Extreme opinion seems to be the norm. How many times have you consciously avoided a conversation about social or political views? “Remaking the Space Between Us” author Dr. Diana McLain Smith shares her insights with Andrea about how to start the conversation in an environment when toxic polarization is standard.
DIANA SMITH
Book: “Remaking the Space Between Us: How Citizens Can Work Together to Build a Better Future For Us All“ – https://amzn.to/4hIM1uwArticle: Diana Smith & Amy Edmondson “Too Hot to Handle: How to Manage Relationship Conflict”.California Management Review – https://www.iths.org/wp-content/uploads/Too-Hot-to-Handle.pdfUniversity of Toronto Rotman magazine – https://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/news-events-and-ideas/rotman-management-magazine/back-issues/2008/fall-2008—the-future-of-capital-/Diana’s 3 Recos:Podcast: “The Bullwark”, Sarah Longwell – https://podcast.thebulwark.com/hosts/sarah-longwellBook: “And There was Light” John Meacham – https://amzn.to/3YIImnRDocumentary. “I Am Not Your Negro” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5804038/
DIANA SMITH’S RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:
“Ask: Tap Into the Hidden Wisdom of People Around You for Unexpected Breakthroughs In Leadership and Life” Jeff -Wetzler – https://amzn.to/3CnOGtuSharon Says So (Instagram) – https://www.instagram.com/sharonsaysso/?hl=enSolutions Journalism Network – https://www.solutionsjournalism.org/Reuters – https://www.reuters.com/More in Common – https://www.moreincommon.com/Listen First Project – https://www.listenfirstproject.org/One Small Step – https://onesmallstep.com/Starts With Us – https://startswith.us/CONNECT WITH ANDREA & TALK ABOUT TALK
Website: TalkAboutTalk.comCommunication Coaching Newsletter: https://talkabouttalk.com/newsletterLinkedIn Andrea: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawojnicki/LinkedIn TalkAboutTalk: https://www.linkedin.com/company/talkabouttalk/YouTube Channel: @talkabouttalkyoutubeMeet Dr. Diana McLain Smith. I’ve interviewed a lot of high IQ folks here at the talk about talk podcast. But I have to say, Diana is off the charts. I met Diana when Amy Edmondson recommended that I read Diana’s book, entitled “Re-Making the Space Between Us.” This book is chalk full of relevant history, more current stories, and incredible insight.
In the next 45 minutes, you’re going to hear my conversation with Diana Smith, and my summary of what we can do to help us re-make the space between us.
Welcome to Talk about Talk podcast episode #176
“Talking Extremes – Remaking the space between us with Diana Smith.”
My interview with Diana Smith was recorded just before the US presidential election. We decided to wait until after the election to share these insights with you. As November 5 came and went, Diana Smith’s insights, and our conversation were top of mine for me. The next day on November 6, I flew from my home in Toronto to attend a women’s leadership conference in Boston, Massachusetts. Yes, many of my friends said that I was crazy to go to the US. Anyway, when I was at the airport waiting for my flight to board, I started a conversation with a complete stranger. Interesting how this often happens when we’re traveling, doesn’t it? Of course, the election came up, and we explicitly decided not to mention which side of this political divide we support. But over the course of our conversation, it became very evident …
she mentioned her son’s request that she not mention the triggering Trump word in the presence of his liberal minded girlfriend. Ah! She’s a trump supporter. Oh dear. We waded into immigration, and things got testy. I remember pausing and thinking to myself, “Andrea! You’re a communication coach! You have Diana’s advice t guide you! You can do this!” And here’s the thing. This woman was a complete stranger. We could’ve both walked away with absolutely no implications. But we kept talking. I asked her questions and she asked me questions. The conversation shifted to bodily autonomy and abortion. I remember saying “that’s interesting” when I disagreed. I also remember the tension notably diminishing as the conversation went on. Our political opinions were mostly diametrical. But we discovered we had a lot more in common, like our love of our almost adult children, and our focus on gender parity. At the end of the conversation, I put my hand on her arm and said “I really enjoyed this conversation. I hope you have a great trip. “ At once I felt relief that the conversating went the way it did, also a sense of hope.
Have you had any conversations like this lately? This episode will help you navigate these conversations.
OK – I better introduce myself. My name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki and I’m an executive communication coach. Please just call me Andrea. At Talk about Talk, I coach ambitious executives to elevate their communication skills so they can communicate with confidence and credibility. To learn more about what I do, head over to talkabouttalk.com where you can read about the coaching and the workshops that I run. Plus there are lots of free resources for you on the TAT website, including all sorts of quizzes, tips sheets, and other resources. The one that I’m most excited about is the brand new TAT archetypes quiz. It’s kind of like a personality test, but instead of evaluating you on personality traits, you can learn which of 12 professional identity archetypes resonates with you. You can find all of these resources, including the archetypes quiz, on the talk abouttalk.com website.
Alright Let’s get into this. “Talking Extremes and Remaking the space between us.”
Let me introduce Diana, then we’ll get right into the interview.
At the end, as always, I’m going to summarize with three learnings that I want to reinforce for you.
