She [Cathy Salit] runs a company called Performance of a Lifetime, which teaches businesspeople improvisational theater—not to secure them low-paying gigs in drafty Greenwich Village clubs, but to make them more effective in their regular jobs.

... you’ll do better if you follow three essential rules of improvisational theater: (1) Hear offers. (2) Say “Yes and.” (3) Make your partner look good.

Instead of swirling downward into frustration, “Yes and” spirals upward toward possibility. When you stop you’ve got a set of options, not a sense of futility.

There are certainly plenty of times in life to say “No.” When it comes to moving others, however, the best default position is this second principle of improv. And its benefits stretch further than sales and non-sales selling.

In most circumstances that involve moving others, we have several ways to accomplish a task, most of which can make our partners look good in the process.

If we are free to try out any identity we like, it is also true that we must rely on others to complete the picture of which we are only allowed to paint certain parts. The desired identity remains incomplete and tentative without the stamp of approval of a new peer group, mentor, or community. It is important to conduct our “role rehearsals” outside our usual circles because the old audience tends to narrowly typecast us.