In this solo episode of Yes, And with Avish Parashar, I’m diving deeper into a key theme from my conversation with DEI expert Jess Pettitt: stepping into uncertainty. I’ll explain how embracing uncertainty—not only in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work but in life—can lead to creativity, growth, and positive change.
I also share an improv game I use, called Gibberish Translation, to demonstrate how letting go of preconceived ideas and being willing to adapt can unlock new possibilities. I’ll talk about why hearing all voices, letting go of personal biases, and taking imperfect steps are crucial to creating a more inclusive workplace and life.
This episode challenges you to rethink how you approach change, whether in DEI, leadership, or personal growth. I’ll break down practical ways to implement these concepts by shifting from a "Yes, but" mindset to "Yes, and," and why this shift is so important for embracing change and creating more inclusive environments.
Key Takeaways:
Embrace Uncertainty: Stepping into uncertainty allows creativity to flow and helps you adapt in the moment, leading to more meaningful change.
Hear All Voices: Actively listen to the perspectives of those you may not agree with, especially those in marginalized groups, to ensure inclusivity.
Let Go of Preconceived Ideas: To create real change, you must be willing to challenge your assumptions and approach situations with an open mind.
Take Imperfect Steps: Change doesn’t happen overnight. Start with imperfect action, learn from it, and adjust your approach as needed.
Framework for DEI: Use the principles of "Yes, And" to implement Jess Pettitt's approach to DEI, making room for edits and creating a culture of inclusivity.
Resources Mentioned:
Jess Pettitt's Book: Almost Doing Good
Jess Pettitt's Book Club: Free 4-week book discussion starting December 6th: https://bit.ly/3XIQkhm
Un-Edited Transcript
Welcome to Yes And, the podcast where we explore the powerful idea of saying yes and instead of yes, but, and how you can use it in your career, your business, and your life. I'm your host, Avish Parashar, and this is yes, and. Hello, my friend, and welcome back to another solo episode of yes and with Avish Parshad. Today, I am going to be following up from my terrific interview last week with Jess Pettit, who if you do not listen to that episode, you gotta go listen to it. Had a great conversation with Jess.
She is a fantastic DEI speaker. She talks, about stuff that people don't generally like to talk about, but it is so critically important, not just from a societal level in terms of being inclusive and understanding and compassion to others, but from a business perspective, because, as the world changes, a lot of organizations are find themselves getting into trouble, frankly, because they handle some of these issues poorly. And she's got such a amazing insight into these things and perspective, but she's also has a background as a stand up comedian. So she approaches these topics with humor, and humor is kind of her way in. It gets it under the radar, below defenses. But she talks about tough things and tells it straight, and we had a great talk. And as I was following up on that, I started to think about, alright.
Number 1, a lot of people listen to that. You should heard that and be on board and be like, yes. I gotta do almost do good as the top of the talk, right, or do good enough now, because that's one of her big premises, which I love because it's so improv comediesque, which is that you're not gonna have it all figured out. You're not gonna be perfect. But it's better to do a little good and do good enough now, but to not do anything. So get started and keep improving as you go. So number 1, you might be ready to do that, but you're like, I'm not sure how.
I'm I'm a little uncertain about it. Or you might be like, you know what? I don't know because I'm not a manager. I don't have a team. I'm a solo person, so I don't know how this applies to me. So I'm not sure where to start. So I got to thinking, how can I help people get started with Jess' ideas?
And, tactically, go back and listen to the episode because she'll give you tactics. But my whole shtick with yes and is really about mindset. And as I thought about it, I was like, what makes people so reluctant to make these kind of changes? And I thought it's not just changes around diversity, equity, and inclusion, but it's really any change in life. And I talk about this in my keynotes. It's one of the big reasons I think people struggle to adapt to change and one of the reasons why people don't think they can improvise and one of the reasons people limit their own creativity is that people don't like uncertainty. And when you say yes, but, you can basically stay in your comfort zone where you feel like you have a sense of certainty and control.
Now whether you actually have certainty and control is debatable, but you feel like you have certainty and control. And when you say yes and, you have to step a little bit out of your comfort zone. You say, yes, and step it over the edge. And then, and let me take a little step in uncertainty, which is very scary. And in improv though, you learn that in the uncertainty is where the brilliance happens. And I think offstage, the same is true. That if we are going to take a step forward into being more inclusive, into improving our diversity, into building a more inclusive workplace, it's gonna require stepping into uncertainty over and over and over again.
