Episode 199: How to "Yes and..." Chaos with guest, Carrie Sackett

Chaos has a way of making smart people reach for old tools harder, even when those tools stop working. We sit down with Coach Carrie Sackett, author of “Saying Yes And To Chaos: Building Resilience with Our Clients in Uncertain Times,” to explore a surprisingly practical answer: improv. Not stage improv, but structured, embodied exercises that help coaches and clients get out of their mental loops and back into real-time presence, connection, and creativity.

We dig into the heart of “yes, and” as a coaching method. Carrie explains how coaches can treat the client’s words as an “offer,” accept what is true without negating it, and then add something that moves the work forward. You’ll hear why she often uses improv games early, how experiential learning beats long explanations, and what shifts when “no, but” language turns into collaboration. The party planning game makes the contrast instantly felt, not just understood.

From there, we zoom out to coaching in uncertainty and the feeling of living in a “poly” world where multiple, conflicting demands hit at once. Carrie shares a we lens grounded in social therapeutic coaching and both-and thinking, plus additional practices like mirroring, collective storytelling, and an emotions chorus that can transform group coaching, couples coaching, and family dynamics.

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Watch the full interview by clicking here. 

Find the full article here. 

Learn more about Carrie here.

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Garry Schleifer 0:07

Welcome to Beyond the Page, the official podcast of choice, the magazine of professional coaching, where we bring you amazing insights and in-depth features you won't find anywhere else. I'm your host, Garry Schleifer, and I'm excited to expand your learning as we dive into the latest articles, have a chat with this brilliant author behind one of them, and uncover the learnings that are transforming the coaching world. When you get a chance, join a vibrant community of coaching professionals as we explore groundbreaking ideas, share expert tips and techniques, and do what we coaches love to do: make a difference in our clients' lives. In today's episode, I'm speaking with Coach Carrie Sackett, who's the author of an article in our latest issue, Coaching in Chaos. Her article is entitled Saying Yes and... to Chaos: Building Resilience with Our Clients in Uncertain Times. A little bit about Carrie. She is holding an MS and a PCC, is an author, speaker, and ICF accredited coach trainer. She's an industry-recognized coaching method innovator, founder of Social Therapeutic Coaching, and author of the book Social Therapeutic Coaching put out by Rutledge in 24. In 2023, she established the training company, the Center for Group and Couples Therapy, to offer coaches next generation tools that empower clients to transform their lives, lead successful careers, and achieve their goals. Again, what we all want them to do, right? Carrie has appeared in leading coach magazines and podcasts, as well as ours previously. So we want to welcome her back. Thank you for joining us and thank you for writing again.

Carrie Sackett 1:47

Hi, Garry. It's great to be back. Well, you picked an awesome topic.

The Surprising Roots Of Improv

Garry Schleifer 1:52

Right. Well, and obviously a call to you. And I love the connection between improv and chaos. It was so cool. Before we get into it, I realized when I was re-re-re-re-re-reading it, because I've read it a dozen times already, that I was taking for granted the whole yes and. And this really, you know, it just reminded me the source of it. But tell us a bit about what is improv.

Carrie Sackett 2:24

Yeah. Well, I'm no expert, I can say that, but improv actually came out of community organizing efforts at the turn of the last century, whatever, early 1900s, in Chicago. A woman who schooled in the arts of theater was working in this grassroots organization to help immigrants assimilate into American culture.

Garry Schleifer 2:54

Wow.

Carrie Sackett 2:55

That is the roots of improv.

Garry Schleifer 2:58

Wow, because we know it more as theater, which is if readers and listeners see the article, there's a stage there. So that's the modern version, if you will.

Carrie Sackett 3:08

Yeah, yeah. So it's surprised that Second City was born in Chicago, because that's where Viola Spolin started her work, was in Chicago.

Garry Schleifer 3:18

Wow, interesting. Wow. Now, just out of you know, ha ha ha ha, out of curiosity, I swore I would never say that statement again, but here I am. How did it switch from that to theater?

