Do Stuff Together

Ideas and tips to get along and get stuff done-------- ------- -AApril 20, 2025

Do Stuff Together

In my world “how to bridge the political divide” is the question of the day.

One answer: don’t even try.

Go around.

Bridge closed; seek alternate route.

Find other ways to connect.

In her book High Conflict, Amanda Ripley explains “the magic ratio” of 5:1. It takes five positive interactions to prevent or overcome one bad interaction. So if you want to avoid or overcome conflict, manufacture positive interactions.

I have learned that if someone is mad at me or is judging against me - and it’s so bad that we can’t even talk about it – it works well to do other stuff with that person. I might even contrive interactions such as borrowing a tool or running into each other at an event. Or I might make a positive comment on their social media post; about something completely different than our conflict at hand.

We do this with kids. When a kid gets bent out of shape and hates you, the time-honored remedy is the offering of positive interactions in other ways. Try at least 5 before you give up! Food works well, for instance. Haha.

Continued here, and comments

Coming Right Up!

Join me online Wednesday April 23 at 1pm ET

It’s been said that the gap between old and young is greater now than ever before in human history, in terms of how we communicate and how we think. Yet young and old have to cooperate with each other, perhaps more than ever before in human history. How?

Rather than discuss global reasons for today’s generational divides, or even global solutions, this session seeks to focus on close-at-hand strategies that both younger and older people can use every day to be better understood. And to better understand.

I will be joined by University of Maine communication instructor Kendra Rand who will present lessons learned from her research and from her students. I will also be joined by Juliette Daigle Thompson who is a recent graduate of the University of Maine Department of Communication & Journalism. In addition to her work as a lifeguarding instructor, Juliette provides consulting services for marketing strategies and stronger internal communication.

We expect to highlight specific examples of how younger and older people mis-understand each other and make assumptions about each other; and as a group we will discuss solutions.

Head.

Heart.

Hands.

It takes all three.

In principle, if we want our group decisions to be creative—that is, result in new and better ways of doing things—we need to draw on all our resources and blend them in new ways.

Typical meetings are structured to put our heads together and, indeed, our knowledge and ideas are a tremendous resource. But we have more. Why not go further and put our hearts together, share our feelings, stories, fears, and passions? Further still, why not put our hands together and do physical activities as a group?

A group decision process that includes intellectual exchange, sharing from the heart, AND hands-on physical activity is most likely to yield creative results.

Practical Tip: Don’t just do brainstorming, try heartstorming. Don’t just sit and talk about stuff together, get up and do stuff together, with your hands.

If you want truly creative group decisions, share ideas, feelings, and activities…all three.

This course has 14 videos, several explanations of practical tips, and 5 steps for how to talk with an adversary. One of the videos explains meeting ground rules specifically designed to prevent conflict.

This course is for you if:

You are a group leader who wants to prevent wasteful and destructive conflict
You are worried about conflicts in your own life
You want some simple techniques to prevent and reduce conflict
You want to teach others about preventing conflict
You know how costly conflict can be and want to reduce costs
You want to improve functioning and effectiveness of your group
You want to show credibility with a Certificate of Completion

Consider treating yourself to this course. Sliding fee. Learn about it here.

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