Security Confidential S1 E7 Karen Hough

Manoj Tandon: Hello everyone. Welcome to Security Confidential, the Dark Rhino Security podcast. This week we are doing something very different. Normally, you guys are used to listening about firewalls and technical topics and how to make companies more secure, but we think we’re going to help you guys out even more because this topic is about resilience, which to all of us in cybersecurity is very near and dear to our hearts. And we are honored to have Karen Hough with us today. She is going to help us and walk us through how to build resilience, adapt to obstacles, and thrive. Karen is the founder and CEO of Improv Edge, which creates business training with an improv twist, and is in the top one percent of women-owned businesses in the US. She is a number one Amazon best-selling author, recipient of the Silver Stevie Award for Most Innovative Business of the Year, and won both the WNBA Inspiring Women Award and the WBENC Pitch Pivot Grand Prize. She is a philanthropist, a Yale grad, avid hiker, and lives in Ohio with her husband and three children. Her books include The Improvisation Edge: Secrets to Building Trust and Radical Collaboration at Work, Be the Best Bad Presenter Ever: Break the Rules, Make Mistakes and Win Them Over, and Go With It: Embrace the Unexpected to Drive Change. She is also the creator of the Yes Deck, a deck of cards packed with business tips. Welcome to the podcast, Karen.

Karen Hough: Ah, thank you, Manoj. It’s such a pleasure to be with you today.

Manoj Tandon: Well, it’s an honor to have you here. We didn’t want to do the same old. In this climate, there’s so much uncertainty, and resilience is something that is very necessary to survive and thrive. As cybersecurity practitioners, we very much evangelize resilience. That’s what we’re selling to companies in a different context, for them to be resilient in an adverse circumstance, and I think that applies to us in our personal lives as well. Now, you are great with improv. You have a unique approach to helping us all become a lot more resilient and be better people. In my case, the “bad presenter” part applies extensively to me, so I’m going to try and be the best bad presenter in this broadcast. Introduce us a little bit to this topic.

Karen Hough: Sure, sure. I know it can seem really unusual to a lot of people who haven’t thought about improv in the context of business before. The way that I came to this is kind of weird and unusual, but I think a lot of entrepreneurial stories are this way. I was a performer from the time I was five. I learned to do improv at Yale as an undergrad and it changed what I thought of performance. It completely changed how I perceived performance. It changed how I behaved toward my friends and my family. I went straight to Chicago. I was very fortunate; I got into the Second City, I trained, and I performed there. I went on and started my own improv troupes. I did Shakespeare, TV, film, and modeling. You name it, I was out there doing it. I had a fantastic career. I had a good agent.

Manoj Tandon: Wow, that was fantastic.

Karen Hough: It was an amazing life. There are these moments—the first and foundational principle of improv is “Yes, and.” The idea that you’re going to accept what’s in front of you no matter what it is. So, I got married and I’m living in New York having a great career, and I’m at a party and somebody goes, “You should come join our tech company and run the sales team.” And I’m like, “You’re drunk. I’m an actor. I have nothing about this. You’re crazy.” I figured they would forget it, but they called me the next day and said, “No, really, we want to talk to you.” And so I literally dropped acting one day and I went into tech, which was network engineering. I was taking networking classes every night and engineering courses, but I was improvising during the day and I found that these abilities to bounce back from when I messed stuff up completely or when I didn’t know what to do allowed me to show up in a way that showed confidence. I kept getting promoted, so I ended up having a great career in tech. I absolutely loved it. That first company went public. I then joined another startup that was acquired, so it was a very intense, wonderful kind of education. So then I was like, “There is something about this.” Wharton Business School agreed to be our research partner. And so we looked at what is the neuroscience and psychology behind using improv capabilities for professionals. That research project has now grown into this incredible business. I’m so lucky. These ideas have made such a difference for the professionals that we work with.

Manoj Tandon: Right.

