Collaboration Activities For Work – With Gary Ware

Here's The Full Transcript Of The "Yes And" Interview

Lisa: [0:07] You're listening to Lead Through Strengths, where you'll learn to apply your greatest strengths at work. I'm your host, Lisa Cummings. And I gotta tell you, whether you're leading a team or leading yourself, it's hard to find something more energizing and productive than using your natural talents everyday at work. And today, you'll get some serious depth on the concept of energizing your work. Your guest hosts a show called Breakthrough Cocktail. He helps teams get out of their funk, through improvisation and through play.

Now, if that sounds just a little bit too much like a boondoggle of a workday for you, hey, listen through anyway, all right, because improv has helped me become such a better player at work. And beyond the distressing and beyond the fun that it brings you, there are real productivity benefits to this stuff. It helps you think on your feet. It helps you innovate. And you learn a ton about your teammates by being in improv games.

You get to simulate your decision-making responses, you simulate the default ways that you act in different situations. Yet you do it in a way that is accepting of each other's ideas and building instead of stripping down. Basically, you give huge support to each other, yes, even to the people who annoy you. And it shows you a whole new way to value them and what they bring to the team.

So Gary Ware, thank you for bringing us some productivity-boosting fun and games today. We're going to totally live the Yes And life. Will you get us started by telling us your perspective on play at work?

Gary: [1:48] Yeah, I actually have a quote that summarizes just that. And it's from Plato, and it says, “You learn more about a person in an hour of play than a lifetime of conversation.”

Lisa: [1:58] Yeah, that's a really good one.

Gary: [2:00] Right Lisa, I totally agree. I got hooked on doing improv because it was something, something about it. Yeah, you could do these icebreaker games. But it was just something about improv and just letting yourself go that, and play and discovery that, it was like I was transformed back to when I was five, in kindergarten on the on the playground just doing silly things. And there was no care in the world.

Lisa: [2:29] Yeah, I know that. You've said you love being goofy and I love being goofy too. So it certainly feeds that part. Yeah, yeah, just the play and not planning what to say I'm very much like that. I want to. I plan a few steps ahead. I want to be careful about what I say. And it's the opposite of that. And, and not being seven steps ahead. So really just being in the moment being fully present. It's, it's just so cool. I could go on. I could gush.

Gary: [2:56] Yeah, I know. Exactly. And, yeah, it's just a new way of thinking. And so Lisa, a question for you. So you got into improv and it sort of transformed your life? Can you talk about a few other areas of how just improv has impacted you?

Lisa: [3:14] Yeah, I mean, the ‘yes and..” part has been huge for me. So anybody who's listening who's not familiar with ‘yes and…’, it's, it's kind of a basic tenet that you're going to support what's going on, in a scene or in a moment and build on it, rather than cutting it off or saying ‘no’ to what's happening. And so putting yourself in that mindset of your, in your, in the scene or at work, you're at work, and then going with what is happening, and then making the best of it, building on it and making it better is a completely new way.

So it has shifted me in many ways - down to the basics of trying to get ‘but’ out of my vernacular, unless you're talking about a literal butt on a body. It's the ‘yes and..’ or I'll say ‘yet’. I won't say “but” if I'm being conscious of it, because it does, it changes the way you actually think and put things together. And it just changes your frame of mind. So that's been a huge one for me in life, how about for you?

Gary: [4:13] It causes me to think of other possibilities. You're right, when you are saying ‘yes’, and you are agreeing 120% with someone, and you're building on that, and everything's a possibility because I know, we are so quick to say no, for whatever reason. It could be that you're just scared or you really think that you have an idea that is stellar, and you're not listening and, and sometimes it's just all about, let's support what's already out there.

Lisa: [4:46] And it teaches you about yourself in a way that you start to understand more about your assumptions. So I'm remembering back to a recent class. And so I'm in improv and you're in this…you're doing the scene work with a person and they’re doing something. And so as the recipient or you're up there with them listening and trying to understand what they're doing through their actions.

The guy who was up there with me was… he was being a cook in his mind. And so he was chopping something with a knife. And what I saw was a guy working in his woodshop, and as a perfect example of ‘Yes And…’., because I started commenting on what he was making in his wood shop. And it was after the scene, we were debriefing, when he said, I was actually starting as a chef. It turned it in a completely different direction.

And just imagine if we weren't in front of an audience who was in the class. But if we were in front of an audience, and he's like, “Hey, dummy, I'm not in a woodshop. I'm in a chef, hello, can you not see my knife?”, I would ruin the whole thing. He just went with it. And then there's something human and real that happens too because you see his face, he's shifting gears, he's recalibrating. “Okay, now I'm in a chef, and what am I holding?” And what..and I was seeing him like with a rasp or something.

