Applying Communication Strategies

     It can often be difficult to extrapolate actionable recommendations from high-level concepts. A teacher could advise that managerial communication should relay empathy or conform to the company's core values, but these lessons can seem inapplicable when confronted with a real life situation. You need to tell the team that the project is late and we aren't meeting goals, or you need to share that we're changing how we do a certain process. 

    Every situation is unique, in and of itself as well as the context surrounding it. When removed and given a more objective perspective, the answers seem much easier, but in the moment our minds are filled with the considerations of the here and now. What might certain individuals think, or how does this match what we've come to expect? Is it better to unexpectedly change communication styles to something that seems better, or keep using what people are accustomed to? This blindness by those closest to the situation is the reason for many of the 'nonconformaties' I observed in my tenure working at a call center.

The average call center agent after six months on the job.

    We dealt with cell phones, customer service for AT&T Mobility. Some rules seemed pretty straightforward on the surface, like we charge an upgrade fee when upgrading a customer. Well, it seemed far too often that a customer felt entitled to special treatment because they've been with the company for X years, or because they had a bad experience in the store, or because our competitors were cheaper. There is no end to the reasons why customers would view their own situation as unique, it was as if they thought they were the only ones who had been with the company for X years, not realizing we received these 'give me special treatment or I'll cancel' stories many times per day. Or maybe its because they heard of other people's success that they made their own demands.

    Many times the reps would be sucked into the customer's story, their perspective, and would be eager to meet these demands, myself included. Sometimes if it was something we could do, it was simply easier to concede than argue with them. Certain rules were not only regularly broken, but routinely. In a world driven by customer satisfaction surveys and customer retention rates, it was easy to see adhering to the rules as being disincentivized. Regardless of if it was or not, the fact that others were doing it routinely made it seem like not doing it put one-self at a disadvantage.

    When considering the idea of one's perspective close to an issue giving them blindness, overcomplicating it, it may be worth considering how we rectify this trend. Teaching the rules in a way that reflect real life situations can help bolster the recognition of a situation for what it really is. Despite how it may present in this way or that, it still pertains to this particular rule. Having an alliance of a company's rules with performance metrics is important too in driving voluntary rule adherence. Only in poorly thought out systems or fundamentally flawed projects would such conflicts be common. 

That's one way of putting it.

    The different ways communication can be enhanced is a very intricate and dynamic subject, but in my mind it comes down to a few core facts. The goal is to make the message understood by all, with minimal confusion, and to make it as well-received as possible. In tandem with this should be the feedback system, gauging the reception and receiving feedback. So how can we obtain these lofty goals?

    Choose the right communication method, most likely multiple methods. E-mail is easy and well-loved by management, but recognize its limitations. The meeting room, the conference call, and the video conference all present their own strengths for consideration. Just because an important element of a message was included in an e-mail does not mean it made its way into everyone's brain in the intended form. Getting the message out there often means a bit of repetition, and having multiple modes can, if nothing else, greatly reduce miscommunication. 

    Tone is important for leadership, including in text-based messages. Having a balance of optimism and confidence tempered with realism and forthrightness is what you generally want for any communication. Actions speak louder than words, but even within a message there can be actions of sort. Being transparent starts now, if there's major concerns bring them up before being prompted, but also mention the plan for addressing them. Attempting to hide or diminish them will only reduce credibility, unsalvageable by any amount of flowery language.

    Timing is also a huge element of a message's success. In general, sooner rather than later is the right way to go. There's a balance there to be had though, with getting enough facts together before making a statement, and that's a bit too nuanced to set a simple goal for. More communication is generally better than less, and it is usually the right decision to make multiple communications if one complete one isn't ready yet. Simply assuring the employees that answers are in the pipeline can be better than uncertain silence.

The typical American office worker checking their morning e-mails

    Despite the above few points about multiple communication methods and timing, it is also possible to excessively inundate the employee with communications. Because of this, choosing topics that matter, and erring towards conciseness rather than verboseness is prudent. Many employees don't read all of their e-mails, or just skim through them. That's an unavoidable fact of life, but if the messages are kept short and have a high likelihood to be pertinent to them, more will be read fully.

