It was snack time at my house and my kiddo pulled a giant orange out of the fridge and told me it was a dinosaur egg.
In a previous life, I might have argued, and stated the obvious.
Instead, I played along.
This didn't always come naturally, but it's a skill I learned in improv.
Accept what's given, build on other people's ideas.
That’s what I did – I acknowledged his reality and indulged in playful banter.
Why not eat dinosaur eggs for snack?
This technique is useful for:
Brainstorming sessions where teams use their imagination instead of crushing each other's ideas (It’s possible and not just in dream land!)
Business meetings that spur creativity instead of verbal tug of war (Yes, please)
Family interactions and long car trips (purple gas station where the gas costs a dollar, I’m in)
The next time someone offers up a bad idea at work, instead of jumping to shut it down, play along.
Sometimes those crazy ideas solve themselves when you’re willing to indulge them. That’s what happened to a design team I was working with. The client wanted to use QR codes and instead of compiling a list of why it was a terrible idea, the developer got curious, asked questions and the client thought it threw and eliminated it on their own.
Let people convince themselves if an idea is viable.
It makes life more fun.
It ends arguments.
It spurs creative thinking and innovation.
For more communication lessons I’ve learned from Improv.