This summary will be based on insights from a paper that was co-authored by Diana Smith and Amy Edmondson in the California management review and the University of Toronto Rotman magazine. The paper is called “Too Hot to Handle: How to Manage Relationship Conflict”. In this paper, Diana and Amy outline three. Practises for discuss discussing hot topics: one is managing yourself. Two is managing the conversation. And three is managing the relationship. So I’m going to summarize my conversation with Diana by sharing insights sharing her advice in each of these three categories, managing yourself managing the conversation and managing the relationship. I love this. The power of three.
Anyway, as I’ve often said you don’t need to take notes because I do that for you. So sit back and listen and I’ll provide a helpful summary for you at the end.
Dr. Diana McLain Smith earned her masters and doctoral degrees from Harvard University. Prior to graduate school, Diana was trained as a family therapist. Today, Diana is a renowned thought leader who has led change efforts in some of America’s most iconic businesses and cutting-edge non-profits. A former partner at the Monitor Group and a former chief executive partner at New Profit, Smith developed an approach to conflict and change called Leading Through Relationships (LTR)™. Diana’s frameworks and tools are captured in dozens of articles and in her books, entitled, “The Elephant in the Room” and “Divide Or Conquer .“ Her insights and expertise have been used around the world to turn intergroup conflict into a powerful force for change.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Thank you so much, Diana, for being here today to talk to us about “Remaking the Space Between Us.”
Diana Smith: I am delighted to be here, Andrea. I really am excited. I love the questions you sent me, and I think we’re going to have a great conversation.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Me, too. So let’s get right into it. I know from, you know, the outset of reading your book, and then it’s definitely confirmed in the epilogue which I just reread. I know that you feel optimistic about the future, despite all of the, if you want to say it, horrible things that are happening out there.
What is your hope for this book?
Diana Smith: Well, the hope for the book is actually that it gets in the hands of everybody, because I’m trying to correct for a bias on the part of the media. The media leads with what bleeds. And there was once a wonderful conversation that Judy Woodruff had with Roger Ailes, political operative, and he told her, “Here’s the thing about the media: you get two guys on the stage running for office. One gives you the Middle East peace plan, and the other one falls in the orchestra pit. Who do you think the media is going to cover? The orchestra.”
So I’m trying to correct for a profound bias that I think is discouraging everybody and exhausting everybody. It’s— you talk about it in your research— it’s this tendency to focus on the extremes. My hope is that I can help correct for that, so that people have enough energy to get reengaged as citizens and to start to heal the divides that have emerged over the past 50 years.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Oh, beautiful. I mean, that sounds like Utopia, right? It sounds—it’s so—it’s utopic. Perhaps it’s also really, really challenging. I mean, every essay that you wrote in your book, I was like, “Oh, and there’s that!” Oh, and there’s our implicit bias, right? Oh! And you referenced my research. So my doctoral research, which I don’t talk about a lot in my business with Talk About Talk, but my research was on word of mouth, and particularly what motivates people to share their consumption experiences—the services and the products that they’ve consumed. And not surprisingly, there’s an asymmetrical U-shaped relationship between the valence of your experience, or the story for our purposes here, right? And whether or not you’re going to talk about it. In other words, people talk about extremely satisfying or dissatisfying consumption experiences, not the mediocre ones, because there’s nothing novel about them. There’s nothing interesting about a mediocre experience. It’s those experiences on the extremes that we talk about, that we remember. And as I was reading your book, I was thinking, this is exactly the same phenomenon—like we’re being pulled to extremes, which makes it very difficult to remake the space between us, right?
Diana Smith: So I’m not looking for Utopia. But let’s come back to that.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Fair enough, yes.
Diana Smith: Just to come back to the question you just asked. I don’t much like mediocrity myself. Mediocre experiences. I’m sympathetic to that.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Good job.
Diana Smith: With the media, they subscribe to what I call an outrage model of news. Okay? So they’re only focused on the people who go to the restaurant and get served a crappy meal and go, “God! This was awful.” Okay.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: That’s right.
Diana Smith: But think about the people who go and they say, “Man, this is the best meal I’ve had forever.” They report on it. Right. Well, there are news outlets out there that are reporting on those “Wow! That’s great news” stories, but you don’t hear about them. It’s not part of the dominant news model, of an emergent news model. And that emergent news model is showing up in places like the Solutions Journalism Network, which I highly recommend your readers check out.
You can go there and look at their story tracker and find lots of stories that are the equivalent of a 5-star restaurant meal. Okay? And people will talk about them and exude happiness about them, and so on. The difficulty we have is that we’ve been so cultivated in the outrage model that we carry around in our heads an outrage mindset, which fits like a hand in a glove. Okay, so one of the things I’m hoping to do, partly through the book, why I wanted to get it in everybody’s hands, is I’m trying to cultivate—not only in the news, which I care about, but in people—an engaged mindset.
