 to working together on think tech Hawaii where we discuss the impact of change on workers employers and the economy. I'm your host Cheryl Crozier-Garcia inviting you to join in the conversation. You can call us in the studio at area code 415-871-2474 or you can tweet us at thinktech hi. One of the issues that is affecting the workplace is the changing tone of political discussions. In the past people could have spirited debates on political issues and no one seemed to be harmed by legitimate differences of opinion. However since the 2016 presidential election we've seen a big change. Families have reported having to cancel holiday celebrations or purposely excluding those with very different opinions. We've heard in the news media of marriages and other relationships ending because the parties disagreed on the candidates suitability for office and the Society for Human Resource Management reports that 40% of HR professionals have had to intervene in water cooler conversations that became overly heated or had to counsel individuals about their actions towards co-workers who have divergent political opinions. Whatever happened to just be nice as a strategy for getting along with those with whom we disagree. Joining us today to discuss this change in our workplace is Dr. Tim Fallis a communications professor at Hawaii Pacific University. Dr. Fallis has some advice for us about how to just be nice to one another. Welcome Tim. Thank you Cheryl. Delighted to be here. I'm glad you're here too. I'm sure that you've heard about some of these political disagreements that have taken place in the home at work and in different in the media and different political situations. What do you think the causes of these very sort of toxic discussions might be? Yeah in the classroom as well. I think in this political season people are very passionate about the ideologies behind candidates and they see that there is a bigger divergence than there has been before. Whether there really is or not doesn't really matter but they think there is and they feel so strongly about these perspectives that they can't imagine that people that they like that they love that their friends with that they work with can possibly have a different opinion because they're so sure that they are right and they feel like they're informed and they feel like they're knowledgeable. They feel like they've paid attention to the media and because they're not agreed with all the time they imagine that an attack on their opinion is an attack upon themselves upon their own character their identity their autonomy their their righteousness and so they feel offended and so they become angry and defensive and I think as well people feel there is a huge stake in the American political conversation and where this country is going right now and that there seems to be very polar opposites about which direction to go whether those directions are that divergent or not they think they are and so they're very passionate. So when people say say you and I are having a political discussion if I said I disagree in the past you might have heard I disagree but today you might hear I don't like you. Yes I don't like you I don't respect you I think you're an imbecile I think you're misinformed you have no idea what you're talking about you must be a fool you must be watching the wrong media you must be misinformed and then that's a personal attack. I think people have lost sight we're told as we as a social norm as we grow up from our families or schools that everyone has a right to their own opinion. If everyone has that right then I do then you do and then it is incumbent upon me to respect your right to an opinion and you're coming upon you to respect mine. I think people are pretty good about that for the most part or at least start off that way. What we don't learn so much is that yes you have the right to your opinion and I must respect your right to that opinion it does not mean I need to respect the opinion. I can respect you and think that you're completely wrong and the I think understanding that allows for a separation between identity and and position and we've lost that and I think that that loss has been encouraged frankly by political news media that has become very polarized very siloed because there's so many options we can watch we have a myriad of choices where we can watch whatever agrees with us frankly and those shows have become increasingly about bombastic increasingly passionate where only the the position of those in the show is right and everyone else must be a moron or is not a patriot right or is selfish evil capitalist miserable patriarchal you know zombie. We're encouraged to think in those sort of really polarized ways I think by the media that we're watching that we're getting our political information from and so we lose this this separation between personality and idea. Right does the same thing happen do you think in regards to say popular entertainment I mean one of the things that seems to be happening in media today is that comedians and others who are who make a living calling out the the strange behaviors of people in the public eye are making jokes that are not being perceived as jokes and we all know the role of the court jester historically it was the court jester's job to point out potential areas of injustice meanness unfairness cruelty in a way that made people laugh so that they could look at these issues in a in a kind of non-threatening way. What's happening with that I mean I look at Bill Maher's ongoing vitriol that he's receiving regarding the certain jokes that he's told about our current president and his family and I'm stunned because people have made jokes about presidential first daughters in my entire lifetime I think the only one I haven't heard people make fun of is Caroline Kennedy but everyone else has gotten of their more than their fair share of jokes about various things but now these new jokes about Ivanka Trump are really exposing the comedian to some very very vitriolic reviews and feedback why is that I think it's it's multi-layered and complicated jokes about Ivanka I think are unacceptable to people because of the for some of them the reasons they voted for Donald Trump to begin with a reaction against eight years of a black president frankly now we have a white American family and isn't this woman lovely and she's