And I think that is why so many people resist that change because they're now being forced to communicate in a new way. Here's how we've always done thing. Oh, what is this diversity, equity, inclusion? Now we gotta do something different. Well, I don't know how that's gonna go. I don't know if people are gonna respond. Let's just keep doing the way we think we've been doing them and not worry about it. Right? Or let's find a change that we're already comfortable with because it's sort of similar to what we've been doing versus the uncertainty of saying, hey.
You know what? Here are the ideas I have in my head about what to do to be more inclusive. That gives you certainty. Instead of that, say, let me talk to my people. Let me talk to the people in that population we're trying to help. And, you know, Jess has some great case studies in her in her book. You know, one of them is about, breastfeeding mothers and how an organization wanted to be more inclusive, to make breastfeeding in the workplace more acceptable and possible for new mothers.
But you know what they didn't do? They didn't talk to new mothers about it. They just kinda came with their own ideas like, oh, this will be great. We give them a little space where they can do it themselves. And this led to some problems. This led to breakdown breakdown. So by trying to remove the uncertainty, which is just staying in the realm of what you know, like, oh, well, if I was a new mom, here's what I would want.
It's like stepping to uncertainty. Take away your preconceived notions and ask the population. Hey. We're doing a focus group. We want people's input. If you are a new mom or if you're going to be a new mom or if you were a mom, what would you have liked? And take that input and be willing to step into uncertainty and say, oh, this is not something I ever thought of.
Let's explore that idea. And when you do that, it becomes so much easier to apply Jess's ideas and to do almost good enough and do good enough now because that's where all the good stuff happens. Now what I wanna do is share an example from improv comedy because as I said, it's one of the big things that hold people back from improv. They start doing an improv scene, and they have an idea. They're stuck in their head, and that totally gives them tunnel vision, and they're never willing to let go of where they want things to go. And when you are willing to let go and you step in uncertainty, it forces you to engage your creativity. It forces you to be in the moment and work with your partners, and it just opens up so many wonderful ideas.
So almost all improv games sort of use this principle. I'm gonna drop in an improv game called, the gibberish translation. It's a game I do in a lot of my keynotes, so I'm gonna drop in an audio from a keynote. The audio will include the explanation of the game. It was a fun game to play, a fun game to watch. So listen to that and I'll come back and explain what this has to do with you stepping into uncertainty in general and specifically to start building a more d e and I, workplace. I'm gonna tell this audience a story.
However, I'm gonna do it by playing a character who doesn't speak any English. In fact, I don't speak any real language at all. I only speak the improv comedy language of gibberish. No one in this room understands gibberish.
Speaker 2
I do.
Avish Parashar
Except for you. You are fluent in both gibberish and English. I am. Yes. I'm not gonna ask for evidence. So what's gonna happen is I'm gonna say a line or 2 of the story in gibberish, and then I'm gonna pause. When I pause, you translate what I just said.
And then I say the next couple lines and pause, and you translate. So every time I pause, you translate. So your goal here is you're trying to get a sense of what I'm saying from my face, my body language, my hands, my tone. If you don't, just make your best guess. That's fine. The most important thing is that you have fun, but just try to figure out what I'm saying and tell that story. And make sure the mic is nice and close there and we can hear you.
Are you ready? Yes. Here we go.
Speaker 2
I have no idea what you just said. Now I really have no
Speaker 3
idea what you just said.
Avish Parashar
Just do your best guess to tell the story and follow along. Oh, okay.
And I know whatever it is. Just just go with
Speaker 2
it. You took the basketball off the floor and threw it in the basketball hoop. When you caught the basketball, you threw it down at somebody. You felt so bad that you threw the ball at somebody, so you're trying to apologize. You don't think you should have to apologize because you shouldn't have been in it in the first place when you threw the ball at him.
Next time, I won't throw the ball at you. But you still shouldn't have been sitting there in the first place. Thank you.
Speaker 3
Alright. Let's give I'll take that mic. Hold on one second. Alright, Mark.
So thank you
Avish Parashar
very much. Here's a copy of my other book called Say Yes, Ed.
Mark, ladies and gentlemen. So that's a game Thank you. Gibberish translation, and I like to use that to demonstrate uncertainty. And it works for both parties, but I'm gonna talk about the gibberish role because that's normally the role I take when I do this in my keynotes, is what happens there is when you start in that kind of game, you, as a gibberish person, you you start telling a story, and maybe you have a little bit of an idea of where the story could go or what the story is about. And you certainly have an idea for what you're trying to set up as the initial line of the story. But then the person who's translating for you comes along and translates something completely different than what you wanted them to or what you anticipated. Now that's the nature of the game. Right? Now in that moment, as the person doing gibberish, you have two choices.