Carrie Sackett 3:31

Well, yes, but I'm not good enough to really tell a truthful story, just to enough to say she was training theater people to do this kind of work, and then they started experimenting with this work on stage and in collectives, and it was clunky and messy, and they didn't know what they were doing. And out of that, different forms of improv got created, and then some rules and some structure around it.

Garry Schleifer 4:03

Oh, wow.

Carrie Sackett 4:05

Years of creative work.

Garry Schleifer 4:07

Well, and I'm sure it's still evolving. I remember the two of us were in an improv class in the workshop at the ICF Converge in Paris recently, and we ended up being paired together, and now here you are having done the article as well. So you're improv, yes, anding all over the place.

Carrie Sackett 4:28

Yes, we've come full circle. That was a great workshop with Amy Warshansky and Gideon Coleman, I think was her .

Garry Schleifer 4:38

Betsy. Unfortunately, she was unable to attend, but we had her with us in spirit.

Carrie Sackett 4:42

Yeah, yeah.

Why Improv Works In Coaching

Garry Schleifer 4:44

No, that's cool. So when do you use improv with your clients? How do you know?

Carrie Sackett 4:52

I look for a way to incorporate an improv exercise in the in a first session with a client.

Garry Schleifer 5:02

Wow, right away.

Carrie Sackett 5:03

Yeah, in one-to-one work and I do it because the power of improv is that it bounces us out of our loops. It's when I trained in improv in New York City at the Magnet Theater a very long time ago, it was the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life. I didn't like it at all. I definitely didn't show up performance at the end of the six weeks, you know, you do for all your friends and family. No way I was doing that. But then coming back to it as I was building my coaching practice, rediscovering that convergence of coachings being grounded in the emergent and in co-creation. And that's improv. You have to stay radically present with your scene partner or partners, and you have to create in the moment, and there's no wrong answer, and your scene partners have you back your back and the trick of it is to yes and your scene partners, not to negate them, but to hear something in what they're saying that you can add on to. Well, all of that's going on in our work with clients. Our job as coaches is to be radically present, to not be in our heads and our loops, but radically accepting what our clients are giving us and adding on to it in some ways. So I take the improv concept of yes and.. when I bring it into the coaching container, I see it as give and create. So the client's giving something to the scene, to our ensemble, and then I, as the coach, am adding onto it. I'm creating with what they're giving. So in that kind of a coaching culture, I feel okay by saying, hey, let's do something a little weird here, but I'd love to test this out with you. Will you play a game with me? And oftentimes I'll play the party planning game, which is a game where the two of you tell a story, you're gonna plan a party together, and you start out by no-butting each other. Let's plan a party in the park. No, but I don't like parks. Let's plan a party in the pizza shop. No, but I don't like pizza. Okay, let's plan a party at the disco. No, nobody dances in our network. Okay, so you never get to plan the party because you're no-butting each other all the time. And think of all the places in our lives where we no-butt each other. It's everywhere, it's such a common way that we speak. So the improv game gives an experience, so it's not a cognitive explanation of my observation is you speak in a way that's negating of others. No, no, we're performing it together, it's experiential, it's not cognitive. So then we do it again with a yes and let's plan a party in the park, yes, and let's have a live band, yes, and let's have grandma's favorite cake recipe, yes, and let's have balloons. Before you know it, you've planned a party, even if you don't totally agree with all the particulars of the party, you've created something together. So that's how I will incorporate that in the beginning of a work with client, not a hundred percent, it's not formulaic. I'm listening for a moment where maybe we're not connecting as much. I have that experience that the client's moving very fast and getting to the point, you know, not hearing me or skipping the trying to get to wherever. So then it's in the attempt to slow that down and build some connection with the client, I might introduce an exercise. And then the client is like, oh, that's different. There's this other way possibility of yes, can I can I go home and play this with my family?

Garry Schleifer 9:32

Yes, and please let me know how it goes.

