Tom Fishman and Jesús Mantas: The Skills We Need to Overcome Toxic Polarization

Episode recap:

Marcel’s guests, Tom Fishman and Jesús Mantas from the Builders—a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization—discussed strategies for overcoming toxic polarization by fostering constructive dialogue and bridging societal divides. The Builders empowers individuals through programs in media, civics, and education, believing that most people are flexible thinkers capable of respectful problem-solving. The conversation emphasized the importance of humility, empathy, and understanding in leading with love, creating positive work cultures, and building common ground. They highlighted the need for individuals to take responsibility for their actions, seek diverse perspectives, and engage in open dialogue to drive meaningful cultural change.

Bio:

Tom Fishman, CEO of Builders, has 15 years of experience building businesses and digital communities. He led MTV’s global digital strategy, growing its community to 250 million, and directed social video product strategy at Facebook’s Global Creative team. He also served as general manager at Eko, launching shoppable video experiences. Tom holds physics degrees from the University of Chicago and Columbia University.

Jesús Mantas, Global Managing Partner at IBM Consulting, leads a $10B business transformation unit. He is an Independent Director at Biogen, former member of the World Economic Forum’s Global AI Council, and supports minority-founded startups. He holds degrees in Telecommunications and Business Administration.

Quotes:

• "Teams where people can talk to each other in environments where they can authentically consider different points of view and challenge each other constructively will continue to outperform teams that only look at one way." – Jesus Mantas
• "When you actually seek out the other side of every decision, it's less likely that you'll take risks or be blindsided by risks you never considered." – Jesus Mantas

Takeaways:

• Develop the habit of actively seeking out diverse perspectives, even on topics you strongly disagree with. Approach it with an open mind to understand their reasoning, rather than to argue.
• Cultivate personal humility and recognize that your views and beliefs may not be 100% accurate. Be willing to change your mind when presented with new information.

Timestamps:

[00:05] Introduction

[03:58] How Tom is using media to fix America’s divides

[12:23] The 87% of people fed up with division—are you one of them?

[18:47] Is the media fueling division? Here’s what you can do about it

[35:22] Why humility and empathy are game changers in leadership

[55:02] Developing the muscle of empathy

[1:06:44] Final thoughts—how you can take action today

Conclusion:

Real change begins with personal responsibility. While large-scale shifts in systems and institutions matter, the most immediate impact comes from the choices individuals make every day. By shifting perspectives, adjusting habits, and taking intentional action, people can create meaningful progress in their own lives and communities. Waiting for external forces to solve problems only delays what can be changed from within. When individuals take ownership of their growth, they set the stage for lasting transformation.

Links/Resources:

Website: https://buildersmovement.org/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/builders/#

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/buildersmvt/posts/?feedView=all

Facebook: https://www

Transcript

Marcel Schwantes 00:04

And by the way, guys, you won't be seen until I say, and Tom and his who's now joined, join us. Welcome to the show. And that's when you'll pop up. By the way, Jesus, is it Mantas or Mantas? Mantas? Mantas got it. Okay, here we go. Hey, welcome back, guys. So here's a million-dollar question, and actually not so much a million dollar but an everyday question that I often ask these days. I think you do as well. Are you tired of toxic polarization? Well, yeah, that makes two of us, I think here in love in action, we've been pushing against toxicity, mostly in the workplace and in the business world, you know, since we started the show years ago. But toxicity has spread everywhere, I mean, beyond work environments and into our communities, even our families, and that's why I'm so geeked up about our guests today, Tom Fishman and Jesus Mantas is gonna they're gonna join us shortly. 