Which looks not just at the problem but at what people are currently doing to solve those problems by working together across divides, because, even though we differ dramatically, we do share common problems. And we actually have a lot of common goals, and more in common. A research organization has demonstrated through endless studies, and I highly recommend people check out More in Common, that suggests that we agree on more things than we disagree on. 67% of us are not in ideological extreme groups, and so those people are absolutely prepared and primed to get great stories that will motivate them to get involved.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Oh, my goodness! I don’t know where to begin with the questions here. I think one of the stories in your book that I think—I told you this before—the interview that really resonated with me was the story about the young boy whose bedroom window was broken.
Can you share that story? I think this is really kind of setting the table here.
Diana Smith: I mean, there were 3 hate crimes in a row in Billings, Montana, in the 1990s, and this was the beginning of a movement called Not in Our Town. And I found the most poignant one of those crimes to be the 6-year-old boy who put a Menorah in his window at Hanukkah, and somebody threw a rock through it.
Prior to that, African Americans attending a church were terrorized by self-proclaimed skinheads, and before that, a Native American home was vandalized—the outside of their home was painted with a Nazi insignia and the word “die.” And the first thing that happened is the Painters Union went and painted that house for free.
And when asked why, he said, “Don’t other places come to the help of their neighbors when they’re not doing well? I mean, that’s what we do in Billings.” And then white neighbors escorted the African American congregants to their church. And then perhaps most notable, the local newspaper printed a copy of the Menorah and hundreds of homes put the Menorahs in their windows.
There was a woman who I have great respect for, and she did another film recently called Repairing the World about Pittsburgh, after the Tree of Life incident, where 11 people’s lives were taken by a white nationalist. Patrice O’Neal and her colleague, Riam Miller, went to Billings, Montana, back in the 1990s after these hate crimes had occurred to see what the neighborhoods did to respond. And she did a documentary called Not in Our Town, which you can find on PBS. Even though it’s quite old, the film quality isn’t great, it’s still an incredible film.
And she showed the film when she got back to Oakland, California, where she’s from, to communities in the Bay Area. And after people came from all over—by the way, it was like law enforcement and faith leaders and educators and regular citizens, and you know, the big auditorium with lots of people there—she showed the film, and then she turned to them and she said, “So, what do you think of Billings, Montana?” And they said, “I don’t want to talk about Billings, Montana. I want to talk about our town.”
“Are we creating a sense of belonging sufficient to reduce hatred?” Because they understood that one of the reasons hatred takes root is because people are isolated and are alienated, and people don’t have a role, and they don’t have a place to belong to.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: And so…
Diana Smith: Not in Our Town is both about saying we won’t put up with this, but also about educating people about how hate takes root and helping people to become included.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Right. We all want to become part of… we have a need to join a collective or a tribe. Right? I know that was a theme in the book as well.
I’m sure this has occurred to you a million times, but it just occurred to me right now how sort of meta this is, right? We’re talking about how the media is focused on extreme messages, because that’s the news that sells.
But there may be an opportunity for us, for you—starting with you now being on this podcast and other podcasts, and with your book and everything—to use that idea of an extreme message. The downfall, if we don’t do what you’re hoping, what you’re prescribing here—is that it’s an extremely negative outcome. Is that not enough to get people’s attention? Do you know?
Diana Smith: I think it has gotten people’s attention. I think Kamala Harris’s campaign—whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican—just from an empirical point of view, I don’t think she could have sparked the enthusiasm she sparked, if it weren’t for how fed up people are with the… It’s not just extremism. This is… it’s negative. Hateful extremism.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Right? You can get…
Diana Smith: Dream, joy, love, and people solving problems. But what you’re getting here is extreme hatred, and people are tired of it. I read some article that talked about… I think it was Jumping the Shark, which was from an old TV show. The Fonz jumps the shark, and it was a metaphor for when a TV show has gone too far, and people just get fed up with it and sick of it. And so they start doing stupid things like having the Fonz jump the shark. Well, that’s what’s happening to the far right right now. Okay, it’s almost becoming a parody of itself, because people are tired of it.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Hmm, yeah, I love that. That they become a parody of themselves. That’s amazing. So back to the asymmetrical U-shaped relationship I was talking about—the extremes—but it is asymmetrical, right? Where, to your whole point, it’s the negative news that gets attention, that gets published, and then gets the attention, and then is recalled.
You know, I remember when I was studying word of mouth, there’s this sort of myth—this kind of common-sense myth—that we’ve all heard, that you know, negative word of mouth travels faster than positive word of mouth. And it was like, actually, no, it’s just that it’s recalled more. So we even recall negative messages more so than positive messages, and definitely more so than neutral messages.
Diana Smith: This is really important. And I think the people listening to you are probably saying, “Yeah, that’s right. You know, you’ve got this negative news, and we’re up against so much, what are we gonna do?”
And all it does is disempower people.
Okay? And there’s no question that for evolutionary reasons, for cognitive reasons, for social reasons, we’re all primed probably to be more responsive to negative messages as a way of defending ourselves from threat. True.
