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627.Healing Through Conversation: Building Trust in Polarizing Times (Katie Hyten) | Otter.ai

627.Healing Through Conversation: Building Trust in Polarizing Times (Katie Hyten)

Sabrina Li34min

Jonathan McCoy

00:00

Yeah, Becky, the day is here.

Becky Endicott

00:01

I have wanted to have this conversation for almost three years, and I honestly think the timing that it's hitting could not be more perfect. I'm so excited. Yeah, like, we thought we had problems three years ago. It's like now

Jonathan McCoy

00:18

there's a tease for where we're going today, because the topic we're leaning into is this idea of dialog across difference. And you've heard us talk about that, or you've heard it through the gather at the well series with Lindsay Fuller, and we feel like it's an imperative at this time of figuring out how to hold space in such a polarizing time, not just for our country, but around the world. And we just have this belief that dialog could be the most powerful tool for healing that change. Well, let me take you back three years ago, we were sitting at the stand together foundation event out in Denver, and Becky Julie and myself are sitting on the row. It's like a TEDx style event, and Katie Hyten takes the stage as the CO executive director at essential partners. And what transpired over 10 minutes. I'm still not okay. Years later, years later.

Jonathan McCoy

01:05

Yes, that that planted the seed that the work that she's doing, the way that she sees the world, the way that she sees conversation, is so grounding and shifting, and we wanted to bring that conversation to the podcast. So today we're joined by Katie, and we're she's going to tell us a little bit about her work at essential partners, which is this organization that helps communities navigate difficult conversations and build trust across divides, you'll see the through line that we need this right now. Right with her background in international negotiation, conflict resolution from Tufts University's Fletcher School, she has this deep expertise in dialog, identity and civic action, and she's worked from everything from local churches and grassroots groups to consulting with the likes of Harvard Medical School. So her work empowers people to engage difference with both courage and curiosity. Katie, to have you on the podcast means the world. Welcome to the show.

Katie Hyten

01:55

Thank you all so much for having me. This is has been a long time coming. I've been such fans of y'all for a long time. So this is going to be such a fun conversation. My gosh, thank you, friend. Well, I mean, would you so let's start by just kind of filling in some of the gaps of your story. We heard some of your professional accomplishments, but take us back to growing up like what planted seeds in you that now is the work that you're doing. Take us back to growing up. I love that. I so I was actually raised in a military family. My father spent his career in the Air Force, and so we moved around a lot. And I it's funny the narratives that you make looking back that you never would have made in the moment. And I think one of the things that really stuck out to me growing up is I was spending so much of my childhood in really lovely ways, really trying to understand each place that I lived, right? I was always kind of a little bit on the outside, trying to understand, okay, how do people talk? How do friendships work? How do classes work? You know, what are the expectations here? And then trying to figure out where to fit in and where to be myself and as a kid, that's a really interesting process. I think most kids go through a version of that. I just got to go through a version of it. And, you know, 11 different places instead of just a handful. And you know, that really intimate experience also connected with my father being stationed at the Pentagon on 911 and, you know, really seeing that viscerally connect with my own experience of, you know, watching my dad try to call everyone that he knows in the days after, and then also, kind of looking at the news and the policy and and seeing this real disconnect between what was happening at this national stage and this national conversation and the conversations that were happening in my own home, and really just seeing these dots connect around. Wait a second. How does this dissonance happen? Right? How does this become this whole big thing when I'm just sitting here watching my dad try to call all of his colleagues, you know, when the phone lines were down and the news and so you kind of have these little moments that come together throughout I think anyone's growing up, but for me, I think it led to this deep desire to explore the world around me, to figure out what makes it so that people know they belong or don't belong, and to have the conversations that matter most, that center the people most impacted, and don't blow up into this hypothetical conversation that's this national news thing, but really deeply grounded in people's lived experiences and lives and the things that are impacting them every day. I mean, you're, you're being very humble here. I mean your, your dad is retired Air Force General, you know, and and so I can imagine that kind of proximity opens the world in different ways, but also, every single one of us friends, have a unique lived experience. All of us have unique values, belief systems. And Jon, I'm remembering this conversation we had with Carrie Watkins, who's the executive director of the Oklahoma City bombing Memorial, and her biggest takeaway is so much of what.

