For today's morning presentation, Nancy decided to do something a little different.
Nancy: I usually work in production, but this week was put into customer service to help guests figure out issues for the end of the year. I've never been in customer service before. So to say it was an experience is a bit....understated.
I've been basically running around asking everyone for help and trying to assist guests efficiently. Everyone was the best when it come to helping me out, but it required a lot of improvisation and thinking on the spot; a lot of quick answers and quick responses to be as helpful as possible while not coming across as blatantly stalling. Since I spend most of my time reading Bossypants by Tina Fey -- I decided to take a leaf from her book: Improv. And I picked out a common improv game called "Yes, and..."
"Yes, and..." requires the group to circle around and then one person is given a statement. The next person in the circle has to respond to the statement with "Yes, and..." and then add on his or her own statement. This continues until the circle completes (or it can continue on for quite a few rounds as the story gets more and more extravagant). It's a great way to see how people's minds work and also a great way to exude optimism and emphasize the importance of saying "Yes." Too often ideas aren't developed because they aren't too great in their infancy; by saying "yes, and..." we say "yes, we accept that idea, and let's see how we can build on it and brainstorm to make it better."
So it was great to see how the team brainstormed and built up ideas and came up with a crazy story or scenario just by saying "Yes, and..." We went from a cobra, to a mongoose, to Samuel L. Jackson, to a shark, and ended up eBay. All in all, I think it was a pretty good creative exercise at the end of the day!
