How the Rules of Improv Changed My Perspective

No, I don’t do improv, but I definitely follow the rules every day

I am not ‘artsy’. I don’t paint or act or sing. I don’t sculpt, I am not a photographer by any means.

I wasn’t in the drama class in high school, nor the choir. I don’t perform, and I have only done karaoke in a group under heavy, heavy peer pressure and with alcohol helping me up on stage.

So, I wouldn’t ordinarily care even a little bit about how improvisational comedy is performed. Granted, I have been entertained by the genre, but I don’t need to know much about how that sausage is made.

For some reason, however, an article caught my eye one day that significantly changed my life. I don’t remember how I got hooked into it, but I do remember the end having a call to action along the lines of applying the rules of improv to a particular activity (not comedy).

That resonated with me tremendously.

At the time I was an assistant fire chief managing the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) program for our city. I wrote the improv rules in large letters at the top of the whiteboard in my office, eye-catching enough that anyone that came in was likely to see them.

The Rules of Improv

1. Say yes

2. Make your partner look good

3. Be curious, not critical

I got some strange looks from people, but it allowed me the opportunity to explain my newly adopted and universally applicable philosophy.

Say yes:

Many people take this as a literal statement, and I suppose it is in improv specifically, but I see it more as a mantra for relationships of all types whether business, personal or incidental.

One cannot literally say yes to everything, “Dad, I need a new car”, for example. But you can say yes to the conversation that the comment invites.

It is far too easy, and almost automatic at times, to react to family, friends, business colleagues, and particularly work subordinates with a dismissive comment that ends conversation immediately.

“That’s not in the budget.” “Not right now, I am busy.” “You know that we can’t, aren’t going to, won’t, etc…”

Too often these words unthinkingly shoot out of our lips and we have irretrievably lost a moment. Often these moments that have nothing to do with a new car (or whatever) but in reality, have everything to do with the relationship you maintain with the person approaching you.

My fire department was in a municipality and we shared IT support with other city departments. That meant software purchase and support was unwieldy at best. I don’t know how many times employees came into my office to complain about software or tech problems. Yet, it really wasn’t ever about that, it was about how willing I was to engage with them and listen to them vent.

Often venting lead to other, much more productive, conversations about things we could actually control. Those conversations would never have happened if I had stopped them at the door with, “I don’t want to hear anything about software.”

That is why saying yes is so powerful. It allows moments. It creates communication that might otherwise have been suppressed. It creates opportunity.

Say yes.

Make your partner look good:

This one is a little more self-explanatory, and in particular it should be on the forefront of every manager’s style of dealing with co-workers.

This rule is a “reap what you sow” approach that pays out in progressively larger dividends. If you do everything you can to make your subordinates and peers (and for that matter, boss) look like rock stars, I guarantee that they will return the favor; often in ways unexpected and greater in sum than the effort you initially put forth.

Quiz question: Do you want to be the boss that is massively superior to all the poor slobs that work for them, or the boss that has everyone in their division knocking it out of the park?

One-upmanship, devaluing, and trash talking beget more of the same. It doesn’t matter if you are boss or lowest rung in the organization. Conversely making others around you shine also commands that response from others, regardless of organizational role.

But what if your boss sees your peers and subordinates doing great and promotes or values them over you? Then good for you, you just found a boss that you don’t want to work for anymore. Time to start planning your escape (and guess who will support you — everyone else). I write a little bit about that here:

This isn’t only advice for the workplace. You want your spouse to be wildly successful too. And your kids, and friends. Supporters get supported.

Make you partner look good.

Be curious, not critical:

This one was particularly poignant for me. Turns out I worked for the only fire department in the whole world that was doing fire suppression, EMS and everything else exactly the right way. Quelle chance!

And we told everyone too. They were doing it wrong. Why didn’t they do it like us? Turns out, if you are always the smartest person in the room you never learn anything. Especially if you are giving advice to others about how they can be better, or where they are off-base.

This was a bit of a culture change, but I insisted that those working for me have sense of inquisitiveness rather than assuming things were going as planned.

And I began to practice this interpersonally as well. It pays to listen, even if ideas seem a bit wacky at the beginning. I know startups and tech companies know this, but the public sector has a long way to go in this regard.

Rule 3 also plays into “Say yes” very well. Keeping those conversations open and flowing more than once led my division to changing or adopting a practice that made us much better than before.

Personally, this one was a life-changer for me. One day I met a peer from another fire department for coffee to chat about any/everything and the conversation turned to some frustrations we had in common despite very different work cultures. I shared that I wasn’t sure what the future held after I completed my year-long stint as interim fire chief.

She said, “Why don’t you retire?” What? Crazy talk. At 50? Huh? But I listened; and I considered it. More and more. You probably know the rest of the story:

But I seriously doubt I would have ever gone down the path I did if she hadn’t said that on that particular day; and if I hadn’t listened instead of being critical of the concept.

Be curious, not critical.

Many of us have a general credo, mantra or ethos by which we make decisions in our life. Sometimes this is well-defined, in my case it was more of a feeling. A collection of ideas that rang true with me.

As soon as I read the rules of improv, I knew I had found the simple and elegant expression of how I want to live my life.

Say yes.

Make your partner look good.

Be curious, not critical.

I hope these resonate with you as well. And relax; you don’t need to get on stage, or even be funny.

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Timothy Key spent over 26 years in the fire service as a firefighter/paramedic and various fire chief management roles. He firmly believes that bad managers destroy more than companies, and good managers create a passion that is contagious. Compassion, grace and gratitude drive the world; or at least they should. Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and join the mail list.