Becky Endicott

04:59

I love about essential partners, and she talks about the importance of finding common ground. And how can we start to not pick apart the things that tear us apart, but how do we start in the center on the stuff that we do believe in, and we are in the most fractured world I have ever lived in as a Gen Xer, and we have got to start building toward common ground again. The level of anger and opinion that all of us have about everything that's going on is at a fever pitch. And I just feel like, Katie, what you do at essential partners is such a microcosm of what we think could unlock this profound listening, this profound empathy, this need to remember our civility and our humanity. And so I want you to take us into your mission. Talk about its history. Talk about essential partners. Talk about what your work looks like today, because it was somewhat new a little bit when we were hearing about it. And I'm like, how has it evolved, given this landscape that we've all been living in? Yeah,

Katie Hyten

06:16

I essential partners has actually existed for more than 35 years, which is wild. It is old. Is almost as old as I am, and we were founded, actually, to help people build relationships across differences that make it possible for them to address their community's most pressing challenges. And when we look around at the institutions at the heart of our community life, we don't really have the relationships and the skills and the infrastructure to engage effectively, even across really tough differences, whether it's an everyday difference or a really existential difference. And we see things devolve all the time. I know that y'all believe that community is everything, and we believe that too. So to help kind of combat that tendency to devolve, we want to work where people's lives and futures are already intertwined, where they're already in community together, where they're already living, working, studying or worshiping together, and our work is really a blend of training, facilitation and consulting that is oriented around fundamentally changing, helping communities change the way they engage across differences. So it's not just a one off workshop or a random encounter between strangers. We're really working to help people build the skills in their own terms, to co create their culture in a way that helps people feel heard and understood and able to move forward together. I think this is really interesting, especially where you started, because we can do that even in the absence of agreement or common ground. There you go, even where Common Ground doesn't exist.

Jonathan McCoy

07:45

Yeah. I mean, hope, so much hope. And I just think you've already kind of seeded this, but I think it does come down to creating the container, or the conditions where authentic dialog can really flow. I mean, especially in today's polarizing world, it feels like it's sometimes hard to find the spaces where you feel like you can be fully authentic and fully like. Break it down with someone else. What does it look like to create that condition? What are they and what does it look like to hold that kind of

Katie Hyten

08:14

space? I love that question. It's really so important to our work, whether it's an organization or community. We oftentimes talk about these organizations or these communities as containers with rules and norms that kind of act as boundaries to invite some things and discourage others. And we believe that you can change the shape of conversations and relationships by changing the shape of that container. So when we talk about creating conditions, we're kind of changing, or we're moving people away from this idea that this person is difficult, into this notion that this person wasn't set up for success. No one wants to be the difficult person. We kind of fall into those roles. And so when we work with folks, more effective dialog requires first a really deep understanding of the pitfalls that your team or your organization or your community has fallen into in the past, and to begin to recognize patterns. So for example, do the same three people show up to every town hall. Does the same person speak every first in every meeting and anchor the conversation in whatever conversation they want to have? Does the conversation always speed up as people jump in and it gets faster and faster and faster until all of a sudden it's a runaway train and you've completely lost control? Are people asked to constantly defend their perspective, are people poking holes in each other so that people are forced into a defensive mode? Right? All of these things repeat over and over and over, and you might recognize this from your own classes or team meetings where kind of the same three people take up a lot of airspace, and usually it's not intentional. You. Those folks aren't sitting there consciously saying, my voice is more important than everyone else's voice. I would like to take this whole space. It's just patterns that we fall into. And so once we figure out with folks, you know, what isn't quite working for them, or what are the patterns that they fall into, then we can start to create a new container. We can start to design something that invites something new. So in places where the same people speak first every time or take up most of the conversation, we might instead invite each person to respond to the same question before moving on. Or if the conversation always escalates, we might invite just people to start taking a breath between speakers. Or if people feel really backed into a corner, we might ask what they want others to understand about their perspective, rather than really forcing them to answer barrage of questions.