And it's just, for me, that's very insightful, when you think about it applied to work, because you see the world through your eyes, and you have no idea where they're coming from. And you can assume yet getting in and saying "Yes And” going with what's happening, really helps you understand you come from a place of curiosity, you come from a place of openness. And then you start to see, oh yeah, there are different people who see things differently. And my way is not the only way to go about the world.

Gary: [6:25] I totally agree. And myself coming from a very creative background and working in the agency world, by saying ‘yes’, it opens up endless possibilities for innovation, because I know far too often, if you're in a brainstorming session, and again everyone wants to get their ideas heard. And like every time we deny someone's idea, someone throws another idea out, if you start over again.

And but just by throwing all else aside, and just supporting what is out there and just agreeing 110% and just not exploring that until it's completely done. And then before we move on to any new concepts, you will get awesome ideas.

And another example of, this was something how we brought one of the tenets of improv, you know, ‘yes and..’ into like the brainstorming scenario, is we, when we would brainstorm, it would be uber focus brainstorm. So it would be on one concept, but we could not explore outside of that concept until we explored everything about that concept. And so no one can throw any new ideas into the mix until everything from the very first idea has been explored. And it makes you, for in the beginning, you get all the obvious things out. But then that's where the magic happens.

Lisa: [7:53] Yeah.

Gary: [7:53] We can't move on. Because that's typically what happens, you get all the obvious stuff, and then you get stuck. And then you move on to something else, and they have to start over. But you keep going. And then that's where you get those breakthrough moments.

Lisa: [8:05] Yeah, those are great. It's kind of like a..for anybody listening, if you're really into this stuff, it's convergent and divergent thinking. And the typical brainstorm people are always talking about, “oh, blue sky”, you know, think about anything wacky out there. And you do come up with good ideas there. And that's more of the divergent.

Yet if you create the constraint, and you say, ‘Alright, we're just…we're living inside of this limitation, what can we come up with inside of the limitation?’ The ideas I see come up are better when you're limiting yourself, constraining yourself, because then you can get real wacky with how to make it unique. And those are the most fun to me, but versus the wide open universe of ideas you could come up with.

Gary: [8:47] Yeah, exactly. Sometimes we need limitations and constraints, to come up with amazing ideas. And I know from my own improv experiences, sometimes those limitations are the format of the game. You know, the specific game has, has specific rules and specific limitations.

Aside from that, you're free to completely explore and do whatever you want. And like what you mentioned earlier, you are not by yourself, you are what someone that is supporting you. And we see things through different lenses. And by just supporting whatever is out there. And building on it. It's magic. It is magic.

Lisa: [9:25] Yeah.

Gary: [9:28] And so I thought maybe we can kick things off by playing a little game. Like one of the simplest games is is ‘yes and..’. And maybe we could just start with, since this is career-focused and whatnot, maybe we can do ‘yes and…’ game where maybe it's an interview-focus game. But we're going to just keep saying “yes and” then we're going to build on something and see where we go.

Lisa: [9:50] Okay, cool.

Gary: [9:52] Lisa, would you like to be the interviewer and I will be the interviewee?

Lisa: [9:57] Yes, I would love to and I would love to know what job you would like to interview for?

Gary: [10:04] I would like to interview for a trainer at the zoo. Okay.

Lisa: [10:09] Gary, it's, it's great to have you in here. Tell me about the wackiest animal experience you've had at the zoo so far, or in your, in your animal life?

Gary: [10:21] I have to say, the most wacky experience that I've ever had was when I worked in Africa, and I was tracking rhinos through the Safari.

Lisa: [10:34] You know, I've always wanted to do Safari in Africa. And I know it's a little off of our what you might expect an interview topic to be about, but can you tell me what you learned while you were tracking Rhino? And what the purpose was? What were you out there after?

Gary: [10:54] Yeah, what I learned is that rhinos, they travel in packs. And that reminds me of family, and the importance of having a good support system. And I can bring those, you know, that experience here to this zoo, the San Antonio zoo, and I can apply that to any aspect of our training facility.

Lisa: [11:22] That's great. I love the lessons you can apply. I'm wondering, so rhinos, they seem kind of scary. Were there ever moments when you were just, yeah, they scared the bejesus out of you or were you pretty confident the whole time? How did you handle fears being out like that in some risky environment?

Gary: [11:40] Yes, they did. Right, those are scary bees. And I'm not going to lie, I was quite scared. There was one time when we were trying to identify if this was a specific herd that we have tagged. And I had to go into the pack where a mother was, was nursing with some of her young. And just like any mother, if you're going to approach her children, she's going to get defensive.

