Some would say, no, there's a line. In
my view and in Brave Angel's view, he
said it with clarity. He was following the
ground rules. We asked him what he thought.
The next question is, what are your concerns
about people who agree with you and how
they engage in in public about this. And
that's where he said, there's too much blaming
and shaming of women, you know, and and
and he's a follower of Jesus and there's
forgiveness and this so there's that too. Okay?
When you go below
the offensive
opinion, if somebody's willing to stay with you,
you get to see the complexity and their
humanity.
So welcome. We have started a podcast,
This Is Your Job Now.
And you're in, I think very nice company.
We've had President Obama's speechwriter on it. We've
had
some, really distinguished guests,
which I consider you to be
among the most, because you have certainly challenged
me the most of any speaker I've ever
heard. So let me introduce you by saying,
you have totally messed up my brain. Well,
makes me feel so good.
And I was really
anxious to talk with you today
because one thing that those who know me
know, I value intellectualism
and and you are a brilliant,
a brilliant speaker who knows everything and anything
that I could learn from. So I we
really appreciate you spending some time. But before
we even start that, could you go ahead
and introduce yourself in your own words, who
you are? Sure. Sure. So, Bill Doherty. I
I live in Saint Paul, Minnesota, long term
academic, taught family therapy for thirty eight years
at the University of Minnesota, and, a community
engaged person, done a lot of work various
sorts of communities
most well, in the last nine years,
I've been involved with founding and and and
leading a nonprofit called Braver Angels, which is
working on the political divide. A particular interest
in health therapy and the broader culture go
together and how we can how we sometimes
inadvertently contribute to societal problems and interpersonal problems
and how we can make a difference. So
the citizen therapist, I consider myself the citizen
therapist.
I always say in my sessions, if I
make you feel functionally guilty, then you'll make
a change. Right? If there's a good thing
about guilt sometimes. Right?
And you made me feel incredibly guilty. I'm
twenty seven years into the field, and so
I wanna thank you for that because we
can become complacent. And as leaders, we often
become complacent. Right? So it seems to me
that you have spent decades trying to bridge
this gap. You know, I hate the term
unprecedented times, but we are in in unprecedented
times. I mean, right? The longest shutdown ever.
So many of us are affected by that.
Food stamps and and it goes on and
on. And yet you stay committed
to the vision that is even more important
to bridging the gap now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And you believe that. I I do. I
think we have to work on it because
this gap the the gap is polarization.
It's how we've come to despise people who
differ from us politically,
how we've gotten to say it's not worth
talking to them, and we stay in our
communities and and throw rocks at each other.
That this is the problem that keeps us
from solving all the other problems. Because once
something gets identified
as red or blue solution,
a red or blue problem, right, like climate
change, then the other side goes away and
doesn't wanna talk about it. So we're coming
up to some holidays for those who are
listening now.
And in your world,
we're often taught as therapists or, you know,
don't talk about these topics. Just take them
off the table. Does that help?
Well, it depends on the setting. It depends
on your relatives. I think it's, during Thanksgiving
dinner when there's actually the table there. It's
probably not the best time to
talk about
Okay.
You know, whether Donald Trump should run a
third time. And there may be some relatives
that you you don't feel capable of talking
to.
But I'd I'd like to suggest that if
we just go silent
with people who are different, who think differently,
and who are important to us. If we
just go silent, it's really hard to keep
a democracy going. If we just keep spread
the silence with each other, and we're loud
we're loud in our own groups
about the other the other side, but we
go silent when we're in their presence. This
is not how a country
can operate, and I I don't think it's
particularly good for families, but it's not good
for the country. You know, you're the Minnesota
Midwest. Right? I'm the New Yorker.
Is there anything to, like, styles and composure?
And and let's talk a little bit about
the real skill of listening, which we don't
teach. Right? We don't formally take a class.
And what I noticed in your facilitation, you're
a phenomenal listener. Well well well, thank you.
By the way, I'm from Philadelphia.