    Where I see this breaking down a lot in my current position is when the company sends out many 'regular' messages. Its as if some employees are tasked to send out daily e-mails about a certain subject. This is not the right way to go about it. That is just asking for fluff and padding. Rather than a quota on volume and regularity, the quota should be on quality. Sending out sufficient information, even if its less frequent, is fine. I'd rather have one relevant e-mail per week than five and have to peruse through them all to fine that fifth of the information that's actually relevant.

Innovation

 Innovation is one of the core drivers of a healthy economy, of a society even. It is the ability to identify and fulfill a need that has allowed humanity to achieve countless victories over adverse conditions. Most often associated with technology, innovation can also take place in other ways, such as procedural and organizational. Virtually any practical skill or endeavor can call for innovations of some kind, not only to continually gain on that ever-elusive perfection, but to offset the shifting demands of time. A perfectly innovated process in the past may well require new changes for the future, which would have not been effective in the past. All of this is to say, there is a good reason why encouraging innovation has been such a popular notion among American businesses in recent years.

 This week I reviewed a Ted Talk by Charles Leadbeater regarding the nature of innovation and creativity. Rethinking innovation was a major topic through the presentation. Viewing it less as a specialized practice for the those with the most experience, education or training, and instead as something anyone is capable of. In particular, through collaboration, untapped potential could be waiting to be utilized.

Direct Link

    Necessity is the mother of invention, and that seems to ring true with the examples provided in the presentation. Mountain bikes were framed as an innovation not borne from one man, but by groups of bikers responding to a need. Since they had the incentive and the opportunity, they seized on it by making their own custom bikes, better able to traverse off-road. Corporations were blind to this need and lacked the insights into the customer's wishes to properly capitalize on this idea until it was already realized.

    An interesting observation made by Leadbeater is that invention and application are often disparate. The users of a new technology will often find uses for it that defy the creator's expectations. This principle flies in the face of our patent system, which requires the owner of a design to describe its intended use. In this way, innovations tend to be collaborative even when unintentional. There is little framework for inventing something of uncertain application. Yet, its the largest and most radical innovations that have the most uncertainty regarding their eventual use.

    How can these principles be applied? By encouraging the natural creative instinct in the workplace. Creativity shouldn't be forced, but platforms can be provided that facilitate its growth. Looking forward to new innovations, rather than being entrenched in what the historical data indicates, is difficult for a lot of companies. There is a sense of unknown with these kinds of organic, collaborative, innovations. Many risk-averse companies simply refuse to take a risk instead of taking actions validated by past successes.

    In applying this to my own organization, I could see fertile ground for such endeavors to thrive and grow. There are a lot of intelligent and creative people at Boeing that might take advantage of such an opportunity. Perhaps taking a page from Google's playbook, formally building time for work on and sharing of personal projects can ultimately become very profitable. When given some validation in such a visible way, some ideas can be given a chance that may have otherwise never seen the light of day.

    Another way to foster innovation and creativity in the workplace is to establish a workplace culture that values new ideas. This can be stifled unintentionally, and may require a concerted effort to truly embrace. Not every idea is going to be a good fit for the business, but rewarding employees for making an effort, and recognizing any merit they may have, just might provide enough encouragement for them to try again to bring something worthwhile. 

Teamwork Across Organizational Boundaries

 It seems like an inescapable law of nature, that the larger an organization becomes, the more inefficient it becomes. This is especially true with large corporations and governmental entities, where massive oversights and organizational flaws can go unnoticed for years, while in a mom-and-pop shop every employee's job makes sense and every penny allocated is accounted for. There are many reasons for this phenomenon, and many of them stem from the core principle of the individual worker's job duties becoming increasingly specialized and narrow as the operation grows in scale. 

Back to mom and pop, the two of them could be the floor manager, accountant, HR, CEO, and many other things all at once. But once there are multiple locations with specialized products, suddenly each duty becomes so big that it necessitates a dedicated specialist. Accounting grows rapidly in complexity as an operation becomes more sophisticated, with more parties involved. Within these larger organizations, a common expression is 'the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing', and this really captures perfectly how necessary links in a process can unwittingly (or uncaringly) work against each other.