Tom is the CEO of Builders movement, and they're also known as start with us. And folks, I'm gonna start off like this. I'm going to read their mission and right off their website, because they really grabbed me, and I'm going to ask Tom in a few minutes to describe their movement in his own words. But this is what got my attention, builders. Is a growing movement equipping Americans to overcome toxic polarization and effectively solve our toughest problems. We use media, technology and education programs to foster independent thinking and constructive communication across our differences, inspiring and empowering our community to practice curiosity, compassion and courage every day. Okay, so I don't know if any anybody else did that resonate with all you guys listening, because it did with me when I read it. I mean, it just hit me right between the eyes, because I sought so much problem solving and solutions in that statement about what's going on in the world, in the world, and how polarization and political ideologies is seeping into every sector of society, including the workplace. 

So these guys have been doing amazing work. I've been following them now probably for seven or eight months, and they are teaching us what we need to do, every single one of us to stop this, this crazy, hate filled division that is permeating our world. Jesus Mantas is also joining us to talk about more of the work side of toxicity and polarization and really, how do we stop this train? Right? Jesus is the global leader of strategy offerings, technology, assets and mergers and acquisition for IBM, Global Business Services, or GBS as a as a $17 billion unit of IBM. He is a member of the World Economic Forum, AI global Council, and he was an early pioneer on artificial intelligence and supply chain enterprise solutions. And gentlemen, welcome to the show. Tom Fishman and Jesus Mantas now joins us.

Tom Fishman 03:38

Thanks. Marcel, great to thank you. It's always great to see it.

Marcel Schwantes 03:41

Yeah, great to have you guys. Tom I'm gonna start with you. Okay, so as founder, as a CEO, I believe founder and CEO, but definitely CEO, but you can speak to your role. What's your story? 

Tom Fishman 03:58

Yeah. So I'll tell you. I'm the CEO of builders, but we are founded by a group of incredible, foremost leaders, including the amazing Jesus mentors. We call our movement partners, an ideologically diverse group of people, foremost leaders from across sectors, from across backgrounds, who help us build and lead this work. So I play a key role, but hey, sous and many others of his incredible experience and visibility really have boosted what we do. Thanks again, Marcel, for having us on. My story starts in Queens, New York, where I'm from, and I think has a lot to do with how I landed here in Queens right Queens is known as one of the most diverse areas in the world in terms of collections of people across demographic, across nationality, across economics. 

So I personally grew up, you know, connecting with people across lines of difference. I was a sensitive kid in a tough town. I was a Jewish kid in a Catholic neighborhood of Irish and Italian kids. I Yeah, it was I had to, you know, learn how to talk to all different kinds of people by virtue of them being all around and sometimes to not get my tail whooped at the bus stop. So it's just it you learn a lot about connecting across the lines of difference growing up in Queens has a lot to do with who I am. I grew up professionally at the intersection of media and technology. I was at MTV with Viacom for a long time in the early days of social media and digital marketing, I was product strategist at Facebook for a while. I was a GM of an interactive video tech startup. So that kind of forged an ability to harness, I think, a lot of the modern tools that we have to build and scale audiences and communities and crystallize them around like minded sort of values and interests. 

And when I had the opportunity to take the leaders leadership mantle here at builders, formerly known as starts with us. We are rebranded. So we're builders now the builders movement. I jumped on it because this what we need to achieve in terms of scale, of scaling these ideas of scaling the constructive conflict approach can't totally happen online, but surely we'll start there in terms of the upper funnel, the good old marketing funnel, of how we reach people. So that's how I landed here. These skills are something that we're using every day at builders to try to scale these concepts and give people, the community, the network, the inspiration and the tools to approach conflict and culture war and problem solving in a different and a much needed way in these incredibly polarized times.

Marcel Schwantes 06:45

Yeah, yeah. It's just, what about you? How did you arrive where you are with builders, what's your story?