I personally thought she was going to charge me. But I noticed the warning signs. And I stayed very clear. And one thing that you have to know about rhinos, is that if you, if you don't show fear, and you show dominance, they will immediately back down.

Lisa: [12:34] Wow, how did you show dominance to a rhino?

Gary: [12:38] Well, I think the best way to show dominance to a rhino is to appear like you are a male Rhino. So that requires you to get into this position and start stomping your feet. It is quite the sight. And I did that very successfully.

Lisa: [12:57] And have you ever stomped your feet like that in a work environment?

Gary: [13:02] Actually, sometimes you have to show dominance in a work environment. And so yes, that I can relate to multiple times when, if I'm in a situation where I'm being bullied, sometimes you just have to stomp your feet and, you know, show that you mean business. But that doesn't necessarily mean that I am going to always do that.

Lisa: [13:24] Well tell me about a time when you had to show you my business.

Gary: [13:27] Well, I, I am a little ashamed about this. But there was a time when I worked for the San Diego Zoo. And I thought I was up for a raise. I had to say, ‘Hey, I'm doing a superb job. And I felt like I am due for a raise, would you please reevaluate me?’ And I was very firm, yet not overbearing. And that was the last time I had to really show that I meant business.

Lisa: [14:01] Now if you had to show you meant business to end this interview, and show me that you wanted the job. What would you do right here?

Gary: [14:10] Well, I would make sure that I have a power stance and a power stance means that my feet are more than shoulder width apart, I am leaning in which is more of a position of power. And I will make direct eye contact and I would have more of a deeper voice. And I would say I am the best candidate for this position. You should hire me because no one else is going to bring very experienced like myself.

Lisa: [14:39] And end scene.

Lisa: [4:42] So now if we go out of character and debrief that, some things that were really cool to me is for the listeners out there, it's kind of cool to show ‘Yes and..’, an improv stuff doesn't have to be about being funny. It's about going with what's going on. And having been a recruiter and a hiring manager, as I watched and listened to your answers and thinking about how you just rolled with it, it didn't matter what I threw out you, they were not typical interview questions.

I don't know if they are typical zoo interview questions. It's a different environment. But it was interesting you probably think you're going to get ‘tell me about your strengths and weaknesses’, ‘tell me about your background’.

We ended up talking about rhinos and power stances. And I think that's a really cool thing. Sometimes when I interview people, I see, ‘uh-oh, they're off script’. What am I going to do? I used to ask a question of people about what is the last thing you did that you found really fun. And people were like, “fun”? It just really, “whoo!”, it surprised people so much. And no, people have fun. They just…it was not a weird question. So it really threw people and that's something I looked for in interviews is, “Will they be able to roll with the punches?” And sometimes the punches are weird questions.

And sometimes it's giving you the insight, especially the tell me about a timeline. I mean, that's a very technical. It's called behavioral interviewing. And it's beautiful as a candidate, because you get to tell stories and stories, bring emotion into the picture and make things memorable until they're so great for you as a candidate. But a lot of people resist them. So I thought that showed all sorts of cool things. How about you?

Gary: [16:25] Agreed. And another thing to note, especially being on both sides of the table, being someone that is interviewing and being interviewed yourself, you're right, you do not know what's going to be out there. However, if someone throws you for a loop, all you have to do is just take a deep breath, pause, because you don't have to answer right away. Compose yourself.

[16:45] And just be yourself. Be real. At the end of the day, they're hiring a human. And if you don't know the answer, you know, feel free to you know, just be honest, and just be real. And, and you're right, stories are that…is the, in my opinion, the trojan horse of an interview, because if you can talk about story, you sometimes get off tangent, and they stop interviewing you and you're having a conversation. And when you're having a conversation, now you're getting real. And now you're getting to the heart of like, why we want to interview someone, we want to find out what they're about.

Lisa: [17:23] Yeah. And and you're getting to the… what makes people pick people. I mean, if you think about, if you talk to people, the way you talk to your friends, you're not so formal and stiff. You think about what you do when you sit around and…it's the theme, you know, cocktails, right? Breakthrough cocktail. So when I sit around on the patio with my friends, what do we do? We sit around and tell each other stories. When you talk to people like you talk to people, you like you tell stories.

So do that with your employer, give them the chance to see the you behind the kind of robotic curtain that people put up in interviews, and let them like you. And people hire people. They like..all things being equal, if your resume looks about the same, that's what got you in the door, the thing that gets you hired over the final couple of candidates, it's the interpersonal stuff. And that's the stories are such a great way to go with that. So embrace behavioral interviews. They’re awesome.

