Is fear of conflict keeping you silent at family gatherings? Discover how curiosity can create space for meaningful dialogue.
Many of us are still trying to wrap our heads around the national election results, and now that we are in the holiday season, with some of us having family members whose votes might mystify us, should we engage in a conversation with them? Or is it better to avoid politics all together for the sake of preserving our relationships?
I sat down with Kristin Cobble, an organizational consultant and executive coach, and Founder of Groupaya, who offers her wisdom on turning potentially divisive conversations into opportunities for connection. In the interview, Kristin shares her personal journey of finding common ground with her family members, who hold different views from hers.
Susan Burns: Something I hear constantly right now is “I don’t understand how people could have voted for Trump.” If people do want to engage in a dialogue with their family members, how should they begin?
Kristin Cobble: That’s a great question. And I also want to point out, a lot of people wondered how in the world anyone could vote for Kamala! My family, for example, was just as astonished by the other side.
Susan Oh, interesting.
Kristin: Absolutely. So, I really appreciate you asking the question, Susan. As you know, I’ve had six or seven years of increasingly large gaps happening with some of my beloved family members around political issues and other things. It’s been a real journey. Honestly, it’s much easier for me to help others with their conflicts when I’m not involved—when I’m just the facilitator. But when it’s my own family and I’m the one having a difference of opinion, it’s a totally different game.
And I think the place I’d start is this: in order to have any chance of a good conversation, if you’re considering venturing into that territory, the mindset you have going into the conversation is everything. If you cannot get into a place of genuine curiosity about what the grain of truth is in your beloved’s perspective—if you can’t believe that they are as intelligent as you are, that they have as good of intentions as you do, and that they have a piece of the puzzle that you don’t—then you aren’t ready.
I recently heard a man named Riaz Patel, who’s in the entertainment industry in Hollywood, speak on a podcast. He’s developed a process that helps people come together and talk. He has this acronym that I felt really aligned with, and the first letter of it, “E,” stands for equality. He says, “If you can’t treat your family members as equals, don’t even bother.” And that’s been one of the most painful things for me over the years—to witness the disdain, the derision, and the dismissal on both sides.
So, when I enter a conversation with my family, my deep belief is that the potential is that we can all be smarter together than we can be alone. If I can find the pieces of truth, the gold, in what they’re thinking, it can help me see a more complete picture. And from that place, I can be smarter. So my intention is, can I understand them? I’m not necessarily trying to get them to understand me.
"I have such a passion about creating a national culture where we talk about politics with one another in a constructive way. The future of our planet and society depends on these conversations. If we say, 'let’s just talk about sports and safe topics', and we avoid meaningful topics, we miss the chance to shape the future we want."
Susan: That’s a tall order. At the same time, I feel that if we stay in this cycle of thinking “I don’t understand, or they must be racist or misogynistic,” we just stay in this endless loop. Your kind of being harmed or hurt by your own thoughts about your family members, and it really can separate you. But if we can be a little more expansive and leave room for curiosity, things may not be as terrible as we think. There may be some common cause we can find together, and some things that we agree about.
Kristin: It’s important to remember that when we feel superior—when we think we’re smarter or we know better—we’re missing out on a chance to connect on a deeper level. We’re not understanding that there’s a coherent person with a life story behind these beliefs. I want to know what their journey has been. What have they experienced that has shaped how they think?
Susan: Yeah, it’s hard to hold all of that. It’s tough to stay curious when you’re feeling hurt and scared, especially with all the misinformation out there. I sometimes hear people rattling off things they heard on some podcast, or from AM radio, or Fox News, and my instinct is to try to correct them, to set the record straight, to give them more facts and data to try to correct those misperceptions. What do you think about that? Does it work?
Kristin: It absolutely doesn’t work. What really shifts things is personal stories. It’s people speaking from their own experiences, not from articles, books, or what they learned on the internet. People are not persuaded by data. As much as we want them to be; the world would be much easier if they were. But it’s emotionality that moves people. It’s interesting how Republicans, for example, were so good at creating emotional, survival-oriented stories.
A few other things that I do with my family—and sometimes ask them to do as well—are techniques we use in our consulting work when groups are in conflict. When you feel yourself starting to constrict from fear or anger, take a longer, slower breath. A longer inhale, a longer pause, a longer exhale. Feel your feet on the ground. You can even ask your family members to do this with you.
