What has happened to our ability to have a conversation?
In Podcast 184 of Hot Topic, Bold Talk, Nigel M. Lakey and Jackalyn Rainosek continue their monthly series exploring one of the greatest challenges facing America today—the growing inability to discuss difficult political and social issues with respect, curiosity, and understanding.
Throughout this conversation, Nigel and Jackalyn share personal experiences of talking with people whose political beliefs are very different from their own. They acknowledge that these conversations are not always easy. Yet they believe there is a better path than responding with outrage, labeling others, or treating people with different opinions as enemies.
Instead, they suggest beginning with thoughtful questions:
- What information or resources helped shape your point of view?
- How did you arrive at that conclusion?
- Have you explored other credible perspectives?
- What life experiences have influenced your beliefs?
These questions are not intended to change someone’s political position. They are intended to understand the person behind the opinion.
Nigel and Jackalyn also discuss the reasons productive conversations sometimes become impossible. When someone is interested only in debating, refuses to consider evidence, or has no interest in understanding another person’s perspective, meaningful dialogue cannot occur. Healthy relationships require a willingness to listen as well as to speak.
They explore how our families, education, communities, careers, and life experiences shape our values and beliefs. When we understand how another person came to think as they do, we may not agree with them—but we are far more likely to treat them with respect.
Their concern is larger than politics. They believe that increasing polarization is weakening our nation and threatening the health of our constitutional republic. Too often we argue over political parties instead of discussing the important issues facing America. Too often we seek victory instead of understanding.
This monthly series is not about persuading people to think alike. It is about helping Americans rediscover the ability to talk with one another, ask honest questions, challenge ideas respectfully, and build relationships even when agreement is not possible.
In this episode, Nigel and Jackalyn begin exploring some of today’s “thorny issues” and preview where the series is headed. Next month, they plan to tackle one of the most important topics facing our country: National Security.
Join us as we work to replace polarization with dialogue, hostility with curiosity, and division with understanding.
Because the future of our democracy depends not on unanimous agreement—but on our willingness to keep talking.
Episode Summary Points:
- The Power of Constructive Dialogue: Why starting conversations with thoughtful questions helps us understand the person behind the opinion, rather than trying to change their mind.
- Recognizing Dialogue Blocks: Identifying when productive conversation is impossible, such as when someone is only interested in debate or refuses to consider evidence.
- Systemic Value Systems: How family, education, and communities shape our core beliefs and influence how we engage in civic discourse.
- Preserving the Constitutional Republic: Why political polarization threatens democratic institutions and how returning to respectful communication can heal division.
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Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Can We Learn To Talk Again? Relearning The Art Of Constructive Dialogue With Nigel M. Lakey
The Lost Art Of Civic Conversation
I am very happy to have my colleague with me, Nigel Lakey. We have started talking about ways that we hope we can tell people or share with people what we’re trying to do in order to be able to talk to people and come to some resolution about letting go of the idea of politics and be able to talk about discussions where we can do something constructive. That’s what we’re doing. Nigel, I’m very happy to have you here. Let me start and then you just go wherever you think.
I’d like to talk first about the people I have real difficulty with. I want to be sure and talk about how we may have difficulty with them but what did we learn to be able to work with somebody like this. I’m going to start with one time. I’m sure you got something that you can name and we can talk about it. One that gets me sometimes is the person who acts like they’re quoting some information, but when I listen to them, it has no substance to it. It sounds more like labeling things and not naming where they’re getting this information from.
I know what happens to me is, I’ll sit there for a moment and become very confused. At some point, I’d say to myself, do you know what you think you know about the political scene and all the things that are going on? I suddenly realized something. They have never read anything. They only listened to things that are of one particular type of source. They’ve never been open to it, and then if I say anything to them, I know they’re going to start getting uncomfortable because they don’t have the real knowledge base to talk about whatever conversation they’re talking about.
That one drives me crazy. I don’t allow them to drive me crazy anymore. I started in on a conversation with an individual who said he wanted to talk to me because he thought I had different points of view. I said okay and we started talking about abortion. We started pretty well and then he started quoting a bunch of things that he had and I knew it had to be from religious groups that I’m very familiar with.
Finally, the one thing that helped us move in a different direction was I said, “What are the resources that you used to provide this information to me?” Nigel, he started telling me and I knew exactly which Christian website it came up. I said, “Could we leave that aside? Can you and I just talk as human beings about what are our concerns about abortion and what are the things we would like to see? I will be happy to give you any data that I have and give you the resources. You can read them.”
Interestingly enough, after we’ve finally let go of all that, he started saying, “You say it should be eighteen weeks and I say it should be fourteen weeks with what’s happening with the person that’s pregnant.” Anyway, we went into a discussion that said it was reasonable. I don’t know if we resolve anything, but at least we know each other a little better. I’m sure you have stories like this and we can keep talking about it. Go for it. That’s my first one, Nigel.
