Go With It

Count the number of times youve said no to an idea. Whether you inadvertently put out a spark of brilliance or nixed a nonstarter, your response took away someone elses opportunity to feel heard. And thats an innovation killer. No one knows this truth better than improv expert Karen Hough. Go With It: Embrace the Unexpected to Drive Change brings you Houghs discoveries from the front lines of innovation. She has seen how business innovators deal with dichotomy by preparing, playing, and thinking upside down. Improv troupes succeed on stage because they apply the Yes, and principle. Whatever the first person says, the next person affirms and adds to it. But this practice isnt limited to onstage brilliancecorporate teams caught up in old patterns of thought and action can learn to improvise and innovate, too. Pharmaceutical scientists who know how to improvise can accelerate their fuzzy front-end work on new drugs. Technologists who are masters of going with it know how to successfully bring their breakthroughs to market. Executives who use improv techniques get their teams working and innovating together. Their stories fill this book. And they emphasize that its the process of listening, agreeing, and discussing an idea thats monumentally important. Hough shows you that anyone can learn to be more creative and innovative. It just takes flexibility, humour, and focusthats improv.