Another helpful technique is mirroring back what you’ve heard and testing it: “Did I get that right? Is there something I’m missing?” And then that gives them a chance to say, “well, actually, there's also this other piece.”
When you mirror and test, the other person feels heard, which calms their “fight or flight” response. It also helps you stay in your frontal lobe, because you're having to think about what they just said and what the essence of it was? So, it slows the conversation down, which is really key, given how easy it is for these conversations to escalate.
Susan: I really like the idea of staying curious and emotionally connected with your family. This summer I had a great conversation with my brother who’s a Trump supporter. He lives on the south side of Chicago in an all-white neighborhood. He knows my political views. It seemed like he wanted to create a bridge, and he told me this story. He’s a long-distance runner and on his last race, he fell into a rhythm with a young woman with blue hair. He told me, “She’s the most awesome person. She helped me make it through. We talked the whole time.” He said that she was someone he would never have crossed paths with under normal circumstances, but she helped him push through the race. I think he was sharing this with me to say, “people are people, and politics is only one layer.”
Kristin: That’s such a powerful story, and it shows that when we put other people in a box based on their politics, and we don't even understand why those are their politics, we miss out on all the other things they are. They’re a son or a daughter, someone who loves music, or who loves running marathons. It’s so easy to focus on this narrow slice of who they are, and we do that partly because we feel threatened by that slice. So, we're doing it for legitimate reasons, but it really helps to expand our thinking and just remember, this is a human being. They have hopes, they have fears, they have losses, they've had triumphs, they’re walking the same path on the same earth that I am. And there are some places where we're different.
Susan: I remember when the Tea Party first came on to the scene in 2009 in response, in large part, to the bank bailouts in 2008. The people involved in that movement wanted change—they wanted many of the same things that people on the left wanted, like lower military spending, lower deficits, and to challenge the influence the corporate class and the finance industry had on our government. It was so frustrating to me because were unable to collaborate with any of those individuals because of their stance on other issues. It's like the Left was saying that unless you agree with everything on our list, you can't be part of us.
We’re seeing now that the white working-class people who voted for Trump, share the same injury from this corporate-controlled government that low-income people of color do. It feels like there’s no hope for us as a Democratic Party unless we can maintain some openness to their situation and include them in our efforts. If we put them in a box, we're really limiting ourselves.
Kristin: I couldn’t agree more. There’s so much more common ground than we think. The system is designed to divide us, to encourage us to stay within our partisan silos. It’s up to us to break through that by making real human connections. When we talk to each other as people first—before politics—we begin to see the nuances and complexities in each other’s beliefs. It’s only from there that we can start to find solutions together.
I went college on the East coast, lived in Boston, Boulder, and San Francisco—three of the most liberal cities in the country. The cluelessness I see on the coasts about the middle of the country is staggering, and the arrogance too—thinking we know better, that we know what’s best for them.
Susan: Yeah, it’s not landing very well.
Kristin: Right. I think for so many people, the vote for Trump was just a big, “screw you.” We’re tired of not being seen and considered.” It was a Hail Mary. What’s interesting is that I also know upper-middle-class and wealthy people who voted for Trump. It wasn’t for financial reasons or because he was lowering their taxes. Their dissatisfaction started in 2008 with the Democratic Party and Obama and team bailing out the banks, and nobody going to jail. It was that sense of, “This is not fair.” And then, there are those people in small towns, when the factory closes, because manufacturing went to Mexico or went over to Asia, which…
Susan: was all started by Clinton.
Kristin: I know. I know.
Susan: If there’s any gift in this terrible win—because, honestly, there’s so much about Trump that’s autocratic and dangerous—it’s that we’ve been turned upside down. Everything we thought we understood about the country’s appetite for what the Democrats were offering—it just wasn’t quite there.
Kristin: Exactly.
Susan: But let’s get back to the heart of this—how do you talk to people? I have to say, I’m afraid of conflict. I like to avoid tough topics, but I personally want to learn how to have more honest conversations with people.
Kristin: Noticing physical signals like feeling hot, flushed, or constricted can be a signal to yourself that you need to pause, take a long breath and feel your feet on the ground. There’s also a framework that has helped me notice when we need to shift the conversation.
