The Sustainist: June 2017

I must admit that I was distracted for about 5 minutes yesterday when the president of the United States tweeted an offensive (in any standard) message for the world to read. I then realized that there is a pattern here – whenever the U.S. government is dealing something very important such as the healthcare bill which would affect millions of people’s wellbeing, we, the public, and the so-called liberal media, would be served a distraction to take our attention away from what really matters.

What really matters is not what the president tweets on social media. What really matters is that the people of this nation are so polarized (living in different worlds) that we would find people defending and normalizing this act – he’s just fighting back. What really matters is that we, the diverse people of the U.S., need to find ways to connect and build trusting relationships through which we can understand each other’s experiences, perspectives and passions without hurting each other or forcing an agreement on everything.

I want to continue what I started last week, a series of posts focusing on what really matters. If we want to reverse the polarizations among the people of this nation, we have to consciously and intentionally help people to reach across the divide and courageously engage each other in civil dialogue to find at least some common ground and to achieve mutual understanding of our differences.

Before the 2016 election, a friend of mine had noticed the sign on his next-door neighbor’s front yard supporting the “other” candidate. He did not know this neighbor well except for the safe “good mornings” and “nice weather” talks. He speculated that she was a nice person. But like most of us, he had avoided having any kind of political conversation with her during this time. After the election, he realized that he did not know anyone who had voted the other way and decided to do something about it beginning with his neighbor. So the next morning, after saying “good morning,” he proposed to his neighbor that they should have tea or coffee and he wanted to understand her perspective in how she voted. To his surprise, she said yes.

That’s how we begin; one person at a time. I challenge all my readers to find the courage to invite at least one person who had a different political view for a one-on-one respectful conversation this week. Here are some helpful steps:

Do Your Homework: Take some time to do some reflection on your experience of why you voted the way you did (or if you didn’t vote, why?) and what impact did the last election have on you personally, on your family, on your work, on your friends, on your community, etc. Pay attention to your “hot buttons.” What would get you off into a defensive, angry, and combative mode? Mentally prepare yourself on how to get yourself back on to a curious place for dialogue. Formulate the reflections into “I” statements. This way, you are claiming your own experience when you share while avoiding making judgment on the other, which would shut down communication. Try completing these sentences:
1. I voted for _____________ because I _____________
2. When I realized that Donald Trump has been elected president, I _____________________
3. With President Donald Trump in office, my life ________________ , my family _______________, my friends ______________, my work ___________________, and my community _____________.

Write a Gracious Invitation, here is a sample:

I know we have very different political viewpoints. However, I would like to invite you to ______ (coffee or lunch) to have a real conversation for half an hour about our experiences in this very divided time of our nation. I will listen to your experience and perspective. I will not argue or try to convince you of my position. I would invite you to do the same if you agree to share. I want to do this because I believe we both love this country, and as neighbors (or co-workers, classmates, family, friends), we can at least understand each other and maybe even find some common ground to work together for the good of our ______ (community, company, family, etc.).

Set Parameters and Ground-rules: Before you start the conversation at the agreed upon time and place, you need to take the responsibility to set down some guidelines for conversation. If it is appropriate, you can bring the bookmarks with the Respectful Communication Guidelines provided by the Kaleidoscope Institute and walk through the guidelines with your conversation partner. For a conversational way to setting some helpful ground-rules, try this:
1. I would like us to have an honest, thoughtful conversation and not a debate about who is right or wrong, because I really want to understand your experience, and I hope you would want to understand mine as well.
2. Can we agree to share our own experiences and try not to defend anyone else or a whole party?
3. Can we agree not to be dismissive of each other’s experiences? Can we not judge, blame and shame each other?
4. Can we not interrupt each other and let each other finish our thoughts before responding?
5. Can we agree to hang in there even when don’t quite understand each other’s perspective yet and try to ask clarifying questions of each other?

(Note: if your conversation partner cannot agree to some kind of guidelines for communication, walk away.)

Start with insightful questions: Don’t begin the conversation by asking right-wrong, good-bad questions. Start with information-seeking questions that assist both of you in sharing your interests, values and beliefs. Try these:
1. What is most important to you in your political beliefs?
2. What are the hopes, concerns and values that are at the heart of your beliefs?
3. What life experiences have led you to believe the things you do?

(Once you are able to share the values and beliefs, you can go into more specific questions about the election.)

1. How did your values and beliefs lead you to vote the way you did at this election?
2. What are the strengths and gifts of your candidate? What are his or her weaknesses?
3. Now that our new president and his administration are in office, what are your hopes for the coming years?
4. What are your concerns and fears for the coming years?
5. In what ways can we stay friends and even support each other in the midst of our differences in the coming years?
Feedback and Stay Curious: When the conversation gets sidetracked or when you feel stuck and want to strike back or when you just don’t get it, stop, take a deep breath and refocus by asking yourself: Am I really listening? Am I only listening to what I want to hear and looking for faults from the other? Try to put yourself back in that “curious” place again and remind yourself that the purpose of this conversation is for you not to agree but to understand the other. Let your conversation partner know that you are trying to understand by giving feedback and asking clarifying questions. Try these:
1. Let me make sure I understand what you mean. You are saying that this is important to you because _____. Is that right?”
2. (Example of clarifying questions) How did you come to believe that? Was there an experience that led you to believe that? Why is that really important to you?