Overcoming Hardline Beliefs And Orthodoxy
I understand that one. Last time, we talked about self-awareness. I’m going to key on that a little bit. We talked about the outrage associated with headline news and that kind of thing. Both of those issues you brought together. Forgive me a second here as I weave this around. In my own experience, personally and professionally, I’ve been of an orthodox opinion on things. That orthodoxy is not religion. That just means that it’s a hard belief.
It can be any number of things. It can be an engineering principle. We see an industrial catastrophe is a consequence of somebody being so hard line to a doctrine of a belief on something. That easily moves into our social environment. The people we know, the business environment we live in and the political environment, too. I’ve had cases where I thought that I’m right. That can be for lack of information. It can be from the fact that that’s the only information that I got.
There’s also been cases where, frankly, I believe that I’m in the right and probably have had doubts in my own mind. That’s the case in who you are. You have a point. You don’t have a lot of ground that you can stand on. It’s just what you believe. Now, I’m going to throw this back a little bit to the educational system. We’ve long since abandoned this concept of a classical education and teaching people about critical thinking skills.
We can have this debate about something that’s in the headlines. I don’t think that that’s a bad thing because the headlines tell you what’s topical. They tell you what people are talking about. Frankly, they tell you probably what’s going to be on a political calendar. The reality, then if you pull back some is, you have to understand where those viewpoints originated. How do you come to believe that? To your point, what’s your knowledge source? What information are you looking at? If you stick to a set of values that are born of religion, then you are hardwired in doctrine.
I’ve got a lot of good friends who are quite religious and goodness sakes alive. They live in the South. They live in Texas. Probably 70% of the people that you meet go to one church or another. That’s pretty much the United Church or the Catholic Church. You know that to a large extent, they’re going to have a set of hardline opinions. If that’s your basis, it’s hard to have a conversation with somebody like that. While I do know a lot of people and I’ve got a very good friend who’s an intellectual property lawyer. I’ve worked with him for a number of years.
Orthodoxy is not religion; it just means that it’s a hard belief and it can be any number of things.
He’s deeply Christian, but we’re having conversations on what you could say is reality. By that, I mean quantum mechanics, reality and physics. His mind is pretty open. He’s got a set of facts and a set of values that are born from a religious upbringing, but his mind is open enough to entertain my random thoughts about the existence of time and these sorts of things. Now, where am I going with that? I ask your permission to round a little bit but let me bring that back.
When you have conversations with people like that, what do you do? The worst thing is to respond with your own outrage and telling them they have no idea what they’re talking about. The best thing to do is try and find out as you suggested, where do you get that information? Can you have that discussion in a non-combative way? That’s the self-awareness part that I believe we’ve spoken about. To me, that’s the greater part of how you have a conversation with somebody who doesn’t believe the same stuff that you do.
Is it to find a common ground? I don’t know. Sometimes it works but the worst thing is to respond without rage. We see this all over the place where the theatrics begin and the theatrics get elevated. If we stand back a little, the situation is content to diffuse itself but I would say that only comes from one age, in my own opinion. As I see my age and experience if you’ve hadn’t had to deal with those situations and many people have it.
They live with somewhat insulated life and they’re just not particularly self-aware. It’s alright. It’s a good thing to say in a manner that’s acceptable, how do you get to that point? How do you know that? Have you looked at the underlying issues? Frankly, you can probably walk away and say, “We agree to disagree but this is not the thing that’s going to make us enemies.” It should never turn into that.
Defusing Rigidity With Sincere Inquiry
One of the things that I would say about it is, I can get to a place to say, “It seems you have a very strong position on this particular topic. It’s always helpful since we don’t know each other as well. It’s helpful for you to tell me what resources you use to establish this thought pattern or these ideas.” To be honest, the number of people I run into that are very rigid, opinionated, and so forth. They do it to try to back somebody off so they don’t have to have the background, the experience, and the knowledge to be able to have the discussion.
Headline news tells you what’s topical, but it doesn’t give you the full story. The real work is pulling back to understand where those viewpoints originated and questioning your information source.
I’ve run into something that is fascinating to me. There are two things people do with me. They are shocked that I have such a different point of view. Yet they may have been meeting with me for years or something. I’ve had some that are so insecure about their position that I finally had a man say to me, “I’m disappointed that you don’t support my point of view.” I just said, “I cannot support your point of view. This is my life experience. This is what my values are, my beliefs are and these are things that I stand by. I’m very willing to have a discussion with you but I’m not going to sit here and argue with you or try to go point by point. What are you willing to do?” Oftentimes, Nigel, they back off.
