Let's Find Common Ground - Curiosity, Not Compliance: Bridge Building In The Workplace: Simon Greer

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

Many Americans are exhausted by polarization and hyper-partisanship. Bitter divides are not just a problem for election campaigns and public institutions; they’re also damaging the workplace.  Employee morale at many businesses and nonprofits has plunged— impacted by tribalism, culture wars, and political divides. CEOs are often in a tough spot. Some have banned talking politics at the office. Or they’ve taken a public stand on an issue of the day in an effort to ‘do the right thing.’ But that can end up pleasing some employees while alienating others.   In this episode of 'Let's Find Common Ground,' we have the privilege of hearing from Simon Greer, the visionary founder of Bridging the Gap. This organization is dedicated to equipping college students with the skills to communicate effectively across differences. Simon's work extends beyond the campus, as he also consults with numerous organizations grappling with these same challenges within their workforces. His efforts offer a beacon of hope in the face of workplace polarization.

Many of us are exhausted by polarization and hyperpartisanship. Bitter political divides aren't just a problem for election campaigns and political institutions, they're also taking a toll on the workplace. Yeah, employee morale at many businesses and non-profits is affected by the culture wars, as well as by party politics. CEOs and other leaders are often in a tough spot. Some have reacted to controversy and banned discussion of politics at the office, or they've taken a public stand on an issue of the day in an effort to do the right thing.

But that can end up pleasing some employees and alienating others. Our guest today tells leaders edicts like this won't help, but more thoughtful approaches can. Companies can set some standards, but what they don't want to do is create a culture of compliance instead of a culture of curiosity. And that's what I'm Richard Davies. And I'm Ashley Miltite. Our guest is Simon Greer, founder of Bridging the Gap, a group that helps college students develop the skills to communicate well across differences.

As an entrepreneur and leader of Cambridge Heath Ventures, he consults with organizations that face these same challenges among their workforce. But Simon didn't start out as a common grounder. In fact, sometimes he stoked divisions while campaigning for social change. In this repeat episode, Simon shares personal stories from his work with employers and employees and explains why he changed careers and is now bridging divides. Ashley, you asked the first question. So we know that there's polarization within the workforce.

Has it become harder recently for co-workers with different political views to work together and collaborate together? I think the short answer is it is harder. I think that's true. But to unpack it a little, the expectation that you would have a quote friendship at work, right? That that's like a key factor in my work experience that these are my friends and that with my friends we agree. Embedded in that is a lot of assumptions about the kind of world we think we want to live in. And I actually think one of the the deeper challenges we need to take on is we have come to expect that it is a safe space where we all agree. That's our come to expect that it is a safe space where we

all agree. That's our community. Rather than it's a brave space where we have fundamental disagreements that we try to reconcile or we try to understand. And so 50 years ago, 60 years ago, if you had asked parents about their children marrying someone of a different race, you would have gotten very negative responses, right? This country was very much against interracial marriage. Today, it's much less of an issue than it was. That's what all the polls tell us. But in 1960, if you had asked somebody about their child

marrying someone of a different political party, literally nobody would have cared. Today, if you ask them, there's massive concern. People dread the idea that someone would marry someone from the other political party. So if you live in that climate, of course our workplaces are gonna be supercharged around these questions of politics.

That's very interesting what you just said, because it might indicate that, yes, politically we're more divided, and we all know that, but that culturally in many workplaces and in many communities we're less divided. Is that fair? I think it's blurry what is political, what is cultural, what is identity. You know, I've heard of some workplaces that have said, like, we're not going to talk about politics because it's so divisive.

Maybe we could talk about culture, but we're not going to talk about politics. And I'm not sure you can make the decision. If you're trying to do pricing of your product, it has to do with inflation. It has to do with gas prices. And that's political, right? If you're trying to manage supply chain questions, it has to do with trade and if you're the NFL and you're debating, do you have Snoop Dogg do the halftime show? Is that cultural or is that political?

Going back to the workplace for a minute, even so, it's a problem. Leaders, many see it as a problem. It's something that they're worried about, that they're very conscious about, that there's sort of dissent in the ranks, as it were. And is there anything they can do about it? For sure. Often what triggers the, let's call it the acute moment or the crisis in the workplace is something happens out in public life and management thinks we should do something. They feel some pressure, right? There's a bubbling up. Or they think we need to shut it down. But either way, management thinks they need to react.

