Turning Disagreements Into Solutions: Fixing Gridlock

So I'm quite surprised at the direction my life has taken. You too? Thought you're gonna be a doctor? Art history major? Sorry, dad.

Look. I didn't come to Washington to get involved in law, politics, or government. I came because my family moved down from Syracuse, New York to find better weather, and that was eighteen years ago. Until 2009, my only career was in business. And now I find myself at a nonprofit trying to resolve some of the most contentious issues facing our country.

That America feels more divided than it has for a long time. And you know about these divisions because you live and work here in this town, or you've watched enough episodes of House of Cards on Netflix that you're beside yourself upset at the way Washington is. The question is, are there other ways to create change than each of us pushing our own agenda as hard as we can?

So we're stuck in gridlock, and you see the consequences all over Washington and around the country on big issues like education, poverty, economic growth, or the environment. Big issues where things are getting worse. And if gridlock is an unsolvable problem, then the best we can hope for is status quo. And you and I know that status quo will not meet the needs of the twenty-first century.

So in 2009, I left my life in the private sector and joined my friend and mentor, Rob Furst, to start a nonprofit called Convergence founded on the idea that there are antidotes to gridlock and partisanship. On most issues, if not all, no one person, group, or perspective holds all the answers. But better, stronger, and more lasting solutions can emerge if we foster more communication and more cooperation among those who disagree.

Creating the Right Conditions

Now marriage has taught me a lot of things. And about three years ago, my wife strongly encouraged that I start to learn how to garden. But here's the truth. The first time you pour water on a seed that your wife has put into the ground, you have one thought: Please God, help me not drown and kill this plant. And second, you realize that if you don't have the right mixture of dirt, fertilizer, and sunlight, no matter how much water you pour, nothing's gonna happen. You need the right conditions on the ground for the plants to grow.

And so that's the job that Convergence set out to do, to create the right conditions on the ground so that people in groups who are divided, don't trust each other, stuck in their own silos, or otherwise not collaborating, but who have the knowledge, resources, and influence to make a big difference on big national issues feel empowered to redirect some of the energy they spend in conflict and pool their knowledge, resources, and influence to create real results and lasting change.

The Five Reasons Gridlock is Tough

Now don't get me wrong. Gridlock is a tough problem, and there are at least five reasons why it's tough. Powerful interest groups and the political candidates they support are often locked in hard line positions and demonize each other. Most of these groups believe that for their side to win, the other side has to lose. Fighting is easier than cooperating. Cooperating takes things like listening and patience and consensus, and that feels harder. And for the media, it sometimes can add fuel to the fire, exaggerating conflict to boost ratings or hyping opposing views to look balanced. And five, it's really hard for you and I, the public, to mobilize in a way that can put pressure on these groups to fight less and cooperate more.

These are difficult conditions, and it's why you see in this city that dysfunction appears to be the norm in our politics. And for some, it's the way careers are built and money is made. But it doesn't have to be this way.

Four Conditions for Cooperation

We need four conditions to create an environment that promotes cooperation among conflicting groups. They can exist alongside what I just described, and they are: creating a safe space for dialogue, building an agreed upon framework, promoting trust and understanding, and ensuring diverse participation. And the rest of my talk is about them.

1. Safe Space for Dialogue

Let's talk about safe space. Not long ago, I was in Pakistan, which I know is not the first place that comes to mind when you think of safe space. But there I was in a Hertz rental car in the city of Karachi being driven around by a young man named Mazar. Now Mazar and I didn't speak the same language, but between hand gestures and broken sentences, we had a reasonably good conversation.

Mazar believed that most things wrong in Pakistan were the fault of America, and he was very convinced of his arguments. He was 30 years old. He had two daughters. He was married, and he just raised enough money after ten years of working to move his family into a one bedroom with a roof and a fan and overhead light. That was a big deal for him. Both his daughters were in school. He was very proud of that. And his dream was that once they graduated, they would be so kind as to teach their father how to read because Mazar dropped out of school in the second grade to find a job. He'd been working ever since.

