Kelly Leonard

Yes, And: How Improvisation Reverses No, but Thinking and Improves Creativity and Collaboration Kelly Leonard

Publisher Marketing: Executives from the Second City--the world s premier comedy theater and school of improvisation--reveal improvisational techniques that can help any organization develop innovators, encourage adaptable leaders, and build transformational businesses. For more than fifty years, the Second City comedy theater in Chicago has been a training ground for some of the best comic minds in the industry--including John Belushi, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Mike Myers, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, and Tina Fey. But it also provides one-of-a-kind leadership training to cutting-edge companies, nonprofits, and public sector organizations--all aimed at increasing creativity, collaboration, and teamwork. The rules for leadership and teamwork have changed, and the skills that got professionals ahead a generation ago don t work anymore. Now The Second City provides a new toolkit individuals and organizations can use to thrive in a world increasingly shaped by speed, social communication, and decentralization. Based on eight principles of improvisation, "Yes, And" helps to develop these skills and foster them in high-potential leaders and their teams. Skills include: mastering the ability to co-create in an ensemble;fostering a yes, and approach to work;embracing failure to accelerate high performance;leading by listening and by learning to follow;innovating by making something out of nothing."Yes, And" is a must-read for professionals and organizations, helping to develop the invaluable leadership skills needed to succeed today." Contributor Bio:  Leonard, Kelly Kelly Leonard is the executive vice president of The Second City and the president of Second City Theatricals. He has worked at The Second City since 1988 and has overseen productions with such notable performers as Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, and Amy Poehler. Mr. Leonard cofounded Second City Theatricals, the division of the company that develops an eclectic array of live entertainment all over the world. He has fostered creative and business collaborations with Lyric Opera Chicago, Norwegian Cruise Line, Hubbard Street Dance and the Chicago Tribune, to name a few. Contributor Bio:  Yorton, Tom Tom Yorton has been CEO of Second City Works, the b2b arm of The Second City, since 2002. Before joining The Second City family, Tom worked in advertising and marketing at agencies like Ogilvy, Grey, and Hal Riney before jumping to the client side, with stints as a marketing vice president at Sears and 3Com, where he actually hired Second City Works on a couple of occasions. Second City Works now does more than four hundred engagements a year, half with Fortune 1000 companies. Tom and his team are focused on refining The Second City's unique capabilities creating funny short-form content and using improv to develop vital skills in businesspeople to help companies communicate, collaborate, and innovate better in a web-first, social-everything world. Contributor Bio:  Winter, Alan Alan A. Winter graduated with honors from Rutgers College, New Brunswick, with a major in history. Though nominated for a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, Winter pursed his first career choice and earned his dental degree from NYU. He completed his advanced training at Albert Einstein School of Medicine and his periodontal certificate from Columbia School of Dental Medicine where he received the Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2008. A Diplomate in the American Board Of Periodontology, Winter founded and edited an award winning dental journal and published more than twenty scientific articles. Winter lectures frequently, and has been an associate professor at the dental colleges of both NYU and Columbia. To help foster his writing career, Winter trained as a forensic dentist at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Bethesda. He has published three previous novels, "Savior's Day", which Kirkus Reviews selected as a "Best Book of 2013," "Someone Else's Son "and "Snowflakes in the Sahara". His screenplay, "Polly," received honorable mention at the Austin Film Festival and is the basis for his latest novel, "Island Bluffs." Winter maintains a periodontal practice in NYC and lives in Bernardsville, New Jersey.