Once we’ve decided that having inclusive conversations is important and worth our time, why is it important to build our ability to do so? Can’t we just talk? What is there to learn? After all, aren’t we just people?
Yes, we are all just people and we all have culture. Because our worlds are often separate, except for specific moments of contact, each group has a history, a set of beliefs, habits, and norms about and for itself, and a set of perceptions of other groups. Communication is extra-tricky too. In ambiguous situations body language and tone of voice are what we use to interpret meaning. Each culture is subject to its own interpretation. Even if we assumed that everyone had only the purest, best interests at heart in delivering a verbal message (which is not always the case), how that individual communicates that message determines whether the conversation is productive or not. The words we choose, the tone of voice, how we stand, and what we do when we are talking, all play a part in how our message is received. And as the theatrical genius Augusto Boal said, ”The word spoken is rarely the word heard.”
Further, where communicating about different sensitive topics that are often taboo, such as the social construct of race, victimization, microaggressions, privilege (social inequality), etc., there is a high risk of the conversation getting tense and people being either victimized or victimizing others via misleading, miscommunication, or mislistening (in case you’re wondering, yes, I just made that word up). Violent outbreaks can also occur after multiple dissatisfying, victimizing interactions; the victim can become the aggressor.
This is why exercising muscles to converse across differences is crucial. Misunderstandings are not to be avoided. They are an integral part of communicating. We can avoid shutting down the conversation when a misunderstanding occurs so that it strengthens the relationship.
The next ten blogs and the e-book that will contain all ten posts, will focus on ten barriers to conversations across differences and skills that can help overcome them. Each barrier falls under one of five moments of building relationships with people or groups: opening the door, self-care/discernment, deepening the relationships, taking a stand, and fostering a group’s process.
Here are the individual skills and barriers that will be addressed in this series:
- Opening the door: Resistance to someone else’s view
- Opening the door: Different Political Stances
- Self-care/Discernment: Burnout
- Self-care/Discernment: Being attacked
- Deepening relationships: Tensions rising
- Deepening relationships: Putting people off – Beating them down with knowledge
- Taking a stand: Flawed Process
- Fostering group process: Jeopardizing trust
- Fostering group process: Trying to control the result
- Fostering group process: Different comfort zones
Building muscles for genuine conversation is critical for this time.
We cannot learn all there is to learn, and solve the problems of our world, without communicating. Our world is changing quickly. Conversation is the most creative tool of our human selves, it enables us to think on our feet and get out of mental ruts. When we “agree to disagree”, we are in fact, shutting down the conversation for the fear of saying the wrong thing or letting it get out of hand. When we do this, we simply strengthen our wrong perceptions behind walls of silence and indifference.
It’s important that we stay open and learn to communicate even through the tough moments.
The health and survival of our world depend on it.
In the next blog, I’ll give an example of how to overcome someone’s resistance to an inclusive conversation.