When safety is at risk and you notice people moving to silence or violence, you need to step out of the content of the conversation (literally stop talking about the topic of your conversation) and rebuild safety.

“Is it possible that there’s a way to accomplish both?”

Dialogue calls for the free flow of meaning—period. And nothing kills the flow of meaning like fear. When you fear people aren’t buying into your ideas, you start pushing too hard. When you fear you may be harmed in some way, you start withdrawing and hiding.

As the Pool of Shared Meaning grows, it helps people in two ways. First, as individuals are exposed to more accurate and relevant information, they make better choices. In a very real sense, the Pool of Shared Meaning is a measure of a group’s IQ. The larger the shared pool, the smarter the decisions. On the other hand, we’ve all seen what happens

When we don’t admit to our own mistakes, we obsess about others’ faults, our innocence, and our powerlessness to do anything other than what we’re already doing. We tell a clever story when we want self-justification more than results. Of course, self-justification is not what we really want, but we certainly act as if it is.

First, clarify what you really want.

we can break the impasse by asking others, “Why do you want that?”

To help grease the skids, play devil’s advocate. Model disagreeing by disagreeing with your own view: “Maybe I’m wrong here. What if the opposite is true? What if the reason sales have dropped is because our products truly are outdated. I know I’ve made the opposite case, but I really want to hear all the reasons my position could be dangerously wr

“You know what? We need to talk about this. I’m glad you asked the question. Thank you for taking that risk. I appreciate the trust it shows in me.”