raising children and she's well educated and she's powerful in business why aren't we respecting her and treating her like a most excellent person making fun of her isn't appropriate especially because folks who felt uncomfortable with Michelle Obama were not permitted to make jokes about certain aspects of who she was right because it was racist because it was against social norms now people feel like that's unfair but you're absolutely right people make you fun of the president's families forever I mean where I went to grad school I was privileged to work with David Eisenhower and his wife Julie Nixon right both of whom were mercilessly treated by the press I mean Creedence Clearwater Revival made a whole song about David Eisenhower right fortunate son he was mocked endlessly his whole life and that's not new as you point out but in the moment people are very very offended again because they see it as an attack on the identities that caused them to vote for this particular candidate it's it's personal and it and comedic commentary right the carnival ask if you will is no longer seen as this contributory medium where we get to sort of understand things in a non-threatening way now it's considered a threat because it goes to a mocking of people's identity rather than a mocking of their position or their ideology yeah it's it's kind of interesting although I have to say the adjectives you use to describe our current first daughter I really don't share with you we have to disagree to disagree on all of those oh I didn't say I agree with that I don't agree necessarily that once she is educated can't disagree no she's got a degree she is a difference she is raising children but that's well seem to be well-adjusted maybe who knows yeah she I mean clearly she has a job because you know her dad owned the company but those are the positions of people take right yeah it's it's amazing it is and and this administration is clearly very different from the last administration maybe from every administration we've had before it in its very open disregard for the norms of how we do government of how we do democracy of how we at least try to avoid the appearance of kleptocracy this administration seems unconcerned with upending those in fact they see that as their mission is to upend the norms of how we do government of how we do statesmanship actually I haven't heard the word statesmanship in quite a while yeah it's not something that I think we can easily apply to this administration or diplomacy or diplomacy diplomacy is actually considered a bourgeois evil I think at this point a nicety of the liberal liberal elites who want to capitulate to other countries interests rather than as a very powerful tool to further the nation's interest which is how just about every presidential administration has treated it since George Washington right and speaking of George Washington even he the father of our country could be fairly easily accused of kleptocracy or nepotism if you look at some of his cabinet appointments and some of his staff appointments he had a son in son in law or stepson in law as his personal secretary John Adams had John Quincy Adams as his secretary of state of course president Kennedy had Robert Kennedy as his attorney general and so over time there have been people who have believed that the people who would be most likely to defend their political agenda and move it forward have been the people they felt they could trust the most and that was family or friends I don't know that there's anything necessarily wrong with that if the person really is the most qualified for the position but I think maybe in the case of our current president in the current cabinet in the current environment that the White House is surrounding itself with it's hard to make the argument that the people that have been selected really are the best candidates and well trained for the positions that they're being nominated for well the qualification criteria is very different from what you are identifying in the past it was okay so this person is well educated well experienced is someone I know and trust it actually made sense for John Kennedy to appoint Robert it was the finest state attorney general that he knew very well in this administration the qualifications had nothing to do with experience and I'm going to do with knowledge they are entirely based on ideology and loyalty if you are if you are have the correct perspective and if you are loyal to this man then you're qualified then you're good to go whether or not you're actually capable of doing diplomacy in China or running the White House or I think would take us the rest of the hour I think to name off all the things that Jared Kushner is now in charge of is irrelevant it's all about personal connection and and and it makes sense that Donald Trump's doing this actually based on his experience since he is grossly unqualified to be president by experience or education he has built a business empire based on personal connection right and loyalty and a very transactional model and government is not transactional you're right let's talk more about networking in just a minute we have to go and talk about the network here at think tech Hawaii and all of the other great programming that our friends and colleagues are putting on for you so we are going to take a break but we will be back in a minute you can hang around right yes great we will be right back this is working together on think tech Hawaii I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist and I'm the host of shrink wrap Hawaii where I talk to other shrinks did you ever want to get your head shrunk well this is the best place to come to pick one I've been doing this we must have 60 shows with a whole bunch of shrinks that you can look at I'm here on Tuesdays at 3 o'clock every other Tuesday I hope you are to aloha welcome back to working together on think tech Hawaii Cheryl Cruz or Garcia here discussing how to communicate effectively with those who have different political discussion or opinions I should say with Dr. Tim Fallis from Hawaii Pacific University thanks for staying oh no worries yeah so now let me ask you this we live in now a society that has many divergent opinions we continue as the United States to have the right not only to have opinions but to speak those opinions how do we do it in a way that