I think what maybe in a lot of cases is missed is that the need to react sits on top of this underlying expectation that there should be agreement in our workplace. On the big issues of the day, we should see it the same because we're culturally and politically cohesive. And so I think one of the first jobs is to showcase for the team that the expectation here isn't that we all agree, we actually we like the disagreement. We like it in our strategy conversations, we like it in our marketing and design conversations, and it's We like it in our strategy conversations. We like it in our marketing and design conversations. And it's to be expected in our political conversations.

We can set clear guidelines. Like we can say on our corporate Slack channel, we're not going to campaign for candidates. Companies can set some standards, but what they don't want to do is create a culture of compliance instead of a culture of curiosity. And that's what I see a lot of. And there I think, and this is my sort of my big hope for teams and workplaces, is this

is not just about beliefs, it's about skills. What do you mean by that? We live in a moment where polarisation, civility, pluralism, diversity, inclusivity, they're like beliefs. Like, I'm for them or I'm against them. I like them. I'm committed to them. But that's not how I view it.

I think of them as skills or practices. How do you do that? Now you're at a diverse table. How do you generate value? Now you're in a room with people who disagree. How do you make the conversation richer rather than shutting it down? And I think that's where an investment by management in the skills building, the capacities of the team to tolerate difference and to actually embrace it and

thrive in it is a real deficit because we don't tend to invest in it. Like less than 2% of us are trained in listening skills, even though we know every profession benefits from better listening. How do you build skills for a diverse workforce? So on the skills front, in my work at least, we teach three core skills that we think are fundamental for bridging differences or for what we call courageous conversations. The skills are listening, storytelling, and feedback. What we tend to do now is I only stop long enough to sort of catch my breath and reload,

and then I talk again. That's not really listening. Or you're talking and what you say is interesting. So then I grab the steering wheel and now I tell you what I like, right? So you say I like pizza. I'm like, oh, you like pizza? I like pizza.

Let me tell you about the last time I had pizza. But now I'm not really listening, right? Now I'm talking. And so you like pizza? I like pizza. Let me tell you about last time I had pizza. But now I'm not really listening. Now I'm talking. And so we try to teach people, how do you refrain from grabbing the wheel and actually invite the speaker to go deeper? Simple tips. A lot of people don't know what an open-ended question is.

Simply stated, it's a question you can't answer, yes or no. So if you say something I disagree with, the tendency is to throw out my facts and try to convince you that I'm right the Dramatically different I would say revolutionary move would be to say oh well tell me a little more about that Just that act rather than fighting back But inviting further exploration makes you more complicated than meets the eye gives me a chance to catch my breath and Maybe it helps me see that there's more to this than I might have imagined you more complicated than meets the eye, gives me a chance to catch my breath, and maybe it helps me see that there's more to this than I might have imagined.

So nearly all of us can be better listeners. What about storytelling? We teach people how to tell stories, good stories, about who they are, because again, if I reduce you to that position, to that vote, to that deed, belief, comment. It's easy to demonize you, but if I get your full story then I may come to see, oh there's a lot to this person and we do have some other things in common maybe or or we don't, but I get that you're a complicated person like me. You know I I train teams on how to build trust, and it's very loaded, but in our definition, trust

is comprised of my view of your competence, my view of your reliability, and my view of your concern for the other, right? Concern for me. Like, if I think you're capable, I think you're reliable, and I think you care about my success, I'll trust you. That doesn't have to do with what you think about politics. It doesn't have to do with what you believe out there in the world. It's how you show up here.

But many teams have low levels of trust, which undermine their work performance, but certainly make it very hard to then talk about the challenging issues of the day. Just going back to what you said about sort of when companies take a position or say, you know, this is what we believe, this is our official position. Can you just talk for a few moments about how that can affect employees? You know, maybe you have a story to illustrate something you've seen in your work. Sure. Well, let me say generally, I'm very hesitant about the position taking. If you're

going to take a position, then really really important the employees don't read about it in the press, that there's some internal discussion and explanation and I would say just like our Supreme Court love him or hate him, you always hear the minority position, you always hear the dissenting view. Like I think if management's gonna take a stand, management needs to acknowledge to the team, why might reasonable people might see this differently.

We don't expect homogeneity in terms of people's points of view. One. Two, if you're going to make a statement, it's really much more important that the actions speak louder than the statement. So, you know, I've worked with a law firm in Michigan, and they were saying they didn't make any statement after the George Floyd murder.

