Game: Take back what you said

I was going to send a short newsletter last Friday, but the holiday weekend got the best of me: I napped on a beach. I hope you too found an ocean or lake to enjoy.

Now I’m back to important things like writing about improv 💪 😤 

Think back to two weeks ago — that newsletter shared highlights from an improv Reddit thread I made. (linked here if you didn’t catch it).

There was one particular comment I didn’t share.

Honestly, I didn’t think you were ready.

I have since changed my tune.

I was hesitant to share the game New Choice with you.

In my perspective, New Choice felt too theatrical, and not business-y enough.

I realized the ‘too-much-theatre’ lens is wrong.

The foundation of this newsletter is the Improv Skills that you can use at work. I learned many of these skills from theatrical games, so I should share those with you too.

Alright, let’s dive in—

Goal of the game

• New Choice, often referred to as Ding or Say it Again, is a game where every time the host rings the bell 🛎️ , the actor takes back what was just said and replaces it with a new line of dialogue.

Example

“For dinner tonight, I am having pasta”

🛎️ Ding

“For dinner tonight, I am going to Domino’s”

🛎️ Ding

“I am never eating dinner again”

🛎️ Ding

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day”

The scene continues as if this was the only line of dialogue said.

Note: People usually start with tiny changes (such as the food above), but the host will often 🛎️ ding the actors until they completely shift gears. This promotes flexibility and stops you from spinning tires in the sand.

This is the skill mentioned in the Reddit comment. Image pasted again below.

Being able to do a complete 180º turn and keep going is a practical skill. Work needs to be agile (especially in startups). Fail fast & iterate is the core of agile scrum software development.

This game New Choice also helps you think outside the box.

Imagine you’re at work.

While you might not ding a bell every time your boss hands you work, it could help to ‘ding’ an idea you have.

Watch as your suggestions evolve from ‘we should do a team offsite’ —> ‘we should do an internal hackathon’ —> ‘we should do a Shake Shack lunch’ —> ‘we should do a water balloon fight after work.’

Yeah, all the ideas might (or might not) suck, but that doesn’t matter. You got out of your head. You got creative juices flowing.

I’d rather a team water balloon fight than a team offsite. Wouldn’t you?

Thank you for reading.

Thoughts, questions, comments, concerns, math homework? Reply and let me know.

Tyler

PS — a huge thank you to all who voted on the poll last time. The new logo takes the throne at the header above. Results:

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Logo One (OLD) teal background (25%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Logo Two (NEW) white background (75%)