In an article I reviewed this week, Get Your Team to Work Across Organizational Boundaries by Brad Power, this issue is explored and strategies for addressing it are discussed. It is stated that teamwork across organizational boundaries is unnatural, that the natural tendency of organizations is to optimize locally — within a business unit or department, rather than optimizing for the global customer experience or the enterprise.  A key driver of this problem is identified as disparity between local metrics for success conflicting with the organization's success as a whole. For example, a warehouse manager is not likely to identify an opportunity for company savings by contracting a third party warehouse and selling the company's. 

Also, there is the potential of one team to undercut another in order to magnify their own successes, even if it drives failure for others. Such behaviors are often seen in call centers, where call duration is a primary metric, and therefore rewards customer service making unnecessary transfers to other departments in order to shorten their own calls at the cost of the customer's experience.

For an organization as a whole to begin addressing this disunity, unfortunately it often takes a crisis. Only when the company's feet are held to the fire, and senior leadership really drives the company's overall goals consistently, do these disparate parts of the team finally begin working in consort. However, it doesn't have to require this, as noted by Power. It can start by having leadership begin addressing the core issues head-on before a crisis is caused.

The article suggest having a workshop for a few days, taking key members of a variety of teams, and bringing them together for a common goal. At first, the group begins to identify the flow of the company's core service in a realistic and fundamental way. Perhaps from the customer's point of view, or from a spending perspective, some way that takes them out of their own personal role and gives their actions the context of their greater significance in the big picture. With input from all members, they can begin to see a cohesive picture and understand more clearly how their actions can help or hinder the overall effort.

Next, the workshop needs to focus on addressing problems in the system, as mentioned either by leadership or brought forth by the team members themselves. Often the best solutions come from the workers and not the managers, as they have insights that simply can't be obtained elsewhere. Interdependent parts of a process begin collaborating towards a common solution, and thus the law of nature begins to recede. 

However, the workshop is only one step of a whole organizational change in strategy that must be followed through with. Ideas will only survive and manifest results when they can be stuck with by all that matter, and the workshop attendees must convince their team members of the logic of the plan they helped collaborate on. Management must support these new initiatives and develop drivers that reflect progress in the new direction that can be monitored.

Many reform efforts fizzle out after an initial push, and thus reinforcements and follow-up meetings should be had. A certain measure of flexibility is smart, as flaws in the plan that can be amended shouldn't be cause for the whole effort to fail. One way to reinforce a cohesive vision is through social media, an internal workplace platform.

These social media platforms have been employed by many companies in recent years, creating their own version of LinkedIn or Facebook for internal use. This provides opportunities for networking and collaboration, and a more informal way to voice concerns and opinions. The vision of unity and cohesion for the company can be better appreciated when these far removed team members can put a face to a name, and better understand their own place within the larger scope.

In my personal experience I have seen successes and failures at accomplishing this unity. A successful example would have to be efforts by the Air Force to create a sense of worldliness in its members. 'Cross pollination' trips are commonly taken where members of one base travel to another to shadow their counterparts, where both sides can understand and learn from each other. This allows for local inefficiencies to potentially be highlighted by the superior performance of the other party, a sense of networking and collaboration as members of the larger Air Force, and it can foster understanding of the process drivers that both sides are subject to.

An example of misguided efforts to unify members of multiple different teams would have to be the new hire training class I attended at one job I had. It provided a very extensive look at some of the company's processes from a higher perspective, giving an understanding of how some roles fit with each other. Unfortunately, this was almost a complete waste as the material was very out of date, and some of it seemed to be directed at a particular team, leaving many other teams unaware of the significance of their own role. The training ultimately left us more confused than when we came in. Needless to say, the trainer's awareness of the roles of their trainees can be useful information to have.

As for the social media aspect, Boeing has its own social media platform called inSite. This functions most similarly to LinkedIn from my personal experience, and seems to serve primarily as a way of looking up coworkers to learn more about them and the organization they belong to. This can serve as a resume of sorts, detailing career history and listing qualifications. In addition to the employee profiles, there are also groups where articles are shared and web meetings can be arranged. There are some groups based around particular career fields or programs aimed at fostering collaboration. In my experience, this platform is highly under-utilized and very few people I know make much use of it, so there is likely a lot of untapped potential.

