Courageous conversations are first step toward trust and transformation | Commentary

Sometimes community and civic life can feel like chaos. I prefer to think about it like a good pot of soup.

Let me explain.

I love soup. I don’t know how you like yours, but mine needs lots of different ingredients. I generally like it even better on the second or third day, as the ingredients have had more time to create new and unique flavors.

Now this is where the comparison with community comes in. Our unique ideas, backgrounds and ambitions are the fantastic ingredients that, if given the proper conditions of time, heat and balance, can create a strong and flourishing civic life.

There are countless editorials and books on “toxic polarization” and the “culture of contempt.” You might have read an article in the Wichita Eagle on Sunday about StoryCorps bringing its initiative “One Small Step” to Wichita as a test to see if courageous conversations can address these cultural divisions.

The aims of this initiative are consistent with my belief that the line between our political and civic lives is becoming razor thin, and that we need more than “be nicer” or “agree more.”

The first reason this is important is because there is an industry of contempt and fear that discourages the business community from engaging in civic and political life for fear of alienating stakeholders (customers, employees and vendors to name a few). As a result, the general business position is simply to encourage voting or to offer general niceties around civility and respect.

While voting and civility are part of the ingredients for a healthy society, the deeper issue is that we do not talk in any meaningful way with people who disagree with us, and so we lose the power of balanced conversation.

The caricatures that entertainment news has turned us into are laughable. If I were reduced to the straw man version of my labels, then I wouldn’t trust me either. No one would. But I am more than a label and so are you.

We need more conversations, not less.

The second reason this is important is that we cluster into circles of people who generally agree with us.

We belong to associations, denominations and nonprofit organizations based on mission and shared values and that is to be commended. But it is not commendable when we don’t have other very intentional ways to engage those who think differently from us. This perpetuates stereotypes — and what’s worse is that we slowly believe a subtle lie that the world would be a better place if others “just thought like us.”

I believe the truth is that we need better arguments and lots of them, not less.

I want to live in a community where we celebrate great arguments and the people who make them. And we celebrate the trust that is built when our points of view differ, and we learn and innovate based on the collisions of the ideas.

But this will require rebuilding trust, humanizing the caricatures and dreaming together about what we really all want, namely transformed, safe and thriving families, businesses and communities. The “One Small Step” model is a good place to start if you want a safe place to hold these conversations.

I challenge us this holiday season to disagree more (maybe over some soup) and begin to develop the skills and emotional intelligence to harness the innovation that follows.

Damon Young is a member of the Kansas business community and serves on numerous boards, including Wichita and Kansas Chambers of Commerce and Lead Wichita