Follow along with the transcript below for episode: The Power of Connection With Deborah K. Heisz and Karen Guggenheim
[INTRODUCTION]
[00:00:03] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 509 of Live Happy Now. As we move into happiness month, we’re going to talk a lot about the power of connections, and we’re kicking that off by talking about how to build connections in our communities.
I’m your host, Paula Felps. Today, I’m joined by Dr. Nichole Argo, Executive Director of the TogetherUp Institute, which has launched a national movement of Americans who want to connect and collaborate across differences. Nichole also co-hosts the Reimagining Us podcast, which looks at how to heal the vision in our communities and create a sense of belonging. She’s joining me to talk about some of the ways we can learn to make connections in a time of polarization and why it’s so important for us to do so. Let’s have a listen.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:00:50] PF: Nichole, thank you so much for joining me today on Live Happy Now.
[00:00:53] NA: Thank you so much for having me. It’s great to be here.
[00:00:56] PF: I’m excited to talk to you. We’re kicking off our Happiness Month. Our whole month is about connection, and you study the psychology of human conflict and connection. So we couldn’t think of anyone better to come in and talk to us about the importance of building connections in our community. As I said, it’s our Happiness Month, and I wanted to start by asking you, when you hear the word connection, what is it that comes to mind?
[00:01:18] NA: Probably a rare breed right now because I’m immersed in that world, right? When I think about connection, of course, just like all other humans, I think about the warm fuzzies, the smiles, the hugs, the deep conversations with friends or my daughter and son or strangers. Connection is a lifeblood for all of us. It’s a motivator. Maslow’s human needs pyramid used to say that that belonging and connection and these things were number three on the list of priorities. But these days, Maslow’s students have rewritten the article, and they say it’s number one. Because if you think about it, we don’t get our food and our security unless we’re part of a group, right? When you really start thinking deeply about connection, it’s sort of everything. It’s the currency of life, more so even than money.
For me, because I spent so much time thinking about that, I think a lot about the infrastructure of our connection. So not just that I have at least one other person I care deeply about. We know this is important for mental and physical health. The higher those numbers, the better for our health. But I also think about connection across difference that our societies and our communities thrive, the more connections we have across differences. If I’m a densely connected neighborhood and we’re all the same, there are some great things that come from that. But in times of duress, we won’t be able to reach outside of our bubble to get help.
What you really want is strong density, lots of connections, but also some connections that are different from you. That ensures over time you’re exposed to different ways of thinking, to understanding different ways of being, to different resources, different assets. I think of connection. Number one, I think it’s essential. Number two, I think how can I connect even more with people that I don’t have an obvious and easy connection with?
[00:03:30] PF: That’s an important point to bring up because there’s so much division right now, and people don’t necessarily want to connect with people who are different. It’s so volatile. I was at a part, and someone came in, and the other person was like, “I just don’t want to hear them talk,” you know? It’s like, “Okay, we’ve drawn that line.” I don’t think that’s an isolated feeling right now. In a time when there is so much division, how do we start making connections and still feel heard and still feel safe?
[00:04:06] NA: Yes. I think that the story you just described, it probably is at an all -time high right now, right? What’s different about this moment of polarization than prior moments in our country’s history is that it used to be you disagreed over positions. But these days, people disagree. It’s called effective polarization. They just don’t like the people who they think hold these different positions, so cross-partisans, right?
Let’s say someone named George is a cross-partisan. Without even me knowing what George actually believes or thinks or how he grew up or how he’s feeling that day, what he had for breakfast, I just see George walk in the room, and I’m like, “Oh.” His group membership is telling me all these things probably inaccurately. I feel so heavy and weighed down by it or whatever the negative feelings are. This is a really important characteristic of this moment because all those assumptions that go with group membership, being liberal or being conservative or whatnot, they are leveraged in national media or politics, into us versus them dynamics and outrage, really moral outrage over how these people on the other side. So we have some heavy dismantling to do within our own heads and hearts.
When we meet an individual who we may think is part of another group, they may be part of another group, we need to first see them as George, as another individual who may be a dog owner like me, or play basketball, or is also a parent. The first thing that we really need to do is remember that we share much more in common than we do difference. But you asked like how do we make those connections and still feel safe. I will say on our podcast, Reimagining Us, we had the incredible privilege of talking to some great thinkers on this subject in episode six. We actually pulled it into two parts to enable everybody to share their best practices or the tips. We created a toolkit around it, and I can share some of the things that –
[00:06:29] PF: I would love that.