So, that’s a given. We really understand that. There are also lots of things that we, as human beings, have learned to self-discipline ourselves, because we know if we follow our instincts… I pick up the guy on the street who looks really cute… people are gonna say that’s inappropriate behavior. I know not to do that. I mean, there’s a whole lot of things that we have learned to socialize out of our responses because it’s detrimental to ourselves and detrimental to others.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Can I just say, at a social level, and also at an individual level? Right.
Diana Smith: Exactly. I mean, I’d get arrested. I mean, so yeah, right? And so…
This is the kind of thing where I think if people start to reflect on their own internal responses, and there’s been lots of research on this, we… you know, the negative messages target our “hot” systems in our brain, and Michelle, a psychologist, and his colleague, whose name I’m blocking right now, did research on self-control.
And they discovered that, you know, we have a hot system which reacts quickly, is emotional, overcomes our rational… it’s reactive. But they’ve learned that people can shift to their “cool” system with practice, and the more they practice it, the quicker they can shift to their cool system, which is reflective, is thoughtful, is mindful… all those kinds of things. So I think what I want to do is put control in the hands of people.
And I believe, by the way, if you look at the beginning of my book, I cite 15 citizen movements that have led nations out of darkness. I’m not believing this as a matter of faith. History tells us that we have more power than we are aware of. So I want to focus on what can we control…
And we control? We can control how we react to those messages. We can find better news sources, which I’d be glad to recommend later. Okay?
We can do lots of things to counter this. So I don’t want to suggest—and I think it’s problematic to suggest—that these forces are so powerful, we are helpless. We are not. We are vulnerable to those forces, but we are not helpless.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: So let’s get into what some of your top suggestions are for ways that we can get traction in this quest. As I was, after we had secured or booked this interview, Diana, I was listening to a podcast with Scott Galloway, and he was talking about… he and his new co-host Jessica Tarlov just started a new podcast called Raging Moderates.
I just love the title. And he even smiled and joked about the title. So there are big things like you writing this book, like Scott and Jessica hosting this podcast, but what maybe… start with some of the little things that we as individuals can do. I guess proactively—not in the moment when we see a transgression—but I mean, like proactively, what can we do?
Diana Smith: Yes. Well, you know, I think the first thing is that we extend to ourselves the grace we wish others would extend to us, and we hope to extend to others. Okay, because…
We are going to get triggered. I get triggered all the time. I know you had Amy Edmondson on your show recently. And she’s obviously the thought leader behind psychological safety.
But, you know, we can’t always create psychological safety for other people, or be perfect, or react perfectly. I think it’s a natural instinct for us to distance from people who make us uncomfortable.
So I think one thing we can do is start to think about… What do we have to gain from interrupting that immediate response to get angry, distant, to run away?
And I think one thing is to help ourselves see, and to coach ourselves to see, that as a leader and as a colleague, for us to succeed, we have to have the biggest bandwidth possible for collaborating with people. That is in our interest as a leader and as a colleague. If you can’t deal with a lot of people, you tend not to be successful. So you have to increase your bandwidth anytime you find yourself getting angry, threatened, frustrated, upset.
Okay, essentially, what that person is telling you is that you’ve reached the limits of your competence. You’ve reached the limits of your bandwidth. You don’t know how to deal with this person, and therefore, you’re upset because it’s threatening to you.
If, instead of seeing it as a threat, you see it as an opportunity to expand your bandwidth, to expand your capabilities, to learn how to reach across divides. So that would mean doing things like reaching out to the person, finding out things you have in common…
Getting behind their eyes to see what they see, getting inside their heads to see what they experience. It’s not having a political conversation with them. It’s like, if somebody in a meeting says something inappropriate, you don’t have to call them out in the meeting. Afterwards, you can say, “I was surprised you said that. What’s going on?”
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Right.
Diana Smith: What’s going on? What are you… what are you going through? Right? What are you experiencing? And then try to help the person see things that you see that they might not. And a great book out now by Jeff Wetzer, I’d recommend him for your podcast, called Ask…
And he talks about how the most caring thing you can do for somebody is to get curious.
And so, you know, getting curious is really important. And then…
You know, the one thing Lincoln said, many brilliant things. But the one thing he said that I think tops them all…
Is, “I don’t like that man. I have to get to know him better.”
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Oh, yes, I remember that. I love that.
Diana Smith: Okay? And I think if… I think it’s possible to remind ourselves of that. And then…
You know, I think in addition to what we can do when we’re face to face with people as leaders and colleagues, I think we can start to educate ourselves on what people are already doing to remake the space between us. There are organizations, and I can name a few, and you might put them in the show notes. There’s an organization called Starts With Us, and they’ll send you an exercise every day to get you to reflect on how you navigate the space between us.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Oh, amazing. Yeah, I’d love to.
Diana Smith: It’s amazing. And this is like, you know, a few minutes a day. And then there’s the Listen 1st project, which lists about 150 organizations across the country, literally millions of people working at the local level in nationally connected groups, remaking the space between us by working on common problems together over time.
Another internet site that I highly recommend is Sharon says. So it’s on Instagram, and it’s Sharon McMahon’s site. Okay? And it has workshops, it has seminars, and then get in touch with organizations like Not In Our Town. They’re all across the country.
