We Call Our Work Conversation Activism

Creating Pathways to Connected Conversation

In a world that’s divided, distracted, and disconnected… creating connection is an act of resistance!

That’s why we call our work Conversation Activism — an inner activism of fierce awareness, play, and compassion where we resist the cultural forces that disconnect while embracing practices and values that make way for people, communities and organizations to flourish.

The cultural forces we refer to include the social, economic, and technological realities of our lives that fracture and monopolize our attention, distort our relationships with self, other, and our world, and destabilize trust between, each other and in the institutions that we inhabit.

Together, these forces tear at and erode the very fabric of our humanity.

Especially as AI technologies become more pervasive (and invasive) in our lives, we need to develop frameworks of humanity that nurture and maintain the roots of respect and dignity and that value our very humanness. Such frameworks are necessary in order to ground us so that trust and care can thrive in our relationships and communities. We see Conversation Activism as such a framework – one where we remind ourselves what it means to relate on a human scale. Where every conversation is an opportunity to celebrate the gifts each person brings to the table, to appreciate the nourishment as well as the friction of being in community, to practice the values of respect and compassion so as to nurture the roots of trust and care.

It was the mid-eighties and i was cabin-sitting in St. Albans, located in northern Vermont about 10 miles from the Canadian border. Harold, the father of a good friend, had invited me to stay there for a few weeks of winter solitude and in exchange i would handle a few chores in addition to making sure the pipes didn’t freeze. He let me use his truck and late one frigid starry night the truck broke down on an abandoned stretch of Route 7. It was a dead battery and how i got rescued was another story but the next day i called Harold to let him know what happened and to ask where to get it repaired. Harold chuckled and apologized – the truck was old and on its last legs – and he asked me to take it down to Tom, the local mechanic. Harold advised me that when i arrive, don’t immediately launch into the problem with the truck. Have a conversation. Ask Tom how he’s doing and how his day is going. You can let him know you’re staying up at Harold’s cabin. Get curious, chew the fat for a while then maybe after ten minutes when it feels natural, you can get around to the truck. Otherwise Tom might take offense thinking all you want of him is to fix your truck and you run the risk of not getting that truck back anytime soon.

What Harold shared startled me and stuck with me to this day. Indeed, all i thought i wanted was for the truck to be fixed. But the exchange with Harold and then with Tom reminded me that there’s a human being on the other end of this exchange. When I stepped into that acknowledgement, the experience was richer and more nourishing for me, and i suspect for Tom. Thank you, Harold.

Move forward forty years and i find myself sometimes channeling Harold.

My friend Jerry* found himself caught in a texting kerfuffle with Olivia, a mutual friend. In the text exchange our friend had posted some statements that Jerry felt crossed a line in terms of being overly demanding and even accusatory. Jerry came to me partly for advice but also partly for the reassurance that he was righteous in his assessment of the situation. Money was involved which added to the stakes. I read through the exchange and yes, i could see how one could very well have interpreted the situation and therefore feel as Jerry did. I also knew that our mutual friend was going through some challenging times and i could imagine the subject of this particular exchange might have had her feeling vulnerable and scared. I told Jerry to cease the texting and call. I recommended before he jumps into the thick of the problem, ask Olivia how she is. See if you can listen and really receive her. Oh, and Jerry, don’t forget to breathe. Two days later i spoke to Jerry. He and Olivia had an amazing call. They spoke for about ten minutes and almost forgot to talk about the original issue – which they worked out in less than thirty seconds.

Not all situations call for this level of connection and not all people want to connect – some want to cut to the chase and move on.

For me i do my best to make these opening connections a practice which might look like the examples mentioned above. It can also look like me using the other person’s name on a customer support call to let them know i remembered their name and appreciate the fact that i’m speaking to another human. It feels odd to be on a support call with an AI chatbot fielding human niceties when i know they’re not flesh and blood. It’s also a bit confusing as to what exactly is etiquette when dealing with a machine intelligence posing as human and why bother maintaining it? But this is the slippery slope we tread these days. When we habituate ourselves to dealing one way with machines capable of mimicking human intelligence and inflection, how do we not let that diminish our dealings where we stand heart-to-heart with our fellow humans?

This is where Conversation Activism as a practice of awareness comes into play.

We know that with technologies like social media and texting, it can be easy to disconnect and forget that there’s a human on the receiving-end of our snarky texts or outrage-laden posts. In Jerry connecting with Olivia via phone the real-time voice-to-voice connection was key in negotiating the emotion-laden territory in ways not possible in the emotionally void wasteland of texting.

Technology aside, Conversation Activism is also about the practice of creating new pathways for our everyday relationships to strengthen and flourish. It’s about intentionally moving toward deeper, more resilient connection by breaking free of old patterns and limiting beliefs that keep us stuck.

Ed found himself in an old worn-out pattern of encounter with his partner who was making broad generalizations – ”You always do this…” “You never do that…”. His usual go-to strategies would have been to react by acquiescing and saying something to get out of the immediate line of fire, or pushing back by launching a verbal defense to prove his partner wrong. Neither tactic ever led to a satisfying outcome.

He was determined to try to stay connected and to try to move the conversation in a different direction. Ed took a brief pause to slow down and check in with himself – this is a practice we teach our Conversation Activists. What came up for him was confusion and Ed noticed how uncomfortable it felt to be in that state. He realized he had no idea what his partner was actually asking of him nor did he know how to respond. This pattern of encounter was old. The feeling of confusion was old too but usually masked by Ed’s go-to reactions of argumentative anger or collapse (i.e. fight or flight). What was new was Ed’s capacity to recognize and abide in the discomfort of his confusion.

So Ed got curious and energetically moved toward the encounter instead of distancing or fleeing from it. What came out of his mouth surprised him: “How do you expect me to respond to that?”. He said it in a genuinely curious, nonconfrontational tone and it stopped the encounter dead in its tracks. His partner was not expecting that response. It felt like a trance had been broken. Ed’s partner apologized and what ensued was a connected conversation about what was really beneath the surface for both of them. A new pathway out of an old impasse had been discovered.

One might say this sounds like therapy or possibly bridge building and yes, there are aspects of similarity and overlap. The work of Conversation Activism uses the lens of everyday conversation as an everpresent practiceground for continual awakening, increased agency, and more fluid movement toward reweaving the connection between us. One could say you’ve done your self-improvement and your therapy, you’ve done your bridge-building and all the rest… Now let’s put it to practice and let’s see how it shifts not only your world, but the world around you.

Conversation is where you begin to create the world you long for by practicing it into existence.

Conversation is where we reexamine our values and cultural norms, practice respect, reclaim our inner lives, and reestablish the boundaries and connections that protect us. Every conversation is an opportunity to be aware, pay attention, and resist the cultural forces that diminish and challenge our humanness. Conversation is where we reweave our common humanity and celebrate all that makes us human and Conversation Activism is the practice we call upon to shift the conversation.

* All the names and situations in this piece have been modified to protect confidentiality