You can the first thought which a lot of people have is, oh, that's not what I was trying to say. Let me keep trying to tell that story and let me try to make my gibberish more clear so my partner will really understand where I'm trying to take this story. Now, of course, that doesn't work. So the other person tries to translate something still not online with your story. And now what happens is you're going in 2 different directions. You get this tunnel vision trying to tell this one story of gibberish while your partner is trying to translate something completely different. And when you do that, you end up working against the other person.
Sometimes you can almost feel tension and conflict there. It ends up slowing down. It ends up not being fun. And ultimately, it ends up being less creative and less successful for both the audience and the performers. And frankly, this can happen, with both the gibberish and the non gibberish. I've done it where I could tell my partner really had an idea in their head, and they were not willing to be in the moment and pay attention to my gibberish. And they just kept translating stuff that sort of had nothing to do with what I was trying to convey.
And I don't mean in that fun way, like, oh, they misinterpreted. I mean, I would do things with my body and my face and this and that where they didn't incorporate any of that. So it works both ways when I'm speaking mostly about the gibberish person. Now the other option as a gibberish person is when the person who's translating for you translate something different than you had tried to get across, you then say, okay. I'm gonna let my idea go, and I'm gonna make my next couple sentences of the story build off of whatever they set up in their English. Now when I do that, I am stepping into uncertainty because whatever they translated, I had no idea of where to go. It's nothing I did.
So I'm stepping into something completely new. And if my partner is doing that as well, every time they're stepping into come something completely new, and when both partners are willing to let go of their original idea, build off of their partner, and step into uncertainty, that's where the beautiful improvisation happens.
That's when it gets funny. That's what unlocks creativity. That's what makes you collaborate. It feels good to perform with someone who's doing that. And ultimately, it makes it fun and funny and successful, both for the audience and the performers. It's when you are willing to step into uncertainty that the brilliance happens. Now offstage, the same is true.
In general, you're gonna have many situations in your life, in your work, in your day, where you'll have a plan. You'll have something set up for how things are gonna go, or you'll have a conversation in your mind you're about to have with someone, and you'll have run it over and over in your head for how it's gonna go. And invariably, you will start implementing that plan or having that conversation or going through your day, and you'll get an unexpected result. Something will happen where your agenda for the day will be thrown off, or this project you started to implement you thought people would love, they're giving you feedback and input on. Or you go to have this conversation with this person, and instead of responding positively like you thought they would, they are getting defensive. You're like, wait.
What's going on? Now in those cases, the temptation is to stick to your original plan.
I had a plan. I like my plan. I feel comfortable with it. Now I'm not saying you immediately throw away the plan, but if it's clear the plan can no longer work or is not working like in the case of a conversation, the willingness to let it go and to step into uncertainty to say, oh, here's what I thought this was gonna happen. It's not, so let's change it. The willingness to reorganize your day and say, oh, well, things are off now. Let me reorganize what I was gonna do today.
Or to look at your project you were so proud of and say, oh, well, I'm getting feedback. Let me pause for a minute and consider this feedback and and see what new stuff I can listen to. Or to let go of your conversation plan that you would run-in your head and say, oh, they're getting defensive now. I wasn't anticipating that. Let me just be in the moment and let go of any preconceived plan I have, step into uncertainty, and just listen to what they have to say. Now that can be scary, but when you do that, it makes you more present, and it opens up that creativity and so much good stuff can happen. Now specifically, when it comes to the stuff Jess talked about, I think this is a huge piece of it.
I think that for so many people, DNI is such a new world. It's so uncertain because it forces you to have a completely different perspective. Right? I mean, if if you didn't need a new perspective, you wouldn't have these issues, and your managers wouldn't have these issues, and your employees wouldn't have these issues. The problem is that we are born and raised for however many years, and we develop these notions and these ideas about how the world works, how people work, what is acceptable. And then we also know deep down inside that we are you know, for the most part, I don't know who's listening, but I think almost everyone I encounter, deep down inside is a good, well meaning person. They don't want anyone to feel excluded.
They don't want to hurt anyone. They want everyone to have a fair shake at it. But what happens is that we then get defensive because we have this realm of what we know, and we're like, well, I'm not noninclusive. Right? I am supportive of all people, and I don't wanna have to change what I'm doing just because they're uncomfortable. Like, I'm not doing anything wrong, and you're right. You're probably not doing anything wrong.