We’re in this place in time where I don’t know what it is. It’s partially the outrage that comes from the press or the lack of critical thinking. Those are personal opinions. I’m not trying to offend anybody with those statements.
I support those ideas.
The first thing that you do is tell somebody without even understanding their background, their basics, is label them and condemn them. I don’t know how you overcome that. You and I talked on the last episode. It’s cost me a couple of friendships and several of which I don’t think there’s any prospect of repair because these people live in this world and I don’t think that they can see anything else now. Some of that comes of age. Some of that comes from upbringing. I don’t know.
I’m not trying to get into psychology or psychiatry. If you can’t sit down with somebody and have a leveling conversation, then you’ve got a problem. The dynamics of that group or that duo is seriously an issue. To your point, I see people who the first thing they want to do is convince you. Again, all due respect, but the evangelicals that knock on my door, not so much where I am now in a gated community.
I know.
The worst thing you can do when having a conversation with someone you disagree with is respond with your own outrage.
In other worlds and other times, it’s knocking on the door and they tell me that they’re belief system is better than mine. I’m condemned as a consequence of not falling for their belief. Now, I’m reasonably educated with classical education. I may also. I think I’ve made some values, judgments and some analysis to resolve that I’m fairly comfortable with where I am. Label me as I’m a Republican in this conversation, but I’m also principally the conservative.
There’s a distinction. Not to get into politics. That’s not the intent. If somebody, the first thing they want to do is say, “Why don’t you believe what I believe?” They lack that self-awareness and you’re paying attention. They haven’t bothered to understand anything in your opinion or their opinion, the press’. This is a thing that when we started, we talked about the great divide and this continues. Polarization is killing us as a society and as a country. It puts this for the public at risk. How do we stop that? How do we stop the inflammatory rhetoric? I don’t know.
One of the first things you do is sit down with somebody and you have this conversation. You try to appreciate where they are and how they are. None of us walks away saying, “I’ve convinced the other person that I’m right. I won this battle,” because that’s not the intent. What we’re trying to do is have a leveled conversation. I’m just frustrated as hell with the politics that we see because the rhetoric continues to feed the divide and supports the polarization.
In the episode, we talked about how we only had two or three news networks. You have the national news network and then you have the private news network. I’m talking about growing up in Canada. When you had broadcast news, it was pretty much the same. Now, we’ve got these 50, 60, 100 news channels that are on cables, streaming or whatever. They’re looking for subscribers and they want that polarized view, so I’m frustrated to live with that.
Dialogue And Shared Values
I can understand your frustration. One of the things that I do know, though, is if I sit down with you and say, let’s lay aside politics or lay aside these news burning issues that are out there. Let’s get to know each other. How do we know each other? You and I started that way because I said, “Tell me your story,” and you tell me you’re an immigrant. You told me all the travels you’ve done and the many countries you’ve lived in.
We started talking and I said, “Let’s talk about the values we have.” The truth of it is, one of my values is honesty. You may have a different word for it but we could talk but because we need that. The other thing is important is to say, “I don’t want to argue anymore about these issues. I want to have a discussion with you. Find out what you are reading, listening to and what you think is helping you to make some decision about what’s going on. I believe 70% of the people in America want the same thing you and I are talking about.
If you can’t sit down with somebody and have a leveling conversation, you’ve got a problem.
It’s a small group that’s gotten control of this country. You and I are saying, “There’s other ways to do it.” I know what I do with you. I want to know what your opinions are. I’m not frightened by your opinions. I want to know your opinion so we can have a discussion about something. One of the other things I know is, I want to sit back and relax and say, “All we’re going to have is a discussion about X or Y or whatever.” We’ll get into it at some point because you and I have agreed we’re going to get into topics and whatever.
I sit back and I say, “If he says something that I don’t feel as comfortable with,” because I’ve stopped using the word agree and disagree. It creates conflict that creates polarized positions. I say, “Can I support this? Do I have other views? Do I have other options for the way I look at it?” That’s what I think people have forgotten. They’ve forgotten there are all kinds of options for us to come together and resolve some of this stuff. I’ll stop now. It’s your turn.
Let me say this is the conclusion, but then I’ll back up with some of the supporting aspects. You and I could consider ourselves to be informed voters. This is back away from the political aspect of that but when you say a large portion of the population wants the same thing. I agree with that. I don’t know exactly what those things are.
I think on balance, you could say, “We like national security.” We’re going to have a little debate on what does that mean exactly. “We want to stabilize the economy. We want a robust immigration system.” What does that mean? It’s appropriate to be a little more self-aware and say, “On that particular topic, what does that mean to me?” If we stay out of the headlines, probably we would align, I’m going to say on 70% or 80% of what that means to us.