They actually doubled down on the cases they did to defend and protect lower income African-Americans. And that was more important for the, I would say the alignment and the excitement and enthusiasm of their workforce than making a big public stand. They wanted to do something. So I'm much more in the do something than take a stand point of view. I think there are real downsides. If you take a stand and you don't do anything, then you lose your credibility even with the people who agreed with the stand.

In our interview, Simon Greer also talked about what happens when an employer brings in a new policy. He worked with a group of nurses who felt at odds with a change at their hospital. The hospital system where they were working introduced some new language. And the language had to do with expecting mothers. They were now going to call the expectant mothers the birthing parent rather than the expectant mother. And the question was did they plan to chest feed? Not breast feed, but chest feed. And the group of nurses were very, they were religious Christian, they were evangelical nurses who worked in this health system and they felt like this was as women

they're like look you're taking away the one thing that like women do like this is my role this is a function that's sacred for me and now it's been given to everybody and they had I would say like biblical resistance like this is not what I learned in the Bible this blurring And then they told about the case of a transgender teenager who came to the hospital who had just tragically tried to commit suicide. And in the patient room, there's this terribly broken teenager who obviously tried to take their own life and their mother yelling, you know, you're John, you're not Joan, you're John, you're not Joan, you're John, you're not Joan,

the hospital policy about how we handle transgendered youth and the rights of teenagers versus the rights of their parents, you know, they're still minors. And the culture was such that there was no room for the nurses to grapple with their mixed feelings. It was just like, we have policy, we have language, comply with it.

And in my work with the nurses, what we unearthed was they all struggled. They struggled with what they would describe as, you know, and this is their tradition, not mine, but what they understand the words of the Bible to tell them about these kinds of issues. And the tension that brought for them with what they would describe as the love

of Jesus and that you have a broken teenager who's tried to take their own life. They need love. They don't need policy, right? And they don't actually even need biblical teaching. They need love. And these nurses, given the space, started to describe their own internal struggle and the members of their own extended family who are transgender, who are questioning these identities and that when they got to tell the story about fundamentally, they went into this profession because of that love and that's what guides them at the end of the day. It's guided them in their own family and in their own practice.

I thought that's the journey people need to go on to get beneath the headlines. But the hospital system just put out a policy, sent you to a training, and expected adherence. Many of us in corporations and nonprofits and universities have undergone DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion training, how does what you're talking about here differ from that or is the same as that? Yeah, it's a good question. And I mean, DEI trainings, they really vary. And I've heard many good things about them and many critiques, you know, and as a white

person in a, you know, moment of racial, let's say racial reckoning in our country, I'm the last person to say like DEI good, DEI bad. I don't think I'm kind of the right arbiter for that. I would say what I've seen in the worst cases of any training, but particularly in DEI training, is that I believe that it is curiosity and the inquiry, the humility to know that I can't see the whole picture, that there's new information I need, I'm going to gain some of that from people who I disagree with, that I'll be enhanced by hearing those diverse perspectives, that isn't always welcome.

There is one approach to all sorts of training, DEI included, that's like, we're gonna give you the answer. Here are the facts, here's the language, here's the rules. And I think if we want people of all backgrounds across our country to tackle the un-tackled racial challenges we still face. And people need to be invited into a journey to explore that rather than be told there's one answer. Simon Greer and the interview we recorded with him nearly two years ago. This is Let's Find

Common Ground. I'm Ashley. I'm Richard. Our podcast continues to grow and we now have more than half a million downloads. You may have noticed we don't have commercials and we aren't selling anything. But we do need your help to make new podcasts about how people from both sides of the political aisle are finding common ground. Your donations are being matched dollar for dollar. Please head to our website, commongroundcommittee.org, to find out more. The special fund honors the work, the passion, and the infectious enthusiasm of Bruce Bond,

co-founder of Common Ground Committee. Another way you can help us is by texting. Send a message to 53 555 and type in the letters CGC. That's 53 555 and CGC. Text to donate. Now back to our interview on finding common ground in the workplace with Simon Greer. Simon, tell us, how did you come to this work in the bridging community and why are you so passionate about it? So, true confession, I was not always a bridge builder. I was a bomb thrower. Not literally, I didn't throw bombs, but I grew up in a left wing family and I spent the first, I don't know, 20 years of my career doing what I now call hand-to-hand political combat.

