I know the temptation to arrive with a complete answer. In technology and transformation work, being prepared is part of the job. Yet a complete answer offered too early can leave no useful space for finance, operations, customer teams or vendors to change it.
Preparation can quietly become ownership of the whole solution
When a person has thought deeply about a problem, it is natural to protect the result. The meeting then becomes a presentation followed by comments, even when it was called a design session.
The other participants may add details, but they are decorating someone else’s building. Their information does not shape the structure. If the original idea contains a wrong assumption, the group may discover it only after commitment has become expensive.
Co creation asks for a different discipline. Bring enough to help the group move, but not so much that the next useful contribution has nowhere to go.
A small contribution can be generous when it leaves the next person room to matter.
The source and the simple constraint
Word at a Time Story appears in Yes, And by Kelly Leonard and Tom Yorton, with the exercise indexed at print page 42. A group creates one story, but each person may add only one word when their turn arrives.
Leonard and Yorton use the image of bringing a brick rather than a cathedral. The exercise makes that idea physical. A participant cannot deliver a private plot. Every word must respond to what is already there and leave the story unfinished for someone else.
Practiced Spontaneity: Resources, Theory and Supplemental Information by Izzy Gesell describes creative skill as the ability to act on other people’s visions without criticism. That is what the one word limit asks us to practise.
What becomes visible in the circle
Some people use punctuation in their voice to close an idea. Some add several words very quickly. Others wait so long for the perfect word that the shared rhythm disappears. I recognise versions of all three behaviours in meetings.
The exercise also gives quiet contributions real weight. A small connecting word may make the whole sentence work. This is useful for senior teams because status and volume cannot determine the size of a contribution when everyone receives the same single word.
I do not debrief the quality of the story. I ask who tried to control it, who supported it and when the group stopped listening to the story that actually existed.
Translate the practice into decision work
A real project cannot be designed one word at a time. The workplace translation is to distinguish a contribution from a conclusion. A useful contribution may be one customer need, one accounting constraint, one technical dependency or one question that changes the sequence.
After the exercise, I often ask a group to revisit a real topic. Each function contributes one essential brick before anyone proposes the complete route. The final decision can still be clear and owned. It is simply built from a richer shared picture.
Sources used
- Yes, And by Kelly Leonard and Tom Yorton. Word at a Time Story exercise, indexed at print page 42, and the discussion of bringing a brick rather than a cathedral.
- Practiced Spontaneity: Resources, Theory and Supplemental Information by Izzy Gesell. The material on acceptance, shared vision and acting on the visions of other people.
Max Grillo is an applied improvisation facilitator. He manages and hosts Rice Cookie Improv, is cofounder of Monday Flow Improv and is a member of the Applied Improvisation Network. He combines workshop practice with more than 25 years of experience in technology and transformation.
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