Becky Endicott

10:55

This is just such a human response that takes this defensive energy that we bring into conversations that that honestly slows us down. And I'm not and I'm not negating that that anger is not righteous and deserving in any ways, but I really like this approach to how can we mutually move forward, and I think it would be really helpful for people who are listening to hear a story of how this has played out, like in your world, can you share, like, maybe a time a conversation shifted something meaningfully, whether that was an individual or maybe at the community level. I'm remembering one you told before in the past, and I was shook to the ground when I heard about the farmers in Arkansas, you know, working with their city officials. So, and I'm sure you have many more, but yeah, make this practical for us.

Katie Hyten

11:45

Yeah, I was actually thinking about this. And for me, the stories that matter most me are always the ones that are hitting home today. Yeah. And, you know, I think as we think about creating these new containers that set people up for success. We think about how these patterns exist everywhere, and how to kind of create this long term vision. And one of the stories that I've been loving recently is in December of 2023 in response to the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, and then Israel's bombing and invasion of Gaza Shenandoah University in Virginia hosted a campus wide dialog as part of its Shenandoah conversations program. This event used dialog, used our model of dialog, and folks have been trained in it since late 2017 the word ended is after the dialog. One student described a moment between herself as a Jewish student and a Palestinian American student, where they were able to mutually declare that they had seen each other as humans. And the university president actually told the whole faculty afterwards that she had so many students coming to her office telling her that it was one of the most transformative educational experiences they'd ever had at Shenandoah University, especially in even students who had struggled to find a sense of belonging on campus and the lead up to that dialog. Now, what I love about this story is that they told us afterwards that the way that the Shenandoah campus was able to come together and have a conversation that was fundamentally different than it would have been six years prior, is because dialog had transformed their cultural, their campus culture. So something was possible now that wasn't possible before. Now this is really interesting to me, and it just hits home so much because Shenandoah actually reached out to us after the unite the right rally in Charlottesville in 2017 Yeah, it took place right near their campus, and that had the opposite experience, where people really wanted to talk about it, but they had no idea how to and in this time between 2017 and 2023 they had trained over 150 faculty members to have dialog in their classrooms. Almost half of all of their faculty, over 3400 students have participated in a dialog on campus. Wow and over 275 students have been trained to lead their peers in dialog 40 courses every year embed dialog into the curriculum. So when we talk about changing the container, when we talk about changing the way that people engage across difference, it doesn't happen overnight, yeah, but over this, over years, you can start to see what becomes possible now that wasn't possible before, and I just love that story.

Becky Endicott

14:41

Can they come and teach my family how to communicate about strong feelings? Come on in we got

Becky Endicott

14:48

generations for you to work with. I mean, I mean all of our families, let's be honest.

Jonathan McCoy

14:54

I need to board realize this somehow, yes, that's a word. I. But I think your your language sticks out to me because you keep talking about dialog. That's the word of choice, and I think it stands starkly against like a one time conversation. It's like a push and pull. It's a you say this, I receive and say this, and it feels more like a dance, and people are uncomfortable dancing. You know, I think that there is when you're not just sending a nameless survey and then we're gonna file the results somewhere. It's like, I have to make myself vulnerable to be able to respond and to know what to say next. So I do think creating this culture of a dialog does take work to integrate this into our everyday practices. What are some suggestions you have of like, how to codify this and make it part of an institution.

Katie Hyten

15:47

First of all, I love your dancing metaphor for so many reasons, because I'm a bad day. I think it's so apt, and it's It actually reminds me of something that we talk about a lot in our in our work, which is that it's a little bit spreading out the discomfort, right? So if you go to say, a dance class or a night dancing, this would be my absolute nightmare. I have too many limbs, right? It just doesn't they all work together. Yes, it doesn't work for me, but I'm usually going to that thing, and I think I'm going to go to a line dancing event with one of my friends in a couple weeks, and but he's been going for a long time, right? And so he's been sending me videos, and he's been helping walk me through it, and he's going to take me to a class, and we're going to prepare, right? And it's the same thing, because he is trying to help me feel more comfortable doing something that I'm not comfortable doing, and I'm trying to find joy in something that gives him a lot of joy, right? And that's how community is built. Is not in making everyone really uncomfortable and painful. It's in spreading out that discomfort a little bit so that we can be in community together when our lives are intertwined. That's good. Katie,

