Author here - thanks for all the comments and feedback. Lovely surprise to wake up to this on the HN homepage.
Some light additional context - this is part of my ongoing series "The Strategic Independent" which will eventually become a book sometime next year. All the posts in that series are catalogued here: https://www.are.na/tom-critchlow/the-strategic-independent
This post (and the whole series) is designed for independent consultants, free-agents and freelancers who have to navigate entering and exiting client environments often faster than full-time employees. Hopefully there's something useful in that context but many of these ideas could be applicable beyond that also.
Anyway - thanks for the love. If you have topic suggestions for future posts in this series would love to hear them! Thanks, Tom.
> Hopefully there's something useful in that context but many of these ideas could be applicable beyond that also.
They’re very applicable outside the context of consulting - they’re fundamental for any leader joining a new organization to integrate well and get things done. Consultants transition more often than most; the principles you’ve shared are a great reference for the rest of us on how to be effective in a new environment.
As someone who has studied improv for three years, and read both of Keith Johnstone's books numerous times, I highly recommend reading Johnstone's books specifically, rather than this. It's true that improv is immensely useful in the workplace. However, this article has very little that references Johnstone; it seems to be taking the high level, general understanding of improv as a jumping off point for their own advice. Their chapters to follow do reflect some of the topics Johnstone covers, but again, I highly recommend just reading Impro and/or taking a couple improv classes at your local school if you can. Getting it straight from the source will be incredibly helpful in your work and personal life.
Author here - Yes I would definitely recommend reading Impro over reading my blog post.
The basic premise for this series is inspired by the book and I definitely borrow more directly and heavily for chapters 3 and 4 (which aren't quite ready to publish yet!).
« Many people aspire to “silent success” at work - to do work that “speaks for itself”. Unfortunately this is the wrong move in the theatre of work. Instead we should aspire to the opposite - for knowledge work, the performance of the work is the work. »
Not sure what the author means by “knowledge work”, but I find this very true, for any type of work.
Yes, once some workers start using social tools to advantage themselves and their work, it does become mandatory to use them too. The incentive is then to escalate and invest more in social machinations.
And be endlessly positive about everyone and their ideas so that only positive feelings are associated with you. Choose your favorites by directing attention and investment. Ignore the unkept promises or implications since they will be to the less popular people and projects which are inherently less powerful.
May all bullets be directed to backs and all knifes sheathed likewise.
There is some importance to keeping a pleasant and encouraging workplace but some of us value honesty and straightforwardness as well as the efficiencies that go with these practices. These require real work however.
A lesson I found helpful is with regards to the need to build a network of mentors, supporters and followers. This won’t apply to all fields but maybe some people will find it helpful.
Mentors are people who you can go to when you’re stuck on a topic, regardless of what it is. They help you navigate through your org (politics, context behind decisions, etc). These people can be in your team/department or could just be someone you’ve met by the water cooler and developed a relationship with.
Supporters are similar to mentors, but more committed. These people will take their own initiative and go out of their way to create opportunities for you. They consider your success as a part of their own success and therefore will do what they can to help you grow and develop.
Followers are people who you’ve either worked side by side with, or who have worked for you. You may take on the mentor or supporter role for them. If you switched teams or departments, these people would want to come with you.
The "Yes, And" technique is best when presenting as a team, e.g. for sales meeting or investment pitch. It supports what your colleague is saying even while you may need to make a correction. I've been automatically using this technique for years, since I have a performance and improv background.
The rest of improv may not be as applicable, but performance sure does! The show must go on (despite unexpected setbacks or illness or personal feelings), how to speak in front of crowds (even while being ridiculed or ignored), being fully prepared through scripts and rehearsals until you embody the story you are trying to tell... Is an integral part of leading startups and I credit much of my success to that experience.
If everyone on your team is fully embedded in the purpose and ethos of your story, than you can fill in for each other if someone drops a line or needs a stand-in. In a startup everyone is selling! And it will be much more authentic with this level of camaraderie and committment.
