Uncommon Methods

Our common purpose will not be found by asking folks the same familiar questions that bring the same familiar responses. We already know that what comes of the same ol’, same ol’ is the same ol’ predicament.

Instead our methods for finding common purpose need to be uncommon.

The first step is to leave the labels at the door. Without explicitly knowing whether someone is Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, the listener can’t automatically apply a set of assumptions before that person even says a word. The speaker meanwhile is freed to speak her own mind rather than spouting the party line.

The second step is to change our mindset. It’s easy to get caught up, as everyone does, in the differences that divide us. Here though is a novel thought. Instead of getting derailed by the differences, what if we pushed beyond in search of the similarities that are tucked within us? Though the prospect of such might come as a shock, the potential is there – if only we’d dig a little deeper and listen a little better.

The third step in this process is to let people have their say. We need to ask open-ended questions, inviting respondents to take their answers in any direction they think is relevant and important, and allowing them to respond in depth. Only in this way can we get a true picture of what’s on their mind.

The fourth and perhaps most important step is to re-frame the discussion. It would be folly to suggest we can magically find common cause in the difficult issues that we know divide the nation. To lift ourselves from the mire, we need to seek some higher level of consideration that begins with going back to basics. Taking an honest look at the high-minded ideals on which this country was founded is a starting point. Maybe we will find those ideals still constitute our common purpose, simple as that. Or maybe, with 230 years of experience now behind us, it is not so simple.

I took this approach to four small towns around the country – in Nebraska, South Carolina, Massachusetts and Arizona – that differ by region, historical experience, and politics. They were chosen for those distinctions and for the different nature of their contributions to who we are as a nation.  More about the towns.

I interviewed a variety of folks in those four locations but my primary focus was 14 community leaders whom I corralled into deep discussions about what they hold dear. The numbers are limited so their thoughts could be unlimited – the transcripts of the discussions with this core group exceeding 200,000 words.

These 14 individuals differ by their livelihoods, gender, race and ethnicity, and their points of view. They are tugged in different directions by various life experiences as well as by the familiar political rhetoric, societal pressures and media influences that sway all the rest of us.

They did not come into these discussions looking to make nice. Some wanted to be very clear about what they see as our deficiencies as a country. I came to understand that their observations, at times uplifting and other times distressing, amounted to a scorecard on America.

These assessments and the intensity of the feelings behind them quickly put to rest whether the founding ideals of our country still amount to our common purpose today. As a group, the participants weren’t willing to put aside the instances where our actions haven’t measured up to the promise of our words. Many of them just don’t see some of our high-minded ideals reflected in modern-day reality.

The challenge becomes crafting a set of overarching standards that do ring true, in the first instance to the participants in these discussions and then to greater America.

Here again uncommon methods rise to the fore. This particular inquiry doesn’t magically turn everything into sweetness and light, nor does it make differences disappear. But it does not stop at that. Finding common purpose requires going beyond the differences to look for similarities.

The themes of opportunity and education were easy to spot. Other shared thoughts emerged by parsing through the lengthy transcripts in search of similar assertions. The rest arose from the recognition that certain key thoughts could be widely accepted only if they were to be paired with the other side of the coin.

The result is not drawn entirely from the universe of folks on one side, nor entirely from the folks on the other side. You don’t get everything you hold dear. I don’t get everything I hold dear. No one does.

Instead they approach what we might hold in common. The objective being to find the intersections of our values that most all of us can get behind . . . not just passively but with intensity.