But if you're willing to let that go and just step into uncertainty and open up your mind to someone else's perspective, which might be completely different, and you have to be willing to say yes and ideas that maybe you would disagree with. It is amazing the things you can learn, and it all starts by saying yes and and stepping into uncertainty. So here's a few quick ways you can specifically I this I apply this idea of stepping into uncertainty and saying yes and to some of the topics, I talked about with Jess last week. Number 1, let go of preconceived ideas. This is the whole thing. We have preconceived ideas. It keeps us safe.
It makes us comfortable. Let go of them. Step into uncertainty. Step into the possibility that maybe you're wrong. Maybe you don't know it all. And maybe even if you're not doing anything wrong, you're there's a way you can do it a little bit better. So let go of your preconceived ideas.
Number 2, hear all voices. It is so easy to pay attention to the voices that reinforce what we already know and believe. It's like, well, here's how I think we should do it. And then 5 people like, yes. That is correct. I agree. That's the way we should do it.
And it's so easy to pay attention to those not realizing that the minority, which maybe includes the population you're trying to help, are not being heard. So we need to open our minds and hear all voices, which means, again, letting go of preconceived ideas, letting go of the things we feel we are so certain about, and be willing to step into the uncertainty of being like, well, this is a completely different perspective. Let me think about that. Letting go of personal biases. I mean, I've read a few books on psychology, some great ones, and we all have biases. Right? And this is not about prejudice or racism.
It's just biases and heuristics are ways our mind processes the world. And if we didn't have those, life would be overwhelming. If we couldn't immediately make subconscious decisions about things, if we had to consciously process everything all the time, it'd be overwhelming. So we've got biases. Right? And in my conversation with Jess to talk about this great idea I got from her, which you gotta go listen to, which is about making room for edits, which is like, yeah. We're gonna have preconceived notions.
We have biases. That doesn't mean they're right, but also doesn't mean we're wrong for having them. Right? We all got them. Accept the fact that you've got them, but then make room for edits.
Say, you know what? This was based on my bias.
Let me let go of that. And now be in the moment. This might force me to do something completely different, but step into uncertainty. Let go of your bias, and see what happens. And finally, take imperfect steps. Right? This is the heart of Jess' work with her books Good Enough Now and Almost Doing Good.
It's about being willing to take imperfect action. And, again, one of the reasons we don't take imperfect action is because of uncertainty. It's that, well, if I do this action, it's not perfect. I have no guarantee about how things are gonna go. I don't know what's gonna happen, so I'm safer not doing anything. And that is how progress never gets done. You have to be willing to take imperfect action, being uncertain of what the result will be, and then be in the moment, and listen and pay attention so that you can adjust and then make the next step.
And then see what happens, listen and pay attention, adjust, make the next step, repeat, repeat, and repeat. So if you do those things, if you shift your default mindset from yes, but to yes, and, if you use that to step into uncertainty, in general, when it comes to dealing with change, to dealing with interruptions, to dealing with unexpected responses,
Speaker 3
and specifically to improving the equity and
Avish Parashar
inclusion in your life, unexpected responses, and specifically to improving the equity and inclusion in your life, in your team, and in the culture. You'll be amazed at how you can start doing good enough now and start applying some of those great ideas that Jess was talking about. So if you have not yet listened to the episode, the interview with Jess Pettit, please go back and do so. It's an awesome interview. Great insight. Go check out her book, Almost Doing Good. If you're listening to this now, at the time this is scheduled to release, Jess is offering a free book club to discuss the ideas in the book.
It starts December 6th, which might be just after this episode drops, or by right before this episode drops, but it goes on for, like, 4 weeks. There's a link I'll put in the show notes.
You can go sign up for it. It's free. It's a chance to connect with Jess directly and dig deeper into the ideas from the book. If you're like, I like this idea, but I'm not sure how to apply it, then she will directly help you. It's an awesome free resource. Go check it out. So thank you for listening.
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That goes a long way to helping others find this show and to helping it rise in the algorithm. And if you know, anyone in HR, any manager, any executive who could maybe use this, maybe they mentioned how they're having a d e and I issue or it's a initiative for their company, send them a link to this episode, and send them a link to the episode with Jess. They could use it. And even if they're not, it's not like you're telling anyone how to correct their behavior. So it might just be something they're interested. Be sure to share it with them. So thank you for listening, and, be sure to subscribe and join us next week when I'll feature an interview with another awesome expert and help you live a more yes and life.