In episode 112, Coffey talks with Monica Guzman about how organizations can promote healthy dialogue about social and political issues. They discuss the current perceived and actual US social and political divide impacts workplaces; employees’ changing expectations of employers; “pernicious assumptions in our politics”; certainty vs. curiosity; using curiosity as a tool to mitigate conflict; the importance of curiosity in innovation and business; creating a culture of curiosity; the importance of “ritualizing” organizational values in responding to conflict; understanding other’s workstyles and preferences; and how leaders can develop curiosity as a skill.

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Monica Guzman

Mónica Guzmán is a bridge builder, journalist, and author who lives for great conversations sparked by curious questions. Her new book, “I Never Thought of it That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times” was featured on the Glenn Beck Podcast and named a New York Times recommended read. She’s Senior Fellow for Public Practice at Braver Angels, the nation’s largest cross-partisan grassroots organization working to depolarize America; founder and CEO of Reclaim Curiosity, an organization working to build a more curious world; cofounder of the award-winning Seattle newsletter The Evergrey; and advisor for Starts With Us and the Generations Over Dinner project. She was a 2019 fellow at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, where she studied social and political division, and a 2016 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, where she researched how journalists can rethink their roles to better meet the needs of a participatory public. She was named one of the 50 most influential women in Seattle, served twice as a juror for the Pulitzer Prizes, and plays a barbarian named Shadrack in her besties’ Dungeons & Dragons campaign. A Mexican immigrant, Latina, and dual US/Mexico citizen, she lives in Seattle with her husband and two kids and is the proud liberal daughter of conservative parents.