Collaborating in World 2.0, Pt. 2
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We’ll have to go beyond arguing in a post-COVID-19 world and learn how to collaborate with people who think differently than us.
There’s an energy present in the world right now unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. People are rising up in the streets to demand racial justice. A global pandemic upended our lives, having us spend more time at home than we’re used to. And there’s a lot of uncertainty about what’s next.
With everything that is present, how we do move forward together, stronger than ever?
Our world faces many existential threats — like rising income inequality, healing racial discrimination and systemic injustice, the demonization of migrants and Hispanics, and an Earth crying for sustainability — that I get discouraged when change doesn’t happen. If we’re going to tackle these issues together, we’re going to have to learn how to work together with people who think differently than us to co-create a World 2.0.
How we do that is part of the vision that I articulated in Part 1 of this three-part series:
Working together to achieve the impossible creates possibilities that give way to the conceivable.
As a mediator and consultant, I regularly get in the middle of intense conflict. I see firsthand the destruction that years of arguing have on startup teams and how this affects their inability to get anything done. The pattern I have noticed from my work facilitating difficult conversations is a world dominated by the mind. In our pursuit to stay logical and “keep emotions out of it”, we’re disconnecting from the things that make us human — our kindness, our compassion, and our empathy. It’s leading to only more anger, more separation, and more chaos, between ourselves, others, and our planet.
“Individual psychological and emotional problems become collective concerns when…