The DIKA Model

 Information overload, also known as infobesity, is a major problem in both the business world and our society at large. Thanks to advancements in technology and the increased prominence of the global marketplace, access to data of all kinds has become much easier than ever before. Within an organization, we can now track many kinds of metrics and performance data in real time, giving rise to concepts like the Six Sigma and Just in Time models. Such plans that demand near-perfection and transparency would have been much more difficult to implement in prior generations.

There is reason to suspect that our obsession with performance data is killing performance, especially when it comes to employee expectations. However, data when properly used can be converted into powerful competitive advantages over the rest of the industry. Effective data collection, collation, and interpretation is something many businesses struggle with, but industry leaders tend to rely on. One tool to assist with informing decisions using available data is the DIKA model.

This is a simple workflow of sorts that can be used to guide the process of exploring a decision or issue and allowing the data to organically form a recommendation. It might be employed in order to solve a problem, or to decide on a course of action informed by historical data. The idea is an exhaustive collection of potentially useful data points are then analyzed, and only at that point is a theory crafted. In a complete subversion of the scientific method, data is collected and analyzed in order to form a hypothesis, not after.

During the information step, data is analyzed and measured against each other. Such patterns as reinforcing data points and consensus among disparate sources of data can be used to group the data points. The information step is more about pruning, reducing that exhaustive data list down to what appears to be the most founded facts. If there is something to prove, the facts with the most evidence in the data receives the priority. These most reliable pieces of data are renamed information.

The knowledge step should have expert or experienced analysts work on the refined list of information. A theory or hypothesis is extrapolated from the accumulated information. Although understood with the lens of expertise and context, it must ultimately be the information itself that points towards and justifies the conclusion. This interpretation of the information is called the knowledge.

After this, a plan of action is made and set into motion. The final step is no longer about making decisions but rather should consist of actionable recommendations. This may seem straight forward, but it may end up being one of the most time consuming steps, because converting a goal into immediate steps can be complicated. 

Like any data-driven decision making methodology, an analyst's understanding of the context of the data can help to ensure this is a powerful tool. Likewise, a lack of context can allow this to go off the rails. Businesses are inundated with data and it can be incredibly difficult to convert the recommendations in the data towards action items, especially within large organizations.

Unfortunately, within large corporations in the modern business world, short-term goals often take precedence over long-term goals. This is partially due to the quarterly and annually appraisals due to senior leadership, especially to the stockholders. Because of this, there is pressure to produce tangible results now, even if there may be long-term ramifications. The one metric everyone is measured on, in one way or another, is the profit margin.

This is to say that far too often, a sound and data-supported proposal will be shot down because there is a short-term expense. The more intangible or far off the benefits are, the greater the chance of the proposal failing is. Not every endeavor can be supported by data that will give reassurances of increased profitability of a certain amount. There is an art to persuading leadership to take risks, but any amount of framing will only have so much potential to move.

There is a vast number of situations this model could be applied to, some of which may benefit more than others. I believe that the defining feature of successful applications is its ability to increase profitability. If the DIKA model shows a certain path will lead to profits, management will be firm believers, but if it shows a path that leads to increased expenses then suddenly management will have their doubts. 

The Future of Lying

 The act of lying is perhaps the most difficult to rate in terms of seriousness. In conversation, it is often used as an example of an insignificant offense, such as saying, "We can't throw people in jail for every immoral deed. If we did for lying no one would be left!" However, it can also be considered the most grave offense in a different context.

Warren Buffett once said, "In looking for people to hire, look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you." In any professional or personal relationship, without a foundation in honesty and trust there can be no merit to any other redeeming qualities. Furthermore, knowing basic facts such as intentions, capabilities, and history can become impossible.

However, what of the little white lies that so often are told, never detected, and often even forgotten by the liar? The line can even become blurred on what truly constitutes a lie when a misrepresentation is used. One might, bring up a real traffic jam encountered to explain tardiness, without mentioning that they left their house late in addition. Does a system of morality compel them to unnecessarily divulge their guiltiness, perhaps even to exclude the real but unimpactful traffic jam? 