That might be you and I somewhat unique. I have other people that I speak to. I could say the same thing about them but we are controlled by these fringes on either side. God forbid that we have a third party. I cannot imagine what that turns us into. We look like Britain or Germany or whatever. We’ve got the fringes here and the fringes there.
They like the headlines, the redirect, and the outrage. In the meantime, there’s a large part of the population that is trying to have a conversation to be better informed and better understand and say, “This is not a value that I believe it is. Is this an individual who is standing up? Can I trust that person? Do they have the same beliefs? Do they believe in integrity and honesty? Are they even believable or are they just fanning the flames?”
We don’t need to win every debate. What we’re trying to do is have a leveled conversation. It’s not about convincing the other person you’re right; it’s about better understanding the person.
This is one of our principals’ risks. We have the people who like the outrage because they’re watching cable news and don’t read a damn newspaper any longer. They get drawn to the fire and I don’t know how to stop that. Maybe you and I having a conversation is one step towards getting a million other people or ten million or whatever it is. Have a conversation and say, “Does this align with my values or am I just saying that I dislike or I want to hate the other person so much that I’m going to go over there?” That’s the thing you have to try and stop.
That’s what you and I are trying to do. It’s not particularly important for me particularly that people see how collegial we are with each other. Maybe they can learn from that. I do think there’s some common ground we have. That’s the reason we can go into some stuff, subjects, topics and consider some things. We’re going to talk about various topics because I think that’s it. What we’re doing, though, is to say, if you have someone that will not agree to some simple things, you will speak one at a time. If we’d like to say something, we can say, “I’d love to interrupt you because I’d like to make a point with that.”
It’s an acceptable process. Have you ever thought about this option about what we can do? I emphasize dropping the debate and screaming at each other and getting all emotional about it. Let’s have a conversation and dialogue with each other so we can decide what can be done next, what can happen. There are too many things going on. To me, as a woman, I don’t care if I’m past the age of having children. I worry about my young friends who live in Texas and have such rigid abortion laws. I am concerned about them and their health. I have one that has a lot of health issues. You and I can talk about that. I don’t know what your view will be. Talk about it.
You probably will know what you will be and neither of us frankly is trying to change how the other is eventually going to vote but this is not about Jackalyn and Nigel. It is about saying, “Here’s a couple of people you can have a conversation with.” This is a little bit in time getting to some testy issues, but none of those, I believe are going to get the outrage and the rhetoric that this news channel or that news channel tends to show.
Preserving The Foundations Of Our Constitutional Republic
If a handful of people watch us and say, “I’m going to hold my breath.” It might be difficult to do it, but I’m going to listen, instead of just waiting for an opportunity to speak. It’s less about trying to prove that I’m wrong or they’re wrong. It is about trying to say, “Does this conversation light up some values?” You and I probably have these conversations. It’s not amongst us I don’t believe but I’d have them with people and I’m sure you have where you just walk away because it’s not worth your own energy.
To me, it’s not worth my mental health to try and deal with idiots. That’s the thing that, in luxury, that’s afforded me because I’m old. I can withstand being seen as a crotchety old person who just bitches and whines. There are other people and it’s less about trying to convert them. It’s more about trying to say, “I’ve got a friendship, I’ve got a relationship. Can I preserve that?” Honestly, that’s one thing I’m trying to do. It’s less about trying to find a whole bunch of people to believe in the same stuff as I do than it is to find some people that are worthwhile having a conversation.
God knows there’s way more to talk about than this part or that party. We’ve got bigger issues that are not politicized. Somebody can make them politicize. You and I have talked about our desire to preserve this thing called the Constitution. I’m an originalist and my opinion is read the Federalist papers and that tells you what the founders were thinking. I use that fairly much as the background that says, “Why is this part of the Constitution? What are the founders thinking?”
It was an interpretation. I have an interpretation and others may have, but it’s a pretty damn good thing. We’re unique around the world. July 4th happened. You’ve got a constitution that still works. What do we do with that thing? How do we make this society or this country better by using the Constitution instead of trying to find ways to dismantle it to completely reinterpret it? There’s a lot of aspects in there that are worth a conversation some time like electricity or college, etc. We have a democracy versus a constitutional republic.
You have a constitution that still works. What do we do with that thing? How do we make this society better by using the Constitution instead of trying to dismantle it?
Those are newly launched conversations, but it’s appropriate to say, what does that mean to us? Again, what we’re trying to not do is have a fiery debate and try to say, “This is how you have a conversation or around these things.” There are topical issues and maybe they’re going to be uncomfortable. How? I don’t know how to address those. It’s less once again about having a confrontation than it is about saying, “Here’s an issue that people think is important.” They’re going to vote around it.