Becky Endicott

16:58

you are so good. I'm just like, what unites us has got to be so much stronger than what divides us. And I know that it can't just be this easy, that we just have these conversations, these one time conversations, and they automatically shift the culture of what's happening in our organization. It has got to be like a drum beat. And I'm curious what some of the biggest barriers you see to this not working, because I definitely want us to avoid them, because we want to help support leaders in overcoming a lot of these barriers that you see

Katie Hyten

17:35

absolutely and I so I'll kind of kind of transition a little bit if that's all right. Because I think the thing that I feel is that people are really hungry for things to be different. No one wants to be in this horrifically devolving situation where we have to scream to be heard, or we feel like we have to be silent, because if we speak up, no one will understand us. And so when we think about this long arc, we're thinking about, how do we help notice and support people are who are already informal and informal positions of leading conversations, people who are already bringing people together. And it could be a faith leader, it could be a teacher, it could be an after school person at the YMCA could be a team leader or a manager, and what we notice is that most of those folks are never actually trained to help their students or their teams or their kids grapple with really hot button topics, and whether they want to or not, those topics are coming up more and more, or a daily standard meeting or a gardening club, we can't really contain it or separate it anymore, and so often folks are terrified of starting or opening a can of worms or a conversation that could really go sideways. And so our job is to help equip them with the skills that they can feel confident and competent enough to have the conversations that matter most, while also recognizing that there are real risks. You know, we're seeing every day in the news, teachers ending up at a school board hearing or managers suspended, or people being villainized or targeted, or professors getting bad reviews because they've opened up a conversation that really they weren't ready to have, or they weren't equipped to have, and so we have a whole bunch of resources on our website. We have trainings that we can help folks become more equipped. But I will say that one of the things that we really encourage folks to start with is just recognizing that this is different and that there's risk, and that change happens at the pace of trust. And that's, I mean, that's Adrian Marie browns, and probably many other folks as well. But when we equip them, when people have the skills to do this, then they can step into this work on their own terms, in a way that gives agency to everyone involved. Evolved. So we always make sure that people have a sense of agency to participate in something that impacts them. It's not hypothetical. It's not theoretical. This is something that people feel is they're connected to in some way, and it's important and urgent enough to take that risk. And so it's that slow burn of amping up over time to say, yes, change happens at the pace of trust. Yes, we have to start somewhere. Yes, we need skills in order to do that, and that's really where we come in.

Jonathan McCoy

20:28

I mean, Katie, a, you're so quotable. B, you're so practical, just living for this conversation. Because we're in this season. I think we always try to be about this, but this season, we're double downing on getting activated, doing the thing, not sitting on the sidelines, not feeling like we're just clammed up and feel like we can't move forward. So something that I feel through our community and conversations is that nonprofits are curious, how do you begin a dialog with your community about a conversation that you're maybe worried about, maybe when you're worried that you're going to alienate a certain demographic, or you're going to say or present in a way that maybe alienate some of your donors, like, how do you walk through a situation like that with as much guidance as you could give our listeners today?

Katie Hyten

21:16

I love this. I think there, there are two things that we start with in every engagement that we ever do. They are the North Star for our work and their purpose in people so and the the clincher of these is that they have to be aligned. So hypothetically, if you're a nonprofit, and you say something like, we really want to have a conversation about whether my city is a sanctuary city, where we really want to have a conversation about our LGBTQ community, something like that, first you have to understand what the actual purpose of that is, right? It's not what you want to do, it's what you want to become possible because of that. So are you trying to create a sense of safety for the people who come to your programming. Are you trying to understand implications for your budget? Those are two very different conversations, right? Are you trying to build a sense of community? Are you trying to build it specifically for those communities? Are you trying to build a broader sense of communities? All of those questions impacts the kind of people we bring into the table and bring to this conversation. A question about the budget, might bring in the board, but not bring in the random people who come to your after school programs. Or maybe it should. Maybe it does, but that's that's your call, right? A conversation that deeply involves the experiences of a particular group in your community, whether it's LGBTQ community, people of color, Republicans, you know, whatever group you want to bring in, does your purpose help meet them? Right? And so that's that alignment piece. Are the folks who you want to come to this conversation, willing and invested in the purpose, and if they're not, then you have to adjust those two things. So we always say is, just don't do it alone, right? Articulate a purpose and bring people in early and say, Is this something that is that matters to you, that is impacted, that is impacting you that is something that you want to see be connected in conversation about. And I think as we start, those would be the first two steps that I would take you have a clear sense of what you want to be different as a result of being in dialog. And are the people who are going to be impacted by that conversation involved from the beginning to say, Yeah, we're on the right track. This is what we want to do. This is what's most important, and to have that kind of back and forth. Because, you know, as we said, there are risks and there are opportunities to be in community together, and it has to be worth the risk for people to show up and do something different.

