Can we disagree better?

Scores of new start-ups are emerging to show us how—now and after November

This original image was created with the assistance of DALL-E.

This election year, partisan divisions across society are creating a demand for new kinds of “bridge-building” projects to help us all turn down the heat.

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NEW YORK— On Apple mobile devices, there’s something called “wiggle mode.” Tap on one of your smartphone’s app icons, and all icons start fluttering — your cue to move some around or get rid of one or two entirely.

Now, imagine that each icon is one of the big social divides—like, say, one represents the partisan divide, with other icons now representing the religious divide, the gender, education and generational divides, says new wave bridge-builder Monica Guzman, who serves as the director of digital storytelling at Braver Angels, a citizens’ organization founded “to unite red and blue Americans into a working alliance to depolarize their relationships.” Expanding on her smartphone analogy, Guzman adds, “Go ahead. Tap onto one of those icons, and start empowering yourself to rearrange, alter or delete the divisions that no longer serve you, nor your families and nor the communities you serve.”

It’s a big ask, but Guzman says it illuminates her interactions with families, individuals, company managers and community leaders across the country, whom Braver Angels helps to navigate today’s political turbulence.

Guzman says that with the American public gravitating toward more insular and hostile political camps, catalyzing local and regional conversations between people on all sides of today’s divides is no longer a “should do” but what she calls a “must.” Using dialogues and community-driven storytelling as bridge-builders, she says, can make it easier for families, communities and organizations to navigate today’s challenging times.

“Nobody has to drop what they believe in,” Guzman says, “but engaging in one-to-one dialogues can create some needed wiggle room on both sides.”

More Bridges Needed

Business for America, a coalition of businesses and company executives who describe themselves as “taking a stand for democracy,” says today’s divisive political climate is posing some new challenges for many companies.

In one recent BFA survey, 69% of companies said friction over the upcoming presidential election has started to spill over into the workplace, causing productivity declines and employee conflict. Partly to blame, the BFA says, is a shortage of the kinds of conflict management skills needed needed to actively resolve workplace conflicts and navigate difficult conversations.

“We need to train managers and all Americans to turn down the heat, help people in their families and in the workplace find common ground and learn to relate to one another as brothers and sisters, as neighbors and as co-workers rather than as enemy combatants,” a recent in-house report concluded.

Here are a few other business-related findings shared with #NewRules by the BFA:

• Roughly one-third of American companies surveyed last year reported some kind of issue—more conflicts or complaints, self-censorship and reduced productivity—among employees, chiefly tied to the nation’s growing political and partisan divides.

• Close to half of companies surveyed reported that “leadership has struggled to manage conflict, and admits it’s struggling to respond to issues without causing further division within today’s cultural/political minefield.” For some companies, the report said, executive leaders “do not possess sufficient skill in messaging on charged issues, yet sitting on the fence is just not accepted anymore.”

• For some companies, “this divide has made its way into hiring decisions.” More than one-third of respondents surveyed for this internal report said job candidates who voted for a presidential candidate in 2016 that was not backed by the company’s CEO was passed over, regardless of that person’s skills and talent for the job.

• Multiple respondents cited “significant” divides between corporate headquarters and local branches, often following an urban-rural geographic pattern and political map. “On average,” the report said, “plants or factories located in more rural or less populated areas of the country tend to lean red, with corporate offices and headquarters located in major cities leaning blue.”

• “The gap in perspective (both political and cultural) has, at times, led to conflict and a failure to achieve desired results.”

From Rupture to Repair

Guzman’s Braver Angels organization is just one of more than 500 small-scale organizations comprising the new ‘bridge-building’ field in the U.S., which focuses on easing conflict by promoting the use of one-to-one conversations and customized, small-scale experiences.

It’s not DEI, the BFA says. “DEI has been well-intentioned, but our (internal) surveys show it’s not working as inclusively as intended,” its internal report said.

One-to-one storytelling approaches can be more inclusive and effective at building in-house accord because they encourage higher levels of individual participation and provide more creatively authentic ways for people to share the unique experiences which have helped to shape their civic lives, perspectives and aspirations. Such personalized approaches can help new recruits and existing employees to find their purpose and place within an organization, and reduce turn-over during what is most likely to be continued political turbulence—long after November.