Now if I had one appointment that day, I would've been in the car for forty five minutes. And the only person I would've met was the guy who had a lot of bad things to say about America. But I had four appointments, and we had a lot of traffic that day. So I and he were in the car for a total of seven hours.

And so the second person I got to know, I could relate to very differently. And I told him about how my parents left Pakistan and settled in the US to make a better life, about the neighborhoods my brothers and I grew up in and the work we now do. And he asked questions, a lot of them, including how are we treated by our neighbors and by our colleagues. I said very well. And then he said this: "Sir, the truth is America is the land of opportunity and the land of laws, and my country has not yet figured out how to be either one."

Can you imagine? He can barely speak English. He can't read a book, but he knew the values that we stand for. Honest communication in a safe space for a sufficiently long period of time can change the way people relate to each other. Because what gets shared after the positions you believe are the values, life experiences, hopes, fears, and dreams behind them. And when those get shared, you begin to hear each other differently. You listen not to find out where the next point is that you can score. You hear for what new wisdom you might gain. And barriers like status and power and perception and wealth, they give way, and the field on which common ground can surface irreversibly expands.

Creating a safe space for dialogue is the first important condition to creating an environment that can promote cooperation among those who disagree.

2. Agreed Upon Framework

The second condition is to build an agreed upon framework of the issue you're dealing with. Thomas Jefferson—you know him, right? Thomas Jefferson was not planning to go to the 1775 Continental Congress in Philadelphia. His uncle made him go. And when he got there, he hardly spoke a word in the sessions he sat through. But Thomas Jefferson was a good writer, and so the leaders of Congress assigned him a task that nobody else wanted to spend time doing: draft the Declaration of Independence.

Can you imagine that? The war with Britain was on, but there were deep divisions among the colonies on how to proceed. Some thought that there was still a way to reconcile with Britain. Others thought that separation was the only approach. The case for independence had not yet been made, so the commitment to independence among the colonies was weak. The Declaration helped to change that.

It gave everyone a unifying frame and a way to articulate three things: a shared understanding of the challenge and the opportunity, a shared set of values and goals, and a shared vision of the future upon which to base collective action. "We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal"—shared values. And "that they're endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"—shared goals. And "that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men and derive their just powers from the consent of the governed"—shared vision.

If you can articulate the challenge and the opportunity in a way that unifies the level of shared value, vision, and goals, you've got the second condition to create an environment that promotes cooperation among those who disagree.

3. Trust and Understanding

The third is to build trust and understanding. That's really hard to do, especially if most of the groups that you've seen on television and you hear about in the newspapers debate and demonize each other again and again and again. In 2004, the major national organizations around the issue of health care coverage began to meet in private dialogue. These folks were battle tested and battle weary. And although they agreed to meet as a group, there was deep distrust among them and real dislike among some. It took courage for them to show up, and you could feel the tension in the room on the first day.

4. Diverse Participation

And four, ensuring diverse participation. You can't create cooperation if you don't have all the major players at the table. And you can't have all the major players at the table if some of them don't feel welcome or don't feel like their voice will be heard.

Why This Matters

Here's what I know: the organizations and the societies that win are not the ones where everyone agrees. They're the ones where people disagree productively. Where disagreement is a feature, not a bug. Where conflict is an opportunity to get smarter, not a sign that something is wrong.

Because the truth is, if everyone in your organization agrees with you, you're probably not thinking hard enough. You're probably not considering enough perspectives. You're probably not stress-testing your ideas.

The best decisions come from organizations where people feel safe enough to disagree, curious enough to understand different perspectives, and committed enough to the mission to work through the disagreement to find better solutions. That's what I want to leave you with today. Not a technique. Not a framework. But an invitation: the next time you find yourself in a disagreement, instead of trying to win it, try to turn it into a solution.

Thank you.