doesn't add a layer of toxicity disrespect verbal violence and things like that into the workplace the classroom the media how do we how do we be nice to people who that we disagree with right I think there's three things that you can do the first is to proceed as you say from a position of respect respecting other people's right to have an opinion and from the receiver side realizing that the person you're speaking to and disagree with has a right to the his or her opinion also that that opinion is not necessarily an indicator of that person's value as a human being or worthiness of being considered the second part is trying to reach for things you can agree with I'm trying to reach for what we call in the polycom world consensual fact okay so that we have this issue let's discuss health care great do we want to have national health care all right we're the only country except Somalia which is a failed state that doesn't have health care maybe we should work on that let us proceed from what is national health care what are sick people how much does it cost what kind of taxes we let's figure that out and then decide whether we want to do it if we don't decide what what those factors are the Congress has voted a few times let's work out the 60 odd times during the Obama administration to repeal the AHCA or amend it as they're saying this latest vote which passed the House of Representatives came off without a score from the Congressional Budget Office which is kind of unprecedented really four decades Congress has counted on an evaluation by this nonpartisan committee or it's not even a committee bureaucrats right permanent government employees to figure out okay y'all drew up this law this is what the law will do as best as we can figure out great and then representatives and senators can decide all right this is what it's gonna do do we want it do we want that oh no we didn't want this thing well how can we rewrite it let's fix it okay voted this thing without even that that's course you don't have this consensual fact to decide all right let us now proceed with values senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan right famously said you're entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts he didn't come up with that somebody else did but he repeated it often enough he gets credit for it we need to establish what the facts are and then we can decide whether what we want to do if we can't agree that the sky is blue we can't decide whether we want to paint a building to look like the sky right because we don't even agree what that color is it doesn't make any sense and then the third thing I think is to proceed from the knowledge that or the let's say the premise that the person across from you is just as much a patriot just as much an intelligent person a good civic responsible human being as you are and wants the best for their family their community their country perhaps even you know the global community they just have a different idea and maybe it's not your job to convince them otherwise maybe it was we discuss these things we should get away from the notion that I need to persuade you that you are wrong and then I am right and persuade you that you should change your mind and instead just share with you what I think and really listen to you right it's the other half of communication we don't spend nearly enough time talking about and probably the better half really listen to what you have to say and then just let it be and and understand why you believe what you do let me tell you how I believe or why I believe the way I do and let that go and not necessarily be so fixated on having to change that person's mind and I think that that allows for dialogue that can maybe have an effect down the road maybe not but at least things have been aired out and there still is a sense of comedy of of respect without rancor and bitterness right but maybe we ought to take it say one layer deeper you mentioned let's start with consensual fact but if we're talking about things like healthcare since since that's the topic that we're using to make this point what if we started from a basic premise of philosophical commonality or value commonality that says that all people have a right to be healthy and when they're not healthy to get the care they need to either restore their health or to eradicate their pain and suffering okay so basic premise you and I probably agree or could agree that this is true I think you and I agree that that's true right that is not necessarily a national feeling but if we could but I'm I suggest that if we said I think you and I both agree that when people are sick they have a right to go to a doctor how that becomes a part of the social fabric of our community is now the topic of conversation so do we say that you can have the health care you can pay for yourself out of pocket or do we say that the private sector should step in with charities and nonprofit type of organizations to provide that care for those who cannot pay the how becomes the debate not the what or the why but rather the how because I think questions of process are a lot less threatening maybe over sure then then questions of philosophy or values I agree if we could if we can make those agreements then be way way way ahead at this point a lot of those agreements are difficult and I and again it goes back to the first question we talked about why are people so worked up and angry and find it's so hard to be pleasant because those ideologies are very much in in clash at the moment you can read pronouncements from congressmen and business leaders saying hey listen if you don't have health insurance it means you didn't you didn't do it right you didn't do life right you didn't work hard enough you didn't get the right job didn't get the right education you blew it and of course if you've studied you know anything about the way that society works you know that that's specious that doesn't work lots of people work hard lots of people have not done anything wrong and still don't have those opportunities and you and I both know people that are well educated that are well trained that that wear the masks of appropriateness in society and are still having a hard time and are still suffering so so specious is part of the argument but the other part of the argument is to what degree do we actually know what the needs