Becky Endicott

24:00

You're just so right, and I can see this being such a multiplier in so many ways, if I just think dialog as culture is such an elevated way to look at the way that your culture moves, and your movement, whatever your mission is like, how often are you in dialog with the people on the front line? And thank you for talking about the people on the front line are the ones who will be most impacted. So they should be asked first. So I think this is so strong. And I will also even argue for anyone that's kind of pushing back and saying, I don't feel good about this. Y'all, can you imagine remember that feeling when you had to take something to your the board for the first time, like those of us who ever had to go and present in front of a board? Do you remember that feeling inside your body and your chest, and when you go alone to present something to a board? It. It is very isolating, but having dialog is going to give you tons of people's voices behind you. You are speaking on behalf of so many, and the collective is so much more powerful than the ones, which is why I also love the do not go on this alone. So I just think you are onto something categorically groundbreaking here. Katie, I wish everybody would hire you for all manner of work, from business to nonprofit to community to just my I'm like my local PTA, could benefit from a little bit of this dialog my kid's PTO, but I do believe that story is the thing that grounds us, because when we see ourselves in someone else's story, we're more open, we're going to be more vulnerable. And I'm curious about your story, and we love to ask every guest on our podcast about a moment of generosity of kindness. Maybe it's philanthropy that happened to you in your life that profoundly changed you. And it doesn't have to be a multi million dollar gift. It could be a random act of kindness. What's what's coming up for you?

Katie Hyten

26:23

I love this invitation to story. And I'll also just say one thing that we often start with, every community is different. Every context is different. We often start with a question that we ask everyone, which is something like, can you tell us a story that would help us understand how this particular thing is impacting you, and question it opens up something new every time, and it really kind of invites people to connect with each other's stories rather than each other's positions. So I really love this question, can I tell two stories? One very personal and one great, perfect. So the first I'll tell is for our organization, because I think that right now, philanthropy matters and and funding trusted funder relationships are some of the most joyful life giving things that we can ask for, because it allows us to say yes, and we did have a funder who stepped up after October 7, and they actually said to us, let us help you make what you're already doing more accessible and more impactful. And so they've called it an accelerator fund. They gave us funds up front. And basically anytime a client or a partner comes to us and wants to do a thing, and we say, we create this whole vision for what we want to make possible with them, and they can only afford half of it. We can afford the other half, which is wild and and it's such a gift that we can give it's it's honoring of our mission. It's honoring of their vision. It's it creates a whole new world of opportunity where we can say yes. And as every nonprofit knows, being able to say yes sometimes is the hardest thing, right? Because you have resource constraints, you have time constraints, you have personnel constraints, and this incredible funder that that just trusts us to say yes to the right people to do work that we're already doing was such a gift, so that, I think, really moved me and gives me such hope for what is to come in the funding space. I think more and more funders are doing that on a personal note, a moment of generosity. The way something about the way you framed that question made me want to be more personal, and I'll say my family has been going through a little bit of a hard time. My mom's a bit unwell, and I have three girlfriends, and we try to get together at least once a year. And we had been planning this trip for months. We were going to all meet up in Tennessee, where one of my friends lives. And about four weeks before this, my mom had a diagnosis that wasn't great, and my friends, unbeknownst to me, went behind my back and organized this weekend to really be about my own care in a way that I hadn't been able to do for a while. They planned all the meals. I didn't have to plan any meals. They did all the cooking for the weekend. They organized a day at a place where you could just kind of relax and be without your phone. And I just sat there feeling so deeply cared for by people who had seen me. And I didn't ask for anything, because at that point it was so fresh. I didn't know what I needed, or I didn't know what to ask for. I was just trying to stay afloat and to have these folks show up was just such a generous spirit. It wasn't money, it was time, and it was effort and it was kindness, and it was the generosity that you spoke of, Becky, really hit home for me, and I think you. Know, as we as those two stories together have really moved me, because it's the systemic and it's the personal, it's the it's the big and it's the very, very small. And I think especially this year, I'm feeling the need for both of those things,