Carrie Sackett 9:36

Even in supervision recently, a team lead came in and said, Hey, my team is now recognizes when they're no butting each other. And they can turn it around and they say, Oh, uh, oh, let's do some more yes anding of each other here. We're into negating each other. So the the main point of this is the tools that we're learning to be better coaches, this is a methodological tool, and we can bring that into our work. We can empower our clients to grow in the same ways that we're growing as we train in improv.

Garry Schleifer 10:15

Wow. Now, one little note of clarification,

No But Versus Yes And Language

Garry Schleifer 10:18

you don't actually say, Oh, we're gonna do improv. How do you just say, Are you do you want to just have some fun?

Carrie Sackett 10:26

We're gonna, yeah. You be open to doing an exercise with me or playing a game? After the game, I might say something about it as improv. But I try to stay away from explanation. I don't find that particularly helpful in client growth. So I do it and go through the experience and then give it away.

Garry Schleifer 10:49

And you say you do it right in the very first session. Is there something that's common to the first session that says, oh, here's the time?

Carrie Sackett 10:59

Yeah, I would say for one-on-one work, it's if you need help building that connection. In group work, if I start for my first one or two group sessions, as you know, I do a lot of group work. So I lead group work, I do life development groups. I will absolutely start the first and second session with an improv exercise that is non-cognitive. So because everyone's uncomfortable starting a group, we're such an individual culture that people are very nervous coming into group and they're gonna do what they know how to do, which is talk about myself. So I want to create a different kind of culture in the group that's already a we based culture. So I off the top, we're doing an improv exercise where everyone is feeling equally uncomfortable and not knowing what they're doing.

Garry Schleifer 12:03

That's great.

Carrie Sackett 12:04

Isn't that great? So now we can all not know together as we build our group. And then in family work or couples work, improv exercises immediately are so helpful because in couples and family work, we have our societal scripts of spouse and parent, sibling and child. So it permissions everybody to play together and get out of their family script.

Garry Schleifer 12:31

Wow, and like you said, experiential. And I have to reflect back on when you were doing the I forgot the no but part, right? And I was feeling so like, for lack of a better word, defeated, like deflated. You could feel just like, oh no, oh no, oh no. But as soon as you started doing the yes and I felt more uplifted, engaged, part of the part of the process. So I was really noticing the that energy shift.

Carrie Sackett 13:00

Yes, and I might invite the client, I might say, Well, you know, how was that for you? What did you notice? And they might say the things that you're saying, and that's really and then you yes, and that, and you continue going, but they're already giving you something that's emotional, that's more connected, that's deeper. Like, oh, and I recognize I felt really stuck in the no, but it was not a pleasant experience. Yeah, wow.

Garry Schleifer 13:28

And I can easily see it turn into a powerful question, right? Yes, and what happened next? Or yes, and what other thoughts did you have? Yes, and right. So it's not like your because where I've also thought was, oh, here's my opportunity to show my wisdom. And it's like, no, that's not what coaching's about, obviously, right?

Carrie Sackett 13:48

But yes and yeah, and the and part is so important because we can do more than reflect back. I heard you say this and this and this. That's fine. And we can do more. We can hear the offer and add on to it. Maybe it's a subjective experience on our part. Not always, but sometimes that's appropriate. Maybe it's a relational question, maybe it's something that goes somewhere new. So we can break out of these weight, these linear, individualistic, me-based ways of thinking and talking that used to work. Now we can get to chaos.

A We Lens For Modern Chaos

Carrie Sackett 14:45

They used to when the world made more sense. I'm in air quotes here if you're listening. Because of course, it's just that we had tools back then that matched up with the world. We felt safe. Like I can reach through this and I'll know where I am, and I feel safe in that. My institutions work, I know what the outcome will be. Those tools don't work anymore in our world. No wonder we are all out of our minds. It's the same rational tools in an uncertain world. So improv is a great tool to help a way to break us out of the things we know how to do.

Garry Schleifer 15:29

I will quote you from your article. Rather than wishing things were different, we could say yes and to today's chaos.

Carrie Sackett 15:37

Yeah.

Garry Schleifer 15:38

Yeah.

Carrie Sackett 15:39

What do we want to do together on this planet, given that we have no idea where the world is going?