How do we help them better understand what it is? One thing that frustrates me is, the headline is about, “We’re eroding rights.” I’m trying not to make that political statement but think about what this means. It’s a preservation of the constitution. It’s the preservation of the idea of the founding fathers. We shouldn’t reduce our conversations too much. We’re eroding rights. I said, “Is there a security issue here? What’s behind this?” Again, this goes to the original conversation in episode one of awareness and making a conscious choice to educate yourself on issues.
I have ended relationships with individuals. I thought we were going along well. We seem to have some amazing conversations. It looked like things were reasonable. All of a sudden, let’s say that I don’t talk to that person for a month and I get back to them. They start this accusation, “I’ve thought about this.” I’m not willing to deal with that anymore. You say you’re a Republican, but I happen to know your Reagan Republican more than whatever.
What I found is many of my friends are Reagan Republicans and I talked with them. There are some that I’ve been able to talk with that are more current day with the Republican party. There’s a judge that I’m going to set up an appointment with because he’s running for a judge position with the Republican party. We started talking and what was interesting about it, is I said, “Let’s go back to values and let’s go back to see what we do. Let’s see what we can find in common.”
He and I started laughing because immediately, our two issues were, we want to protect children and what happens to them in this world. We also want to protect animals. If two of us can agree to protect stuff, then it’s much easier to talk about the constitution and some of our differences of opinion, but it’s much better. I’m going to tell you now that I read Epic Times because you encouraged me to do that. Now, I tried to get you to read the Atlantic, so I don’t know if you ever went but there are some good things coming out.
I have touched on the Atlantic and Harpers and the Economists from time.
I have to do something like that. Besides that, it’s boring to sit with people that have no other different points of view from me. What I feel is sad about is I have friends calling me or just irate about things. They have similar points of view of mine, but they are upset and whatever. I’ve said, “You need to start listening to Nigel and I. You need to have friends that you can talk with. That you can see where you’re getting some ideas that maybe you could get some other people involved with and maybe we could start shifting some of this stuff.
You hit on something. You said you were going to talk to this conservative/Republican judge. This is an interesting thing for me. I’d be keen to understand how your conversation goes, because we can talk about the values. I’m going to say this. Politics should come down to values and serving the community, the nation, etc., in escalation. Your local community, your town, your state, your county, or your country. You can think about what to make of the decision that I make or what I do or my actions, how do they manifest themselves up to that level?
I’m going to say a kind of a federalist viewpoint. We agree there’s a lot of things that are important to us and we agree that these are important to us because they improve our overall quality of life. They go towards the belief of this great social experiment that the United States of Liberty, freedom, and happiness. We want to protect life, in general. We want children to not feel threatened. We want them to get out of dangerous situations. People will condemn me because I love animals, too. I got three cats. I collect orange cats.
I want to see them happy, and I feed the raccoons. I fed the possums and the bobcat that’s in my backyard. He gets a few dubs. I’ll get off of that soapbox, but what we’ve done suggests that there’s some common ground. Let’s talk about the beliefs that we have. Let’s talk about how the elected individuals are going to protect our beliefs. Instead, we allow this rhetoric, the outrage to engulf us. I don’t know how to stop that. If we can have conversations around what’s our belief and then you can have a debate around some of the thornier issues.
Again, it shouldn’t be that we’re going to condemn this person or that person or law of this person or that person. Our political system has become unhinged. As a graded conservative, I would say I don’t have the time for that outrage. They’re not understanding. They’re not paying any attention. They haven’t looked at any of the underlying issues. It seems like we just continued to elect people. That’s what they do for a living. How do we reform? First thing I say, term limits in the Senate. Term limits everywhere. It’s a career to be reelected and making empty promises they don’t have to live with.
Leading Through Service And Structural Education
These are the points that we need to go into, talk with and show people that we can do that. I do want to mention this. Anytime that you and I start a conversation, we have some very basic things that are the grounding force for both of us. You and I have spent our professional careers being of service to other human beings. I know many of your stories. That through multiplicity of organizations that as a vice president or whatever position you were in, you literally helped develop the people that were in your particular group or whatever it was. You supported them by going to coaching and everything else.
I spend my time talking with the business owners who have problems and they can’t allow their company to move forward and be successful as they can be because they have behavior patterns that are unacceptable and they have no idea what those are. I know what those are. I can give them 24 blocking techniques and say which ones are you using, because that’s what’s destroying your communication. It’s affecting your organization.
We have to start with, I don’t know how to support the Constitution, the United States and democracy if I am not willing to be of service to other people. I’m reading a book now and I’ll probably mention it next time. I will send you the author so you can get it yourself, because it’s excellent. It is written by one of the women that is on strict scrutiny and their lawyers. They talked a lot about these Supreme Court decisions and all kinds of things but she has done a wonderful thing.