Becky Endicott

30:16

and the fact that you have been sitting here preaching how belonging has to be central for this to work. And it was paid forward to you is giving me all of those emotions coming up out of my stomach right now and telling me, one, that you have a really good community around you, and two, that what you're saying is work. It works. It works. Yeah,

Katie Hyten

30:41

it works.

Jonathan McCoy

30:43

Yep. I love that. I have to come out of this and try to bring us back. Oh,

Becky Endicott

30:48

you'll be so glad. It's about me. Well,

Jonathan McCoy

30:50

Katie, you know, from listening to the show that we wrap all of our episodes asking for a one good thing, and this could be a piece of advice. Maybe it connects to what we talked about, or maybe it's, you're going to pull the wild card again on us and have this in tears, what you got? What's your one good thing?

Katie Hyten

31:04

I think today I'm feeling like my one good thing is to not underestimate the power of silence, that these pauses take in what someone has said, or think about what you really want to say, or just taking a deep breath after hearing something hard, all of that makes such a difference. It gives a physical breathing room to a conversation where people can imagine and reflect and process. Don't rush in to fill the gaps breathe so you can let the conversation breathe.

Becky Endicott

31:39

I really needed to hear that on pretty much the daily Katie, because I do not like awkward silences. Yes, Jon knows this about me, but also there is something really human and sitting in that the quiet discomfort of what what could be. And so Katie, we want more people to find you. We want people to hire you. I think the world needs this work on so many levels. I mean, you have worked with college campuses, workplace nonprofits, local communities, secondary schools. And I'm like, if you were thinking, we need this at our organization or at our company, like this is what essential partners is we give people the means to strengthen relationships, deepen belonging and renew hope in their communities. So please connect the dots for all of our listeners, where can they find you? Katie, where can they find essential partners and give us all the social handles Best Place to reach you?

Katie Hyten

32:39

Oh, y'all are so wonderful. I am so excited to stay connected. And I love this connection between We Are For Good and essential partners. So the best place for folks to reach out to us is on our website. So essential partners can be found at what is essential.org?

Becky Endicott

32:58

A short URL, yes. And where do you hang out? Katie, where do you hang out online?

Katie Hyten

33:04

You can find me on LinkedIn. That's the best place to reach out to me. You can also email me. So my email is Katie, K, A, T, I, E, at, what is essential.org and I would love to hear from you, because I think one of the things I love about this place and this space is we oftentimes talk about essential partners operating at the cornerstones of community life, and I think y'all do that as well. And so if you are at the cornerstones of community life and you want your conversations to be different, please reach out, because we exist to help you.

Jonathan McCoy

33:35

Of course, Katie invites dialog. Drop in your very own brand. Or if you just want to check in on your line dancing progress, we've got that hooked up, and I can't check in

Becky Endicott

33:45

anyway on that.

Katie Hyten

33:46

Y'all. It's not going to be great, but it will be fun. It will be, yeah,

Becky Endicott

33:50

I understand my awkward mom dancing would be out there with you.

Jonathan McCoy

33:55

What a rich combo. Thank you. It was worth the wait.

Becky Endicott

33:57

And I just want you to know we are rooting for you, and honestly, I'm rooting for your mother. I'm going to put her in a place in my heart so I can think about her and keep going with this deeply important work that's going to heal community by community, person by person. I believe in it.

Katie Hyten

34:14

Think so. Come join us. Less than 4000 other people are doing this work so you are not alone. We would love to, we'd love to be a part of it with you.

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