Garry Schleifer 15:48

No kidding. I'm sorry I have to laugh because it's like if I don't, I'm gonna cry, but no, I won't. In working with other authors, and that saying what chaos is, it's just there doesn't seem to be any end to it. Before you could take a step back, reflect on what worked, linear as you were saying, and all those sort of things, but now how do you yes and chaos? So yeah, Carrie, how do you yes and chaos?

Carrie Sackett 16:16

Well, we need new ways of seeing. We need new conceptual tools. And that's what I train coaches in in social therapeutic coaching is seeing through a we lens, through an inherently we are connected, we are a social species lens that's more quantum grounded, if you will. Quantum is next generation method, scientific method. The things you're saying are what we've inherited from enlightenment science, isolate the individual, starting point, end point, take a step back, objectively assess the situation, study the pattern, know the answer, predict the future. That's a methodological toolkit, and it's not serving us anymore. So we're in the cusp of something, we're moving into some new way of being and seeing and communicating and feeling in the world.

Garry Schleifer 17:16

Carrie, when I was reading your article what you're saying right now, had me think that the way things are now in relation to our definition of chaos, the way it used to be was when we used to, for example, Google things. One question where, you know, what's Carrie's book. That worked because it was singular, it we weren't overwhelmed with all the other things. Now we have AI, which grabs a whole bunch of stuff really fast, juggles it around, and comes up with this glorious answer, which is, you know, whatever it is, right? And it seems to me that the same methodology or the theory behind Google, just Googling or searching, is way different now.

Carrie Sackett 18:05

Yeah. What you're saying makes me think of the word poly. You know how this word poly is everywhere now? Poly market, poly crisis, poly poly.

Garry Schleifer 18:14

All right, yeah.

Carrie Sackett 18:16

And I was thinking about this the other day. What is that? What does poly mean? Isn't it like both and? Poly means we're holding all these things at once. Sometimes they're contradictory and conflicting and we don't know exactly how they're all connected, but we have the sense that it's all going on at the same time. That's both and that's quantum. Google is either or.

Garry Schleifer 18:47

Right. There we go. That's thank you. You just simplified my statement brilliantly. Thank you.

Carrie Sackett 18:53

Yes, and I again either or works really well in traditional science or in the world 50, 70, 100 years ago. This doesn't work now. Yeah, it's not helping us.

Garry Schleifer 19:06

Yeah. It's no surprise that a lot of my clients, I do platform work, like with coaching platforms, and one of them has a drop-down menu of things that they can work on, goals that they can start off our conversation with. And one of them is called operating in the matrix.

Carrie Sackett 19:24

Yeah.

Garry Schleifer 19:25

And that's what this reminds me of. That's what chaos reminds me of. It's of juggling more balls than one could possibly handle.

Carrie Sackett 19:33

Yes. The stretch for us, as you're saying this, so we can't figure it out by ourselves anymore. That's part of, I think, what we're getting pushed on right now. We need others to help make sense of the world. Before you could kind of do it on your own and make the answers were somewhere, or you felt confident that I can get the answer. We're co-creating meaning now. And to the extent that we're trying to stick to, I'm gonna figure it out by myself, is the extent to which we stay lonely, isolated, distanced. Because it's much more subjectively a much more complicated world.

Garry Schleifer 20:30

Thank you for saying that.

Carrie Sackett 20:32

We don't know where we are, so we have to co-create together where we are.

Garry Schleifer 20:38

Right. Well, it works really well for me because I don't operate well solo, I work better in collaboration. So I think this whole new universe is right up my alley for my way of thinking and doing things. I mean, I'm here with you. Collaboration. We meet each other and we collaborate even in a workshop. I love it. That's great. Oh my goodness. Now one more thing.

More Games For Groups And Families

Garry Schleifer 21:08

I heard you allude to you play other games with your clients.

Carrie Sackett 21:13

Yeah.

Garry Schleifer 21:13

What kind of thing? What kind of other things do you do?

Carrie Sackett 21:16

There's so many different games.