Oh, okay. Alright. And I lived, in the
East Coast. I lived in New York. You
know, it's where my wife and I are.
So I can do East Coast. Okay. Alright.
So you speak okay. So then did I'm
not off the hook with that. I'm not
off the hook. Off the hook with that.
I'm not off the hook with that. But
when you say we don't teach listening, we
also people who know how to listen, like
therapists. Okay? Often, we give ourselves a pass
that we don't have to listen to political
things we disagree with or values we disagree
with. One of the first, skills workshops I
did after we started Braver Angels
was, to about 40 people. And and there
were about a dozen therapists there, and I
know that because some of them were my
colleagues and they invited other people. And when
I asked people to say at the end
what they were taking with them from this
skills workshop,
one of the therapists said, well, you know,
I know all these skills, you know, the
listening skills and the iMessages and so on.
But I never thought to apply them to
political conversations.
So we can be just as judgmental and
moralistic and condemning and why should I talk
to you? When it comes to politics, we
can unskill ourselves
from the very things we know how to
do. They're triggers. That's right. That's right. We
allow ourselves to get triggered. Even people who,
for a profession,
we learn to not get triggered very easily.
So I'm saying we can hold ourselves to
higher standards. I would love to hear a
success story where you feel like you have
been able to repair a community, a group,
an organization,
where practicing this active listening has really helped
build bonds.
Yeah. So one of the projects I'm involved
in now
is a relationship building exchange
between students at Macalester College in Saint Paul,
which is a private, very liberal college,
and University of Northwestern, which is not the
one in Chicago. It's a bible college. It's
a Bible college founded by Billy Graham. So
we have probably the most liberal
college in the state of Minnesota and the
most conservative students. And so we have,
a group of nine students from each college
and the presidents of the two colleges and
a key faculty member meeting every other week
for a meal.
Mhmm. And then a conversation
around topics where we get to know each
other and our views beyond stereotypes,
look for common ground, and then they have
one to ones in between. And what they
discover is that they have much more in
common than differences, and that is some level
of humanity.
They are brothers and sisters. Is there in
the rule book, is there something that both
parties need to agree to before they can
do this? Well, there's ground rules. So my
view is that as long as people agree
to have a respectful conversation, not interrupting each
other, not name calling each other, that there's
nothing that cannot be talked about. So the
line line is not the topic. The line
is not the opinion. It's the behavior.
It's the behavior. So we talked about abortion
last time, and the most conservative
of the students from the Bible college said
in his mind, abortion is murder and that
anybody who participates in that, including the woman,
should be brought up on charges. That's pretty
strong.
Mhmm. K? I mean, he said it, you
know, clearly and firmly. He wasn't shouting and
screaming at anybody. Afterwards, he was in a
one to one with a guy who who
accepts abortion and does not believe life begins
at conception.
And
they one of the things they came up
with together is that when a woman goes
in for a second abortion, maybe she should
be referred to counseling because maybe there's some
stuff going on
that one of the most extreme things. Okay?
That's to say he's he's 20 years old.
Okay?
He's very intellectually minded. So in my mind,
he's following through the logic. Okay? He wasn't
Right. Well, he wasn't because he also said,
like, we should not be shaming and blaming
women, and and these are tragic situate you
know? I mean, so he's complicated. K? And
then he and and another guy said, no.
Maybe, you know, there should be some counseling,
and not against the abortion, but, like, what's
going on with her life? So when you
asked your question about the line, that's my
most recent experience that some would say, no.
There's a line. And when you say women
should be, you know,
adjudicated, blah blah blah, that's a line. Well,
no. In my view, in a Brave Angel's
view, he said it with clarity, with, you
know he was following the ground rules. We
asked him what he thought. And then but
the the next question after what's at the
heart of this for you is what are
your what are your concerns about people who
agree with you, how talk about this, and
and and and how they engage in in
public about this. And that's where he said
there's too much blaming and shaming of women,
you know, and and and he's a follower
of Jesus, and there's forgiveness, and there's so
there's that too. Okay? Right.
