How Stanford teaches students to navigate polarised politics

High-profile business leaders carry influence and are increasingly expected to lead a wider public debate.

This means leaders must learn how to handle disagreement in productive ways. Is that a skill that can be developed in the MBA classroom? At Stanford, we think it can.

The election of President Donald Trump in 2016 meant some business leaders, such as Ford’s then-CEO Mark Fields, found themselves dragged into political debate. Should Ford produce cars in Mexico that would be cheaper for all US consumers, or build in Michigan, as Trump publicly called for, which would make them more expensive?

As the administration attempted to impose a travel ban on citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, chief executives from JPMorgan Chase to General Electric and Apple lined up to oppose it. In January 2018, BlackRock chief executive and chairman Larry Fink’s annual letter implored business to find a “social purpose”.

Throughout the transition period from presidents Obama to Trump, there was palpable frustration on campus at Stanford. Students who voted for Mr Trump felt castigated, while those on the receiving end of inflammatory rhetoric felt destabilised. We had to move forward.

Saumitra Jha, assistant professor of political economy; Bernadette Clavier, executive director of the Stanford Graduate School of Business’s Center for Social Innovation; and myself, then a Sloan fellow at GSB, crafted a seminar series. It was designed to enable tomorrow’s business leaders to develop what Stanford and the wider business community consider a crucial skill: that of having difficult yet productive conversations in pressurised situations.

As domestic and international politics polarise opinions, leaders will have to consider all points of view

Curating this course meant marshaling ideas and speakers from a range of disciplines, including economics, political science, psychology and conflict resolution. We wanted to find a genuine alternative to lip service, skating over details, deflecting attention and disparaging others.

We asked GSB students what makes people change their minds and why?

Students were given the chance to test their skills in difficult conversations during a discussion with Charlie Kirk, founder and executive director of Turning Point USA, a rightwing, non-profit organisation, and Katherine Vasconez, a lawyer and an outspoken supporter of President Trump.

They found that admitting they had changed their minds was essential to resolving conflict, and that doing so in the workplace could leave them more powerful — not less.

Sometimes protest is the best course of action, so by deepening understanding of how and when effective protests happen — including across lines such as race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status — students also learnt how to increase their impact.

The course led three students to found Pnyka, a start-up that allows people to connect in structured forums called assemblies. Pnyka is based on the findings of Zak Tormala, a professor of marketing, which show that the more uncertain people are, the more receptive they are to other points of view. By filtering then curating groups using three simple questions, Pnyka links individuals interested in exploring different points of view.

Pnyka wants to transform the way people interact with each other. Its approach is now being piloted by three other institutions and interfaith groups. Students and faculty at the new Stanford Center for Global Poverty and Development have also begun a new Conflict and Polarisation Initiative to support interdisciplinary research.

As domestic and international politics polarise opinions, leaders will have to consider all points of view. Those in government, business and civil society will have to facilitate important discussions, and it is crucial for higher education institutions to prepare leaders of all kinds to rise to the challenge.

The writer was a Sloan fellow at the Stanford Graduate School of Business