Try Using the Institutional Yes

When new ideas are voiced in your company is the typical response ‘yes but…’? If so, you’re really saying ‘No’ and closing the door on new ideas and open-minded employees. Paul Sloane says we could all learn a lesson from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos by implementing the Institutional Yes.

One of the exercises on my Creative Leadership workshop runs like this. People in pairs have short conversations. In the first conversation one person makes a suggestion for something new that could be done for customers (say). The second person replies with an objection. They start their sentence, ‘Yes but….’ The first person then rebuts the objection with another sentence starting.

The results are instructive. Typically the first conversation spirals down into an argument with no agreement. In real life the more powerful person would usually win.

“When we say, ‘Yes but….’ we are really saying, ‘No.”

The typical responses to a creative suggestion might be:

• Yes but it would cost too much.
• Yes but the boss would never agree to that.
• Yes but we are too busy right now.
• Yes but we tried something similar last year and it did not work.
  

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