The difference between blocking and disagreeing

Yes, and is the most quoted rule in improvisation and the one most often misunderstood at work. People hear it as an instruction to agree with everything, and reasonably enough decide it has no place in a meeting where real money is being spent. So the poster goes up in the kitchen and nothing changes.

The rule was never about agreeing. What it covers is the two seconds after a colleague offers something unfinished, and those two seconds get more attention in the sessions than almost anything else.

What blocking is

Blocking is refusing the offer before it exists. Somebody starts a sentence with "what if we", and before they get to the end of it someone else has said "we tried that", or "that won't work with the current setup", or "I don't think the client would go for it".

None of those replies is rude, and any of them might be right. The problem is the timing. "We tried that" is usually true, and usually about a version of the idea that differs from the one about to be described. "That won't work with the current setup" is an answer to a question nobody has finished asking. The idea was half a sentence long when it was stopped, so nobody in the room, including the person who had it, ever found out what it was.

The person who was stopped rarely argues. They say "fair enough" and the meeting moves on, and from the outside it looks like agreement. Shutting down an unfinished idea kills the next three, because the people who had those three were watching.

What disagreeing is

Disagreeing is engaging with the offer once it exists. You let the sentence finish. You say it back, so the person knows it landed. You add the thing it made you think of. Then, if you still think it's wrong, you say where you part company and why.

That last step is the one people assume yes, and forbids, and it doesn't. Disagreement that builds on the idea is fine. What the rule rules out is stopping the idea from existing, however politely that is done.

Done properly it takes about twenty seconds. "So you're saying we send the draft out before the review is finished. That would get us the feedback a fortnight earlier. I don't think it survives the first complaint, and this is why." The idea finished, it was heard, it was disagreed with, and the person who had it is still in the conversation.

The question to ask after a meeting is whether the ideas got to finish. If they did, and then got taken apart, it was a good meeting. If they didn't, there will be fewer ideas to take apart next time.

Why it needs practising

Everything above fits on a slide, and most teams have already seen the slide. What they haven't done is feel the difference from the inside, which is what changes the habit.

The exercise I use for this takes about ten minutes. A pair plays a two-minute scene in which one of them politely blocks everything the other offers, the way it happens at work. Then the same pair plays it again, accepting and building on every offer. The first version is exhausting to be in and the second one goes somewhere, and people can tell which was which without being told. Then I ask where the first version happens in their week, and who does it to whom. Most people can name the meeting, some of them can name themselves, and the question usually gets a pause before anyone answers it.

It sits just after the break in the Taster, once people have been on their feet for an hour and know each other's names, and every pair plays at the same time, so nobody is watching anyone. The point is to feel what a block does to you, and you cannot feel it while worrying about an audience.

What changes on Monday

At first, not much changes. What people take back is a piece of vocabulary. Someone says "that's a block" halfway through a meeting and the person who did it hears it, and lets the idea finish. It happens a few times. After a while it starts happening before anyone has to say the word.

The last ten minutes of every session are spent on this. What will you do differently on Monday, and what words will you use for it. The vocabulary is kept small, a few words a team can use in a meeting without anyone feeling they have been sent back on a course.

If the same two people do all the talking in your meetings, this is usually where it starts. It is the first thing every session works on, and the reason people are on their feet within ten minutes rather than sitting through slides about it.