So, you know, what you can do… And then there’s another one called One Small Step, which will hook you up with somebody who’s completely different from you for 30 minutes so you can just talk about your life experience.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Oh, yeah.
Diana Smith: And then you can make a friend across a demographic or ideological divide. But no matter what…
Our democracy cannot survive if the people in that 67% give up. We have to keep our heads and our hearts in the game.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah, we’re at a majority. And we need to use our numbers.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: So in a business context… At the very beginning, when you were answering that question, Diana, you were talking about, to paraphrase, diverse…
Groups… You know, the research shows, and I want to really reinforce this: diverse groups are proven to be more effective. So diversity in, particularly senior executives in an organization, organizations that have more diverse boards of directors…
You know, are more successful in terms of the metrics, the profit and bottom line that they’re tracking and other key metrics. So another way to think about this, if you want to be really sort of performance-oriented or rational from a business perspective, is…
Listening to diverse perspectives and internalizing them, and then maybe even acting on them or collaborating can be a competitive advantage.
Diana Smith: Oh, it is a competitive advantage. That’s why I go crazy when people talk about this as woke, or ideological, or, you know, soft or Kumbaya. I’m an extremely practical person, and I’m the most competitive person most of my friends know.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Okay. Good to know. Good to know.
Diana Smith: So I care about doing well. And in order to do well, I need to see things I can’t see.
And I can’t do that unless I tap the wisdom and the knowledge and the perspective of others. So it’s a very self-interested point of view, and in some ways, I consider myself a bit of an Imperialist, because I’ll grab any idea that I think is going to help advance something I really care about and get me to a goal, and you’re going to do that best with a diverse group of people.
So it’s too bad that that has become an ideological football, because no one’s going to win the game with that attitude.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah. Yeah, it’s like, it’s like the term diversity has become weaponized, which I know is a term you use. Right? It’s become weaponized when, in fact, what you’re talking about is…
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: …just the fact that we’re not all the same, you’re not prescribing a certain way of thinking, you’re actually…encouraging… I’m trying to not use the word diversity. You’re encouraging different perspectives.
Diana Smith: Yes, I’m encouraging learning.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: So…
Diana Smith: …has been my life’s work is organizational learning. You know, we live in a competitive, fast-paced world, and organizations that can’t adapt can’t keep up, and you can’t adapt without learning.
And you know, if you’re drinking your own bathwater to use a disgusting image, you’re not going to get very far. So you need to be able to learn, and you need to be able to learn from people who think and experience differently than you, the world differently than you do, and have access to different information. And, by the way, I’ve spent my life and some of it with Amy, and you know, over 30 years looking at groups and organizations, do what we’re watching our nation do. Which is why I wrote the book.
Groups discounting each other rather than learning from each other.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Right.
Diana Smith: And yet the nature of the groups, and how they get divided in organizations is such that they have access to not only different information, but different kinds of information. They have different experiences, they have different competencies. So putting that all together is critical for the organization to survive, same goes for our nation.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah, yeah, okay, so I have to… I have to confess, Diana…
When we first started this conversation, I did not share your optimism. I’m hopeful, but I was feeling a little bit more pessimistic, I’m just gonna admit, than I am now.
With your conviction of being ambitious. So I need… I need to just share this. I know for a fact that the people that listen to this podcast, my clients, and the podcast listeners…Almost a hundred percent of them have two attributes that I admire so much. One is their ambition and the other one is their growth mindset, right? And you were just talking about how you also have those traits and the combination of those two things has got to more of us to do all of the things that you’re talking about, right, to remake the space between us. So…
If you could also, just to get really practical here, maybe share some new sources. I know that there’s the one that you mentioned…
Diana Smith: Solutions, journalism, network. Better than most of them by far.
I think If you want a more balanced news, I think Reuters is probably the most balanced. but in terms of a solutions, orientation solutions. Journalism network is by far the best. But I want to come back to something that it’s a distinction that James Stockdale makes between being an optimist and having hope.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah, because words are important.
Diana Smith: Yeah, I don’t self-identify as an optimist. So I want to read to you something that he said.
First of all, Vice Admiral James Stockdale survived 8 torturous years in a Vietnamese prison camp. Yeah. And so Jim Collins, business writer, Jim Collins, Good to Great, interviewed him, and he said, “How the heck did you survive?”
And he said, “You know, I never lost faith in the end of the story.”
“I never doubted, not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end, and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which in retrospect I would not trade.”
He then went on to say that faith was very different from the optimists.
The optimists would say, “We’re going to be out by Christmas.” Then Christmas would come, and then Thanksgiving, and then, you know, Easter, and then Christmas would come again, and they’d set their sights on a date, and the date would pass, and they died of a broken heart.
Yeah, this distinction led to what’s called the Stockdale Paradox, which he put this way:
“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end, which you can never afford to lose, with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
And you saw in the book I confront some brutal facts in that book.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah.