Such questions about the common lies told daily by most people are divulged in a TED talk by Jeff Hancock in 2012.

Direct Link

In this talk several studies are discussed that explore the ways people lie online versus in-person. Perhaps surprisingly, the study found the test subjects lying much more frequently in-person than online in most metrics. For example, e-mails were shown to contain much fewer lies than phone calls. One reason for this may be the pressure, being put on the spot, that might drive someone to panic and lie when a well thought out e-mail might allow them to find a truthful response that would protect their relationship. And this takes us to the motivation for lying.

Aside from a small amount of pathological liars mentioned, most lies are done actually to protect relationships. Claiming to be busy and can't talk, when really they are simply not interested but want to spare the other's feelings, is one of the most common modern lies told. There are other motivations, but when it comes to little white lies most of the motivations seem to relate to preserving a relationship. My personal take in contrast to the presentation, is that ego plays a large part. Sparing a friends feelings may be a motivator for most, but many times its a sense of pride and a fear of embarrassment that's even more powerful when it comes to discussing a failure.

So, what has changed about all of this within the last 20 or so years? Despite the anonymity of the internet allowing certain kinds of lies (like fraud) to flourish, when it comes to interpersonal relationships online communication has the opposite effects. There is now a permanent record of everything we say online, inescapable. Using other forms of communication lies could be used to escape being caught in a prior lie, like creating doubt that the listener heard correctly, or attacking another's credibility. But now, text messages and social media posts speak for themselves. In a way, many people continuing personal relationships online have fewer lies they can possibly tell.

We are now made more available than ever before. Back in the 1970s, you had a home phone but no answering machine. Consequently, there was far less expected contact, so we had much less reason to lie in certain respects. There is no need to say the cell phone battery died to explain not responding for a full day. Our expectations drive people into a corner where they either have to be brutally honest, or come up with white lies to preserve the status quo. However, lying is more difficult now due to the lasting record.

In conclusion, there is no real conclusion here as this topic is incredibly broad and nuanced. Our technologies enable certain kinds of lies, while making other kinds more difficult, but don't change our core motivations much. We're still humans with the tendency to lie. In the 8 years since the TED talk linked, I believe the propensity for lying online has gotten much worse. When honesty becomes scarce in a society, those who humble themselves and display it shall be exalted.

A Story of Organizational Culture

     Story telling is an art as old as humanity itself. We have the capacity to empathize with storytellers and story characters, and in a sense experience a situation in a way much deeper than a simple description of the concept. It is ingrained in our minds, and unfortunately also becoming a lost art in our society. In an era of efficiency and statistics, the subtle value of taking that extra time is difficult to prove.

    In a study published in the Journal of Organizational Change Management (Direct Link), instances of storytelling proving to bring about effective change in the workplace is examined. It was found that in the realm of affecting workplace culture, this method was especially effective. Since culture derives from experience, so too must a form of experience be used to change it.

    For example, I could tell you about Jean Valjean. Jean was just released from a French prison in the 1800s. He was penniless, wearing the rags of a street beggar. Having spent the last nineteen years in prison, he was alienated from his family and everyone in his past life. In the humble country town of Digne, rolling hills of green and mild weather is juxtaposed with not-so mild gossip on the streets. "Why is there a criminal our town?" asks a woman as Jean walks past. He furrows his brow but trains his eyes straight ahead. As a stranger in this small down, the gaze of suspicion falls upon him by all he passes. Required by law to carry a yellow slip of an ex-convict, there is little he can do to assuage this suspicion.

    Each inn he visits refuses him, all having heard about the potentially dangerous criminal. Even a request for a glass of water was met with one particularly fervent innkeeper presenting a rifle. The evening chill set in harshly as he climbs a steep hill, towards a church looking down upon the town below. The housekeepers advise Bishop Myriel to lock the gates because of the released prisoner only minutes before that very prisoner knocks on their door. Against their advice, the Bishop lets him in. He presents Valjean with the first warm smile he's seen in four days of freedom. Refusing to accept pay from their guest, they give him a hearty meal and accommodations. Furthermore, the Bishop orders their silverware and their best wine to be shared for the evening, in honor of their guest. That night Valjean marveled at the feeling of a proper bed for the first time in nineteen years.