[00:06:30] NA: Number one is start with curiosity. I think this is for all of us, like when we leave the house every day and maybe even inside our house, just how do I get curious about anything that comes up that I don’t expect or that I don’t obviously agree with? As Scott Shigeoka writes in his book, Seek, think about people, not positions, values, not views. Because every one of us has that story, right? Or that set of experiences that we can connect around, and we should go there in our conversations, seeing them as a person and not a group member.
Then if things do get into politics or positions, we can dig deeper. What is their personal experience with that issue? Rather than like why do you think what you think, or what do you think. Just like, well, what’s your personal experience with immigration? How has this touched your life? Or how did you learn about it? What are the values that undergird you’re thinking about this issue, right? What feels threatened or hard? Just really just go for the stories.
There’s actually a technique called SAVE. It’s a deep listening technique, and this is something that John Sarrouf and Essential Partners shared with us. Save stands for stories, actions, values, and emotions. The idea is that when you’re talking with somebody who has really different views than you, go straight towards, “Oh. What are your stories with this? What actions have you been involved in, either as a recipient or as a person who is acting that deal with this issue? What are the values? What are the emotions?”
Then another great thinker, her name is Melissa Weintraub, and she is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of Resetting the Table. She talks about deflattening the issue. If you find yourself in a conversation with somebody, make it your goal to understand versus persuade. Literally turn off that part of you for now. Say if I am liberal, maybe I’m going to just turn it off and say, “I want to just know like what is their experience here, and think about how could I give the most generous version of their argument possible,” right? Through curiosity, to understand how they got there, what their stories are, and now what do they think what would be a really generous, complex argument?
This is getting away from those binaries, those Twitter headlines about what groups think. It’s very rarely the case. Most Republicans disagree to a great extent with other Republicans on certain things and same with Democrats. What is a generous argument for what they’re thinking? What I’m telling you now is sort of like how can you go towards if you’re safe, if you’re feeling curious? But then there’s sometimes when we’re not, where we already feel threatened, or we’re not ready to talk. Or somebody says something that it feels harmful and upsetting to us.
Monica Guzman talked a lot about being aware when we’re no longer going towards understanding because our emotions – literally, your physiology, right? You feel it in your body, and your brain kind of fogs. You can no longer think about the questions. You’re responding to things that haven’t even been said yet.
[00:09:56] PF: Been there.
[00:09:58] NA: Yes. I mean, that’s actually something else we can all connect around. We’ve all been there. It’s natural and it’s uncomfortable, but one thing we can do is slow down at that point. If it was really bad, we could pause, right? “Oh, I need to go get a drink. Let’s talk more about this later.” Or, “This is really affecting me. Something that you just said, it feels harmful to me, and I need to just take a moment,” right?
[00:10:28] PF: Let me ask you. In taking that moment, sometimes it needs more than a moment. I have a situation in my life where a very good friend, we’ve been friends for 20 years, and he and I see things very, very differently. I never realized until this year how deeply differently we saw things that are very important to me. It’s like right now, it’s just kind of like, “Look, I need time. I need this space away because I’m not going to try to get someone to think like I do. I know that’s a useless argument, and I don’t want to have an argument. I just need this space.” What is the best practice in that kind of a situation where someone does feel like, “I really need to take a break here.”?
[00:11:11] NA: The best practice is exactly that. You know yourself. John A. Powell, who is a Director of the Othering and Belonging Institute, he often says, “We don’t have to build long bridges. We can start with short ones. Start with the bridging that is easier, that is less threatening.” For him, he has a boundary. Anybody who endorses violence is somebody he doesn’t feel comfortable bridging with and will never feel comfortable bridging with. That’s okay too, right? We’re not called to be in conversation with everyone into souls over like nails for this.
