Yes, And

There are two ways to view problems - or, in socially correct lingo, challenges. One way could be called "Yeah, but." The alternative way is "Yes, and." We all know about the first alternative. I learned about the second one during an Improv class I took nearly 5 years ago.

The class I took was offered through the local community college. It was called Improv for Theater and Life. It was the Life part that drew me in. At the time I was working as a substitute staff assistant in public schools as well as in customer service in the library system. Talk about needing improv skills; every work day I was flying by the seat of my pants, as the saying goes.

One of my favorite exercises was called Yes And. The first person makes a statement or starts a story. The next person picks up the thread with "Yes, and," then continues the train of thought. Often the trains went speeding off in strange & unpredictably wonderful directions. That was the point: when you say yes, results may be unpredictable but chances are, they'll be better than anything that would come up if you'd urped up an automatic no.

Like most WASP kids in the 1970s I grew up in a community culture where caution and security were valued over adventure and exploration. Boys were told to major in Business if they were college-bound or learn auto mechanics if they weren't . We girls - you knew this was coming - were advised to get a guy to agree to marry us, whether he was blue-collar (fawn over his tricked-out car) or white-collar (pretend to be fascinated by his intellectual pronouncements). I felt like a terrible fake when I used this advice on dates. I was saying no not only to my real self but also to the real guys I was with.

I'm sure there were good reasons for cultivating security at all costs, even as there are good reasons why many of us still choose certainty over adventure and growth today. Yeah But thrives during hard economic times. We're all cautioned against giving up the Sure Thing job for the uncertain business venture, investing too much time in artistic projects or taking any vacation time (forget the Great European Adventure!) lest the boss notice our lack of dedication.

However, looking back, I can see that if I'd chosen roads that were less safe but felt more true to myself, I might actually have gotten farther down my chosen path, whatever that path may have turned out to be. Many of the now-acknowledged geniuses of our time such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates didn't become legends by playing it safe. As far as I can tell, no one ever achieved ground-breaking success by following the path dictated by the conventional wisdom of the moment.

The spirit of Yes And grabbed me because it embraces a multitude of possibilities, including seemingly conflicting options, rather than automatically excluding anything that doesn't fall within our personal range of experience. Only by inviting in conflict and examining the unknown can we find possible solutions to seemingly intractable dilemmas. As the saying attributed to Einstein goes, you can't solve problems by using the thinking that created them.

I still have to remind myself to slip into Yes And mode when I'm stymied by a problem or discouraged by my lack of progress on a project. However, when Yeah But wraps its arms around my neck and cuts off my breath, it's amazing how quickly I remember.