When you go below the offensive
opinion, if somebody's willing to stay with you,
you get to see the complexity and their
humanity. So what I'm hearing is we're not
trying to change someone's mind. We're not trying
to bring them over. We're not trying to
convert them over to our our world. We're
trying to listen and okay. Just if I
could follow-up. Please. What we say is we're
not trying to change minds about issues. We're
trying to change minds about each other.
We had talked about
putting pronouns at the end of our signatures,
and whether that's an inclusive way
or a or any exclusive way. Can you
tell me a little bit about because we
we spend so much time including the pronouns
in our signatures here at work. Right? And
saying, we welcome everyone.
And then you make a very powerful point.
Can you share some light on that? Yeah.
So if you are a professional, like a
therapist who is, advertising in the public and
exchanging emails, whether you include pronouns or not,
there's a statement there. And if you choose
to include them, you are signaling. You're signaling
to people who may have
concerns about the whole trans issue.
You are signaling to them what your stance
is. And and let's face it, you're also
signaling in our red blue divided world. Mhmm.
You're signaling you're blue. There's nothing wrong with
that. So I have no prescriptions on this,
but be mindful about it. In your own
mind, you may be saying, well, I'm signaling
that I care for all people and I'm
inclusive. Okay. Yeah. Okay. But you're doing it
in a particular way that is signaling where
you are politically. It would be like if
you had, you know, Jesus loves all humanity,
you're signaling you're a Christian therapist.
Okay?
I thought that was a really powerful point.
For some reason,
I have to share with you that really
struck me because I I I sort of
feel like our brand here is everyone is
welcome, and it never occurred to me. Well,
actually, not everyone is welcome. So I I
just have to really thank you for that
thought. I think it's something for us all
to consider
the greater picture.
I do think though that given where we
are at this second, I don't know when
you're listening to this, the idea of repairing
our communities is based upon a hopefulness. This
is an intellectual
conversation. You have years of studying. You're super
smart
and very trained as a facilitator.
Are you personally this hopeful that we can
get that we can do this? Do you
really think we can do it?
What I like to say is that hope
is a choice. I choose hope. I choose
hope. No matter what. Yeah.
Optimism is different. Optimism is this rational thing,
but I choose hope. I think it's, what's
gotten
humanity through I was told to name the
podcast, We Choose Hope. You know, I Yeah.
I mean, you know, I I I do
think I think that's a really interesting idea
of, you know, are we going in it
with hope or are we entering the conversations?
And and I'm sure, you know, the general
reaction to what you do for a living
must be very mixed, right, for the braver
angels. There must be and you're used to
it. I'm assuming. That's an assumption. Is that
true?
Most people
that I encounter take braver angels as a
sign of hope. Now maybe maybe it's the
the ones who are turned off to don't
talk to me. But I think there's
there's a small percentage of people on both
sides of the continuum
who think it's,
a waste of time because the job is
to to beat the others, you know, to
beat the beat the crap out of them.
Okay?
Because it's a battle. It's a struggle.
And it's win, lose. In their own homes,
in their own families, see, we're not talking
about something that just out there. People who
people are running into this big gap in
their own families and among their loved ones.
So I'm gonna ask you a pretty tough
question. Alright, Bill? You have years of experience,
and so I it would be I think
I would be remiss if I didn't ask
you the hardest question, which is, what percent
of any of the populations, red or blue,
do you think are spirthed
in hatred, in racism, in sexism,
in all the isms? What percent are we
talking about? Who are deeply?
Yes.
A a very small percentages. Yeah. Two or
3%. That's a big takeaway I took from
yours. I think smaller than we might realize.
Just different of opinions, but not based in
an in
Right. Right. So my own view, we all
have these isms in us. Michel Foucault, the
famous French deconstructionist,
he once wrote that we all have to
contend with our inner fascists
Mhmm. Personally.