Diana Smith: Yet I never lose faith in the ability of humans to overcome those adversities because we have done so throughout history. The only question in my mind now is because of climate change, we have a time horizon that is imposed on us, and so our ability to climb the learning curve fast is absolutely critical, and the more people who despair and think it’s not possible, the slower we will go up that learning curve.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Hmm. That is a beautiful point. Yeah.
Diana Smith: Hope is a political act.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Okay.
So speaking of time constraints…
You and I are talking today less than a month away from the U.S. elections. And I know that this episode is going to be released after…
But I want to ask you your top-line thinking about where we are and what might happen between now and election day, and maybe to go back to the hope and optimism point, what your hope is.
Diana Smith: Yeah. Well, my hope is that no matter what the outcome of this election is, that the millions of people already at work across the country, working to bridge the divides that created this dysfunction we are experiencing…
That people will join their ranks, and make sure that this democracy that our founders sacrificed their lives to create, did not… and people in the Civil War died to save, that they did not die in vain.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Whoo.
Diana Smith: People join that movement. We’re going to need to do it, regardless of how the election turns out. I think the bigger election, so to speak, is, are we going to vote on ourselves as citizens, and believe in ourselves and do what we need to do to save our democracy and to save our planet and to make this multigroup democracy of ours functional?
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah, yeah. So it’s about taking our lens and pulling back, like, what is our ultimate objective here? It’s not just, “I voted for the party” or the “candidate that won” or “that lost.” It’s much bigger picture than that. And really focusing on that. Okay.
Diana Smith: It’s about our ability as a multigroup democracy to solve urgent problems as quickly as we can before they trump us. That’s going to require us to work across groups. We have failed at doing that the last… not completely, but we’ve not done well the last 50 years. We’ve done worse and worse. We have to turn that trajectory around. Our elected officials are not going to do it until we, the people, do it because they’re going to cater and pander to the extreme.
So we in the 67% have got to stop ceding ground to the extremists, take back our power and our control, join these groups across the country that are working to do that, and turn around what has been a bad trajectory and turn it into a good one.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Okay. So I am gonna sneak another question in before I get to the four rapid-fire questions, because, you know, before I pressed record again, you and I… I said I want to ask the questions that I know the listeners want to hear. I know what I would want to hear is: what exactly do I say in, you know, it’s the end of November, and I’m in a meeting at work, and I’m in the 66-67%. Someone who’s got an extreme view says something in the moment. Right? So, I mean, the meta-level or the strategic level of advice that you’re giving is to join these movements, to practice media hygiene, to do all of these kind of proactive things. What about when you’re in the moment?
Diana Smith: Yeah. Well, we talked a little bit about it earlier, but let me get into it. I came across an article in Dear Eric, which is in the Washington Post in the Life section.
Someone wrote to him and said, “I’m in this group of guys that get together on Zoom, and we’ve been together for many years, and sometimes this one guy says things that make me uncomfortable. I sort of don’t say anything and let it pass, but recently, he said he really has a problem with all the brown people coming to the country.”
And this fellow thought that was a very— as I would, too— a very problematic statement. And just to be clear, I find it problematic because I think people don’t understand the positive role that immigrants play in coming to our country. But anyway, Eric’s response, I thought, was really good. He said, rather than call him out, call him in.
Calling someone in is an invitation to discussion and repair. It’s a way of saying, “It concerns me that you hold this opinion. Would you be open to talking it through?”
Now, I would ask a different question than that, but I certainly think that’s perfectly reasonable. I would tend to say, “I’m surprised to hear you say that. What are you worried about?”
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Right? Okay.
Diana Smith: I want to understand. What is it behind that statement? And then I can imagine saying things like, “Well, you know, I’ve had a different experience. And some of the research I’ve done, because I know immigration is a big issue, I’ve done some inquiry into it. And I’ve discovered that immigration has been actually vital to turning around dying towns, that they’ve added money to coffers, that they play a vital role in industries across the United States.”
So what is it that you’re seeing or hearing that leads you to worry? And then just start a conversation, not a fight. We need to build relationships, not cases.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: So we’re building relationships, not cases. That said, we can focus on the issue as opposed to pointing fingers at a person and being accusational, right? So there’s a…
Diana Smith: Good morning!
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: I never thought of that before, because I know some of the most common advice that communication coaches give, you know, on this topic of communicating with difficult people— I’m saying “difficult people” in air quotes— is to focus on the issue, not on the person.
Diana Smith: Yeah, yes, exactly. And if you focus on the issue, understanding that people can disagree, but they don’t need to be disagreeable.
And through talking about the issues, if you’re genuinely interested in learning what’s going on, not just condemning the person, then through that, you build a relationship of greater trust and openness.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah.
Diana Smith: And it’s possible. I mean, in the book, I talk about the transformation of a white nationalist whose experience in college led him to disavow white nationalism. And he did that because of the conversations he had with friends.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah, do you wanna share a little bit more about that?
Diana Smith: This is an extraordinary story, and it’s… I’m sorry, yeah.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: It is.