Karen Hough: So they have a new analogy, a new way to think of themselves. If all of us were able to say, “Hey, I’m an improviser too,” because—let me, you were saying, “Hey, I don’t get this, Karen.” We were chatting beforehand, right? So let me ask you this question, and I think everybody on the podcast can ask themselves this question. If you wake up in the morning, you probably have a pretty good idea of what your agenda is supposed to be like, right? You know your schedule for the most part.

Manoj Tandon: To a degree.

Karen Hough: Yeah, I would say that’s 40 percent true. 1205 percent of my day I don’t know what’s going to walk through the door.

Manoj Tandon: But that’s entrepreneurship. That’s the stage of development we’re at, but that’s our story.

Karen Hough: Right, absolutely. So you’re an entrepreneur, so you know some stuff isn’t going to be going the way that you think it will, or something could walk through the door, as you say. What do you do in that moment where something changes your expectations? You are thrown sideways and something new happens. What do you do, Manoj?

Manoj Tandon: Improvise.

Karen Hough: Boom. Exactly.

Manoj Tandon: I don’t have a choice in the matter. In fact, I was talking with one of our team members, and there’s a perception that you have to have all the information about something to make a good decision. In the world in which I live, I live in a world of gray. Rarely do I have enough information to make a black-and-white decision. So in that gray area, I have no choice but at that point to improvise, based on what I know.

Karen Hough: And that’s the thing; we only know the information that we have. Improvisers walk on stage with no script, no props, no costumes, none of the normal tools of theater, and we literally have to make a show up in the moment with a live audience in front of us for two hours. Right, and that’s probably what it feels like a lot of your days.

Manoj Tandon: It does. On some days, it absolutely does. Yeah, but that is a situation that also lends itself to you being comfortable with making the wrong choices or making a mistake. I think that fear of failure is so large that it holds back a lot of people. Improvisation is inherently about overcoming that fear. You have to be comfortable with it. And that is a very difficult thing to do. I don’t know if there’s any specific brain science behind that, but you are deliberately asking people to get out of their comfort zones.

Karen Hough: I am. I’ve made a business on it. Yeah, of pushing people outside their comfort zones. There’s an interesting concept in improv called “Oops to Eureka.” It’s the idea that, exactly, and we’ve even trademarked it with Wharton. What it says is that you don’t know what’s going to happen next. Sometimes you make a mistake, sometimes something goes wrong, sometimes the complete unexpected walks through the door, as you mentioned. The concept of getting from “oops”—that horrible gut-wrenching moment of, “Oh my gosh, this is not what it should be,” or “I made a mistake”—is how you choose to respond. How do you choose to make that into Eureka? For improvisers, we have a lot of tips and tricks. One of them is in the moment where you want to scream or run or hide, we pause. We look around. We gauge everyone else. We take a huge breath. Oxygen is really key to getting through tough times. And then we either ask a question or we deal with it, or we do something that is action-based. But the key is to pause first. Don’t jump in right away if you are gut-wrenchingly upset or worried.

Manoj Tandon: You know what? That is a very good tip because one of the things that we often hear is the old adage about the glass being half full or half empty. I’m always like, “Well, it may not matter; it depends what’s in the glass to begin with.” Do we care if it’s half full or half empty? But the point of that is that you have to be objective about that particular situation. How do you avoid reacting? As humans, there is going to be that gut-wrenching visceral response, maybe to a situation that was completely unplanned, you hadn’t thought about, you’re thrown into the middle of it, and your whole day has gone sideways. Now this one thing happened, and how do you pause and take that deep breath before you just say something that you, in the worst case, regret, or in the best of circumstances, it’s just the wrong decision because you made it at the spur of the moment in an emotional state that you should have never done?

Karen Hough: Well, learning that lesson the hard way is what many of us had to do, where we either pushed the send button on that email we shouldn’t have, or we said what we shouldn’t have. You actually said exactly the thing you need to do, which, by the way, is amazing. It’s a part of an actor’s entire lexicon and so many professionals don’t use it, and that is to breathe. There is wonderful research around the effect of breath. Dr. Andrew Weil at the Center for Integrative Medicine has some fantastic techniques. What happens is that it’s called “amygdala hijack.” Have you heard about this?