For those unfamiliar, the Drama Triangle is a pattern you see everywhere—in movies, novels, and even the news. It involves three roles: the villain (or perpetrator), the rescuer, and the victim. When you get caught in the Drama Triangle with someone, you may have a preferred role, but you end up playing all three roles at different points in the conversation—sometimes even within a few minutes.
This is something I’ve experienced with my brother, who I adore. A few years ago, he was concerned about something I believed—something that was the opposite of his perspective. He started presenting data, facts, and arguments, trying to change my mind. He’s a great debater and had the best of intentions, so he took on the role of rescuer. “Let me rescue my sister from this flawed belief.”
Over time, though, it stopped feeling like trying to rescue me, which wasn’t great either, and started to feel like he was being a villain, almost attacking me. I moved into victim mode, responding to what felt like an assault. Then I got really angry and lashed out at him—switching into the role of villain myself.
To make it more complex, my mom overheard us arguing. She stepped in to rescue my brother, who was now the victim, and later they bonded over how I can be “so difficult sometimes.” That night, I realized, Oh my God, we were in the Drama Triangle.
Susan: I thought she was going to rescue you!
Kristin: The Drama Triangle is great to watch on TV, but when you’re living it, it’s exhausting and disempowering. Every role is limiting, and no one in the triangle has true power. It’s total dysfunction. So, if you notice yourself going into a conversation wanting to rescue your family members from thinking the way they think, be forewarned—they will likely feel like a victim. Even if you do it skillfully, it can come across as patronizing, and they may begin to see you as the villain.
Susan: So, is it possible to have conversations where nobody plays any of those roles?
Kristin: Yes! Actually, you can engage in the Transformation triangle!
The villain becomes the challenger, so they still challenge people’s beliefs, but they do it as a catalyst for learning, including for themselves, and not to make the other wrong. The rescuer becomes the coach, assuming the other person has full agency and is fully empowered and can handle whatever they are facing. And the victim becomes the creator, shifting from a problem focus to a vision focus.
Susan: That’s so exciting. It seems so applicable to so many different areas of life.
Kristin: It really is. In the Drama Triangle, the central question people ask is, Who’s right?—and of course, the answer is, I am right.
In the Transformation Triangle, the question is almost like a Zen koan: What can I learn from this situation being exactly as it is? In other words, how is this situation, with this person thinking this way and me thinking this way, how is this a gift?
Susan: Wow. That’s having a radical relationship with reality!
Kristin: And really trusting reality, which, believe me, can be hard!
Susan: Absolutely. Having the tools to do that is really helpful.
I’ve always thought when people say, “Oh, talk to your family members,” that it’s something for somebody else to do—not me. I’m the oldest as four and in some ways got set up as the villain, partly because I was my father’s favorite. I never wanted to step into that big sister role as a kind of “know it all.”
When I was younger, I moved to California my whole world opened up. I discovered all these people who shared my values. Then, whenever I’d come home to Chicago, people would feel like: “Oh, here comes Sue with all of her ideas.” “Now she’s a vegetarian” and all that. And I do think I judged my family back then, so avoided hard conversations for a long time. But I’ve grown a lot, I’m a different person now. I feel like I’m strong and secure enough to have these conversations.
These tools are also valuable as a leader and manager. I ran a large organization some years ago, and I was a bit of a heavy-handed leader. I then learned that asking questions in the right way is so powerful. It’s like a secret weapon. If you have an opinion on something but frame it as a question, it opens up dialogue instead of shutting people down. Questions like, “I noticed this issue. I wonder what you think about this?” or “I’m curious about your perspective on that.” In creates so much more safety.
Kristin: Asking genuine, generative questions is so important—not leading questions where you’re pushing for a specific answer, like a prosecutor leading the witness in a courtroom. A genuine question invites someone into a new space, and it invites you into that space with them.
I’d love to share another tool, called “polarity mapping,” that has been a game changer in my conversations with my brother. He’s brilliant, so while this doesn’t work with everyone in my family, it’s worked with him because he can hold a lot of complexity.
