a-box – Package short entertaining content with talking points and provide to leaders and ethics ambassadors to get ethics & compliance out of the ethics and compliance office.
- Commercials for Compliance & Speak Up
- Provide short, entertaining content to leaders to play as commercials during regular department meetings, live or zoom-style
- Integrate short, entertaining content within other department newsletters and trainings
- Play short, entertaining content between speakers at meetings and town halls
- People won’t go to the office of NO. Improv techniques are muscles that we can all work on to improve the way we train, communicate and engage. It can help shift the culture so that ethics and compliance becomes the helpful, welcoming, supportive resource that we all know it can and should be.