Jesus Mantas 06:51

Yeah, I'll start. I'll start from, from the beginning. My upbringing, I'm I was born and raised in the south of Spain, just low, middle-class family. Public education did very well, you know, at the time in Spain, with a great public education system, so education was my path to do very well. After spending one year in the Air Force as an officer, I started work, and an opportunity came up 30 years ago to come to the United States, and that was, that was something I, you know, I always missed. I missed the fact that I could see people that could speak fluently English, and I couldn't do that. I, you know, the math education and other education was great, but we were never great at actually learning English. So I took that opportunity. I said, Okay, we'll come to the United States for three years, and maybe that way I learned English. And you know, that was, that was my driver, within a month of actually arriving to the United States, my boss, at the time, sat me down and said, You know, I have to give you some advice. I don't think you're gonna make it. I don't think you're ever gonna be successful in the United States. 

You know, we you don't communicate well, you know, for the job that you have, you really need to commit to communicate well, so, so I think you've made a terrible mistake, and you should go back to Spain and that was one of those times where, you know, having born and raised in a place where everybody looked like me, and everybody thought like me, you know, and everybody seemed Like me, suddenly I come to a place where I was being judged by how I looked and how I spoke, as opposed to what my abilities were, and that that was like a very new ground for me. Now this person, just to be fair, he actually was telling me these things out of out of trying to help me. Like this person wasn't trying to hurt me in any way, or he wasn't trying to be violent anyway. This person really believed that I was never going to amount to anything, and I in a way, that gave me the fuel that I needed to kind of say, well, I guess I gotta prove it. I've got to prove him wrong. And, and that's, you know, basically I didn't go I didn't change my name. I didn't do all the things that people say, Well, maybe you change your name, you know, it's like being called Jesus makes people uncomfortable. Well, that's my name, you know, I'm not going to change it.

 So, I had to navigate that path of being authentic to myself, but actually fitting in, which is a very, a very, a very difficult path for many, many Hispanics of that of that area ended up doing very well. Ended up learning to speak the language and then communicate, and then eventually had a very good career at price White House, when I became one of one of their younger partners, we. Acquire President house. Cooper's consulting was acquired by IBM, and in IBM, I did. I did okay, let's say so. So, you know, I went from being told you will never really be successful, especially in the profession of consulting, to actually leading globally, one of the largest business consulting units in the world. So, so that story is kind of like for me, and it gave me a couple of perspectives. 

One is, you know, this point of why diversity is good is not good because it's a morally nice thing to do, is good because it drives performance, like teams where people can talk to each other, in environments where people can authentically look at different points of view in a constructive way and challenge each other in a constructive way, are going to continue to outperform teams that only look at one way, and That's the only way that they do things and in a way that is one of the one of the ways in which I ended up with Tom and with the team at builders, is I could relate very much to this idea that we need to promote more constructive dialog and in our society, in a way, every, every mass system, whether it's social media or traditional media, is almost designed by the economics of it to polarize it. 

So I was, I was very interested in figuring out how to be part of bringing if you want a counter system to bring people together, to promote curiosity, to really promote empathy. I think we call it compassion in the four C's, to have the courage to stand up like that doesn't mean you're going to be run away. In my case, I didn't like just agree with the person and say, I'm going to go back. It's like, No, I had the courage to say, Well, I'm not going anywhere, so let's see how I'm going to get better, and then fuel creativity that you actually need to bridge difficult situations. So I, I related very much with those areas, and I'm a proud founding member and learning every day to do it better.

Marcel Schwantes 12:17

Yeah, those are. Thank you. The anecdotes there of your journey arriving in this country and where you are now is such a testament to, you know, how great this country is for building that kind of diversity and belief in people that they can, you know, they can pretty much do everything they wanted, want to, if they if they believe in themselves and have the right support system around them. Tom, I want to back up a little bit to something I saw on the website, and Jose speak to this as well, if you want. But right across the website, you got this ticker, and it's, it's pretty visual. You can't miss it. And it says, hashtag, we are the 87%

Jesus Mantas 13:00

Explain.