(I found this helpful chart from a piece called “Reaching the Red/Blue Divide” presented by Essential Partners.)

Don't	Do
Tell them they are wrong	Ask them what value led them there
Ask how they could ever believe something	Ask when that belief first started for them
Interrupt people	Give a moment to make sure they are done
Instead of “yeah, but, what about…”	“Huh, interesting, tell me more…”
Try to assume you know their motives	Ask about their goals and hopes
Blame them for your anger or frustration	Explain your frustration and take responsibility for it

Thank your Conversation Partner: When the conversation comes to a natural stopping place, share what you've learned from this conversation and invite your conversation partner to do the same. Then thank the other for willing to enter into a truthful conversation with you. If appropriate, pray together and set another time to further the conversation.

I know this seems like a lot of work, but it is worth the time and energy if we really want to build bridges across our differences. If 1,000 of you build a little bridge with 1,000 people on the other side, the bridge would get a little wider and stronger. If 2,000 people had a good experience and decided to reach out to another 2,000 people with a similar process, we double the strength of our bridge, and so on. But it requires that every one of these conversations be constructive and regenerative and that means we need to be courageous and disciplined in our invitation and facilitation of these dialogues.

The next installment of What Really Matters will be on how to invite people from different political groups to a gracious space for courageous dialogue.

Eric H. F. Law
The Kaleidoscope Institute
For competent leadership in a diverse changing world
www.kscopeinstitute.org

I have been silent for awhile because I was not sure what to write that would help my readers find their footing in this uncertain time in the United States. I wasn’t sure because I felt I was losing ground on which I was standing. Almost every day, something gets reported in the news and social media that causes me to feel more paralyzed, because there seems to be very little that I can do to affect the direction that the country is heading.

To my surprise, when the results of the special election in Georgia’s 6^th District came in this past Tuesday, something came into focus for me. While the Democratic and the Republican parties are spinning over this win/loss and its implications, etc., my attention was drawn to the amount of money spent on this election—which was called the most expensive—topping $50 million in overall spending. I was disturbed by where all the money went! An election-eve analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows that roughly $42 million had been spent or reserved for TV and radio ads in the race – including about $27 million since the first-round of voting in April. I was getting daily email requests to ask for donation to campaign in Georgia (I live in California) and I resisted giving precisely because I didn’t want my money to go to non-effective negative TV and radio ads. I feel sorry for the residents of the 6^th District for having to endure $42 million worth of TV and Radio ads in such a short period of time. Another organization estimated that the total cost came closer to $60 million.

So $60 million later, the winner won with 51.9% of the votes. Conclusion: the district is divided. What becomes clear for me is that our country is more polarized than I remembered. People don’t have civil conversations with each other. We don’t listen to the same radio, watch the same news programs, or share a diverse network of friends. Pumping all that money into TV and radio ads has very little real impact, because the different groups live in their own “Towers of Babel.” The towers are getting taller and taller and we are getting further apart from each other. Add fear to this situation, and each group gets manipulated to do what the powerful fear-exploiters want them to do, including supporting and voting for policies that are actually bad for the people but good for the fear-exploiters. (I’ll let you decide who the fear-exploiters are.)

I started imagining what we could do with $60 million to foster wellness in the 6^th District instead of spending it on the binary, us/them, win/loss, and polarizing ads. I love numbers; so I started doing some number crunching. There is an estimate of 691,975 residents in the district. Subtract the children under 18 (about 25%), we have 518,981 eligible voters in the district. Only 259,488 people voted on Tuesday. That means 259,493 people didn't vote! How about spending $60 million to connect with the half of the non-voting voters by listening to what their needs and concerns are, and to educate them about being good citizens of the U.S., which includes exercising their right and privilege to vote. That’s investing about $231 per person.

Here is what else you can do with $60 million to foster wellness in the district:

Pay a year of mortgage payments for 10,000 households in exchange for coming to neighborhood financial wellness programs.
Pay a year of health insurance for 10,000 people in exchange for coming to neighborhood wellness programs.
Train and dispatch 6,000 dialogue facilitators (KI can do the training) to set up civic and civil dialogue groups in 3,000 neighborhoods bringing together democrats, republicans, independents, and to-be voters to achieve mutual understanding.
Set up 6,000 Citizen Education programs ($10,000 per site) in high school and college in the district to get the newest voters to vote.
Create 1,000 jobs with good benefits. This should put a little dent in the unemployment rate which is at about 5.3%
Create a venture capture fund to start 200 new small businesses ($300,000 per business)

As I was being creative about what we could do with this enormous amount of money that was wasted in creating more polarization, it becomes clear to me that we need to invest our time, money, and talent in creating civil dialogue, citizen education, and financial and social wellness. I am sure if candidates from any political party are successful in investing their resources to foster wellness in their districts and states, they will get the necessary votes needed to put them in offices to continue to serve the people.

What are you going to do to focus on what really matters in your neighborhood community? How would you help your local politicians and parties to invest their resources in the people of your districts to foster social, physical and economic wellness? Building the currency of wellness will ultimately pay off on election day.

Eric H. F. Law
The Kaleidoscope Institute
For competent leadership in a diverse changing world
www.kscopeinstitute.org