Manoj Tandon: I have. Well, not in this context, but I can understand the concept. Being a long-time yoga practitioner, getting into breathing exercises is fundamental.

Karen Hough: That is so cool, and by the way, I love yoga too, so that’ll be a whole other conversation for us. The idea is that the moment that stress occurs, hormones start to flow and, unfortunately, it’s usually the stress hormone called cortisol. We’ve all heard of it. It’s linked to high blood pressure, weight gain, and memory loss. Cortisol is actually a good thing because way back in ancient times, as we were evolving, cortisol made sure that if something scary was happening, it literally shut down our ability to think. If you’ve got the classic saber-toothed tiger moment, you don’t want to be standing there going, “How big is the tiger? Will it pounce or not? Should I perhaps call a friend?” No, no, no. You want all of that intellect to go away and you want to run, scream, or fight. And so those impulses stay with us to this day, and we often don’t know it’s happening. We can’t control it, and what’s really tough about a time like this is we’re literally in the most stressful ongoing situation the world has seen in centuries. For example, I used to use the example of a merger. A couple of companies are going through a merger; it’s incredibly stressful and scary. You don’t know what’s going to happen, and it goes on maybe for days and days and days where you’re getting these hits of stress every day. It’s not like you get that one big stress moment, take care of it, and then you’re done and you’re fine. It’s that people are undergoing stress, so every day their thinking brain is getting shut down a little bit. People are always like during a merger or a crisis like a pandemic, “Why did that person yell at me?” or “Why don’t they react the way they used to?” or “Why are they not getting their work done?” or “Why did that guy quit?” These are all reactions that often we don’t even know we’re suffering from because that stress is shutting down our ability to behave and think in a meaningful way. One of the few things that can circumvent it is breath. Oxygen is the great leveler. Oxygen allows your body to regulate the flow of cortisol. It allows you to get your brain back on track and think. It’s just such irony when often we’re in stressful situations, like a job interview. The moment when you want to be most cool and most intellectual, your nerves are making your thinking brain shut down. The fact that you have yoga and you know that practice and you know how to use your breath is a huge asset to you. What I would encourage you to do is find ways to use that during your day. When we teach executives really quick breathing exercises, you can lower your cortisol and get your head in the right place in literally less than a minute and a half, two minutes.

Manoj Tandon: That fast?

Karen Hough: I used to do this in the car when I’d have to walk into negotiations live. I would do this breathing technique for a couple minutes and it cuts out the white noise, it made me super focused, and I did a great job.

Manoj Tandon: Please do tell.

Karen Hough: Okay, so you can find any technique you like. You probably have some from yoga. I’m sure that some of the folks out there might practice tai chi or karate or meditation. Just find one you like. The one that I use, that I have actually had people come back and tell me—one CEO, she was on a plane, a woman was having a panic attack next to her and she used this to help her calm down—it’s 4-7-8. It’s again from Dr. Andrew Weil. You breathe in for four. You hold your breath for seven. You breathe out for eight. Please do it sitting down, because people get lightheaded. You want to breathe in, hold it for a count of seven, and breathe out with a sound for eight. Even when we’re back at the office, you can do that quietly and no one will even know. If you do four or five rounds of that—again, less than two minutes—I promise you you’ll feel a lot better. For me, it just focuses me.

Manoj Tandon: That is very interesting and it’s very true. In yoga, we have a saying that the mind calms the breath and then the breath masters the mind.

Karen Hough: Oh, that’s beautiful. That’s perfect. So, it’s interesting. In improv, when you’re on stage in front of everybody, we would understand that sometimes somebody might be having a freakout moment. You just step back and you breathe while somebody else steps forward for you, which is the beauty of having a team, which is the beauty of having people you can lean on. Another big piece of resilience is knowing who your colleagues are, knowing who you can trust, building those relationships, and keeping them strong.

