Stop Talking, Start Building || Rich Harwood on How Divided Towns Actually Heal
Talkin‘ Politics & Religion Without Killin‘ Each OtherShow Notes
A doctor once told Rich Harwood's mother to face it, her son was a lemon. He's spent his life proving no one is disposable, and that even the most divided towns in America can build something together.
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What does it take to heal a divided town? Less talking, says Rich Harwood. After almost 40 years running the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, he's watched the poorest community in America and some of the most divided places in the country do what most of us have stopped believing is possible: build something together, across every line that's supposed to keep them apart. The conversation runs from Moses and Lincoln to a synagogue firebombing to the three working men who saved his life as a sick kid, and lands on a deceptively simple idea about what we owe one another.
A few takeaways:
Pull issues out of the political frame and people agree more than they think. Harwood works the reddest and bluest places in the country and says he can't tell who voted for whom. Ask people what they care about instead of who they voted for, and the same concerns surface everywhere: youth, seniors, mental health, belonging.
Start small. Big comprehensive plans tend to collapse under their own weight. Real change starts with one modest step that catalyzes a chain reaction, the way practice dinners at a single church spread across an entire county in Reading, Pennsylvania.
Turn outward. Sharing space begins with a posture, not a technique. Physically turn toward the other person, choose to see them, and lead with curiosity about what matters to them.
About our guest: Rich Harwood is president and founder of the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation and the author of several books, most recently The New Civic Path: Restoring Our Belief in One Another and Our Nation (2024).
Find Rich:
The Harwood Institute: theharwoodinstitute.org
Rich Harwood on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/richardcharwood
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