    That morning, Bishop Myriel was tending to his garden when one of his housekeepers cries that they have been robbed. The silverware (made from real silver) was missing, it must have been the stranger. Soon after, soldiers approached the church with Vajean under arrest. They claim they searched him because he looked suspicious. They found the silverware, and he claims he stayed at the church the night prior. Unfazed, the Bishop presents the same warm smile as before and says he gave Valjean the silverware. After releasing Valjean, still in shock, the Bishop said, "I'm glad you're back. You left in such a hurry you forgot to take the candlesticks."

    Dropping to his knees wordlessly, tears filling his eyes, Valjean sees the Bishop present him with candlesticks made of fine silver. "Promise me and don't forget, don't ever forget, that you will use this silver to make an honest man of yourself. You no longer belong to evil but to good. Jean Valjean, my brother, it is your soul that I am buying for you. I am taking it away from black thoughts and damnation, and I am giving it to God."

    Now that could be viewed as a long way of saying, "Giving the right person a second chance can make someone a better person." However, in reading that story the reader might really come to understand on a different level exactly why that is. Moreover, they will certainly be more apt to remember it. 

    Of the many lectures I've heard in my academic career, sermons heard at church, and speeches at work, it is the ones with a story that I tend to remember the most. It doesn't have to be a story as long as the one I presented above, even just a short sentence or two where a series of events demonstrate the reason behind a rule can be effective. 

    Thinking of my own workplace and the potential application of this concept, there are possibilities. We have a workplace culture rooted deeply in respect for others. This permeates into everything we do, as a great deal of trust is invested in others. Challenging someone, especially regarding their area of responsibility, is not seen unless there is a clear undeniable error made. When everyone is viewed as an expert in their field, every benefit of the doubt is afforded before bucking the system. This contributes greatly to our company being a great place to work, with a high amount of job satisfaction and a low amount of conflict. Attracting and retaining skilled workers is essential in a technology-driven industry like aviation.

    If I were giving a speech, I could relay a story about how, because of the great mutual respect between offices, calls for urgent action are met with promptness and without question. This is especially true for our Procurement office, as through a great working relationship spanning many years, we have learned how to serve each other better. By respecting them, I know not to cry wolf and demand that all of my requisitions are 'top priority' just to get them worked. I believe they will all be attended in good time, and save the alarm bells for when something is truly specifically an above-average priority. In turn, they know I rarely call for such immediate action, and so they jump on it when I do. 

    By providing the above example I can demonstrate how mutually beneficial having trust and respect can be, giving context for the concept.   

Respecting the 'Other'

 The 'other' is a concept discussed by Elizabeth Lesser in a TED talk from 2010, a topic I perceive has only increased in relevance to our society over the last decade. Everyone has their own 'other', that is those from another side of our own personal beliefs and convictions. Religious and political identity are clear examples of this discussed in her speech. Unfortunately, our media benefits so much on sensational reporting and generating controversy that it has fanned the flames of the enmity between the opposing political sides immensely. 

Here is a link to the 11 minute speech if you'd like to listen.

Direct Link

It is central to the human mind to categorize persons and things broadly, as a shorthand of sorts to more efficiently utilize the finite resources of our brain. One consequence of this is the 'us vs them' mentality, grouping those like us in any way our mind deems important. It can be difficult to maintain respect and not fall into negative stereotyping when considering the 'others.' Elizabeth Lesser makes a case for having an open mind and humility, with a 'I don't know it all' mentality. Our world is sorely lacking in humility, with a tendency to believe our perspective on the world is the only correct one. Even many of those who proclaim tolerance and diversity are just as guilty.

An exercise proposed here is to take 'the other' to lunch. Find someone who we have opposing beliefs with and spend some time getting to know them and attempt to understand them as more of a multifaceted human rather than a preconceived stereotype. Because of the echo chambers we tend to insulate ourselves within, with media that supports our existing views and like-minded friends, we tend to focus on the most extreme and negative examples of the other side without acknowledging that those notable examples may not represent the majority. So this exercise can help to break through these pervasive beliefs.