“The enemy is a mindset, not a person,” says Daniel Lubetzky, the founder of another new, small-scale start-up called the New Builders Movement, an organization using one-to-one conversations and storytelling workshops to help companies and civic organizations fight toxic polarization. “There is no quick-fix when we’re talking about removing the toxins from our differences now. …It’s only by getting to know people and hearing them—even if only once in person—that we can get closer to understanding why others have different beliefs, why ‘othering’ is a lazy and unhelpful response and why we need to keep reminding ourselves that it’s possible to remain in each other’s light on common ground.”

In a recent TED talk on polarization that launched the New Builders initiative, Lubetzky added: “We’re being programmed to think that every issue is binary —that we have to live in a world divided into us versus them, left versus right, red versus blue.” In a recent interview, he said, people don’t fit into such binary boxes. “It’s the toxic stuff that needs to go—not difference,” he said. “Curiosity about one another needs to be encouraged, and enlivened in conversations that leaders and managers can help to seed, enable, capture within positive contexts and share openly.”

Lubetzky said the Builders project has four major components — Builders Media, to produce digital content that challenges stereotypes and divisive narratives; Builders Toolkit, to help educational institutions encourage critical thinking in their students; the Builders Network, to amplify the voices of those speaking out against extremism, and the Citizen Solutions project.

“Both Democrats and Republicans don’t think they have anything in common,” said Ashley Phillips, head of programs at Builders’ Citizens Solutions. “But in fact, there’s a whole set of shared values that bring these very different parties together.”

Guzman, for example, says she would have never learned that the word, democracy, “is now coded blue” without hearing people share their personal stories on the state of today’s politics, one-on-one. “Today, for example, I learned from one participant who felt that if you want to talk about our government in a way in which some liberals and many conservatives will hear it and feel it’s okay,’ she says, “then use the term ‘democratic republic.’ Conservatives and some liberals feel it is more accurate than saying we’re a democracy.” Adds Guzman, author of the book, “I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times: “We’re in a time and moment now where words can divide, but also can be bridges.”

Early Wins

David Isay, the founder of StoryCorps, is another new-wave bridge-builder. He has been using the power of storytelling for years to help people share what matters most. For the past 20 years, he’s been capturing the stories of everyday Americans, recorded in a sound booth he’s got set up in New York’ City’s Grand Central Terminal. Often, the conversations become very personal and moving exchanges between two people who typically know and love each other, such as a mother and daughter, siblings, longtime friends.

This summer, Isay is using the StoryCorps format to formally launch a new program, called One Small Step, which he describes as “a new effort to remind the country of the humanity in all of us, even those with whom we disagree.” Using the format to encourage compassion through the power of conversation was inspired by the pandemic, he says, and since 2022, Isay and his team have paired more than 4,900 individuals for 50-minute, in-person conversations.

“The idea has been to put strangers together across the political divide, not to talk about politics but give them a chance just to get to know each other as human beings first,” Isay says. In a recent interview, he cited one new Small Step conversation he recorded between Alton Russell, the former chair of the Republican Party in Columbus, Ga., and Wane Hailes, president of the local NAACP chapter. The men, meeting for the first time, discussed their experiences with politics, racism and how they had come to live in the same town. At the end of the conversation, Hailes told Russell, “I’ve got a whole different view of you” and added that he didn’t think they’d ever have a chance to connect, despite their involvement in the same community. “This has been eye-opening for me,” he said.

Another conversation, which Isay posted on YouTube as a sample of the visual format he’s using, is between a young Asian immigrant and an older, retired American. They ask each other about their lives and different challenges, which hints at Isay’s gentle vision for the project.

Stephanie Glaros, who facilitates One Small Step conversations for Isay, says “people are exhausted and fed up with the extreme narratives on both sides” of the political divide. “They’re frustrated by both parties and feel that nobody really represents them.

“A lot of people talk about divisions within their families and feel like having these conversations is giving them an opportunity to do something concrete, to change things for the better.”

For the One Small Step conversations, she says, “we don’t tell them to find common ground, yet it’s the first thing they do every single time, by themselves.”

Adds Isay, “It’s hard to hate up close.”

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Know some bridge-builders using storytelling as a super-power in your network? New Rules covers resilience, and we’re always excited to hear what you think and what’s next!