Manoj Tandon: A lot of our listeners are practicing cybersecurity professionals, and a lot of those folks are really good, very bright, highly motivated individuals, but they are in a back room somewhere. As a company, we always preach this. We say, “Your number one cybersecurity asset is not your firewall, it’s not your computers, it’s not all the technology you’ve put in place; it’s actually your people.” If you leverage your people and you train them properly, you’re already 80 percent of the way there. Now the technology is going to become the icing on the cake and it’ll enable a whole bunch of wonderful things, but the people have to be first. Now, those folks who are on the backside of this, they are lost in a dark room somewhere. It’s a really introverted role. Getting them comfortable—they don’t go out and generally interact with their colleagues in a larger corporation. They’re behind an iron curtain or in a cube somewhere, or they’re in a server room, and they’re doing what they do. They’re the silent, unsung heroes, if you will, of the organization. How do you get those folks comfortable with stepping out of that and becoming an actor on a stage, if you will? By that, I mean getting engaged with their larger teammates, the broader audience, the people that they don’t see, and having a conversation with them. I think that can make all the difference between an okay cybersecurity program and a fantastic one. If people understand the why, then they’ll do it. If it’s logical, they’ll do it. If they’re like, “Why are you making me do this stuff? I don’t understand it,” they’re like, “I don’t want to do it. That’s just a bad idea. To hell with it.”

Karen Hough: You’re hitting on so many things here. Woo, Dark Rhino, because you have absolutely nailed it that it is the people; it is always the people behind the machines that make that happen. I hear a couple things you’re talking about here. First of all, having the confidence to get out there and be a bigger part of the organization, and also how to feel really good about maybe shining a light on your role so more people understand it and being a consultant in that. I remember, certainly in tech, engineers would complain, “Why are you bringing me in now? If you had talked to me when this project started, we would be saving money, we’d be saving time, the scope would be correct.” Also, being seen as a consultant as part of the process rather than that person you bring in late in the process. Am I reading that right?

Manoj Tandon: You’re absolutely spot on, yeah. There’s sort of two different aspects here. The first, I would say—we were laughing about Be the Best Bad Presenter Ever.

Karen Hough: A huge part—

Manoj Tandon: I meant bad like Michael Jackson “bad.” All right.

Karen Hough: The thing is that—that’s different. When I wrote the book with my amazing publisher, Berrett-Koehler, the idea was that I had found a lot of people—and again, it’s not just presentations where you might be standing up in a room; one-on-one meetings are a presentation. You can think about how you show up. You can think about how you deliver your message to make an impact. I often find that more introverted people are some of the best communicators because they think about it in advance. They prepare, which, by the way, is a huge improv thing; we prepare endlessly. They also are able to really understand how they come across. As we were putting together that book, one of the things I also noticed is that I think there’s a bunch of stupid rules out there that tell you to act like somebody else or be something that’s not authentic to you, and it makes you feel very nervous. What you need to do is be yourself. Even if you mess up or if it’s not exactly what you wanted, if you show up and are yourself, people will love it because you’re bringing your most authentic expertise and your capability to the table. It just gives a few tips from the acting world about how to show up in a way that people can really take it in and enjoy it and understand it. It’s funny because you were talking about one of our little tips. Now that we’re in this virtual world, people forget to sit up straight. By Zoom conference number four, this is what we’re doing: you’re laying back and your voice is like this and you’re not breathing.

Manoj Tandon: Right.

Karen Hough: One of our tricks—show them, Manoj.

Manoj Tandon: Oh yeah, I will. It’s the pillow. I was paying attention. Your book said, “Hey, get a pillow, sit up straight,” because your body posture is going to have a huge impact on your outlook. Am I saying that correctly?