Mhmm. And so I think in each of
us is a part of ourselves
that is prone
to othering, is prone to disdain, is prone
to,
wanting to assume power and control. And that
for most of us, it's it's it's balanced
off by other aspects of ourselves. And that
leaders leaders come along like orchestra
conductors
and elicit elicit
some of the worst sides of us. Well,
that's what we're here to talk about. So
I think the final question
is, we have created a series of podcasts
about your job now. As a leader, your
job now is and fill in the blank,
Bill.
I have to say, I don't wanna tell
somebody what their job has to be. I'm
saying that a potential job, I'm opening up
a different kind of job. Okay. I love
it.
Might choose.
And that would be to be a bridge
builder and healer around the political divide. That's
not one that has been among the potential
jobs of therapists in the past. It's not
been on the list. But it's one that
Braver Angels and there's other bridge building organizations,
it's one that is now out there as
a possibility
that if somebody wanted to take that on,
and concretely, they could apply to become a
moderator of Brave Angels workshops. And that training
is free, and then they can connect up
with a local chapter and actually be trained
to do this work. But aside from that,
they can, in their own practice,
they can examine their own reflexive
tendency
to do eye rolling about people who are
MAGA, to side emotionally
with their client who's saying, I got uncle
Fred at Thanksgiving. I don't know what to
do with him. And to side with what
they may do in portraying uncle Fred in
a one dimensional way,
you know, as opposed to a three-dimensional human
being.
The stuff that that happens in the room
when our our own political affiliations
come out, try to resist that, and we
can try to keep uncle Fred as a
as a as a three-dimensional person in our
minds and encourage our clients to do that.
I love I love the visual image of
uncle Fred being at the dinner table. Yeah.
Yeah. And now here's what I do when
I give presentations. I say, every extended family
has an uncle Fred who is gonna set
everybody straight about Donald Trump being the greatest
president since Abraham Lincoln. Okay? And he's he's
closing in on Lincoln. Okay? He's there to
make sure everybody knows that. But they also
have a cousin, Jessica,
who on the left, who's gonna fix everybody's
language, who when you use the word prisoner
is gonna say, no. It's a person with
experience of the criminal justice system. Okay? And
it's gonna just crap on you for that.
You know, it's easy to to tell stories,
to think the stories are great of changes
of people maybe who are on the right
of the political spectrum, who haven't been sensitive
to, you know, marginalized people who come around.
Right? And certainly, there are those stories. But
I wanna tell a story about a guy
on the left who told me once that
he actively discriminated
against conservatives
for housing. He he was a landlord in
a number of apartments. And if he had
a sense that somebody
was a Republican,
he would, not rent to them. And what
he told me is that red
is not a protected class, so he can
decide who he's gonna rent to. He attended
a Brave Angels workshop and had an experience,
okay, of change. And he told me that
the next week he was chatting with somebody
who was clearly on the political right. And
what he said to this man was, there
are people in power who want us to
hate each other. Let's not do it. And
he cried. Yeah.
When Obama and McCain would sit next to
one another. Yes. Yes. That's what just flashed
in my brain, this this idea of real
grace and dignity
to yeah. Yeah. That's a great visual image
because
Obama's eulogy at McCain's funeral
Yes. Yes. Yes. These are our our our
better angels. We don't like ourselves as much
when we're we sit with resentment and contempt
for others. I love it. I love it.
You know, Bill, you're so generous with your
time, and you're generous with me with all
the probing questions, and you've explained it in
a way that really makes a difference. So
thank you.
Thank you for helping to repair the community.
Really appreciate it.
Thanks for listening to This Is Your Job
Now, produced by me, Kai. If this episode
made you think or made you feel, we
hope it also made you realize. You don't
have to figure this out all alone. Leadership
today is about presence, not perfection. To learn
more, follow Wendy Wohner on LinkedIn, subscribe to
Balancing Life's Issues on YouTube, or stream the
podcast wherever you listen. Because if you're leading
people, this is your job now. Anything else
to add, Miles?