I agree this is a useful tactic when presenting if everyone is clear when to use it. However, I’ve seen the downside of this where a person answers the question then everyone else “yes, ands” until the answer is muddled or the team looks unprepared.
I always go with the rule of thumb that unless the person who answered is so far off base that it materially changes the outcome it’s often better letting the answer go and moving on to the next.
I think there's one case where saying a plan won't work is the right thing to do, and trying to "get to yes" will often be a mistake: when you understand what needs to be done, and the (time or money) budget is too small.
If you try to "get to yes", it will often happen that the person in the position of the client will respond by cutting scope, saying "well, we don't really need that part just now".
And then it will usually turn out that they really did want what they originally said they wanted, and maybe try to sneak the features back in in disguise, and the whole thing overruns or else you end up saying no in a position where everyone is worse off than if you'd said no to start with.
I think they should teach Bridge in management school. Often not being in a contract is the right answer!
Lots of comments here come off as very resistant to accepting the ideas presented here: that success at work is as much about the quality of your work as the effort made to connect with the humans in an organization evaluating the work. Improv is a perfect frame for this: entertaining but doing deep preparation for that entertainment.
What I'm really fascinated by is how this can be translated to remote working. I don't think water-cooler talk is possible in Slack. I would be really surprised to find anyone at the top of performance in any organization that isn't fully remote without resorting to Machiavellian tactics. I wonder if the stresses you saw at GitHub during their period of centralizing management in SF after really marketing themselves as remote first were evidence of this.
> I would be really surprised to find anyone at the top of performance in any organization that isn't fully remote without resorting to Machiavellian tactics.
Can confirm. Switching to a fully remote company was eye-opening. The politics are much worse than my office jobs.
Everything is back-channeled. So many secret private Slack channels and exclusive in-person meetups where actual decisions are made.
At least in the office you could get a sense of the political landscape after a few weeks of meetings — I was unaware of how my remote organization actually worked for over a year until I raised some concerns and a co-worker clued me in.
The shocking thing wasn’t that a remote company has politics, but that the entire company ethos was based on how much more transparent and less political fully remote organizations are.
> I don't think water-cooler talk is possible in Slack.
Probably not quite to the same level as in-person conversation, but nearly every place I've worked had a variety of off-topic channels (both for specific topics, and totally random discussion), and plenty of my 1:1 slack conversations end up evolving into personal discussions (e.g., "Hey, btw, I saw a cool-looking book on your shelf when you dialed into the meeting - what is that?")
> Lots of comments here come off as very resistant to accepting the ideas presented here: that success at work is as much about the quality of your work as the effort made to connect with the humans in an organization evaluating the work.
It's not just a case of making an effort to connect with the individuals evaluating the work - it's that siloing your individual contribution, however strong, actually makes you more difficult to work with and your contributions less impactful.
I think the "resistance" is partially based on the fact [1] we all did see an introvert, quiet, bright engineer promoted to an influential and senior (s.a "principal engineer" or "system architect", and less often CTO) position - solely based on her technical expertise.
Nonsense. At least 30% of the chat I do on Slack is "water cooler talk" of one sort or another. Music, games, city happenings, a smattering of politics, random Internet cuteness, the all-important channel devoted to mechanical keyboards, etc. etc. Haven't started up a channel on D&D podcasts yet but it's probably not far behind. ;-)
The real issue is the definition of "success". Climbing to the top of ladders by spoofing utility may work for their career advancement but to any whose paycheck doesn't depend upon it is clearly a pathology.
The jumping from sinking ship to sinking ship after gnawing at the baseboards success model is success for them and useless sociopaths like them only and actively bad for everyone else. Their fuck ups are /why/ they need to pay consultants in the first place!
Their methods are a plague on society which makes it abundantly clear why the status quo is fucked up and also why big players even can lose vs garage start ups despite their decades of experience and massive funds difference. While the start ups may be good and smart the vested interest's outright failures despite their advantages are more because they are frankly stupid than their rival's vast skill or genius.
If remote working stops the spread of this virulence (I suspect they will need to mutate their playbooks) then it explains the resistance among current management to not having to pay for office space.