Melissa has taken and I will be sure and give the reference after I give you the information, too. One of the things I like about it, she is literally taking his history and court cases and everything. She puts the entire constitution in a book and then talks about the aspects of the Constitution, provides information and so forth.
We have to start educating ourselves. We need Civic programs again or discussions like this that are Civic programs. We look at and say, “This is what the Constitution says. Now, where do you see this happening? Where do you not see this happening? What do we need to do to get people to support this idea?” In her book, I quickly read the preamble to the Constitution. I want to go, “I don’t think anybody’s read it for years.” They don’t know what it says about the excitement we could have. It’s not exciting to live in the world at the moment.
Can we build on that for a second because that’s one of the best descriptions, I’ve heard that is not exciting. As a society, as individuals, as humans, by and large, we live in a state of fear because we have no idea who’s crazier than whomever else. The world stage has all of the fiery rhetoric or the outrage that we’ve got in our local civil politics. We may choose to paint this side with corruption or that side with racism or whatever. We have to be very cautious with those labels because, frankly, they stick on everything and everybody. It depends on our perspective.
If we step back a little, trying to cast a critical gland, use some of our experience, our education and understanding, and a lot of this is just pandering. That’s the thing. I’m going to put that out and then put it aside. That pisses me off, all of the pandering. The special interests and identity politics. We live in the world where we’re scared of being good. It’s like we’re ashamed of being American and have the American exceptionalism and the excellence that we enjoy and the lifestyle.
If you step back and cast a critical glance using your experience and education, you realize a lot of what we see in the headlines is just pandering. Don’t let that define your values.
We shouldn’t be. Again, that’s not to defend the political party one way or the other. We’re in this great place where we can have this conversation and this debate. We can exchange emails with no risk of being arrested because of it. As a UK citizen, I carry that passport. I can’t do that in the UK, if I live there. As a Canadian Citizen and I carry that passport, I could not do that in Canada because every one of these things could be converted as hate speech. I can do that in the United States because of the first amendment, which needs more protection than its getting. It allows us to have reasonable discourse. You can talk about the right to assemble and peaceful protests.
It doesn’t give you a right to burn anything down. We have this protected right that we can have discourse. That is unique. It’s the First Amendment to the Constitution that talks about happiness, etc. What do we do to protect that? We live in this world where some of us are convinced that the first amendment is at risk. I don’t care. Once again, what party, this party or that party? Any one of them can put their thumb on that and they have. There’s a history, Second Amendment, the third amendment, or any amendment. They will try and tip the balance. They are broad. Not any individual or party.
We’ve got a system that to a degree compensates for that. Once again, let us have a conversation around it and we can express our displeasure. Not only verbally in email, but also at the talking booth. How do we protect this? Once again, we’re back to these shared values that we have. We want to protect this thing.
Frankly, it’s unique around the world, but to live in fear that one side or the other side is going to somehow crush us down. Can we stop that? That’s a rhetorical question, but how can you stop that? How can you stop the inflammatory rhetoric that people there and hear from seeing these things and telling us that we’re all at risk? There’s enough fear on the world stage with crazy people. We don’t need that someone here. We don’t need that sawed and watered here. I’ll get off my soapbox.
I don’t think it’s a soapbox. This is the way I look at it. I may be able and I have been in my lifetime. I’ve been in business 48 years as a therapist, then a coach and an organization development consultant. I have tried to touch people’s lives continually and build healthy, respectful, enjoyable work environments because I don’t think there are a lot of them that are around.
Most of the time I walk in organizations, they have behavior patterns and suppression of conversations because they don’t know how to communicate and have a fight about it or something. It’s sad. My purpose in life has been to set up whatever I can to educate and to be able to have conversations. You know that I do not support the current administration. It’s not something I can support, because I do not think it establishes what were the three branches of our country and what was established in the Federalist papers. I am a big supporter of a three-branch system.
I’m a big supporter of people paying attention to their constituents and realizing what their constituents want, go in and when they say they’re going to do something, do it. Don’t back away from it and get scared of it. Now, some of my friends have told me that I am a nervous woman because I have been addressing the Supreme Court decisions with one of my good friends who’s also a Reagan Republican. I’ve chosen people that are more conservative and made to work with. He and I are looking at all the decisions.