Garry Schleifer 21:18

Top three favorite.

Carrie Sackett 21:20

Okay, so after a party planning is usually the first game I do. Or if we're in person, I might do the mirroring exercise that you and I did together in Paris. Again, non-cognitive, two people standing in front of each other. One person leads, the other person follows, and you go back and forth on the lead. So that's a great one. I'll move into telling a collective yes and story. So you'll go around if it's two of you or however many people, and somebody comes up with a title, it's sunny out, and then you start a story. It's sunny out. Yes. And the flowers are blooming. Yes. And then suddenly there was a lightning bolt. Yes. And then go for cover. So you're creating something together. Again, it's a doing together. Content does not matter.

Garry Schleifer 22:18

Right.

Carrie Sackett 22:19

Doing it. You're trying to, you're listening for offers to add on to the story. You're discovering your pulls, you know, to pull the story in the direction the way you think the story should go. All the things that we do when we're speaking and listening with other humans and conversation. All of that stuff gets raised in the playing of this exercise. So that's another one I'll do. And let's see, a third one. I have so many. With my families, just to give you and when I train coaches and cohorts, we create an emotions chorus.

Garry Schleifer 22:59

So emotions chorus. Okay, go ahead.

Carrie Sackett 23:03

So I direct it for the first time, and then I allow volunteers to direct it. And everyone at the same time, we pick an emotion, anxiety. Everyone at the same time starts saying whatever something they're anxious about. So it's a chorus, so everybody's saying it together, and I direct the chorus either louder or softer, or this part of the room, or that part.

Garry Schleifer 23:27

Oh fun.

Carrie Sackett 23:29

And so there again, it's toggling the me and the we. You have we have all of our things in our head about our anxieties, but now they're it's out in the room with all these other people who have their anxieties. So you can kind of hear each other, but you can't hear anybody. It's like this whole big cacophony, and it's not really only mine anymore. And you can play with your emotions, you can be louder, you can whisper your anxiety. So it's another game that gets us out of our assumptions of how you're supposed to be in the world.

Garry Schleifer 24:06

Yeah. Oh, we need so much more of that. So thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing this to us. Carrie, what would you like our audience to do as a result of the article in this conversation?

Training Offer And Final Wrap

Carrie Sackett 24:18

Oh, come come learn from me. I've now trained over 1200 coaches around the world.

Garry Schleifer 24:25

Wow. And where would people find this information or get in touch with you?

Carrie Sackett 24:29

groupandcouplescoaching.com.

Garry Schleifer 24:34

Groupandcouplescoaching.com. That's pretty easy.

Carrie Sackett 24:38

And I'm on LinkedIn. I have a weekend intensive training, and so for your listeners, I'm offering a 20% discount.

Garry Schleifer 24:47

Awesome.

Carrie Sackett 24:48

Yeah, I really invite people. The method is it's beautifully flexible. So you you take from social therapeutics and bring it into your work. You keep your style, your voice. It's just these are methodological tools that empower you to be more developed and then able to develop your clients.

Garry Schleifer 25:11

And it sounds like a little bit of fun is involved.

Carrie Sackett 25:14

Oh, yeah.

Garry Schleifer 25:16

Learning and fun. Oh my goodness. Thank you so much, Carrie, for joining me today. So, as you heard, group and couples, no, hold on. Yeah, groupand couples coaching.com. Yeah, not therapy, and LinkedIn Carrie Sackett. Awesome. Thank you so much, Carrie, for joining us again for this Beyond the Page episode and for writing for us. Look forward to your next article, submission, publishing, and another conversation. Always wonderful.

Carrie Sackett 25:45

Thanks, Carrie.

Garry Schleifer 25:47

That's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe via your favorite podcast app. If you're not a subscriber to choice Magazine and you're watching the video, you can sign up for your free digital issue by scanning the QR code in the top right hand corner of our screen. If you are in listen only mode and in the car or on a treadmill, please stop and get off or out before you go to choice online.com and click the sign up now button. I'm Garry Schleifer. Enjoy the journey of mastery.