S4E7: Yes & Baby — You Can't Copy and Paste Culture
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Turns out that's not necessarily great leadership.
In Season 4, Episode 7 — “Yes & Baby” — Alice is determined to become a better version of herself. So she embraces a new philosophy: say yes.
To everything.
Barefoot practice? Yes.
Blindfolds? Yes.
Water break? Yes.
Then Ted introduces her to one of the fundamental principles of improv:
Yes, and.
As Ted explains it, yes opens the door. “And” allows people to walk through it.
And that distinction gives us one of our favorite leadership conversations of the season.
This week, we dig into:
- Why “Yes, and” is really a leadership principle
- The difference between acceptance and contribution
- How Alice initially overcorrects after receiving difficult feedback
- Why leaders need to adapt their coaching to the person they're coaching
- Alice's breakthrough with Shannon
- The importance of clear and immediate feedback
- Why “Tell me about yourself” is such a deceptively difficult question
- Ted's struggle to see in himself what he sees so easily in other people
- Why loving yourself isn't the same as bragging about yourself
- Core values and the difference between putting words on a wall and actually living them
- Why a team can't simply inherit someone else's culture
- Maslow's hierarchy and the very different realities facing Richmond's women's team
- Roy Kent's three jobs of a captain
- Why Erin may demonstrate Roy's definition of leadership better than anyone
- Rebecca, Zelda, and the Scorpion and the Frog
The episode also gives us perhaps the most important evolution of one of Ted Lasso's most iconic ideas.
Alice hangs Ted's new BELIEVE sign in the women's locker room.
The players aren't impressed.
Why?
They already believe.
They wouldn't be playing second-division football if they didn't.
These women are juggling childcare, rent increases, broken cars, internships, second jobs and football. Belief isn't their problem.
And as Shannon points out, the men's team already has a BELIEVE sign.
They don't want a hand-me-down culture.
They need to make it their own.
So Alice does exactly what she's been learning to do:
Yes, and...
The team adds two words:
AND WIN.
BELIEVE becomes BELIEVE AND WIN.
Because great culture can't simply be copied and pasted from one team to another. Leaders can introduce an idea, but the people living that culture have to make it their own.
We also get plenty of Easter eggs and callbacks, including Peaky Blinders, “Red Right Hand,” Charlotte's Web, the Ted Tax, the Scorpion and the Frog, another suspicious Derek, and the continuing mystery of Ted's sinking chair.
Then come the predictions.
Is Charlotte's Web foreshadowing someone preparing Richmond for a future without them?
Is Roy really leaving at the end of the season?
Could Alice eventually move into Ted's chair?
Will Ted return to Bantr?
And we're completely changing our Zelda prediction.
Instead of Zelda changing Rebecca, what if Rebecca is here to change Zelda?
Finally, Ted puts last week's lesson into action.
He deletes his Bantr application, goes to the theatre and asks the Stage Manager out in person.
She says she'd absolutely date him...
except she just started seeing someone.
Sometimes growth isn't getting the outcome you wanted.
Sometimes it's being willing to ask.
Stay curious. Stay kind. And keep leading it like Lasso.