But the idea is at a moment where our communities and our relationships are so polarized, often based on inaccurate assumptions, we are called to be a little more curious because we probably have inaccurate assumptions in our mind about people who we’re close to. Two thoughts to what you’re saying. First, if you don’t feel ready, you don’t need to talk. It doesn’t mean you need to other that person or attack them. But you can say – my brother and I, I feel like we very much have this relationship where I love and trust him and his values and his goals, and we see the world really differently. When we can talk, we have these beautiful, depthful, concrete discussions. When one of us can’t, we just say, “I’m not there for this right now,” and that’s okay.
[00:12:51] PF: That seems like a wonderful relationship. If you can get to that point where you can say that like, “We just can’t have this conversation right now,” and you can both respect each other for that and continue on with your life otherwise. I think that’s a really wonderful way to approach it if both people are able to do that. Sometimes, I see situations that are so volatile that one of them is like, “No, we’re going to talk right now.”
[00:13:16] NA: I think what’s interesting, you’re right. We don’t control everything in a relationship, right? Monica Guzman said another wonderful thing around this. She said, “Rethink success.” You might have a conversation attempting to bridge with someone, and it doesn’t go well. Either maybe you get triggered, you don’t want to continue or they do. There’s an explosion, something, whatever happens that you feel it wasn’t a success. She says, “Rethink success.” Because when it comes to bridging, we’re all in an environment right now where we see people getting canceled and punished and written off as morally decrepit for disagreeing on different things. People are expecting that that can happen to them.
Even being in a conversation where a new understanding may not happen or an obvious we got somewhere doesn’t happen, but having a conversation that remains respectful and authentic where someone says, “You know what? I need to pause now.” But the relationship continues. That’s a win.
[00:14:25] PF: How does that actually strengthen the relationship? Does it make for stronger bonds if you can say, “This isn’t about our differences. We’re going to find this common ground. We’re going to find areas we agree on, and we will go forward despite our very different opinions or views on things.”?
[00:14:41] NA: I think it strengthens it in two ways. One is process. The other person understands that you’re not writing them off because of something that was said or one missed opportunity or one, “Hmm, here’s where we landed. Okay, it’s a little incomplete or unsettled or whatever, but I’m still in. I’m still going to offer you water when I see you in the kitchen later.” You’re showing that your relationship is more important than tactical outcomes along the way, right?
[00:15:16] PF: Right.
[00:15:17] NA: I think that’s actually a huge thing in this day and age. We’re not seeing that. It’s not what’s advertised. Those are the stories you hear about in the newspaper or on social media. But those are the stories that undergird strong communities and strong families.
[BREAK]
[00:15:36] PF: We’ll be right back with more of Live Happy Now.
[INTERVIEW RESUMED]
[00:15:45] PF: And now, let’s hear more from Dr. Nichole Argo.
[00:16:42] NA: You know. Melissa Weintraub, again, of Resetting the Table, she talked about how their unique approach to bridging is to go towards differences. Rather than start a conversation based on what everybody might have in common, which can be great, it can humanize everybody, there’s room for all of these tools in the toolkit. They say that going immediately towards difference is often a way that makes people feel seen and heard. Even if neither side changes their own position, being respected as you share like, “Here’s what I think and why and how I came to that,” and having someone hear that and nod and understand those reasons why often leaves people feeling more connected than if the entire conversation was averted or suppressed. Or we agree to disagree but in a more negative way.
This idea of you said how can we have these conversations and feel safe. I think depending upon who you’re talking to and what their skills and focus is, you can often get to a place of really different views on something where two people understand that their values are incredibly similar. Their experiences were different, that they cherish and really value the other person’s perspective, even if it’s different from theirs, and that it will change how they want to go forward dealing with that issue in their own life, even though their positions remain different, right?
Having really different ideas, it really comes down to each conversation. You can go towards differences or you can, as you said, go towards either similarities or just understanding that a person is a thousand things. What you’re hearing in that moment is one of them, and all those other things are really important and beautiful, too.
[00:18:55] PF: I love that and I love that you can point that out to us because I think also we live in a world driven by social media, and that has not facilitated civil conversation. How has that helped us disconnect from people? How has that driven more of an us versus them mentality?
[00:19:17] NA: Another thing that we heard on our podcast for this, in my view, and I think people intuitively can agree, when you see bite-sized positions on social media, you have to fill in the blanks, and you fill them in based on group membership. Is this a conservative? Is this a liberal? Is this – who’s this person? What’s their stance? They write three sentences. It might be filled with outrage or a strong stance because their incentive is to get as many likes as they can to beef things up for their group members.