and challenges are not only that we have but that our neighbors have it's a huge problem it's a huge problem I like to think that I'm an enlightened fellow and I consider other people's I grew up in California I'm mostly Latino town I'd never really understood what racism was or how it existed or how people thought like that just because I didn't see it wasn't part of my experience right and one point I went to a business thing in Minnesota went to a baseball game and was really very confused because everyone I couldn't figure it out for a while what why is it so strange what everyone's white I mean the only people at color were with baseball players I mean really and then I went to graduate school in West Philadelphia I moved from from KO to West Philadelphia and I realized okay I'm living in an all-black community really except me and really saw okay how institutionalized racism works but if you're sitting in in KO or you're sitting in San Francisco or you're sitting in Des Moines this is an enormous nation and it's very very difficult to appreciate how other people's lives are different not just that they are different but how they are different little things I teach a writing class and a purdivision writing class and I'm typically unimpressed with how students are writing is when we start this course and one of the things that I teach them is listen y'all got to read a lot more you just got to read I don't care what you read you don't have to read Dante I mean you read good housekeeping read people read National Geographic it's all good just read because then you'll recognize what good reading looks like that's the whole theory and I I'm giving the speech for a couple years before I realized most these kids have grown up in households where they don't have regular newspaper delivery they don't have regular magazine delivery it's not part of their household culture that's a small thing and an easy thing to fix and of course yes there's libraries and what but if that's a small thing has such a big effect right then imagine what the effect of living in a neighborhood with a lousy school with no parks where it's dangerous to go out at dark those things have an enormous effect also and we we have to figure out a way to understand everyone else's position and that's very difficult to do unless you have the means to travel or you have the means to visit other places or or bring other people to you and listen to their stories empathy I think is a huge part of what we're missing now in our political debates and civility right when we don't really teach civility outside of the home outside of the family unit we know how to argue but we don't know how to be nice we don't know how to respect other people's opinions I'm sorry respect their right to an opinion while disrespecting the opinion itself and part of that is just not understanding other people's contingencies understanding other people's journeys in life but maybe it's a question of coming back to this issue of you said respect the right to an opinion but not but you could disrespect the opinion I would venture the opinion that it's probably not the best idea even to disrespect the opinion but rather to look for the logic in it I don't agree with you but using the facts that you've used to construct this idea I can see where you've drawn the conclusion now I use an entirely different logic in order to come to my decision um but if I were using yours I can see where I might decide differently well that's the most excellent way to approach it I mean that would be great um and probably disrespecting people's opinion is the wrong term I think you can disagree and that's okay but if you can figure out a way to understand why the person you're disagreeing with comes to that conclusion that's fantastic and that's an extension of admitting that the other person is just as intelligent patriotic enlightened and well-meaning as you are right yes you're absolutely right and I do think the other side of that too has got to be a remembrance that not everybody has or comes from the same set of experiences um I grew up on the sugar plantation in Waipahu and even though I grew up there we had plenty of books growing up um library cards books in the house my parents subscribed to magazines and newspapers we got the readers digest quarterly assortment of books so we always had plenty to read and it was an expectation that the kids would do so in fact I'm ancient now and I still have for myself the summer reading program nice um so these things become habit uh but I can't honestly say that my classmates have that same uh kind of emphasis on reading study and expanding your world by examining the world views of others right and and it takes a while to realize that everyone didn't have the same opportunities you did growing up but if your parents weren't into that it wouldn't have been there that's true you know we've only got a minute left so what I'd like you to do Tim is um give us some advice for diffusing the relative um storm and drying around political disagreement what can we do to to um quiet the uh the tide I think the best thing we can do is to relax about feeling the need to convince everyone else that our opinions are the best one I don't think we need to convince everyone that they're wrong we don't need to convince other people to have a different opinion I think we need to just calmly explain what our opinion is and calmly listen and then let that be your co-worker is still a nice person that you've been working with for years even if they think that um Donald Trump is is a marvelous marvelous president and you don't your your mom is still your mom your brother is still your brother you hated him before you can hate him now but it doesn't have to be about politics I'm sorry I love my brother by the way um it's a great guy I think we just need to calm down really and respect the other people's values and beliefs are just as well-meaning as ours are yeah you know that's that's actually really good advice especially the comment about brothers because we've all got them yeah and we like them kind of in a floating kind of way sometimes we do sometimes we don't so thank you for joining us um we are going to take off but we'll be back in two weeks uh this is working together on Think Tech Hawaii I'm Cheryl Crozier Garcia and we will see you in two weeks thank you bye bye