Breaking Through Gridlock: The Power of Conversation in a Polarized World
These conversations are vital, but too often get stuck. They become contentious or we avoid them because we fear they might. What if, in these difficult conversations, we could stay true to ourselves while enriching relationships and creating powerful pathways forward? What if our divergent values provided healthy fuel for dialogue and innovation instead of gridlock and polarization? Jason Jay and Gabriel Grant invite us into a spirit of serious play, laughing at ourselves while moving from self-reflection to action. Using enlightening exercises and rich examples, Breaking through Gridlock helps us become aware of the role we unwittingly play in getting conversations stuck. It empowers us to share what really matters – with anyone, anywhere – so that together we can create positive change in our families, organizations, communities, and society.
Reviews (53)
I have often personally found myself feeling nervous or unsure of engaging in potentially "heated" conversations - the approache
This isn't a book to just sit and read - this is a book to read part of, reflect on, talk about, and then use as a guide to have conversations with other people. The motivation of the book - to get people to engage in meaningful conversations with others with whom we may not agree - is incredibly timely given the frequent "gridlock" we see in the news, comment boards, and our own family meals. I really appreciate Jason and Gabe's approach to helping guide us through a process of being more vulnerable, thoughtful, and introspective into our own approaches to conversations and how we can change how we talk with others to have more fulfilling and impactful conversations, and thus help us build stronger relationships. I have often personally found myself feeling nervous or unsure of engaging in potentially "heated" conversations - the approaches in "Breaking Through Gridlock" helped me feel more comfortable in starting - and staying in - these critical conversations. I've been lucky to have been able to work with Jason and Gabe through some of their earlier ideas that have built into this book. I've used these ideas, and an early draft of this book, in five undergraduate courses on environmental stewardship. The students appreciated the structure and thoughtful reflection prompts, as they considered engaging with people on topics they'd avoided, or fought over previously. For class, students wrote reflections of their process and many made comments about how the process outlined in this book helped them realize some of the biases they had when they approached conversations, and how the changes they made helped them learn more about people who they had conversations with. Students often spoke with loved ones - parents, siblings, grandparents - about political issues they disagreed on and this new approach helped them move past previous heated disagreements to a better shared understanding of each other. It made a few Thanksgiving tables much happier places to be! Students also often reflected on how these approaches helped them engage with friends and roommates about issues like recycling, composting, energy... the list goes on. If anyone is thinking about how they might integrate this book and these ideas into a learning curriculum, I'd be happy to chat more about my experience. I'm thrilled that this book is now available and hope that you're able to use it to help guide your own path to unpack the power of conversation.
How We Talk With One-Another
The world is in the middle of its most challenging evolutionary history, and we are being challenged to think about how we speak with, and to each other. Global trading, travel and communications are at an all time high, with people mixing, meeting and confronting other cultures daily. Fear of different behaviors, faiths and cultural practices are driving conflicts at personal and national levels to levels not seen since, perhaps WWII. And the threat of a perpetual pandemic is pushing people further apart. Politically voters are seeking cover behind authoritarian leaders that are further exaggerating the risks and threats posed by people who look, behave and believe differently. Researchers Jason Jay and Gabriel Grant have done an exemplary job examining how we set our communications with others up for failure by not looking for win-win sustainable solutions, both on a one-to basis as well as in larger groups. Jason Jay has a doctorate from MIT and Gabriel Grant has a Masters Degree from Yale University. With a global population mass moving rapidly towards 10 billion people, with mega-cities with high density and an increasing migration pattern due to climate challenges and economics, perhaps adopting some of their strategies may 'Break Through The Gridlocks' between each of us and our near and far neighbors, in time to successfully reach a sustainable global social, environmental and economic global peaceful solution as suggested by John R. Ehrenfeld in 'Flourishing by Design.
Powerful book providing tools & info to help us to come together, heal, and progress in a highly charged and divisive world!
Communicating with other people about everything from personal concerns to political issues can be overwhelming and leave us feeling hopeless or stuck, especially in the current social and political climate. No matter what your passions or political leaning may be, it can seem nearly impossible to build bridges and find ways to work together again. This may be talking to friends and family about encouraging healthy eating, recycling, or healing old wounds that have created tension in a relationship. It can also be about talking to your boss/co-workers, community members, religious leaders, or politicians about creating new programs to increase diversity, be more environmentally conscious, or even finding a way to encourage policy changes to benefit our society as a whole. So often we find ourselves yelling into echo chambers or arguing fruitlessly with people who have ideological differences instead of working together to make progress that we are all so desperate to achieve. How do we fix this? How can we come together when it feels like we're stuck fighting in quicksand, sinking deeper into the muck of division instead of pulling each other up? Breaking Through Gridlock is a brilliant, thoughtful, and well-researched book that gives us these tools for progress. The book not only teaches us communication techniques to build bridges, but also helps to teach readers how to address our own issues that we bring into these interactions that may create barriers to progress. The book includes helpful exercises, and encourages self-reflection and empathy for others. The techniques in the book have been successfully implemented in a wide variety of educational and business settings, and the authors provide additional supportive resources through their website. I highly recommend it!