D'Arcy Carden: The goal is to make the other person(s) look awesome.
I wish I could tell younger me to study improv, to hear this nugget of wisdom, before joining the work force. Might have saved myself and everyone else a lot of heart ache.
And what exactly did you / would you think to accomplish with these questions? Besides attempting to publicly humiliate people who're paying you and stroking your own ego?
"Questions" like these put other people on defensive (which means they won't listen to you anymore) and mark you out as an a*hole (which means they won't listen to you at all). It's counterproductive.
I'm always baffled how engineers don't get that: they can understand that you need to write "printf()" and not "abort()" to achieve printout, but can't understand simple rules on how to achieve results when interacting with other people?
Second City, a well-known improv club/school offers workshops to teams focused on exactly these concepts. My team went to one of their workshops in Chicago a few years back, and while it was not world-changing, at was eye-opening.
It is rather interesting that this is on the front page with "Authenticity promotes well-being in life and at work" [1]. I don't believe they are opposite, but it is difficult to achieve both. However, publicizing individual work is absolutely crucial for promotion or even keeping one's job. My personal take is to build something concrete, something other people find useful.
Thanks for a great article. I want to share this with some stressed colleagues, but I doubt they'd appreciate it.
Many people in America take the theatre seriously, and thinking of it as such would be detrimental to their self-image.
In my opinion just look around and see what the successful people are doing. Putting your head down and working is what I’d do for developing my own technical or something else skills. I.e. studying. Nobody I’ve met who gets high success in an office job does that.
I wonder if there’s not something to read into this a bit beyond my current abilities. Many people work on things that they consider somewhat boring, or at least not at the boundary of their skill set. People above you in the organization spent a lot of time building “synergies” and organizing a team of people frankly (in most cases) somewhat overqualified for the task. It seems like throwing all that out by not integrating enough into the social group is a terrible idea.
Except those people aren’t actually doing any work. Eventually the house of cards collapses on itself. The political system in the country is this philosophy carried to its logical, and extreme end. And what do politicians do nowadays? Mostly nothing.
Imho, if you're successful without working hard, you have "hacked" the system, and like any form of hacking this should be punishable, in this case e.g. by degradation.
If only we had a system where (special) judges were able to determine who works hard and who doesn't and from there decide who gets what amount of pay, and who deserves a promotion. We could actually have a fair society.
From another thread I saw the recommendation for "Getting to Yes, and... The art of business improv"[1]. It just arrived yesterday. This blog post looks eerily similar.
I unfortunately recognize several of these as being true from my five years at BigCo. Is this advice true of a (tiny) startup as well? Work should speak for itself when the survival of a company depends on it, right? I'd like to know if it's the same on the other side.
The larger a company is, the higher its inertia. The more sales-heavy a company is, the longer it can stay alive by bullshitting. Both of these factors mean increased decoupling between doing the work and survival of the company. And if a company is large enough that it has multiple complex streams of revenue, inefficiencies in some parts get hidden by the overall success.
I've only worked at tiny startups; I would say in the majority of cases, work speaks for itself. One thing to consider though, if you're producing good code... why would you be promoted to a position of mostly managing others? The company would no longer benefit from you as an IC. At tiny startups, even the CTO is spending a lot of time coding.
[+] [-] topcat31|6 years ago|reply
Some light additional context - this is part of my ongoing series "The Strategic Independent" which will eventually become a book sometime next year. All the posts in that series are catalogued here: https://www.are.na/tom-critchlow/the-strategic-independent
This post (and the whole series) is designed for independent consultants, free-agents and freelancers who have to navigate entering and exiting client environments often faster than full-time employees. Hopefully there's something useful in that context but many of these ideas could be applicable beyond that also.
Anyway - thanks for the love. If you have topic suggestions for future posts in this series would love to hear them! Thanks, Tom.
[+] [-] adenverd|6 years ago|reply
They’re very applicable outside the context of consulting - they’re fundamental for any leader joining a new organization to integrate well and get things done. Consultants transition more often than most; the principles you’ve shared are a great reference for the rest of us on how to be effective in a new environment.
