Without Unity, There is No Victory

Last night and again this morning, I cried into my hands. A sane pandemic response was on the ballot. Black and brown lives were on the ballot. The environment was on the ballot. Kids in cages were on the ballot. A robust stimulus and infrastructure plan was on the ballot. I wanted to feel proud that we had come together, overcome our differences and said yes to our shared future. No such luck. The election is too close to call.

So I cried for Black Lives. I cried for the dead and dying. I cried for the underpaid and unemployed. I cried for the children who only know adults as those who fail at doing what is right and decent.

While the election is leaning towards Biden, it is tight. Sure Biden did a little bit better than Hillary in some places, suggesting a slightly stronger rebuke of Trump’s dishonesty, indecency and graft, but no overwhelming mandate. Regardless of who wins, there is still no unity, no mandate and there will be no true victory.

This is because there was no common cause, no clear call for a unified, healed and prosperous country.

Trump provided no platform, just a vague promise to do better next time. While Biden's platform is soft porn compared to the multiple orgasm of Warren’s vision, it is still something that would benefit us all, and a much more compelling vision than anything either party has offered since the New Deal.

When we consider the numerous reasons we should have been unified, such as:

1. We have a common enemy and are losing the fight against covid, sprinting into our 3rd and highest wave of cases;
2. We’re suffering economically (78% paycheck to paycheck, Careerbuilder, 2017); and
3. We’re suffering psychologically (83% of us are stressed out over the state of the nation, APA, 2020, and 61% of us are lonely, Cigna, 2019),...

… you would think we would be able to find common cause, stand together and say yes to a future of healing and shared prosperity. Chile just did that. Why not us?

What’s missing is empathy and trust - the bedrock of unity. We’ve nearly completely demonized each other, as 86% of Democrats and 91% of Republicans view each other unfavorably (Pew, 2016). Much of this discord is fueled by hurtful and extreme beliefs about each other. 8 of 10 Republicans believe the DNC has been taken over by socialists and 8 of 10 Democrats believe the RNC has been taken over by racists (Public Religion Research Institute, 2020).

If we continue this antipathy towards each other, and not just Republican vs. Democrat, but black vs. white, LGBTQIA vs. straight, boomer vs. millenial, urban vs. rural, we will get more of the same - more polarization, gridlock and despair.

The cherry on top of this shit pie is violence. 13% of conservative and 18% of liberals justify violence if their guy loses this week (LSU/UMaryland, 2020). And it appears that plans are already in the works. This week in Roseville, CA, blue dots showed up in front of the houses of Biden supporters, ominously suggesting some sort of purge or retribution. Yesterday, I learned that someone took a photo of my house (that has BLM and Biden signage) and posted it along with my address to an Instagram account that boasts the tagline "There is only one punishment befitting of a traitor. Their symbols will be their downfall!!!" This is all to say, it is getting real. 

The only way out is through. That’s what I’m working on with Unity Lab.

Historically, empathy, trust and solidarity were found in ideologically and culturally cohesive societies. In our urban centers, where over 80% of Americans live, there is no ideological and cultural cohesion. Few places are as diverse as the United States. Diversity is not a goal or aspiration, it is a fact. It is who we are. It is genesis and manna.

So we must find a way to nurture empathy, trust and solidarity in an increasingly diverse country. It will not happen by accident. It must be explicitly cultivated.

However, at the community, organization, city and country level, we have taken culture for granted and have not invested in it. We haven't upgraded K-16 education or corporate learning to activate the empathy, trust, and solidarity required for diverse people to relate to each other, innovate and thrive.

The Unity Lab solution to this problem is a community-first approach, a series of learning journeys that leverage small, diverse groups. This method places 4 diverse people in a group to learn powerful skills (such as conscious communication, emotional intelligence, cultural intelligence, storytelling, conflict resolution, etc.) together for 1 hour a week for 5 weeks.

The results of this approach are that 98% of participants experience respect from their diverse peers, 96% experience empathy, 85% take new actions and 76% form new daily habits. When asked how much more they learned as a result of their conversations with diverse peers, participants said they learned 63% more. These results are unheard of in classroom training (90% of information is forgotten within a week) and e-learning approaches (<5% of learners engage with the content). 

The real beauty of this approach is that it scales, can be utilized from pre-K to adult learning and it is open-sourced (details here). Any teacher, program leader, or Chief Learning Officer can now break down barriers and activate empathy and trust, the necessary conditions for finding common cause.

Next week we launch our pilot and will launch publicly in early January. Please check us out and send us a note if you’d like to join us in healing the soul of our nation and creating a unified and prosperous future. We need a few more folks for the pilot and would of course love to have you join the community + movement in January.

https://UnityLab.co

About the Author

Brandon is a Midwesterner, best-selling author, impact entrepreneur and an expert in social learning + culture change. Prior to founding Unity Lab, he worked at two leading social learning companies, ion and Imperative, to activate empathy, trust, belonging, purpose and leadership at scale. 

He's trusted as a keynote speaker, consultant and program leader by organizations such as Google, Johnson & Johnson, Stanford University, JDRF, Morgan Stanley, U.S. Marine Corps, University of California - Berkeley, LinkedIn, the U.S. Navy, Slalom Consulting, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the University of Minnesota.

He has written / co-written four books on purpose and leadership and his work has been featured by news organizations such as USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, and Forbes. 

Brandon holds an MBA in Leadership from Columbia Business School, is an Imperative Certified Purpose Leader (TM), a PGI Certified Purpose Guide (TM) and has completed over 3,000 hours of leadership, coaching and facilitation training with organizations such as Landmark and the ManKind Project.