Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s Post

it truly is important to remember that perspective is varied and important.

There’s been a lot of debate lately about approaches to bridging divides anchored in dialogue. That’s a good thing. Yet the conversation about conversation stays at a high altitude and rarely drills down into the concrete practices that power this work.   A missing piece – and missed opportunity – I see when it comes to talking about dialogue in bridging work is the central role of questions. Across a range of bridging efforts, questions are the active ingredient – whether the goal is to humanize the other side, shrink perception gaps, unearth motivations, find common ground, or transform conflict. In this piece, I share some reflections on the topic as well as examples we all might draw on. https://lnkd.in/ezzxuP6d

❓❔❓❔❓❔❓❔❓❔❓❔❓ Great questions about questions and the transformative potential of asking them, from Jonathan Gruber of Einhorn Collaborative, exploring “how startling questions can create openings in a dysfunctional conflict: “What do you think the other group thinks of you or your group? What do you wish they understood about you? Where do you feel torn?”” I especially love the framing of ‘startling questions’ that can ‘create openings’. In contrast to more conventional aspirations to bring people together and ‘reduce divisions’, perhaps what’s calling us now is the possibility to embrace what Bayo Akomolafe calls ‘cracks’ — the openings we create and that create us, the uncertainties, the confusion, the gaps and chasms that produce something different, that invite us to travel from our fixed expectations, to betray the pathology of typicality and solutionism. Perhaps we need to be startled more than we need to be reassured. Perhaps we need to come apart more than we need to come together. Perhaps weirdness is more valuable than wholeness. Maybe division is a source of vision, if we have the courage to welcome the monstrous questions-as-prayers, rather than worshipping answers that incarcerate possibility in their attempts to heal.

Trust. It's the invisible hand that guides our interactions, the unspoken contract that binds us together. It's the force that propels rockets into space and holds families together at the dinner table. Like gravity, trust is an ever-present force, shaping our world in ways both seen and unseen. But unlike gravity, trust is not a given. It's earned (sometimes in a moment), nurtured, and sometimes lost. In a world where headlines speak of broken promises and shattered expectations, trust seems to be in short supply. Yet, it remains the most valuable asset we have, the enabling condition for flourishing on every level. This is the first in a series of three posts exploring the power of trust and how to cultivate it in your personal and professional life. Part 1: Creating a Shared Understanding of Trust Read it here: https://lnkd.in/dPvJWTFx

Please join us for this very important conversation with Charles Eisenstein on how we navigate our differences, next Friday, November 15th. Whether you are working on a personal, community, or organizational level, this conversation aims to strengthen your capacity as a change agent—creating space for reflection, creativity, and a deeper understanding of the interconnected challenges we face today. https://lnkd.in/deNbfyuG

A video summary of my paper: This exploratory paper examines Aristotle’s “Poetics” and the range of creative expression this literature provides as a conceptual design framework for developing a culture map in creating a distinctive organisational mythology. The Poetics articulates an Aristotelian perspective on theatre which infuses itself as a new language in offering structural and archetypical plot devices in developing an organisational narrative. Get the full paper here - https://lnkd.in/gbHrPdwf

The modern dynamic professional landscape makes the debate between pursuing a career as a generalist or a specialist more relevant than ever. The modern job market, increasingly values versatility and broad knowledge bases. Generalists, with their wide-ranging skills, can navigate various disciplines, bringing creative solutions to complex problems. The most successful businesses value the cross pollination of knowledge that both Specialists and Generalists generate! https://lnkd.in/gPxtiJAq

We’re back for our first ‘Connected across Continents’ of the year , and we’re starting with a topic that most invest a good amount of energy to- the stories we tell ourselves. Join us for an enlightening conversation about the stories we create in our own minds—how they shape our perceptions, energy, and interactions. Together, we’ll explore the power of staying present with our own narratives, reducing the energy we spend crafting stories about others’ lives that we can’t truly know. This session invites you to step into a space of self-awareness, authenticity, and growth, fostering deeper connections within yourself and across the globe. Fri 17th Jan @9am (Melbourne) / Thursday 16th Jan @5pm (Orlando). Let’s rewrite our inner dialogue and focus on the stories that truly matter: our own. #ConnectedAcrossContinents #TheStoriesWeTell #SelfAwareness #AuthenticConnections #EmotionalIntelligence #StorytellingForGrowth #MindsetMatters #PersonalGrowth #InnerDialogue #GlobalConnections

Future Reflection: The Power of Culture https://lnkd.in/eETdacF4

Future Reflection: The Power of Culture https://lnkd.in/eETdacF4