How to Apply Improv Principles to Leadership and Team Building with Scott Parker

<p>In this episode of A Category of One, I sat down with Scott Parker, a leadership consultant and team building facilitator who uses improv and juggling to help people communicate better. Scott and I know each other from Steamboat Springs, and we hadn't talked in years. It came out early in the conversation that we both went to college in Buffalo.</p><p>Scott's business is called Just Go For It, which is a fair description of how he's worked. Stripped down, improv is a practice of receiving someone else's idea instead of shutting it down. That matters more in a conference room than most people expect, because what an employee learns from the first "no" shapes every idea they bring after it. We talk about what changes when the answer is "tell me more," and about the other half of saying yes, which is staying open enough to notice an opportunity when it shows up.</p><p>Scott has spent years getting people out of their comfort zone without them realizing they left it. When people laugh together, they stop defending themselves, and that's where real communication has room to happen. That idea runs through the Chamber of Commerce he leads in Oregon wine country and the variety show he started in a divided town. I share what volunteering gave me that I never saw coming. Scott closes with what an eighth grade classroom taught him about being the same person no matter what role you're in.</p><p><b><strong>In this episode:</strong></b></p><ul><li>Why "yes, and" changes which ideas employees bring to their manager</li><li>How playfulness gets into work that's usually dry</li><li>What it takes to say yes before you feel qualified</li><li>How a variety show got a divided town laughing together</li><li>What volunteering gives the person doing it</li><li>Why you can't be one person in the classroom and another person outside it</li></ul><p>Links:<br />Connect with Scott Parker:<br />Website: <a href="https://www.scottparkerleadership.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://www.scottparkerleadership.com/</a><br />LI: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-parker-89b62522/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-parker-89b62522/</a></p><p>Connect with Leslie Silverman:<br />IG: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/lesliesilverman/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://www.instagram.com/lesliesilverman/</a><br />LI: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-silverman-hive180/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://www.