I just got back from a leadership retreat where we spent a full day diving into Patrick Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team.
We kicked off the morning with something that sounds deceptively simple: "yes, and..."
Whatever someone brings to the table, you start your response with "yes, and..." and build on it. You take what they gave you and you add to it.
We did role plays. And the power of it was immediate.
What Actually Happens in the Room
Something shifts when people know their contribution won't be shut down.
They speak sooner and they go further with an idea than they normally would. Because each person builds on what came before, the thinking in the room gets richer than it ever does when ideas are being evaluated and filtered in real time.
Most teams don't operate this way. In a founder-led firm where the leader is in the room, people are already editing themselves before they even open their mouth. They're anticipating the redirect before it comes.
Which means you're never actually getting what your team is capable of thinking.
The Dysfunction Connection
Lencioni's first dysfunction is absence of trust. Not trust in the personal sense, trust in the team sense. The belief that it's safe to contribute without being shut down or dismissed.
"Yes, and..." builds that kind of trust faster than almost anything I've seen in practice. It tells people: what you bring matters here and we're going to build on it.
When people feel that consistently, they stop holding back.
The Inauthenticity Problem
Here's what I want to be clear about, because your team will feel this immediately if you get it wrong.
"Yes, and..." as a technique is hollow.
If you're saying yes while your body language or tone is communicating something different, people know. And a performed "yes, and..." is actually more damaging than an honest "no" because it adds a layer of inauthenticity on top of the shutdown.
This only works when you mean it. When you're genuinely curious about where the idea could go rather than waiting to redirect it back to your own thinking.
That's not a technique. That's a leadership posture.
The Practical Reality
This doesn't mean saying yes to everything or pretending every idea is equally good.
It means staying in the exploration long enough to find out what's actually there before you evaluate it. The best ideas in your business are probably sitting in the heads of your team, half formed, waiting to see if it's safe to bring them out.
"Yes, and..." is how you find out.
P.S. We spent one morning on this at the retreat and I'm still thinking about it days later. If you've never tried this deliberately in a team setting, find a reason to. The room will feel different within twenty minutes.
