Overcoming Division by Bridging Our Differences with Scott Shigeoka

On today’s episode, we’re joined by entrepreneur and creative director, Scott Shigeoka. Scott spent his early years exploring creativity at The Washington Post, IDEO, and working with artists and musicians. He has since shifted to working on overcoming divisions in the country, ranging from politics, to LGBTQ rights, and the workplace. Scott recognized the desire the world has to understand one another, after his launch of “The Bridging Differences Playbook” that received a quarter million downloads in the first few months. Scott dives into the concept of bridge-building, explaining the importance of learning what values others have, what their stories are, and how we can lean into tension with some healthy disagreement and conflict in order to truly understand different perspectives. Scott traveled the country to understand others’ points of view and created design spaces for intentional bridge-building conversations. During this time, he practiced mindfulness and self-awareness to be in the right mindset to speak openly with others who had different opinions and understand their perspective. He discovered that the three steps to bridge-building are: 1. Get experts to help co-design and be involved in the conversation, 2. Understand power and make sure you have a sophisticated perspective on how to design these interactions and conversations, and 3. assign people of power as the listener and give the marginalized individuals the chance to share their perspectives and feelings. Scott continues to scale culture change through bridge-building in businesses, communities, and the country. Who is this episode for?: (B2B, B2C, Governmental Org), In person & Online, Scaling 3 key takeaways: - The Bridge Building Formula: 1. Get experts to guide, 2. Understand the role of power, 3. Give marginalized individuals the chance to share their views with the person of power as the listener. - Scaling culture change and implementing bridging starts by working with leaders and can occur in the workplace, communities, political groups, the government, and more. - Disagreement executed in a healthy way helps us understand different perspectives and challenge our own biases, thus preventing harder evils and further division.