Why Bridges Have Always Been Good for Workplaces

“I don’t want to be a bridge, because bridges get walked over.”

The first time someone suggested to me that my life experiences may have set me up to be a bridge between people and groups, I didn’t like the idea. And my response to them was, “I don’t want to be a bridge, because bridges get walked over.” Even though I knew that there was a lot of validity to what she was saying, I had gotten so disconcerted with trying to help people see a path to deeper relating across differences, I wanted to give up.

The only way I knew how to help people cross the relational chasms that existed between many of us was to effectively tell them to live my life, which just wasn’t going to happen. I knew how to do it because I was born into a family that gave me proximity to multiple diversities–whether they were racial, religious, political, financial, linguistic, etc. But as one of my millionaire friends said to me when trying to educate me on marketing my gifts, “You need to come up with something duplicable. If it isn’t duplicable, most people won’t even try to do it.” I did see the point he was making. And, the fact is I tried and couldn’t do it. I could have authentic conversations with folks from either side of most issues who independently could not talk to each other. Eventually, being an n_betweener, as an acquaintance Nora Alwah calls it, left me overstretched and walked all over.

YOU are not alone

The person who called me a bridge was my supervisor at the first church where I served as an intern. I explained to her that I had not entered seminary to become a pastor. Rather, I went thinking that I would develop the skills necessary to help create congruent corporate cultures where organizations actually lived out there professed values and truly put in the work to facilitate human thriving. My intro into this space was through DEI, but had expanded into an idea of Holistic Integration between who people are, who they aspire to be, what they do, and how they do it. The idea crystallized when I accepted that most of us are going to spend the majority of our lives at work anyway. So, we might as well learn how to make the most of it.

But, the study of Western Culture through the lens of religion had opened my eyes to the fact that many of our institutions, whether they were conscious of it or not, have the unspoken goal of running on autopilot. The want assembly line processes in relational systems. And that was something I didn’t want to or know how to fight anymore. But then she told me the story about the boy throwing starfish back into the ocean and how focusing on making a difference where you can is more manageable than trying to make all the difference in the world.

Like the Gandhi quote, “Be the change you want to see in the world,” I was moved by the idea that I didn’t have to get everyone to see that a world where we can learn from each other’s differences is a more dynamic, wondrous, and even resourced world. I just need to stay true to that knowledge and let it guide me to relationships with other folks who were open to seeing the collaborative possibilities that were open to us when we keep ourselves open to others. In time I would discover that I was not alone.

No Business Expands Without Bridging

Fast forward a dozen years and I have found myself surrounded by people from all walks of life and all kinds of backgrounds who see the values in the tools of bridging. Through commitment to that ideal, I was eventually led to folks like Joan Blades of Living Room Conversations, Brandyn Keating of YOUnify, and a host of others who were are all involved in what is collectively known as the Bridging Movement.

In fact, the organization I work with, YOUnify, is part of a larger coalition called the Listen First Coalition, which puts on an annual bridging celebration called the National Week of Conversation (NWoC). Amazingly, it was only two years ago that I was watching NWoC from the sidelines wishing that I could participate behind the scenes. And this year, I have had the opportunity to work with leaders of several bridging organization to create programming specifically for workplaces. As we have been working on planning events, I have been in awe that despite not wanting to be called a bridge all those years ago, I find myself now proud to consider myself a bridging practitioner. To bring these events to workplaces is the fulfillment of a desire that developed when I was still a recruiter.

Throughout the conversations we’ve had about bridging in the workplace, it has become abundantly clear that there is no business that has ever expanded without using the tools of bridging. Connecting with customers is bridging. Solving problems is facilitated by bridging. In essence bridging is getting from point A to point B across whatever actual or metaphorical divide that keeps us from getting from where we are to where we want to be. In short, bridging is the essence of relationship. And no community–businesses or otherwise–can thrive outside of relationship.

Whenever a new technology is introduced into society, there must be a counterbalancing human response – that is, high touch – or the technology is rejected… John Naisbitt

In the past decade and half or so, many of us have allowed our relational muscles to atrophy. John Naisbitt, futurist and author of Megatrends warned that technology would be rejected if we didn’t respond with counterbalancing high touch to keep up with the high tech. But, what we’re witnessing in our society right now appears to be the inverse. In other words, we have nearly forsaken the high touch for the high tech and deepening relationships have been rejected. As I see it, the Bridging Movement exists to reverse that trend and help foster the sense of relational wonder necessary to create better human compatibility models as my friend and mentor William Guillory describes it. And from the perspective of many of us, the workplace–where most of us spend the majority of our time–is a prime place where we can build this capacity.

Through the events of National Week of Conversation (April 17-23), we will be bringing the high touch to the high tech in the service of our future. Below are some of the many Bridging in the Workplace events we have planned. I encourage you to join as many as you are able and to share this broadly. Because we cannot transform what we cannot talk about.

• Applying Systems Thinking to Improve Collaboration with Author, David Stroh (4/17)
• The Culturally Intelligent Leader with Renee Bhatti-Klug (4/19)
• Talks from the Heart: How SoulCare Shapes Every Conversation with Jon Talbert (4/20)
• DEI in the Crosswinds: What is the Way Forward? A panel with DEI Leaders (4/20)
• Using the Tools of Bridging to Improve Productivity and Retention with Living Room Conversations (4/21)