If you disagree with that, you have to assume a lot. You have to think this is so much more. All the things that you will think are happening in your head. They’re not on the table. They’re not up for discussion. The complexity of the argument is not in the room. To engage it and further the us versus them, actually, I think is harmful not just for the person engaging because you’ll never persuade anyone over social media. But it’s harmful for everyone who’s watching it. The complexity of that argument never does come out. The points of similarity or closeness that might exist between sides never come out.
We have so much research on this now. More in common does a lot on the perception gap. Something to – it’s really easy to look up. There’s a ton of research that liberals and conservatives are closer than anyone ever would expect on a variety of issues. They think the other group is further off than they are. Within our groups, there’s much more heterogeneity of views than what people think. They’re exposed to a mainstream pundit or politician view. Often these days, it’s like the mainstreaming of extreme views. They think that’s what the party is thinking, and they themselves oftentimes quiet and exhausted by politics, they’re not there.
It’s usually harmful and inaccurate to assume what another person thinks or why or to what extent they believe that holds without having a conversation that gets into detail. You can’t do that on social media, period.
[00:21:31] PF: No, you can’t. You can’t at all. We had Kurt Gray on the podcast a few weeks ago and talking about his book, Outraged. He really had some interesting stats just about that same thing about how conservatives and liberals, what they believe about the other faction and how off-target that is. I think that’s something so interesting for us to keep in mind that it is the extreme views that are mostly blown up on social media, even by the media themselves. Knowing that, how do we take this down to a community level and start creating this sense of – I know you work so much with belonging. Let’s start there. Let’s talk about when you talk about belonging. What is that?
[00:22:13] NA: Sure. Belonging is this thing that maybe we’ve all known since we were infants in our mother’s arms. Either you’re cared for and you’re connected to this other being, physically connected for the first months of our lives and then still based on the need for milk and care and warmth beyond that. Belonging, we know it. I think despite the fact that we know it and we know how powerful it is, everybody, if you ask them of a story when they felt they didn’t belong, it can bring tears to people. People know how important this is.
But at the same time, we often think of it as kumbaya, right? It’s like a warm fuzzy. When I led a research team to create a workable concept around this and to find out a way to measure belonging, we scoured different disciplines; sociology, political science, psychology, sports, organizations. What we found was this multifaceted but definable concept that’s a really high bar. I sometimes think of it as radical belonging. It has these three pillars. One of them is connection. To bring us back to the beginning of this conversation for a Happiness Month, one of them is just like how emotionally connected do we feel. How much do we identify with a certain place? Do we feel welcomed and included? We know this is important.
The Surgeon General has the loneliness epidemic, or the former Surgeon General has brought this to awareness in the American population as an epidemic, but it’s not just about connection. We’ve also seen that there’s something called psychological safety. This gets to your question about like how do I feel safe. This is where you can disagree or make a mistake, say something off the cuff, and not worry that you’ll be punished for it, that you will still be valued even if you disagree with others in the room. We saw a lot of this in organizational like workplaces.
Businesses such as Google ran multi-million-dollar study to find out why were there high-performing teams, so high-performing. They looked at all the things you can imagine, the intelligence quotient of the people and the teams, the leadership potential, the individuals, if they all lived in one space, all these different things. They found that the answer was if everybody in that group said they felt psychologically safe, if they could take risks and share their thoughts freely, what happened is that they did do that. We know when it comes to collaboration that the more different perspectives you have, the more innovative you are, the more productive you are. But if you didn’t feel safe enough to share those different perspectives, then your team wasn’t going to be able to reach those heights.
This is a really important part of belonging. If our communities right now are suffering in terms of connection with the loneliness epidemic, we also know our communities in this polarized country are suffering from psychological safety. I work with a group called the E Pluribus Unum. Actually, it’s got Hutcheson, my co-host on Reimagining Us. We’ve done some research in the South for a few years where we ask people like, “Do you feel that you would be punished or suffer in some way if you were to disagree with others in your community?” We consistently get numbers in the 40s to upper 40s, so sometimes almost half of a community. That’s a big number of Americans who feel afraid to disagree.