Karen Hough: Completely. It not only changes how people perceive you; it changes how you feel. The book is great, but we also have online like 13 or 1205 two-minute videos with ideas about how to sort of come across better on video, come across better in person, and give you the confidence that you need to really show up in those situations. That’s one side. Then there’s being a consultant to the business, right? The majority of the folks that we work with are engineers, attorneys, accountants, scientists. We don’t work with marketing teams and things like that. We work with very, very introverted populations because what we’re bringing to you are really usable tips. For example, if you want to be out there more and getting to know people and building a better network, set goals that feel comfortable for you. You don’t have to have coffee with somebody every day, but if you say, “Once a week I’m going to talk to someone that I don’t normally get to talk to and learn about their area so that then they can learn about mine,” you’ll grow a bigger network. Maybe if you say, “Hey, once a month I’m going to update someone up the chain on the progress that my team has made so they can feel proud of our work.” What a great way to do that.

Manoj Tandon: I’m just going to pause you for a second because that is a great tip. When I was working for a mega corp in a past life, there was always this hierarchical view of the organization. You always watch a couple people that rise through the ranks more rapidly than other people. You’re wondering, “Well, I’m a lot smarter than that person and I can do this better.” There’s always this mental outlook that I should have been that guy or gal. I think what prevented it was nothing other than yourself. The lesson learned the hard way is you really should—and at Dark Rhino, we highly—well, we’re a small team, but we highly encourage constructive conflict, I guess that’s the word I say. We want to hear what people have to say. We want that update. I want to know. I worked in the Far East for a while—Japan, Korea, and places like that. India. This may not be a cultural fit, so if you’re listening over there, you have to adapt to your own cultural backdrop. But at least here in the United States, we really want people to voice up. Don’t be in the shadows. If you see something, say something. If you know something, tell us about it. If you disagree with something emphatically, bring it forward. Don’t just conform that this has to be this way. I think a lot of magic can happen for one’s career and things in that way. Yes, there is a risk, but I think relatively it’s no bigger risk than—what’s worse? Being in one place and not advancing and doing what you are capable of doing and fulfilling what you want to fulfill, versus the chance that somebody may not like something. That’s a chance worth taking, but that’s me.

Karen Hough: That’s really inspiring. What is the Anaïs Nin quote? “The day came when it was more painful” or—it was something about blooming; “to remain in a bud, to remain tightly closed was more painful than the risk it took to bloom.”

Manoj Tandon: That’s right, exactly correct.

Karen Hough: And I think some of that—you talked about preparation. Some of those folks are so well-prepared. They know their subject matter. Professionals know their subject matter. They know what they’re talking about. Don’t be afraid to say it. Don’t be afraid to say it and to let others know that you’re there as an expert and as someone that they can lean on. Again, networking is often a word that’s seen as such a horrible thing—it’s fake, it’s a big room full of people I don’t want to talk to. But networking and growing your career can also be exactly what makes you comfortable and what works for you. Again, setting goals that feel good—once a quarter, now that it’s virtual, I’m going to attend a conference and meet a couple of new people. That’s it. Or if you do, when we all come back together, if you are in a room—it’s not about a stack of cards; it’s about, “I’m going to have one really good conversation with somebody I don’t know tonight before I leave.” Fantastic. You have just checked that box and you’ve done something that probably feels a lot more engaging and meaningful to you, and will probably lead to a better relationship.

Manoj Tandon: I think there needs to be a genuineness to it. What you’re talking about with improv—it can’t be, “Hey Karen, do you want to buy this widget I’ve got?” “I’ve got this widget to sell you. Do you want to buy this widget?” That’s not “always be selling.” I think what you’re talking about with networking and talking to people is that you don’t know where your next deal’s going to come from, but when you engage with several people, it might catalyze a reaction that you don’t understand at that moment, but it’s going to come back and it could turn into a very prosperous relationship. I’ve seen that happen in my own world time and time again.