Diana Smith: It’s one that falsifies the idea that, you know, someone is so far gone that there’s nothing you can do. Okay? So first of all, the story—which I write about in the book—is called Befriending Your Ideological Enemy. It’s based on a book by Eli Saslow called Rising Out of Hatred, and I couldn’t recommend it highly enough. It tells the story about a young guy named Derek Black, 18 years old, and he was the heir apparent to the white nationalist movement in the U.S. He was the son of Don Black, who founded Stormfront, one of the first hate sites on the internet, and godson to the ultra-right-wing politician, David Duke, who’s a neo-Nazi and a conspiracy theorist and a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
So this guy came from a very small, insular white nationalist group. After being homeschooled, he goes off to New College in Florida, and New College is a liberal arts college that has a far-left-leaning student body.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: So…
Diana Smith: And there, he meets and makes friends with people far outside of the circle that he’d ever encountered. Okay, so you can imagine the cognitive dissonance this guy’s going through. He’s there for about a year, and nobody knows he’s a white nationalist. He meets people, he makes friends, acquaintances, and so on, but after a year, somebody finds out and outs him.
And the message board at the college just goes wild. They start saying things like, “You know, Derek’s an idiot, a hatemonger, a Hitler, a fraud. You simply cannot reason with someone like that.” And they said he ought to be expelled or ostracized.
There was a very small, diverse group of students that made a different choice.
And it was one of Derek’s acquaintances, an Orthodox Jew by the name of Matthew Stevenson, who decided to invite Derek to his weekly Shabbat dinners. A bunch of people dropped out because they didn’t want to be there, but a small group came, and beforehand, Matthew turned to them and said, “Just don’t be assholes. We want him to come back.”
And his view was: “This guy has been raised by white nationalists. We’re not going to change his view in one night. Let’s not talk about white nationalism. Let’s just get to know each other.”
Also at the table was a Peruvian immigrant by the name of Juan, another Orthodox Jew, Mosh Ashe, whose grandfather had been in a concentration camp in Germany, and then Alison Gornick, who was a leftist feminist. Okay? And over the next 18 months, this small group of friends created a context in which Derek’s very narrow mental space, which had been cultivated in this white nationalist community, started to expand.
And he started to reach across this chasmic distance between a white nationalist group and these ultra-liberal students. Okay, imagine how hard that must have been for the guy. And so, after 18 months, he eventually came around. He reexamined his beliefs, mostly with Alison. They’d get on the internet, they’d look up studies to examine the intelligence of different races, to look at the consequences of immigration— they did the whole thing. And so, afterward, he reflected on the process, and he told a reporter:
“It was people who disagreed with me who were critical to the process, especially those who were my friends regardless, but who let me know, when we talked about it, that they thought my beliefs were wrong, and took the time to provide evidence and civil arguments. I didn’t always agree with their ideas, but I listened to them, and they listened to me.”
It’s amazing to think of the distance this young kid traveled in two years. Okay?
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: It is.
Diana Smith: So it shows it is possible.
And that’s the point I wanted to make.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: So it’s impressive that he went from what many of us would say, like a kid that didn’t have a chance, I mean, given his upbringing, right? Didn’t have a chance.
Yeah, he somehow had an open mind.
But also the other people who didn’t just reject him. That’s also very impressive.
Okay, are you ready for the 3 rapid fire questions.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Question number one: are you an introvert or an extrovert?
Diana Smith: I’m an introvert trapped in an extrovert’s body.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Oh!
Diana Smith: Meaning, I push myself to be an extrovert, as I am today. Okay.
And the definition of an introvert is usually, where do you recharge? And I recharge alone. Yeah.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Diana, do you know that almost a hundred percent of the people that I interview have an answer, something like what you just said.
Diana Smith: Yeah, I can believe it. Because if you’re a leader, you have no choice but to be an extrovert. And it’s exhausting because you’re basically alone.
You’re taking on the weight of the organization on your own. I’ve been executives for 40 years. It’s a tough, tough job.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah. Okay. Question number two.
This, I’m very curious to hear from you. What are your communication pet peeves?
Diana Smith: Well, I’m, you know. I always hate to call them pet peeves, because I’m empathetic with why people do these things, but they can be irritating, and they’re problematic, and they’re not in the interest of the person who uses them. But the incessant use of qualifiers, especially the worst one would be: Let me be honest.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Okay, so.
Diana Smith: Because, like, okay, cause all the other times I haven’t been honest. So watch out.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: I say that way more, but I catch myself saying it. Recently, I’ve been—when I’m in the middle of a coaching session or workshop, I’ll say, Well, to be honest, and then I go: Stop.
o be clear, I am always honest. What I meant was actually… or I want to emphasize this point exactly.
Diana Smith: I think a lot of qualifiers are what an old mentor of mine, Roger Brown, at Harvard called politeness strategies. Okay, we want to mitigate any tension. And so we say, you know, I know this is a sensitive topic. So I want to make sure, you know… And so you’re packing these sentences up with all this superfluous stuff, it’s inefficient.
And it—the point gets lost in all the padding, and I think it sends a signal that you’re uncomfortable, that makes other people uncomfortable. It reduces honesty. It reduces learning.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: You and I could do a whole podcast episode, conversation about that topic. I love it. Okay, last question.