Gary: [18:17] I totally agree. And as a way to prepare, we can’t, you can't really prepare. We run through games, but as a way to prepare, I tell all of my…the people that I mentor, “have some stories like about yourself”, whether it's, you know, what was the last time, you know, you felt yourself in a scary situation. You know, how do you have fun? You know, anytime I come across a really good story that I could use in any situation, I sort of just jot it down.

It actually reminds me of one other game that I would like to play with you, Lisa, if you would like to be so brave, and it's called the Monkey Wrench game. I don't know if there's a technical term, but the person, so Lisa would be brave to be the person on this one. I asked him to tell me a story about anything. It's just telling you a story, but I'm going to throw up random words. And then you have to just take that word and immediately add it to your story.

Lisa: [19:15] Okay, love it.

Gary: [19:17] Cool. So, to get you started, maybe just tell me a story about, you know, a time when someone had fun since we're talking about fun.

Lisa: [19:27] Once upon a time, there was a man who had no fun in his life. And he went on a quest to have fun.

Gary: [19:35] tractor

Lisa: [19:36] So he showed up at his friend's farm and said, “You know, I've lived in the city my whole life and I want to learn to drive a tractor. In fact, I want to operate the backhoe because I think it would be so much fun.” So his friend got him out. He started tooling around with all of those knobs and sticks and he started thinking “wow, this is not as fun as I thought. I want to do something else on the farm. I want to…

Gary: [20:02] plank

Lisa: [20:04] So his friend said, I think you'd have more fun if you walk the plank. And the guy said, “What do you mean walk the plank? I thought you walked the plank when you were like, getting off by haters or something. And so Joe said, “nah, nah, nah, walking the plank here is great”. So he takes him out to the pool and stands out on the diving board, puts a blindfold on him, and asks him to jump. So he jumps in the pool.

Gary: [20:31] sunset

Lisa: [20:33] So he jumped in the pool and started treading water. And Joe said, “You know, here's the thing. You've walked the plank, you've done the best cannonball we've seen in like four years. The next part of fun, is whether you can tread water until sunset, and do some of that synchronized dancing to the beat of the music on the radio. So he started listening to the songs and moving his body to the sounds of the songs. And he felt like a synchronized swimmer in the Olympics only he was.

Gary: [21:04] glasses

Lisa: [21:06] So his friend said, “You're brilliant. I mean, if only you had that swimming cap, that was pink, you would look great. So let's get out of the pool and finish up the night by having an old fashion and clinking our glasses, because today was a breakthrough for fun”.

Gary: [21:23] Yay. End scene.

Gary: [21:27] Oh my gosh, how was that? Thank you for being…by little getting take on this.

Lisa: [21:33] That was a cool game. Yeah, I really liked it. I've done the game where you do story building where you do like once upon a time, and you start it off, and then you just cut yourself, you edit yourself and the next person has to build on the story and let it roll. So I really, other than having hearing problems, I really liked pivoting because your mind's going in one direction and then you have to juke over to the side and make it something totally different. So I thought it was pretty fun. How was it? Listening?

Gary: [22:05] I thought that was great. Yeah. And I have to say the story became even more creative because with this, and I do with a lot of people that I mentor with, is to get them out of their head and to be ready for anything. And yeah, and now you created a story that you never would have thought you would have went there.

Lisa: [22:24] Right.

Gary: [22:24] And I had no idea and yeah, sometimes again, in interviews, and on the workplace, you think you know where things are going, and then you get thrown a monkey wrench, you know pivot and adjust.

Lisa: [22:38] And sadly, for this episode, things have to pivot to the close, boo. So we have to do more of this though. It’s so good. Thanks for the monkey wrench game and the interview game, Gary. I mean, this has been quite this drinks jam. So I know a lot of listeners can learn from this advice you gave on telling stories during interviews, whether the interviewer or the interviewee.

My favorite action tip out of this whole conversation is to practice at least one “yes and…” every day. And then you'll notice how much you say “but” as well. And just watch what it does for your influence, for your listening and for your trust on the team. That one tiny word, “yes” instead of “but” can change the whole dynamic on your team.

And then for that monkey wrench game, try that with your group at work. It's such a fun team builder. And it's really good for getting in that creative mindset when you need to, or for exercising your Adaptability muscle if you have to deal with a lot of change. And it's even a good way to practice that “yes and” concept because it builds on other people's ideas, even if that's not where you were planning to take the conversation.

Now I know all of you listeners want to check out more from Gary, you can find him at breakthroughplay.com or he's out on Twitter as Gary Ware. So his handle @garyware .

You'll also love these two guides that can get you in a Yes And mode of thinking:

5 Improv Techniques That Will Level Up Your Life!

Play Personality Assessment

So thanks for listening to Lead Through Strengths. If you're only focused on fixing your team's weaknesses, you're choosing the path of most resistance. So instead, claim your talents and share them with the world.