Life faithfully reminds us what it is like to be the new kid in school, or the Jewish-American couple at the company holiday party or a St. Louis Cardinal fan at a Philadelphia Phillies game.
When we get that anxious feeling in the pit of our stomachs, that may be a sign that we have left behind the comfortable and familiar and are about to encounter contrary ideas, words, values and beliefs that offer us a chance to think and grow.
Everybody has to do it. Even the President doesn’t get excused from these stressful challenges. People who stay in their comfort zones never get the brass ring. Just this weekend President Barack Obama gave the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame knowing his appearance would spark protests. He implored the graduates to embrace these difficult dialogs and stop "reducing those with differing views to caricature. Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words. It's a way of life that always has been the Notre Dame tradition," he said.
He's right. A championship basketball team has to win on the road and learn to deal with opposing fans. Politicians have to represent the folk who did not vote for them and never will give their campaigns a dime. Business people increasingly must sell to customers don’t look like them and don’t trust them. Take it from someone who has been out in the trenches. It gets more comfortable though it never gets easy.
Here's some advice:
Be yourself – Resist the delicious temptation to blend in and mimic the accent (unless you can do it well). It is OK to pick up new words and use them. It is OK to show respect. It is OK to adapt and be culturally flexible. It is not OK to steal someone else’s culture or pretend to be something you are not.
Collect facts in order to solve the puzzle – Suspend judgment while you are collecting facts. Act like a detective, not like a teacher. Put the clues together and try to make sense of them. Don’t spend all your time telling people about your view. (IF you do, you may miss the lesson.)
Clarify – Ask questions that lead to greater insights and community understanding. Resist the urge to impose your opinions on others.
Have the courage to speak up – Diversity experiences frequently yield more pain than gain because so many of us choose to keep silent. We want to fit in, which negates the value of diversity of thought. Learning opportunities arise when the people who are different find the courage to share and transfer cultural knowledge.
Let’s put this information to use with a real-life problem. A liberal is invited to attend a dinner party with her boss who runs with a conservative crowd. One of the other guests makes the statement: “People with bad credit could not afford home loans. They took them out and now all the rest of us must pay. They should have known better.”
How must we introduce new facts without turning the evening into a hostile debate?
We might say:
1) Wouldn’t it be great if we could actually talk with a family in foreclosure and explore this issue? I wonder what we might learn from them? Does anyone here know a family going through foreclosure right now? Objective: You have managed to point out – in a non-threatening way – that some truths are missing from this equation. If you are lucky, a conservative who knows a family will seize the opportunity to speak up. It is best to let him or her tell the story. They have political capital to spend and we don’t.
2) Not all the lending companies engaged in predatory lending and made exotic loans. What lessons might we learn from these companies? (This response holds other businesses – and not liberals – up as role models.)
3) Many high schools in the suburbs offer life skills classes that cover money management while those in the city do not. Could this situation present an opportunity to develop an educational system that fully prepares students for citizenship by covering ethics, money management and global responsibilities? (A good traffic cop stands in the middle of the road to yell instructions – not on the side of the street. This response allows you to stand on neutral ground and encourages discussion of all weaknesses – not just those we see in the people who aren’t like us.)
By getting out of the safe zone, you your boss you are a leader, a compassionate listener and a troubleshooter – not just another angry voice around the table.
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