Karen Hough: I think you nailed it. Manoj, I think about cybersecurity professionals. They probably don’t think of themselves as salespeople, usually, which is understandable. As you think about where you’re going in your career, you also, as you said, need to be the person who’s willing to speak up, because they’re looking to you to mitigate the risk. So every time you do take that risk, you’re seen more as an expert. Although you don’t consider yourself a salesperson, it’s also correct to show up in a way to say, “I have value to provide and I want to do it in a way that will move my career forward.” That is totally understandable. I feel like whenever you enter into a situation where you can bring value and where you can help that other person understand something or provide them some context or awareness, it’s so valuable. Know that you have that, feel confidence in that, and be willing to share that.

Manoj Tandon: Karen, give us some tips on how we set the culture of our teams and our companies to embrace improv.

Karen Hough: Oh my goodness.

Manoj Tandon: Give us some ideas. How do we actually execute this?

Karen Hough: Number one is the foundational principle of improv, which is “Yes, and.”

Manoj Tandon: Do you have an exercise or something? Do you want to do a scene with me?

Karen Hough: Sure, I would.

Manoj Tandon: I’m not a very good actor, but I’ll give it a shot.

Karen Hough: You’re going to be fantastic. So we’re going to do it a couple times. I need to know—pick a relationship for you and me to have, non-romantic. How do we know each other?

Manoj Tandon: Professionally.

Karen Hough: Fantastic. We’re professionals; we know each other at work.

Manoj Tandon: At work, okay.

Karen Hough: Now pick an item—any object in the whole world that you could hold in your hand if it were here in the room.

Manoj Tandon: It can’t be an item that I already have?

Karen Hough: No, this is improv; no props. It can be anything.

Manoj Tandon: A spoon.

Karen Hough: Fantastic, you’ve got a spoon. So you’re going to say, “Here Karen, here’s a spoon,” and we’re going to improvise from there. Are you ready?

Manoj Tandon: I’m ready.

Karen Hough: Okay, let’s go.

Manoj Tandon: Karen, here’s a spoon.

Karen Hough: That’s not a spoon.

Manoj Tandon: Looks like a spoon.

Karen Hough: It’s not.

Manoj Tandon: What am I missing?

Karen Hough: I don’t know.

Manoj Tandon: Really? Well, all right. Okay.

Karen Hough: First of all, I’m going to apologize. I promise there’s a reason that I was such a bad scene partner. Let me ask you: what was it like to be in that scene with me?

Manoj Tandon: I was a little perplexed. I was like, “Hmm, well I’ve got a spoon.” I was expecting some kind of an epiphany.

Karen Hough: Right. So you were perplexed because you offered me the spoon, you’re pretty sure it was a spoon, and I said no. What other feelings did it give you?

Manoj Tandon: That I might be confused. It really might not be a spoon. Did I pick up something else?

Karen Hough: You don’t know where you are; you don’t know what’s going on. The reason that I do this is to illustrate the fact that this is another little piece of psychology. We as human adults tend to respond to new ideas negatively first. It’s an unconscious defense mechanism, and it also helps people understand how it feels to receive a negative response. I think tech professionals, because I was in tech, get a really bad rap for being the people who say, “No, it’s not possible. No, I can’t do it. No, we don’t have enough budget,” whatever. Understanding how it feels when you face that “no,” I think, can give us empathy for what some of the business folks are dealing with. So you felt perplexed, you felt confused, you didn’t know what to do next. There are ways to say no and to enter into situations where you can be positive through the use of “Yes, and.” Let’s do the scene again. If I promise to be a good partner, will you do it again?

Manoj Tandon: Yeah, absolutely.

Karen Hough: All right, great partner. So let’s do it again. We’re work professionals and you’re going to give me a spoon, okay?

Manoj Tandon: Hi Karen, how you doing?

Karen Hough: Hey, I’m good. How are you?

Manoj Tandon: Real good. Hey, check this new spoon out. It’s kind of cool.

Karen Hough: Oh, it is so cool because it’s a spoon on one end and a little fork on the other end.