[+] [-] topcat31|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] salamanderman|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] topcat31|6 years ago|reply
The basic premise for this series is inspired by the book and I definitely borrow more directly and heavily for chapters 3 and 4 (which aren't quite ready to publish yet!).
[+] [-] yamrzou|6 years ago|reply
Not sure what the author means by “knowledge work”, but I find this very true, for any type of work.
[+] [-] kbouck|6 years ago|reply
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_worker
[+] [-] debt|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] erikerikson|6 years ago|reply
And be endlessly positive about everyone and their ideas so that only positive feelings are associated with you. Choose your favorites by directing attention and investment. Ignore the unkept promises or implications since they will be to the less popular people and projects which are inherently less powerful.
May all bullets be directed to backs and all knifes sheathed likewise.
There is some importance to keeping a pleasant and encouraging workplace but some of us value honesty and straightforwardness as well as the efficiencies that go with these practices. These require real work however.
[+] [-] ailideex|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mjparrott|6 years ago|reply
Mentors are people who you can go to when you’re stuck on a topic, regardless of what it is. They help you navigate through your org (politics, context behind decisions, etc). These people can be in your team/department or could just be someone you’ve met by the water cooler and developed a relationship with.
Supporters are similar to mentors, but more committed. These people will take their own initiative and go out of their way to create opportunities for you. They consider your success as a part of their own success and therefore will do what they can to help you grow and develop.
Followers are people who you’ve either worked side by side with, or who have worked for you. You may take on the mentor or supporter role for them. If you switched teams or departments, these people would want to come with you.
[+] [-] afarrell|6 years ago|reply
I suspect that the advice I need is “obvious”.
[+] [-] doublerebel|6 years ago|reply
The rest of improv may not be as applicable, but performance sure does! The show must go on (despite unexpected setbacks or illness or personal feelings), how to speak in front of crowds (even while being ridiculed or ignored), being fully prepared through scripts and rehearsals until you embody the story you are trying to tell... Is an integral part of leading startups and I credit much of my success to that experience.
If everyone on your team is fully embedded in the purpose and ethos of your story, than you can fill in for each other if someone drops a line or needs a stand-in. In a startup everyone is selling! And it will be much more authentic with this level of camaraderie and committment.
[+] [-] jdtbuchanan|6 years ago|reply
I always go with the rule of thumb that unless the person who answered is so far off base that it materially changes the outcome it’s often better letting the answer go and moving on to the next.
[+] [-] gherkinnn|6 years ago|reply
But how does one do "yes, and ...", when the previous statement is clearly wrong? You either sound sarcastic or like a patronising twat.
"It is snowing." "Yes, and I'll leave my sweater at home since it's rather warm outside."
[+] [-] mjw1007|6 years ago|reply
If you try to "get to yes", it will often happen that the person in the position of the client will respond by cutting scope, saying "well, we don't really need that part just now".
And then it will usually turn out that they really did want what they originally said they wanted, and maybe try to sneak the features back in in disguise, and the whole thing overruns or else you end up saying no in a position where everyone is worse off than if you'd said no to start with.
I think they should teach Bridge in management school. Often not being in a contract is the right answer!
[+] [-] jaytaylor|6 years ago|reply
"Optimism as an Operating System"
https://tomcritchlow.com/2019/11/19/optimism-operating-syste...
I'm really looking forward to chapter 4, "Status Switching", as it's a skill I'm very keen to further develop.
I wish I could get an email as soon as it's posted.
[+] [-] svmegatron|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xrd|6 years ago|reply
What I'm really fascinated by is how this can be translated to remote working. I don't think water-cooler talk is possible in Slack. I would be really surprised to find anyone at the top of performance in any organization that isn't fully remote without resorting to Machiavellian tactics. I wonder if the stresses you saw at GitHub during their period of centralizing management in SF after really marketing themselves as remote first were evidence of this.
