In South Africa in the early 1990s, a joke was making the rounds: Given the country’s daunting challenges, people had two options, one practical and the other miraculous. The practical option was for everyone to pray for a band of angels to come down from heaven and fix things. The miraculous option was for people to talk with one another until they could find a way forward.
Deborah Ancona, Thomas W. Malone, Wanda J. Orlikowski, Peter M. Senge
Practice: Rehearse until you find everyday language to discuss something controversial that you care about.
Advanced practice: What would you say differently if you respected those on the other side? If more than anything else, you wanted to find a way forward?
Related practices: Fluency, Authentic, Author’s Statement