[00:26:04] PF: How then do you use all this? You’ve done so much research, so much. We can apply this on a one on one with our individual relationships. But then how do we apply it in a way that brings our communities together? Because people might be thinking, “Well, that’s great. I can start getting along with my neighbor, but how does that change my entire community?”
[00:26:26] NA: I will say there’s one more pillar of belonging, and I’ll throw this in there because it’s part of the answer. That is agency or co-creation that people need to feel like they can influence decisions that get made. Like they’re part of the system that governs their life in some way and feel equal and heard, so connection, psychological safety, and agency or co-creation. One thing we can do is we can ask. If I’m a YMCA or a nonprofit, if I’m a town, towns routinely survey their populations. They have town satisfaction surveys or special issues surveys. We can ask where people are. The Belonging Barometer came up with a measure that could be easily used for that.
But the way that we learn from that isn’t just what’s the average score. We can say like, “Oh, in our town, people are really connected, but they don’t feel safe.” Or, “They’re connected, and they feel psychologically safe, but they don’t feel any agency. They don’t know how to get involved, or they don’t believe that their views are influencing decision-making.” We can learn where are the strengths and where are the weaknesses overall. We can also find out if there are group differences, right? Is it possible that our elders are scoring really differently than our youth or than our middle-aged population? Or does it differ by race? What we learned, we did this in Massachusetts where I live, and we found on the average belonging score, which is a one to five score, where five is full belonging, three is sort of an ambiguity, and less than that is non-belonging. We found there was a full one-point difference between white and non-white residents when it comes to belonging. Belonging predicted town satisfaction, town engagement, and a host of other things.
That already tells me if I’m a town manager, or a school superintendent, or a chief of police, or a nonprofit program person, oh, I might want to reach out to these groups in new ways. I might want to ask questions. Maybe have a discussion. How do you feel belonging? Where could we feel more belonging, right? Do we need to provide more information on how to get involved? Do we need to make it easier to get involved? There are a thousand ways you can go once you diagnose the problem.
[00:29:01] PF: That’s so interesting. As we wrap up, for the individual who’s listening, what is the one thing that they can do today to start creating deeper, better, stronger connections with others in their communities. It’s the easy question.
[00:29:19] NA: It’s the easy question. I think it depends on if you’re a person who likes a book or movies or being in person with people. But I say go for curiosity. Learn about like what can I do the next time that I feel like I want to disengage or that I think that somebody is not wanting to talk to me, right? Or that I see – this is what Reimagining Us cares a lot about. When we can identify us versus them dynamics in a room that it’s just me and you, Paula or if it’s like the town hall meeting, name it and counter it. Stop it. Remind everybody what we have in common, why we’re here. Look for those beautiful aspects of the full 1,000 identity self in front of you, and connect. Come back to the basics. Remember, everything is more complex than a one-statement position. Go towards the complexity and go towards affirming. It’s just like the human connection aspect of all of this.
[00:30:29] PF: That is fantastic advice. I love this. We’re going to tell our listeners where they can find you, how they can listen to the Reimagining Us podcast. Thank you so much for sitting down and talking about this with me. It’s such an important topic.
[00:30:43] NA: Thank you, Paula. I really appreciate what you’re doing with the podcast. With this month, I hope it does bring more happiness and ways to happiness for all of your listeners.
[00:30:53] PF: Thank you so much.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[00:30:58] PF: That was Dr. Nichole Argo, talking about the importance of connections within our community. If you’d like to learn more about Nichole, follow her on social media, check out her podcast, Reimagining Us, or read her research on the state of belonging in the US, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on this podcast episode.
While you’re there, be sure to sign up for our all-new Live Happy newsletter. We’ve expanded to include more of the latest research on happiness, uplifting stories, our new Look for the Good word search puzzle, book recommendations from positive psychology experts, and of course, our Happy Song of the Week.
That is all we have time for today. We’ll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one.
[END]
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- The SAVE method for understanding our differences.
- How our differences can strengthen relationships.
- The 3 essential components of connection.
Follow along with the transcript.
Follow Nichole on Social Media:
- Facebook: @TogetherUpInstitute
- Instagram: @TogetherUpInstitute
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- LinkedIn: @TogetherUpInstitute
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Get a free download of Nichole’s research, The Belonging Barometer: The State of Belonging in the U.S.
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