When I say it “worked” with him, I mean it’s helped us have conversations about our different opinions. It hasn’t changed either of our minds about anything, but I’ve found nuggets of gold in what he thinks which have made me more open-minded. I first started doing this with clients, but then one day, when I was talking with my brother, I pulled out a piece of paper and started doing it with him.
Barry Johnson, who developed this framework, has written two books about polarities. Polarities are positive opposites that exist in pairs, like inhale and exhale, activity and rest—things we can’t choose between because we need both. In organizations, you see polarities like centralization versus decentralization. The key is recognizing that both have upsides and downsides, and the question becomes: How do we get the best of both while minimizing the downsides?
Here’s where this applies to conversations with family. When we argue, we tend to highlight the upside of our preferred pole and the downside of the other person’s. This also happens in news, for example, CNN emphasizes the upside of liberalism and the downside of conservatism, while Fox News does the opposite.
Susan: That’s interesting. How would this apply to something like vaccines—a public policy issue?
Kristin: So what's really interesting about polarities is, first of all, both of the polls are positive. So that's the first challenge. So with vaccines, you ask “how do you frame up the choice to not get vaccinated?” And “how do you frame up the choice to vaccinate?” And then you explore the upsides, and then you explore the downsides.
You could frame the two poles as “health of the individual” versus “health of the community.” Both have legitimate upsides. The individual approach values choice and autonomy. The collective approach prioritizes herd immunity, saving millions of lives. The downside of the individual approach is that diseases like polio or measles can re-emerge and harm large populations.
What's the downside of the collective? Why don't I ask you, Susan, what do you think?
Susan: Well, that some people can be harmed by the vaccines. And also, it can feel like a military state to some people because you're not allowed to question. It's like, every single vaccine is good in every single situation.
Honestly, I can relate to this feeling. When my son was a baby, they wanted me to bring him in when he was 2 months old and give him 6 different vaccines all at once! I chose to delay some, and to stagger them when he did get them, and the medical establishment treated me like I was a criminal. It's like all or nothing,
Kristin: Exactly. So you are doing an awesome job at describing the downside of what I imagine is your preferred poll.
Kristin: The beauty of polarity mapping is that both people are literally on the same side of the table, looking at the problem together. Instead of debating, you’re co-creating a map of the problem, filling out all four quadrants: the upsides and downsides of both poles. And it's really easy to see, when the conversation is still one-sided. “Oh, we've done a great job of filling out the upsides of your poll and the downsides of my poll, can we fill out these other two boxes together?
Susan: That’s amazing. This has been such a rich conversation. Kristin, do you want to talk a little about what’s coming up for you in your work? I know you are working on a brand-new project.
Kristin: Yes, it’s called Next America. It’s a passion project of mine inspired by processes used in countries which faced much worse polarization than we’re dealing with. It’s been done in South Africa as they were coming out of apartheid, in Colombia, as they were coming out of decades of guerrilla warfare and state warfare, and in Guatemala, as they were coming out of decades of civil war.
The project has two phases. The first involves bringing together 25 to 40 leaders from all kinds of stakeholder groups—urban and rural, old and young, people fighting racism, people who don’t believe racism exists, oil executives, environmental advocates. These leaders create four scenarios for how the future of America might unfold. Three scenarios are undesirable but plausible, and one scenario emerges as something everyone wants to work toward, even if it’s difficult and requires collaboration.
It's very different from when you do mediation between different stakeholder groups. Mediation often results in a compromise solution that is hard for the representatives to go back and sell to their stakeholder groups. But when a vision emerges as one of 3 or 4 scenarios, because it's in contrast to three equally plausible futures that we don't want, it is really motivating.
The second phase is about citizen engagement—sharing these scenarios at the local, state, and national levels to help people shift from feeling hopeless to hopeful, from avoiding talking about differences to engaging with them, and most importantly, shift from feeling resigned to being in action with people who are different to create the future we want for our country.
It’s a multi-year project, but the goal is to touch millions of people’s lives.
Susan: Wow, that’s exciting and so needed right now. I wish you so much success with this.
Thank you so much, Kristin, for spending this time with me.
Kristin: Thank you, Susan. I hope this has been helpful. If you’d like to do a follow-up later, let me know—I really enjoyed this conversation.
Susan: Thank you, Kristin. This was wonderful.