Jill Vialet is a successful social entrepreneur who believes in the power of play to bring out the best in all of us. Jill founded her first nonprofit when she was only 23 and has been building successful organizations ever since. In 1996, she launched Playworks, a leading national nonprofit enabling the power of safe, fun, and healthy play at schools across the United States.
Jill’s TEDMED talk about the power of play has been viewed over 25,000 times. She recently authored a new book on play titled Why Play Works: Big Changes Start Small. She has received numerous honors, including being selected as an Ashoka Fellow in 2004, as well as being named to the Forbes Impact 30, being honored as one of the 30 leading social entrepreneurs worldwide in 2011.
1) In your TED Talk The Power of Play, one of your closing statements is, “Play matters, because people matter.” Let’s start by unpacking your meaning behind this assertion.
Taking a couple of steps back first, when COVID hit, Playworks had a staff of over 500 people and a big budget that was based a lot on schools paying fees. With the pandemic, everything came to a screeching halt. Happily, we got assistance from the PPP program, which made it possible for us to keep staff employed. But then, navigating the 2020 school year was a bit like reading tea leaves; there was just no way to know exactly how schools were going to respond and what the demand would be.
We reduced staff to about 210. As the CEO, I included myself in those layoffs. I say all this because I think the lesson for me after leading Playworks for 25 years, and also dealing with the past 18 months, is how much people matter, and how much care matters. How much showing up and being willing to express uncertainty, vulnerability, and fear matters. It makes all the difference between navigating a situation that’s so fundamentally ambiguous or not navigating it.
I’ve just had 18 months making sense of a career of 25 years building Playworks. I reflected on all the humans who came along—who really took on the work and owned the vision with me—people who were willing to jump into the most ridiculous situations. To that end, play always felt like the bridge that enabled us to not lose sight of why we were doing what we were doing. Play put people at the center of whatever the challenge was we were addressing.
It’s an unlikely response when things are really scary and serious to turn to play—not in a disrespectful way, but in an embracing way—how do you improvisationally and collectively respond to challenges in a way that keeps the understanding that people matter? For me, play is the way we do that.
2) In your new book Why Play Works: Big Changes Start Small, you mention that play has the power to improve our outlook and bring out the best in us. To the adult skeptic, what is some of the proof that play is important even in adulthood?
There is plenty of proof in terms of data around the impact about having humans exposed to play: it increases our sense of trust and safety, it increases our creativity, our flexibility, our ability to improvise, and our ability to problem-solve. At Playworks, we have done all sorts of randomized control trials—we have enough data to knock a building down.
Beyond the research, I’m always quick with grownups to get them playing in ways that don’t make them feel silly or childish. Play is a pretty broad term of any activity undertaken for no apparent purpose. The key for me to convincing grownups about the importance of play is to remind them of their own experiences, to create opportunities for them to play themselves. To actually get them present with kids who are in the act of playing because when you see it, it’s just much more tangible and real than any grown-up babbling on about play’s importance.
3) There is a distinction between the viewpoint of looking at play as escapism (i.e., escape from purpose) versus viewing play as an opportunity for vitality (i.e., pleasure derived from arousal). What is mindset’s role as we think about play?
Purpose is such a funny concept. I think that one of the key things is that play is an activity that doesn’t necessarily have an apparent purpose. Which doesn’t mean necessarily the wholesale absence of a purpose. I think this is a funny moment in our collective societal lives, collectively contemplating purpose. If the pandemic has done nothing, it’s reminded us of the fundamental hubris of thinking that we have any kind of control of the world around us.
In general, from a mindset perspective, I’m always a little more focused on intention and aspiration than I am on purpose. From the perspective of play, having intention tends to serve us better in being open to the serendipity of things that will happen—things we cannot anticipate. With purpose, you can get a little like, “oh, I’m going to design A, I’m going to build B. I’m going to navigate my career in a way that I arrive at C.” My experience is that play reminds us to (of course) have a sense of where you’re going, but also don’t miss the opportunities to walk through completely bizarre, open doors that lead you in a direction you didn’t anticipate. Because often those side trips are what make life the most rewarding.
4) In both your TED Talk and upcoming book, you tell the story of Coach Kaitlyn and a child named Adonis. Adonis proves to be a disruptive force within a team dynamic, but Coach Kaitlyn creates an opportunity to make a positive impact by approaching the situation with empathy. What are some considerations for advocates like us who want to balance these opportunities for growth with maintaining an inviting and inclusive group dynamic, so play and fun are accessible to all?
The story is about a 10-year-old boy. That’s important not to overlook, context is everything. Coach Kaitlyn, as the Playworks coach at that school, had extraordinary latitude to absorb disruptive behaviors, redirect, and bring a certain level of patience. My intent in telling the story is to point out that we don’t actually have a lot of situations set up that afford that kind of latitude for kids. Schools have become these really intense places where people in most roles are being held accountable to a very narrow set of standards. This intensity doesn’t allow for fluidity and ease. It causes me great concern in this moment, when we are reopening schools.
In the workplace, a lot of people are coming back from experiencing trauma. It’s clear that some of us have somewhat lost some of our basic social skills navigating simple things, like standing in line or being on a plane.
This story didn’t happen during the pandemic—it was a couple of years ago. I fly Southwest regularly and on most of their planes there’s a special row with only two seats—the “loveseats.” These two seats are right by the emergency exit with more leg room. A lot of airlines now charge extra for extra leg room, but on Southwest it is first come, first serve. I was putting my bag up to sit in one of the loveseats, and this guy swoops in to take the seat. The steward was right there too, looking at me wondering what am I going to do? So I said, “Hey, I was going to sit there.” And the guy shakes his head and responds, “Sorry.” I paused for a second, considering my options and then I heard myself anounce, “Okay, rock, paper, scissors,” and I put out my hand to play. At this point, the guy is totally surprised and he doesn’t initially respond, so I explain, “We’re going to play rock, paper, scissors to see who gets the seat.” I came at him super exuberantly— and by now all these people are watching, and while the guy is still dumbfounded, he doesn’t really have a choice. So he stands up and we play. And of course I win, so he gets his bag and moves into the seat further back. My favorite part was that the steward came up afterwards and announced, “I am bringing you free drinks the entire flight.”
With all the things going on right now—from making sure that the most vulnerable among us feel safe toour moment of racial reckoning in America, and the need to have other hard conversations—I think dialogue is easier when you have some fundamental trust and rapport. Maybe it’s not for everybody, but I have found play so effective. Incorporating little playful moments in a very respectful, human way grounds most of us in our shared humanity.
5) If someone wants to increase the playfulness in their life starting today—and potentially those around them—what is a good tactic or exercise they experiment with to do just that?
Definitely going to go with rock, paper, scissors. I think rock, paper, scissors is so underemployed. It’s not for solving everything, for example, something deeply offensive that deserves attention and real discourse. But for the 97.3% of life’s challenges that are largely inconsequential: rock, paper, scissors is awesome! It brings the tension down, it answers the question at hand, and no one loses face.