Things I love about Jason Jay and Gabriel Grant’s book
Things I love about Jason Jay and Gabriel Grant’s book: They practice what they preach where they authentically share their own pitfalls on the path to generative conversations with a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor. They also accomplish something that is rare and incredibly useful: they help readers to bring about change in the outer world while bringing along the inner world. Bridging inner and outer change is indispensable, and they skillfully weave the two together. Last, but not least, they equip their book with a whole range of signposts on the path to authentic conversations—in the form of well thought-out exercises. As a result, this book is almost like a workshop, and readers have a very good chance to break through gridlock in practice. What I wished they had included (and I recognize that a book cannot do all things for all people): I would have loved to read a bit more about the caveats, for example: Would this approach to conversations also work when having a conversation in the “one-to-many”-format of classrooms or public speaking? Are there situations when this approach may reach its limits? And how do you troubleshoot – i.e., what can you do when you notice that a conversation goes awry, despite having done one’s homework? Food for thought and perhaps for another book… Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and I am grateful to have it as a resource in my own attempts to have conversations that matter.
Want a break through talk with your spouse or partner? How about your boss or that opposing Congressional committee colleague?
This is the first book I have read that gives a straight forward, well organized and masterfully developed plan to break gridlock. Jay and Grant outline a clear map to navigate from being stuck in a conversation to using well designed steps to invite the other person back into a productive pursuit of a viable solution. To break gridlock, you’ll need to understand and use some special tools: Be authentic and oriented toward the future Recognize the hidden baggage you have brought to conversations Identify “bait” you bite on that get’s you in trouble Clarify what matters most to both sides and look for innovative approaches that are not just hard trade offs Jay and Grant aren’t selling “three easy steps.” There are exercises in their book that invite you to work hard and apply your best efforts and determination to find a solution that is best for your community. Their book’s approach applies to working through differences from the kitchen table to the halls of Congress and beyond.
Should be on every organizational leader's desk
The timing of Grant and Jay's book could not be better. At a time in the States when we so often seem to be drifting farther apart, this book offers a refreshing and reinvigorating island of hope for the paths back to some of the difficult and uncomfortable conversations that we will need to have in the days and years ahead. But more than that, Grant and Jay provide pragmatic exercises and counsel that will require some courage and discomfort, but that may well prove to be the work that we need to do so that we can focus on better futures for ourselves, our families and our communities. I was particularly drawn into the chapter called "Locate the bait," and it will be the first chapter that I re-read on my way to putting this excellent book to use in the relationships around me.
Thinking about desired futures in order to break through gridlock
This book is tremendous. Just what we need for seriously rethinking conversations and relationships on order to push forward toward a better world. Jay and Grant provide a method that is transformational in its ability to provide a flexible scaffold for how we engage with one another in those situations where we're just "stuck." In particular, I find the part about thinking about authentic desired futures (as a means of getting over the "bait," that is the short term booby rewards we get from our old ways of being) compelling. In my own field of environmental science, we so often focus on what we can't do or what we should reduce, avoid, etc., in order to solve environmental problems or reach a “sustainable” future. However this isn’t a particularly compelling argument for changing policies or behaviors. Grant & Jay instead suggest that we should concentrate on the better, brighter desired future as a way of *beginning* the conversation with those. Often we then discover that this future means we have values in common with those around us. I ordered five copies, and plan to give them to friends and family and anyone else I meet who might benefit (so...everyone...will be hard not to break the bank by ordering dozens more copies!). I am a college professor (environmental science/studies and sustainability) and I also plan to give a copy to each of my seniors in my research lab as part of my graduating senior book stack. Essential reading material for every college graduate, every one who is in any type of relationship they'd like to make more meaningful, policy and decision makers - all of us.
A thoughtful gift book
Wow. I heard about this book and was anticipating it would be very good... AND it is great. Easy to read, yet deep and thoughtful. And organized in a great way for skimmers too. The chapter summaries are great. Jay and Gabriel advise the reader to do the exercises as you read -- rather than skipping -- so I started reading and skipping the exercises, but didn't get very far and went back and did the exercises. I suggest that you get fully engaged in the book. It is fun and, well, I already said thoughtful. If pressed to state a favorite chapter, it would be Widen the Circle as it fits most with my work in diversity and inclusion. But it really fits with everyone's work... and I love the emphasis on sustainability. I also appreciate the section on "the power of apology." The book is so timely right now for many reasons. I am going to use this book as one of my gift books for colleagues.
This book is a must-read for anyone with goals large ...
This book is a must-read for anyone with goals large enough to need a coalition of unlikely partners to succeed. It's core is a series of exercises designed to help leaders get over their own personal stumbling blocks and open themselves up to the values and intelligence of other people, especially people with opposing viewpoints. Breaking Through Gridlock helps leaders pivot in their minds from coercion to cooperation, and it opens up much broader possibilities for the messy process of engaging with people who disagree. You will get out of this book what you put into it. If you open yourself to doing the exercises seriously, it will leave its mark in the way you engage other people. Ultimately, it will leave a mark in your relationship with yourself, too. Rev. John Harrison St. Louis, MO
A primer for anyone seeking to bring about positive social change
This book is a powerful how-to guide on moving from rumination and worry to inspired action. Jason Jay and Gabriel Grant's light-hearted approach helped me loosen up and stop taking myself so seriously in conversations I was avoiding. By engaging in each of the thoughtful exercises (please do not skip the exercises!), I was able to get honest with myself about my true motivations when attempting to influence others. I realized, yes, it is possible to get out of my comfort zone, drop the conversational ammo, and engage with an open heart and open mind. It is from this place that "a ha" moments happen and previously fractured relationships deepen. Let this book be your toolkit for transcending ideological differences, one conversation at a time.
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