When We Can’t Even Get to the Table

Recently, I was in conversation about a question that feels like it’s defining this moment in time.

How do we find a shared goal with people whose viewpoints feel worlds apart? Especially when we can’t even get them to sit down in dialogue?

It’s one thing to imagine compromise when everyone’s in the room. But more and more, it feels like the first hurdle is getting in the room together at all. I’ve seen it in organizations, in community coalitions, even at family dinner tables. The trust gap can be so wide that no one wants to take the first step.

And here’s another layer, sometimes the first hard conversation isn’t even with the “other side.” It’s with our own people, our peers, our community, the circles where we assume alignment. What does it mean to voice the thing that feels controversial or disruptive within your own group? To challenge norms that have quietly gone unquestioned?

That can feel like double risk:

• You’re naming a truth that might make your own community uncomfortable.
• You’re also opening the door to engage with people outside your community who may not share your values, language, or lived experience.

But maybe this is part of the work, disrupting from within and reaching beyond.

In my TEDx talk, Beyond Assumptions: How Curiosity Can Heal Divides, I share a moment when I had every reason to shut down a conversation before it began. Instead, I chose curiosity over judgment, and what followed didn’t erase our differences, but it revealed unexpected common ground. That moment didn’t “solve” anything, but it reminded me that shared goals rarely emerge from silence. They grow out of real, sometimes uncomfortable, conversations.

As you think about your own leadership, relationships, or community work, I invite you to pause and consider:

• What makes you willing to come to the table when you know the conversation will be hard?
• Have you ever voiced something in your own community that felt risky, and then found it opened unexpected connections?
• How do you personally keep curiosity alive in the middle of disagreement?

If you’ve ever wrestled with how to bridge divides, whether in your organization, your community, or even around your own table, my TEDx talk offers one path forward. It’s not about quick fixes or avoiding conflict. It’s about practicing the kind of curiosity that turns walls into bridges, and conversations into possibilities.

Watch here: https://youtu.be/JFP8D4Ymlu0?si=2u_s_Iz8gRB_paT3