In order to accomplish this, she suggests some rules both should agree to beforehand:

1)    Don't persuade, defend, or interrupt.

2)    Be curious, conversational, and real.

3)    Listen.

There are also three questions she suggests asking:

1)    Share some of your life experiences.

2)    What issues deeply concern you?

3)    What have you always wanted to ask someone from the 'other side'?

Thinking personally on this topic, I have my own identity like anyone else. I am a Christian, I consider myself nondenominational and Bible believing. Although I believe there is only one path to salvation, I believe a spirit of humility is essential and I am a sinner just as imperfect as anyone of any other faith. Politically I consider myself a right-leaning libertarian in the spirit of Milton Friedman. I usually vote Libertarian although I consider the candidates as individuals and have voted for members of the Constitutional party, Independents, Republican, and even Democrat parties. 

    Here is a visual aid from the Libertarian party that does a good job of depicting how they have aspects both parties might agree with, as well as their own unique positions. There are many flavors of libertarian and I don't agree with the Libertarian party on everything, but this chart is a good introduction to understanding libertarianism. I find I agree with the general Republican stance on about 40% of issues, Democrats about 20%, and disagree with both sides the remaining 40%.

Although I don't identify as a Republican, I did in the past, and many of my friends and family identify that way. In talking to Republicans, we find a fairly high amount of common ground, and usually have a pleasant conversation, even on topics we disagree on. Many Republicans are Christians, and those who aren't at least have some respect for the religion. Because of this, I can't help but feel a bit personally attacked when Republicans are characterized negatively as a whole, as if nearly half of this nation can fit a particular negative stereotype. So therefore, for me the other would be Democrats, especially atheists who often have negative preconceptions about Christians.

A moment from the video struck personally with me, when she asked her conservative 'other' "Why do you stereotype us so badly?" and she responded that she felt it was them who was unfairly stereotyped more often. This characterizes a lot of discussions I've had with 'others' as issues one side is concerned about, the other side thinks is not prominent. It's almost as if both sides exist in different realities, no doubt thanks in part to the echo-chamber effect mentioned above.

Someone that comes to mind I could potentially try this experiment with is a coworker who I see whenever I go in to work. We have talked politics before a little and I'm aware he is a left-leaning atheist. We haven't discussed religion yet, and I'm not sure how he would take it if I told him I was a Christian, and not just an in-name only one. We have somewhat of a friendship and I enjoy talking to him, but we've never met outside of work. However, I think I've gleamed enough from him that we would be able to share our perspectives with each other and still come away from it with respect for each other.

Although I've not tried this exercise exactly as described, I do have some 'other' friends and family and have engaged in a wide variety of discussions. In some discussions I mostly let them talk and don't contradict them. One example of this is a business trip I went on last year with a (higher ranking) coworker of mine. He freely shared his political views and inquired about mine, I felt a bit intimidated by his fierce conviction and his higher rank to me, so I wasn't eager to risk souring his opinion of me. I did state that I'm a libertarian, a position he began challenging, and ended the conversation by saying I disagree without really explaining. However, I did learn a lot about him, his personal experiences, and the reasons for his beliefs. At the end of the day, I still respect him as a person and I know he's definitely an intelligent man.

Communicating open and honestly in these situations can be a bit scary, as none of us like to invite conflict with someone we respect. However, if the interaction is predicated on heightening mutual understanding rather than convincing then that concern disappears. Having a spirit of humility is important, as one can communicate with thoughtfulness rather than arrogance, and listen with interest rather than incredulousness.

Having an honest discussion like this with coworkers can lead to mutual respect and understanding. When we view our different perspectives not as barriers and weaknesses but rather as something with its own potential merit, then we have true diversity. Not the kind of diversity that comes from people who look different, but from people who are different people by choice, and that is the kind of diversity that matters most. 

It's much easier to learn to respect someone for being different because they came from a different part of the world than it is to respect someone who grew up in the same nation but chose to be different. It's not easy, and only possible with a spirit of humility. But achieving that respect is a kind of fulfillment unique to itself.