[+] [-] ramphastidae|6 years ago|reply
Can confirm. Switching to a fully remote company was eye-opening. The politics are much worse than my office jobs.
Everything is back-channeled. So many secret private Slack channels and exclusive in-person meetups where actual decisions are made.
At least in the office you could get a sense of the political landscape after a few weeks of meetings — I was unaware of how my remote organization actually worked for over a year until I raised some concerns and a co-worker clued me in.
The shocking thing wasn’t that a remote company has politics, but that the entire company ethos was based on how much more transparent and less political fully remote organizations are.
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|6 years ago|reply
Probably not quite to the same level as in-person conversation, but nearly every place I've worked had a variety of off-topic channels (both for specific topics, and totally random discussion), and plenty of my 1:1 slack conversations end up evolving into personal discussions (e.g., "Hey, btw, I saw a cool-looking book on your shelf when you dialed into the meeting - what is that?")
[+] [-] kristianc|6 years ago|reply
It's not just a case of making an effort to connect with the individuals evaluating the work - it's that siloing your individual contribution, however strong, actually makes you more difficult to work with and your contributions less impactful.
[+] [-] avip|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phlakaton|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nasrudith|6 years ago|reply
The jumping from sinking ship to sinking ship after gnawing at the baseboards success model is success for them and useless sociopaths like them only and actively bad for everyone else. Their fuck ups are /why/ they need to pay consultants in the first place!
Their methods are a plague on society which makes it abundantly clear why the status quo is fucked up and also why big players even can lose vs garage start ups despite their decades of experience and massive funds difference. While the start ups may be good and smart the vested interest's outright failures despite their advantages are more because they are frankly stupid than their rival's vast skill or genius.
If remote working stops the spread of this virulence (I suspect they will need to mutate their playbooks) then it explains the resistance among current management to not having to pay for office space.
[+] [-] specialist|6 years ago|reply
D'Arcy Carden: The goal is to make the other person(s) look awesome.
I wish I could tell younger me to study improv, to hear this nugget of wisdom, before joining the work force. Might have saved myself and everyone else a lot of heart ache.
[+] [-] dominotw|6 years ago|reply
Yes only positions and opinions that make them look good.
For example, in a tech all hands. "Ask" questions like these
1. How did the upper management react to cost savings from initiative X.
2. How did vendor feel about us canceling their contract by building a cheaper home grown system that is saving us X million $ every year.
3. What is the strategy for filling out open positions faster. ( we are doing so good that we have way too many open positions)
4. "joke questions" , did CEO actually finish 50 pies in pie eating contest at the management retreat ,like he claims he did.
also, consultants rarely get invited to these all hands in the first place.
[+] [-] izacus|6 years ago|reply
"Questions" like these put other people on defensive (which means they won't listen to you anymore) and mark you out as an a*hole (which means they won't listen to you at all). It's counterproductive.
I'm always baffled how engineers don't get that: they can understand that you need to write "printf()" and not "abort()" to achieve printout, but can't understand simple rules on how to achieve results when interacting with other people?
[+] [-] codingdave|6 years ago|reply
https://www.secondcityworks.com/
[+] [-] east2west|6 years ago|reply
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21666569
[+] [-] rpmisms|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bigred100|6 years ago|reply
I wonder if there’s not something to read into this a bit beyond my current abilities. Many people work on things that they consider somewhat boring, or at least not at the boundary of their skill set. People above you in the organization spent a lot of time building “synergies” and organizing a team of people frankly (in most cases) somewhat overqualified for the task. It seems like throwing all that out by not integrating enough into the social group is a terrible idea.
[+] [-] glitchc|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|6 years ago|reply
If only we had a system where (special) judges were able to determine who works hard and who doesn't and from there decide who gets what amount of pay, and who deserves a promotion. We could actually have a fair society.
[+] [-] splittingTimes|6 years ago|reply
===
[1] https://www.amazon.com/-/de/dp/0804795800/ref=mp_s_a_1_8?key...
[+] [-] gremlin001|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elwell|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ididntdothis|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carrozo|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]