Is there a podcast or a book that you find yourself recommending a lot lately?
Diana Smith: Can I give a podcast, a book, and a documentary?
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Please.
Diana Smith: Okay. Podcast: The Focus Group, Sarah Longwell’s podcast on The Bulwark. It’s extraordinary. She gets together with voters, and she asks them what they think about all sorts of things. So you get to hear, unmediated by the press, what people are really thinking, and we need more of that.
Excellent book: John Meacham’s And There Was Light: Abe Lincoln and the American Struggle. If you want to see a reality in the United States which is identical to today, read that book.
It’s incredible. Documentary: I Am Not Your Negro, which is basically a documentary on James Baldwin.
And it’s an extraordinary documentary, and especially for people who are white. It will be an eye-opener, and it’s an important one for people to understand.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Okay, I will put links to the three of those in the show notes.
Ask if there’s anything else you want to share with the listeners about Remaking the Space Between Us.
Diana Smith: I think it’s the single biggest challenge we face. We have become very insular within our own groups.
Recycling the same news, the same beliefs, the same values. And we’ve gotten very distant from groups that are demographically and ideologically different.
And so we need to start to…
Close those divides. Open up. We have to open up the space within our own group before we can close the distance. So we have to start opening the space within our own group. And then we need to close the distance across groups.
Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Thank you so much, Diana, for sharing your insights, your suggestions, and your hope for how we can remake the space between us. I really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you.
Diana Smith: Thank you, Andrea. This has been a lot of fun.
Thank you so much, Diana!
Diana’s knowledge of history, combined with her storytelling, and of course, her strategic acumen provide such a compelling case for us to focus on remaking the space between us.
Diana shared many many recommendations of resources that we can explore to help make this a reality. I combed through the transcript and included links to all of these resources. You can find the list at the top of the show notes in whatever podcast app you’re using.
Now, let me summarize. As I mentioned at the beginning, I’m going to briefly review Diana’s insights focusing on three categories that I found in a paper she co-authored with Harvard Professor Amy Edmondson. The paper is called “Too Hot to Handle: How to Manage Relationship Conflict”. In this paper, Diana and Amy outline three practises for discuss discussing hot topics: one is managing yourself. Two is managing the conversation. And three is managing the relationship.
Let’s start with managing yourself.
An easy place to start here is to explore the resources that Diana mentioned. If you’ve taken the time to fill your brain with neutral information or perhaps information from across the spectrum, you’re better equipped in so many ways.
Remember that diversity of thought and opinion can be a competitive adntage – for yourself and for your team. Did you catch Diana’s comment about bathwater?
“if you’re drinking your own bath water, you’re not going to get very far.”
That’s pretty visceral. Hopefully this idea of diversity of thought inspires you to check out a different website or news source from the one you’ve been reading. Maybe starting with a few that Diana suggests.
So that’s tactical. In terms of a mindset, Diana mentioned many times that are focus on learning and curiosity can help. This is what I focussed on in that heated conversation that I had in the airport the day after the election. I remember thinking Diana would encourage me to be curious. So I started asking questions. It works beautifully. Thank you, Diana.
That’s managing yourself.
The second category of insights is about
Managing the conversation.
Diana aptly said “start a conversation, not a fight. We need to build relationships, not cases.” Let’s start with conversations, then we’ll get into relationships.
Imagine you’re in a meeting. It could be one on one where you need to have a conversation with someone about something to build your business or it could be with a large group. Someone might say something inappropriate or perhaps something that you believe is not true. They may be expressing their social and political views.
Assuming they’re not Kai bashing the whole meeting, Diana suggests that you address it privately, after the meeting ends.
Diana shares a few prompts to get us started the first one is:
“ it concerns me that you hold this opinion. Would you be open to talking it through?”
The second is: “I’m surprised to hear you say that. What are you worried about?”
With both of these prompts, she starts with a non-threatening she starts by stating her opinion, but in a non-threatening way. In the first, she said it concerns me that you hold this opinion and then the second she said I’m surprised you hear to hear you say that. Then she followed that statement up with a question, would you be open to talking it through? Or what are you worried about?
This is a great framework for all of us. Start by sharing our concern in a non-threatening way then ask a question.
In practice, these prompts are a great idea,. However, in practice, sometimes things get very heated. We get triggered. Diana reminds us to use our self control. To pause. To overcome our hot system, which is reactive and emotional and shift to a cool system, which is more rational. Then we can follow up after pausing with one of these prompts.
So that’s managing the conversation. We’ve covered managing yourself and managing the conversation. Now , the third and last category is .
Three is managing the relationship
I think that’s a great place to close. the most caring thing you can do for somebody is to get curious.
The next time you’re in a heated conversation with someone, whether it’s a coworker, a family member, a friend or a complete stranger in an airport. I hope you remember these words. The most caring thing you can do is to get curious. Thanks again to Diana.
As I said, you can find links to all of Diana’s recommendations and more in the show notes for this episode.
My coordinates are there too. Please connect with me anytime. Check out the Talkabouttalk.com website or send me a DM on LinkedIn.
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