The Best Management Advice I Read This Year Came from a Saturday Night Live Actor

I wasn't expecting some of the best advice I've read about running a service business to come from Tina Fey.

Years ago, I read her four rules of improv. They're written for actors, but the more time I spend around contractors, the more I think they're really about running a shop.

Tina Fey spent years building teams whose entire job was making something good out of whatever happened next.

Every day starts with a plan. By 10:30, somebody's called in sick, a part didn't arrive, a customer changed their mind, and a water heater decided today was the day. That's improv. You just don't call it that.

Rule #1: Agree

In improv, you never deny what your partner just said. If they say the building's on fire, the building's on fire. You don't argue. You work with it.

Running a shop is basically the same game. A customer's mad about a bill. A unit fails two days after install. Your best guy calls in sick on your busiest day. The techs who handle this well don't spend ten minutes being upset that it happened. They just start moving toward the fix.

Agreeing doesn't mean you're okay with what happened. It means accepting reality quickly enough to solve it. A homeowner yelling at your CSR about a missed appointment isn't a debate to win. It's the situation in front of you.

Every truck rolls out with a plan. Almost none come back exactly that way.

Rule #2: Yes, And

This is the rule that matters most.

Bad improv happens when someone blocks their partner's idea and the scene just dies. Good improv builds on whatever gets offered. "Yes, and" keeps things moving.

Every shop I've been around has that one technician who's constantly trying little improvements. Better ways to stock the truck. Faster ways to explain a repair to a homeowner. Cleaner paperwork. Good owners don't shut those people down. They ask, "Show me."

I've heard the other version plenty of times too. Someone brings up an idea and gets "we tried that" or "that won't work" or "we don't do it that way here." In improv, that's called blocking.  And it teaches people to stop bringing ideas.

This shows up constantly right now with AI tools, new scheduling software, whatever the next thing is. Somebody on your team is going to see something you don't. If the default answer is no, you'll stop hearing the good ideas along with the bad ones.

Rule #3: Make Statements

Weak improv is full of questions. "Should we go to the store?" Strong improv is full of statements. "We're going to the store, and I'm grabbing the last flashlight."

I've sat in enough shop meetings to notice a pattern. You don't need every idea to be right. You need people willing to put one on the table.

"Has anyone thought about changing how we schedule maintenance calls?"

versus

"I think we should move maintenance calls to Tuesday and Wednesday mornings."

The first one hands the work back to someone else. The second one owns it. You don't need every idea in the room to be right. You need people willing to put one on the table instead of just naming a problem and waiting.

Rule #4: There Are No Mistakes

In improv, if your partner drops a line, you don't stop the scene to point it out. You use it. The mistake becomes the next beat.

I don't think contractors are afraid of risk. You buy trucks. You hire people. You finance equipment. You bet payroll every Friday. That's not risk-averse.

What I think is closer to true: you've been pitched enough "game-changing" software and marketing schemes to last a lifetime, and you've earned the right to be skeptical. There's a difference between being cautious and being burned.

The downside is that scar tissue can make every new idea look like the last bad one. The shops I've seen improve the fastest aren't the ones that never try anything new. They're the ones that try something, watch it flop the first time, fix what didn't work, and run it again instead of writing the whole idea off.

Customers don't care whether Plan A failed. They care whether you found Plan B.

The Takeaway

The best contractors already improvise every day. A call goes sideways, a part doesn't show up, a homeowner changes their mind mid-job, and the work still gets done somehow.

The question isn't whether your team will improvise. They already do, every single day, whether you're paying attention or not.

The best shops don't eliminate surprises.

They build teams that know what to do when surprises show up.

That's improv.

And it turns out it's also good management.

The best shops don't avoid improv.

They get really good at it.