Manoj Tandon: Yeah, what a neat invention. The guy who made this probably made a million dollars. I wish I had those kind of ideas.

Karen Hough: Boy, I know. I bet we could come up with some really cool ideas. What if there was like a little knife on one end and a little corkscrew on the other end?

Manoj Tandon: That’s a party in one hand. It would cut the cheese and it would open the wine bottle. You’re in business. Do you want to invest in my business?

Karen Hough: Are you going to put this out there?

Manoj Tandon: Sure. I mean, if you think it’s a good idea. I really trust you.

Karen Hough: I do think it’s a good idea. If you are sincere about it, put it down on paper; let’s take a look at this thing. Such a great idea—it has legs.

Manoj Tandon: Okay, I’ll do some competitive research and I’ll come back to you next Tuesday. Okay?

Karen Hough: That sounds fantastic, Karen. I look forward to it.

Manoj Tandon: Awesome, can’t wait. All right.

Karen Hough: How did it feel differently to you?

Manoj Tandon: I thought it was a conversation that made progress, and it was unexpected. It was a breath of fresh air. It was not the response that I was expecting.

Karen Hough: That’s perfect. It felt refreshing. Let me break down what happened. On the improv stage, when I would walk out every night, if I said, “I’m the queen of the universe,” I knew immediately the first thing that my troupe would do would be to say, “Yes, you are.” When you said, “Here Karen, here’s a spoon,” I said, “Yes, it’s a spoon,” and it’s the “Yes, and” piece. I didn’t just say, “Yeah, it’s a spoon,” and then make you come up with something else. I gave you a gift. I said, “Yeah, it’s a spoon, and look, it’s got a fork on the other end.” So it gave you something to react to. You’re like, “Oh, well that’s crazy,” and “I wonder what it could do.” So you gave me a question, a thing to consider. I’m like, “Hey, I wonder what else it could be.” So we’re giving each other these gifts by saying, “Yes, your reality is valid, and I’m going to build on it.” In organizations and cultures, even if somebody brought you an idea you thought was terrible—you didn’t have the money for it, whatever—instead of saying, “No, that’s a rotten idea,” which, by the way, shuts down engagement, shuts down people wanting to contribute, and makes people feel out in the cold—if you say, “Yeah, I hear you, that’s a different idea. Can you tell me some more about how that could work?” Instead of you telling them, “We don’t have the money, I don’t have the time,” what if they had a really cool idea that you hadn’t considered? If you leave that door open, they could share it with you. Or if you keep saying, “Yeah, and tell me some more” or “Tell me how you think that would work,” that person will eventually figure out, “Oh, you know what? We don’t have the budget for that,” or “That might not work right now.” They have come to the “no” themselves rather than you shutting them down. Do you see the difference?

Manoj Tandon: I very much do. “Yes, and” directly helps build resilience because now you are directly engaging. I just perceived while you were doing this was that it allows you to give context, potentially, or share your context of the situation with somebody else. It’s often the context that makes the difference; we both don’t know where we’re coming from.

Karen Hough: Yeah, right.

Manoj Tandon: So if you’re doing “Yes, and,” maybe that gives an opportunity to share that context of thought. “Yes, you have a great idea, and let’s see where it can go.” Then you can begin a dialogue and a conversation of, “Well, have you considered this? Does this make sense? Should we do this?” and help guide someone to a conclusion that you want as an outcome.

Karen Hough: Yeah, possibly. And also maybe be surprised by what—we have been many a time.

Manoj Tandon: We’ve had team members that have come up with fantastic ideas, and we’re actually building them and executing them.

Karen Hough: Awesome. Oh, and to your kids, by the way—when they come to you it’s like, “Hey dad, we want to paint on the walls.” You say, “Yeah, that’s a crazy idea. Hey, let’s come up with some more ideas.” You actually move them down the road instead of saying, “No, no, no” all the time, which we as parents—

Manoj Tandon: Which I am very guilty of with my six-year-old. I am, and I’ll be candid: I’ve got a 24-year-old and a 21-year-old, and with them it’s a very different conversation. But with the six-year-old, yeah. We’ve got Play-Doh stuck in the carpet like, “Don’t do this,” but it’s a different—I want to try this. I’m going to try this experiment with him.

