From “No” to “Yes, And…”: Reframing Collaboration to Strengthen Community Leadership | Emily Lakin

Описание: Join our Community Cohort: https://thecommunitycollective.co/cohort
Join our newsletter: https://the-community-roundup.beehiiv...
Explore CHAOS: https://thecommunitycollective.co/chaos

We are a community for community builders. We serve businesses to build the most impactful communities of our time.

Why? Because community building is the new currency & the next best business strategy. But building an impactful one can be tough, exhausting & lonely. We're here to change that and we’re taking you there with us.

How? Through our 8-week Community Cohort to build a community strategy for a business, recruitment to hire top community talent or coaching for 1-1 support.

#community #engagement #communitybuilding

_________
Emily Lakin, Head of Creator Community at Patreon[tag    / @patreon  ], shares how community leaders can transform challenging requests into opportunities for collaboration. Drawing on improv principles and real-world experience leading an award-winning community team, Emily shares a practical framework that protects your bandwidth while building trust and positioning you as a strategic partner.


In this session Emily shares:
✅ The "Yes, And" framework adapted from improv for professional collaboration: accept reality, expand with details, and move forward together
✅ How to acknowledge requests with curiosity instead of automatic rejection, using strategic questions to understand scope and impact
✅ The power of naming your current priorities transparently to help stakeholders make informed decisions about trade-offs
✅ Specific language patterns for offering trade-offs that make your "yes" sustainable while inviting shared accountability
✅ Why leadership presence means projecting authenticity and confidence through how you navigate complexity and communicate trade-offs
✅ Coaching techniques for helping your team members reframe asks by asking "what would need to be true for this to work?"


KEY TAKEAWAY:
Saying "yes, and" instead of "no" isn't about taking on more work, it's about creating shared ownership, protecting your strategic focus, and showing up as a leader who navigates trade-offs with confidence.


TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - The inner naysayer we all have
2:26 - The cost of always saying no vs. always saying yes
4:54 - What is the "Yes, And" mindset from improv?
8:05 - The four-step framework: Acknowledge, Name, Offer, Invite
10:24 - Handling requests from peers and coworkers
14:37 - How this practice builds leadership presence
17:21 - Key reminders and modeling the behavior for your team
18:59 - Q&A: Power dynamics, imposter syndrome, and when it doesn't work

About the Speaker:
Emily is Head of Creator Community at Patreon, setting strategy and driving execution for online community, community programs, and community education with a charter to deepen creator trust, shape product thinking, and amplify creator voices. Under her leadership, the Community Team delivers yearly community growth, increased product adoption, and above-average satisfaction scores across virtual and IRL experiences. They are proud recipients of "Best Creator Community" at the 2023 CMX Community Industry Awards.

About Loop Summit:
Loop is a 24-hour global community summit hosted by CMX, Led by Community, and The Community Collective.