So whether that was organizing unions in South Carolina, we're trying to organize the first union hotel on Hilton Head Island to put pressure on the company. We actually picketed at the CEO's church on Sunday. We blocked traffic onto the island. To put pressure on the company, we actually picketed at the CEO's church on Sunday. We blocked traffic onto the island. You know, I did that kind of dramatic political action. I was part of a team that tried to block the docks at the port of San Francisco on the 500th anniversary of Columbus's arrival to block the reenactment of the landing, which the city of San Francisco was trying to do. If there was a contentious struggle, there I was.

Over the years though, Simon came to realise that by simplifying and demonising the other side, he was part of the problem. But by that point he says he was a progressive leader, and he didn't have the courage to walk away. And then overnight I lost my job. And ironically that rupture of losing my job and no longer being a somebody, no longer being a player in progressive politics, that rupture gave me the freedom to decide I wanted to do something different, to see the world in a wide open way. And I mean I licked my wounds for a while and I was certainly reeling there for a little bit. But then what I realized, what I needed to do

was immerse myself with the very people I had been part of caricaturing. So white working class conservatives and corporate leaders, I would say, were the two groups that progressives had most regularly caricatured as part of our strategy. And so I spent the next few years spending all the time, money and energy I could go into dinner with corrections officers and making small investments in startup companies

so I could hang around with business people just to put myself in the shoes and the life and the experience of the people that I had condemned as the other. As a consultant, as someone who works with corporations and nonprofits, what's been the most difficult problem that you've faced? Was there a case where employees or colleagues, work colleagues were so divided that it was incredibly difficult to make progress on having a workforce where people could actually collaborate together. Yeah, so I'll give an example.

I was working with a film production company and they didn't take a stand, a public stand, after George Floyd's murder. And some of the way they edited, let's say they're filming, they definitely created the impression that there were more African Americans in the audience of a set of events they were portraying than there were. Like there's a hugely wide audience and there are a few people of color and they like zoom in on that person.

And then in the clip, it would look like, oh wow, it's a pretty mixed audience for this conversation. But it wasn't that mixed. And the leadership was suspect because they hadn't taken a stand after George Floyd and Now they were viewed by some of their employees as manipulating right to make it look like it was diverse. I Knew from them the leadership that they thought that was what they should do Like don't we want to make it look inclusive like we would want

to make it look inclusive. Like we would want African Americans to feel like they'd be welcome in this story. And so we emphasize that African Americans are welcome here. And the staff of course is like, no, you're tokenizing and you're, you failed to be diverse and now you're faking it and you didn't even take a stand. And this was a small company, very tight knit. So what was hardest, well, a lot of things. One, my point of view that we need to be curious and listen to perspectives we disagree with was kind of rejected. Well, you're a sellout and you're condoning racism.

And I was accused of, it's called two-siderism. Like I actually think there's like 20 sides on any issue. So not just two, but I didn't know you could be condemned for believing there were multiple sides. So it was like a rejection initially of the whole approach. And what's underneath that is like, we're going to get a pound of flesh. Someone is going to get taken out for this. That's how staff will know we've been hurt, right?

Someone will lose a job. Someone will be canceled. Someone will be canceled. Someone's going to pay because this is a moral wrong that they've done. And not just a bad deed, but we've come to believe that people are worse than their worst deed, not better than their worst deed.

What if they did show more African-American faces than were accurately there? I mean, they were there because they have them on footage, but they make it look like there were more of them. So maybe that was a bad move. It doesn't mean they're deplorable or irredeemable, but that's what they become, right? You're one of the bad people.

You're one of the racists and you are gonna pay. And I'm white, so it's like, you're gonna try to facilitate a conversation to get the white leadership to understand, and you believe in two sides, and you think we should have real curiosity? No, no, no, no, there's right and wrong. And I tried to introduce the listening skills, but what I saw before my very eyes was that people who seem to like each other and trust each other on work suddenly like boom now I don't even know you and their identities made them suspect you're not credible to speak about this because you're white and male and older which means then that

the younger maybe more junior people, in this case people of color, white women, now only their voice is credible. And so is that really the solution? Like now a new group has its voice valued at the expense of the other group? I fundamentally believe you have to love something if you're going to change it. Dr. King said that hate can't drive out hate, only love can do that. And what I saw in the workplace was that the love of the work and the, not love like intimate love, but the love of each other, like we're a team, it evaporated. So what happened? No solution? Well, I mean, there's no Hollywood ending on that one.