We are giving a statement. We educate ourselves. I spend hours reading these court cases he gives me and I’m not a lawyer. He’s the lawyer, so he gets to explain it all. What I’ve done, though, is I’m saying I want to have you for us talking about how we can talk about things in this country and going to some of the discussions and have whatever opinions we have put forth. I want Richard because he’s a brilliant lawyer. He can help interpret some of these things that are disturbing to me. A
I don’t think most Americans are even paying any attention to what is happening in the court system. I have another individual I’m talking to that I shall see because it may add something else. I also know for myself that I’ve gotten away from the rhetoric in politics. I’m trying to take the things that I do read and put them into thought patterns about how we can utilize them. A few weeks, there was a change and there’s been a change that’s been going on for months now. I did some things in my show that I thought represented what I want. I want people educated. I want people to understand the importance of our country. It’s one of the better ones that I did. I did share it with you. I emailed it to you.
Navigating Institutional Shifts Without Panic
There’s a couple of points in there. You even can talk about this administration and that administration. These are, without putting names, more about saying, what’s the doctrine that we’re trying to express. I would say the Supreme Court, in my opinion, has taken a stance that is more fundamental unless interpretive. I’m comfortable with that. People would say, “The Supreme Court has acted irresponsibly. The Supreme Court is overly this way or that way.” The Supreme Court waxes and wings with the wind and next decade, the Supreme Court will not be the same as a Supreme Court. There’s something that’s important here.
In my memory and my research, the Supreme Court has not done anything that fundamentally jeopardizes the Republic of the United States of America. That’s extremely important. The Supreme Court’s task is to take a legal situation and interpret it and see if it fits with the constitutional framework. You can see, these are momentous. They’re horrible decisions. For potentially a slice of the population, they’re significant but that pendulum has swung both ways for years and years and it will continue to do so. I look at it and say, “As the court made decisions that are born of the intent of federalism.”
I’m not a lawyer either. I’m 46 years old. I’ve had enough legal interactions. That’s not a profession that I would enjoy. The Supreme Court is well above that. They take lower court interpretations and they resolve them. That’s a good thing. We can say we don’t like their opinion or we don’t like their judgment. We don’t like the majority opinion, but again I’m going to look at this and I would say that they’ve done nothing to jeopardize this thing that we call a republic. Again, this is my opinion. It’s not going to derail the social experiment.
The constitution is intact and none of these things, in my opinion, anyways has been a “constitutional crisis.” These are their narrow opinions on relatively narrow topics and an opinion once again. The issue is, in my opinion, at a lower level, what are we doing? Are we politicizing every damn thing that comes in front of us? That’s a risk that we’ve got and that’s been ongoing also at the lower court level. To me, this is once again a place that will limit everybody. Any elected official like a judge or whatever Supreme Court, they can’t be appointed for life. There’s got to be a reasonable term.
The problem is you get into a role and you’ve got a job. You’ve got a career for life. You’ve got to know risk and there’s got to be some risk associated with this. There’s got to be something that either recalls or you’re not going to get reelected. I’m going to get back to your comment on Civics. We don’t talk about that any longer. We like revisionist history. Everybody likes to cut out bits and pieces that they feel uncomfortable with. We don’t talk about global history any longer.
We have an education system that’s broken. I have no idea if that can even be fixed. I suspect it can, but this is a generational issue. Not something that happens with one administration, but there’s got to be some continuity. This is one of the big failures we have in every administration. I don’t care whether it’s your city level or your state level, everyone shows up and derails everything that the previous administration did because that’s how they got voted in. We blame everything on the previous administration. We’re going to make it better and different. All we end up doing as a society is ping more for less and getting more and more fractures and more and more devices.
You and I, hope, are starting this concept of having a conversation around. How do you stop that fringe element and get back to reasonable discourse to know where what we’re voting on, what we’re talking about truly are pivotal issues? They’re going to improve society. You made a comment and I’ll stop after this. My task as an executive, as a business owner or whatever, has been to get a whole bunch of people to succeed. I have worked in organizations where I have seen very poor managers who are insensitive, who are functionally ignorant and don’t talk to their people.
I can’t work in those environments. That’s one of the reasons I’m retired from this space and don’t want to go back into it. I can’t work in a place like that. Part of it is my own psyche, my own mentality but if you can’t work in an organization where you’re supporting people trying to bring them up, raise them and even after your job is done. It’s not so much you got to be friends with people. I’ve got folks who say, “You’re the best boss I ever had and you’re a great mentor to me.” I’m grateful for that. I hope that my influence endures after you’ve worked for me and that what I’ve done is giving you an opportunity. We know servant leadership has been horribly overused but it’s not just about making a lot of money.
I have been of service to other people for many years. One of the things I would say is that I have some very clear opinions about what the Supreme Court has done and some of the things that have come down in the last few months. That’s the reason I have Richard doing a lot of that, but we can talk about it. There’s a lot of things that are going on around redistricting and all that, that I do think is not helpful to the voting process in America.
