“I find that in real life, just as in this story, it is possible for everybody to be right in situations where it is assumed only one can be right.”
One of my favorite stories is about a courtroom hearing in which the plaintiff lays out his accusations and the judge replies “you are right!” The horrified defendant replies, wait a minute your honor, this is what really happened… When the defendant is finished the judge replies, “you are right!” At which point a bystander says, “wait a minute your honor; they can’t both be right.” The judge replies “you are right!”
Bernie Roth speaking at d.school Pitch Night event
I find that in real life, just as in this story, it is possible for everybody to be right in situations where it is assumed only one can be right. Often, if I am given two seemingly contradictory alternatives: such as technology is good, and technology is bad. I stand with AND, i.e., it is both good and bad. Recently, at a retreat, the d.school staff did an exercise where people were asked to show their preference between scenario A and scenario B, by moving from the center of the room to the side of the room which represented the one alternative they most agreed with. There were 6 different sets of choices, and I found myself almost completely alone in the center of the room for each choice. When a friend asked where I stood, I replied, “I am with AND.”
Interestingly, about one month after we did this exercise, I asked the participants to tell me what the issues were that they voted on. Most people did not recall any of the issues, a few recalled one of the 6 issues. Everybody recalled that Bernie was with AND. Despite the impact my position made, I might be accused of being wishy-washy, being afraid to make a choice or take a side. Clearly a weak person surrounded by a world of strong-willed people who know where they stand on the big issues. Does being at AND denote weakness or fuzziness?
“AND speaks to one of the primary skills in design thinking and in life: being comfortable with ambiguity. AND opens one’s life to possibilities that do not exist if one is firmly entrenched on only one side of the room.”
In improv there is the maxim that “yes and” is the productive response to any offer, while “no but” is the destructive response. Just as being at AND works in improv, and it made a big impression on my d.school colleagues, it works in teaching and learning. AND speaks to one of the primary skills in design thinking and in life: being comfortable with ambiguity. AND opens one’s life to possibilities that do not exist if one is firmly entrenched on only one side of the room. It takes courage to move to the other side of the room, however once you’ve moved you are again stuck in a corner. With AND you are free to learn and grow in all directions.
Education used to be largely stuck in the dogma of right or wrong. Now there is a lot more AND. This carries over to the rest of life. With AND, and the possibility of everybody being right, we’ve moved into a space where teams, families and individuals can be more nurtured in their interactions in school, at work and at home.