I couldn't get people to, well, just go back into the room, go grab coffee with them and tell them really how it made you feel. They'd have group sessions and there would be like an attack and it would deteriorate and then people would like, whether they actually left or you could just see that they had left. Their physical body was there, but they were no longer engaged in hopeful resolution of this conflict for the betterment of themselves, each other, and the company. They're just like, you people don't get it, right, was the general tone and demeanor. And I found it to be heartbreaking because I knew all the players and two days before

the fight, they had all been good people, well well-intentioned committed to each other and to the business. Well just before we go did you want to say anything else? Is there a question you'd like us to ask you that has not been asked that gives you an opportunity to say something that hasn't been covered here. Yeah. People will say that what I'm talking about is like kumbaya, mushy middle, compromise, you know, watered down. Like we don't want civility, we want change. So I get the skepticism, but this is what happened to me and I can't, you know, I don't always share it and I couldn't have like made it up. I was leading a delegation to Poland and I reread Victor Frankl's book Man's Search for Meaning.

He writes about how love and beauty are the things that sustain people in horrendous or horrific circumstances. And there was something about that that kind of rattled me. Like it's not the fight, but it's the love and the beauty. Can I just interrupt? Because that book is so beautiful. I love that book. Um, Victor Frankl was a concentration camp survivor who went through a living hell

and came out the other side with a remarkably loving heart, with a very different view of life, right? Yeah, exactly. A hundred percent. Um, and so I re-read the book cause I was leading this delegation to with a very different view of life, right? Yeah, exactly, 100%. And so I re-read the book because I was leading this delegation to Poland. I took the group to Auschwitz. And when I arrived in Auschwitz, it was already like,

that's the land of my great-grandparents. So it was already emotional and members of my own family, extended family, were killed there and people, as you said, call it hell on earth, and it is. But at the end of the, I don't know if either of you have been, but there's this disembarkation point which is where the train tracks come to, which is where the train cars arrive, and I was standing there at the end of the tracks listening to this story about a brother

and a sister who came off the cars and holding hands and the sister was pulled to one side sent to the crematoria and incinerated the brother sent to work in the camp he actually lived to tell the story but they never saw each other again and as I stood there my own children, brother and sister, popped into my heart or into my mind. And like the agony, the rage, the heartbreak, it was like it was too much, literally too much to bear. It's like a freezing December day and I drop to the ground, crumble to the ground and I weep. It's like there on the ground with Auschwitz sobbing. And then the craziest thing happened, like the sobbing, the weeping, it subsided.

And I had this totally bizarre awareness, like this raw sense that all of us that were all bound up together in this tangled web of life, not just the good ones, but all of us, inextricably linked, like that it can be tempting to say, like, I hate this about you, but that thing I hate in you, some little hint of it lives in me. I have to admit it.

And what I love most deeply must reside in you. And so it was like, you know, I don't know, revelation. Like I could no longer just hate and simplify the other. I wanted to get more clear and crisp in my own values, but not to be aggressive against the other because I'm connected to them. They're part of me, I'm part of them. And I think the more we're clear about where we stand,

the less we need to be brittle or rigid or land a cheap shot or throw a jab. But it came that day was the sense that I want to be skillful enough and convicted enough in my beliefs that I can stand for my values. But I can still be inviting. I can still have the open-hearted to the other because Sitting in the fire of disagreement and recognizing the humanity of the other person I think that's how we heal our souls and repair the world I don't think there's a shortcut and I think you know in light of our conversation

I think workplaces can manifest that too, but there's a technique question and then there's the deeper that too, but there's a technique question and then there's the deeper grounding question. And I guess that's why I wanted to share that origin story about my approach to this work. So hopefully that fills out a little bit of the picture of me. Simon Greer, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Good to spend the time with you. Simon Greer joining us on Let's Find Common Ground. Our podcast is a production of Common Ground Committee. We share stories and ideas about reaching across political and other divides that create

gridlock and prevent progress on many matters that large majorities of Americans actually agree on. Find out more about our mission and our work at commongroundcommittee.org. Let's Find Common Ground is produced for Common Ground Committee by Davies Content. A special thanks this week to our editor and sound designer, Miranda Schaeffer. We get support and advice from Eric Olson and Penelope Walker.

Musical theme by Andrew Scherr. I'm Ashley Miltite. I'm Richard Davies. Thanks for listening. This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.