Kelly connects with CEO Wes Adams and Professor Tamara Myles about their new book, “Meaningful Work: How to Ignite Passion and Performance in Every Employee.”  

It’s not often that the ‘Yes, And’ concept specifically shows up in one of our guest’s books. 

“Well, as you know, we reference Second City actually multiple times in the book. One of our classmates, Erica Elam, teaches at Second City and does a lot of corporate workshops. And one of the things that we found in our research was this relationship between leaders and employees, the people that they manage, people among teams, building trust is so important there and that philosophy of ‘Yes, And’ when somebody brings a new idea to the table and is vulnerable and exposes themselves, building on that rather than shutting that down draws people in and tells them that they can continue to bring new ideas to the table.” 

Talk about the three C’s 

“When we talk about meaningful work, we’re talking about moments of meaning that can happen in every job, every day, across what we call the three Cs, or the three sources of meaning, which are Community, Contribution, and Challenge. And Community is that belief that you belong, that you can show up authentically. And I think it’s very tied to what we’ll be talking about as relates to improv. Contribution is this idea that your work matters to other people that you’re contributing to something larger than yourself, whether that’s your team, your company or customers or people outside of the organization. And Challenge is the ability to learn and grow – the sense that you’re getting better and working towards your full potential.” 

And we really don’t give people skills building or practice as they turn into leaders inside organizations. 

“I think that’s such an important point because so often we throw leaders and managers into the deep end and don’t give them any tools. We say, you’re a great accountant: here are four accountants for you to manage. And the skills of being a good accountant have nothing to do with the skills of being a good people leader. And they’re all just like improv, they’re all learnable skills. They’re all things that you can develop, but it does take practice. It does take intention.” 

Photo Credits: Chase Anderson and FrannyS Photography