We’re going to have a chance to talk about all that. I also think that I believe in the Constitution of the United States. I’m having a great time reading this new book. She makes it a story. Almost like a story process. It is so fun. We’ll talk for a few minutes after we finish this episode, but what I can end the episode with at least and then you certainly can give your final statement. We’re going to talk about things where you and I have different points of view.
We have the capacity to sit and listen to those different points of view. Maybe or even without questions, we can then come up with some ideas that can be helpful to us. We don’t have to live in the drama of the everyday. We can live in the reality as you said before of what is possible between two people. If it happens between two people then, it can happen between many. That’s the reason that we’re doing this. That’s what I think we’re doing. We’ve done that now. We’re trying to show that now.
Some would look at this to say it’s drawn out. What are you all doing? On the one hand, this is to say there’s some fuel rules and there’s logic behind the fuel rules. You can almost say, “We’re arguing illegally here.” Why is this opinion? Why is that opinion? Why do you say that’s a set of facts? We believe, you believe, I believe, we believe collectively that this is the thing, this is a process. We’re trying to say that if you get out of the flaming headlines and if you step back a little bit, you can have a conversation. I believe we’re trying to put almost a set of guidelines together to say, “Stop, think, listen, etc.”
When you get to the thornier issues, people could say, “They’re either living their lives or there are a bunch of useful pundits or they’re just the same pop psychology that I can buy in a dime store. We’re not the latter. Nor were any pundits. How do you talk about this thing? I will get back to the original comments that were made. You have a division in this country. We need to do something to stop that because it will tear it apart somehow. I don’t know what it looks like. Should it happen? The cost of it, society wise, financial wise is unimaginable.
We need to do something to stop this divide because it will tear the country apart. The cost of it, society-wise and financial-wise, is unimaginable. We have to be an informed people.
How do we stop that? This is not about changing anybody’s voting opinions. That’s not what our mission is. It is to say, “I’m going to be an informed person,” and you have to do that in business and in life. If you’re successful as a human being, you’re informed. You can have conversations with people. They value the time that they spend and they invest with you. How do we do that? How do we show people that it’s worthwhile? Being better and maybe that’s not the best term. There’s a divide. I don’t know how to fix it, but if we just ignore it, it’s not going to go away on its own.
One of the things that is important about what all you’re talking about is, we need to start facing the things that are not helpful and that are creating all the drama now. Deciding how we’re going to stand firm with those individuals that represent us to be able to say, “We want to have conversations. We want to support the Constitution. We want to support our democracy.” This is 250 years that it’s lived. Therefore, we do not have people. We don’t need to have people driving the opposite value of destroying what the Constitution represents, what the Bill of Rights represents. What all this has represented and we lived well in.
I’m going to end it here. To you readers, maybe you’re questioning what we’re doing but we are doing everything we can to show you that we can bring up topics. We’re talking about the things that we do not support when we interact with each other. We are going to do our best to talk about some of the thorny topics and not name political names or do all these other stuff. We’re going to talk about the topic and see what we can do with it. I want to thank you. I appreciate you as a friend and colleague. Thank you.
To all readers out there, get on the train. There are some interesting things going to happen. Thanks, Jackalyn. It’s always a pleasure.
Thank you.
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About Nigel M. Lakey
Originally from Western Canada, and one of three sons of immigrant parents, Nigel has been in Houston since 2000 when as part of a company reorganization, he relocated from Calgary. While he resisted for the first year, he eventually let Texas wash over him and embraced the thing that is Texas- he now sees it as his home.
A Mechanical Engineer by education but a marketer and innovator by vocation, Nigel has spent the majority of his 45 year professional career in the oilfield service and technology space, with a brief foray into private equity before returning to what he knows and understands best.
His career is marked with experience in innovative and disruptive business and technology solutions, and he’s spent considerable time in the C-suite of public and private companies. Well-travelled to some 70 countries Nigel has worked in interesting places with interesting people and has deep respect for culture and history. He can speak a few languages as a result and maintains close friendships with many people he’s met over the years.
While he is retired out of the corporate world since 2022, Nigel is unable to resist the siren call of industry and is co-founder of an energy services startup that is developing AI and ML solutions for the oilfield. He also maintains a consulting and advisory business. Nigel remains active in business and industry and at this time he is the Chair of the Communications and Editorial Committee for the Private Directors Association.
An avid SCUBA diver since 1985, Nigel is an Advanced Open Water instructor, as well as an Adaptive SCUBA instructor, bringing SCUBA to disabled and mobility-challenged veterans and others faced with ability challenges.
Nigel is regarded as an authentic and visionary leader, and a well-spoken and concise communicator, influencer, and thought partner. He has built and developed organizations, catalyzed and led transformational change, and excels in environments where dynamic thought is needed to address strategic and operational challenges.