Karen Hough: Yeah, and say, “Yes, and maybe we do something even crazier. Why don’t we take the Play-Doh outside and stick it on the driveway maybe and make a big smiley face on the driveway?” “Yes, and” is great. Have your posture interrupt your thoughts. When you’re improvising, don’t just react. Put it away.

Manoj Tandon: I always think of that like Abraham Lincoln—he was a great practitioner of that. When he used to get mad, he would pen a letter and then he’d throw it away into his drawer, let it sit there for a day, and then come back to it the next day and say, “Yeah, do I really want to send this or not?” You read his stuff and he actually did that; that was his thing. It worked really well, and what you’re prescribing is exactly that: interrupt your thoughts, don’t react in the moment, and breathe.

Karen Hough: Pause and breathe. And don’t hit that send button.

Manoj Tandon: Don’t hit the send button; just don’t do it.

Karen Hough: Breathe. If you don’t have a breathing technique, try 4-7-8. If you don’t like it, fine, but find yourself one. Every incredible professional, every CEO that I have coached and worked with, every major EVP—we work with people all over the world; I’m so fortunate to do so—has some kind of relaxation technique that they have mastered and that they use so that they can show up in the way they want to. It even is a matter of, you come from a really stressful meeting and you’re going to a meeting that’s celebrating a win, but you’re bringing all this negative energy. No, you’ve got to—like Manoj said—interrupt, breathe, stand there for a minute, walk away from the screen, and come back as the person you want to be in that moment.

Manoj Tandon: Thanks for being so inspiring. Do you have any books coming up, or any talks, or anything that we can link back to?

Karen Hough: Absolutely. I feel like the Improv Edge blog has got some great tips to deal with resilience with what’s going on and how to manage day-to-day. If you go to www.improvedge.com—just one ‘e’ in the middle, improv edge dot com—there are great tips and ideas there. We also have an entire YouTube channel, an Improv Edge YouTube channel. I would invite you; it’s a ton of fun. Of course, we have not only the three books, but we also have the Yes Deck, which is a cool deck full of ideas. You can just pull out a card and it can help you get through a meeting. It gives you icebreakers, ideas on how to run meetings and conference calls, and how to get out of writer’s block—whatever you need. So we have lots of resources. It has been such a pleasure being with Dark Rhino today. You’re amazing. This was so much fun.

Manoj Tandon: Karen, we’re so honored to have had you on our podcast and on our show. It’s an honor and a privilege, and we hope to have you back again sometime in the near future. We’ll be joined with some of our listeners too, and that should be a lot of fun.

Karen Hough: And we’ll really improvise. I can’t wait.

Manoj Tandon: I can’t wait. Thank you so much, and you have a great weekend, Karen. Appreciate it.

Karen Hough: www.improveedge.com just one e in the middle improv edge dot com there’s great tips and ideas there we also have an entire youtube channel an improv edge youtube channel I would invite you it’s a lot of tons of fun and uh of course we have not only the three books but we also have the yes deck which is a cool deck full of ideas you can just pull out a card it can help you get through a meeting gives you ice breakers ideas how to run meetings and and conference calls and get out a writer’s block whatever you need so we have lots of resources it has been such a pleasure being with dark rhino today you’re you’re amazing this was so much fun.

Manoj Tandon: Well karen we’re so honored to have had you on our podcast and on our show uh it’s an honor and a privilege and we hope to have you back again sometime in the near future and we’ll be joined with some of our listeners too and that should be a lot of fun.

Karen Hough: And we’ll really improvise I can’t wait.

Manoj Tandon: I can’t wait. Thank you so much and you have a great weekend karen appreciate it.