Tom Fishman 13:03

Yeah, so this has a lot to do with what with what builders is, and who it's for. So studies have shown, including this, that 87% comes from our original research, that 87% of Americans with representative samples across the partisan divide, Democrats, Republicans, independents are tired of the divisive politics and want to find a way to cooperatively solve problems together. That's our that's our market as I can we turn that market into a movement? That's the challenge. We're trying to do that every day and showing great progress, but we are the 87% that's the starting point. Is that there's a there's a real market for what we're doing, and our work at builders is to give the 87% a home right there, by and large, homeless, politically homeless, culturally homeless. 

We don't fit into a clean box. We're not on a team that's going to recite the talking points of one side or one person we disagree or push back on the extremes that we hear from multiple sides of different issues that try to reduce them to not just polarization, but What we call toxic polarization, right? Little polarization is fine, right? Disagreement, as Jesus said, is not only natural, but a positive and right in environments where we're looking to be creative together, be generative together. You like a little bit of friction, toxic polarization is land. Nope, it's good versus evil, black and white, zero sum to even consider talking to you, let alone cooperating with you, is unthinkable, because it would be a betrayal of my identity and a betrayal of my tribe. 

That's when polarization becomes toxic, and 87% of Americans reject that, even though it's an enormous fraction of what we see in our feeds and on our TVs and all this stuff. So. We are trying to give that home to the politically and culturally homeless in our movement, create a platform for those voices, right, a voice for the voiceless. Right? This is these, these people, the 87% are not algorithmically rewarded for being nuanced and moderate and having slower, more thoughtful takes, or, God forbid, not having a take at all. So that's the 87% We are builders. Is for the 87% a home for the homeless, politically and culturally, a voice for the voiceless. So that's what we're trying to build.

Jesus Mantas 15:29

And I think is very I mean, you then ask it, but you could say, okay, that's the 87% what's the other 13% and we kind of have a word for that too, which is the dividers, and that the challenge that we are trying to tackle with builders is we naturally. We naturally are attracted to the things that happen in the lowest percent. And I'll give you an example. When we turn on the news, we never hear we have 100 plane landings today. We hear we have one plane crash. So the way in which media is rewarded, because it's the way that we as humans like to consume information is we like things that are new, and the newer, the better, and that happens to always see it in the extremes of every point, right when something is so preposterous that is in one side or another of any issue, everybody pays attention. 

So there is a natural, almost like a natural tendency, that even though 87% of the people agree on common sense solutions, the majority of the information that is being sent to us is from the 13% that have no interest in fixing anything. The only thing that interests them is they get to hijack the medium with their message, because it helps them with their agendas, right? It doesn't necessarily means that it's something I mean, in some cases it may be, there may be an extreme solution that is going to fix an issue that is possible, but that is what the challenge of what we're trying to do lies and is not an insignificant challenge is we are naturally rewarded to always listen to the polarized views because it's more entertaining. Is, is just what we're naturally, you know, designed to do. And that's what excites me about some of the solutions that Tom and the team are working which, which, we're making some headways and some viable ways to actually bridge these gaps. And I, I think is, I mean, we're at the beginning. We have a lot of work to do, but I'm very encouraged by.

Marcel Schwantes 17:53

So, wow, so much I could say here. So Tom, would you say? Is it, is it accurate for me to assume then that 13% of those people that are, you know, are getting sucked into the divide, and the and the ideologies that that create even more divide are maybe it's the media that's pandering to that 13% to keep feeding the machine, because I see so much extreme views right to Jesus point. It's the 13% that is controlling the extreme voices on either side of the political spectrum that is creating these ideologies where it's not really, it's not, it's not a realistic view of like you said, of the 87% that's why we're so tired of it. We wanted to stop, right? But yet, I see that the 13% of the ones that are holding the loudest megaphone, and they hold so much it seems like they hold so much influence, because the media is built to keep us divided?

Tom Fishman 19:01

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. There's, there's a sort of, there's a reality problem, a real problem and a perception problem. What you just described, and what Jesus described so well, isn't it? Is a, isn't an incentives thing that we know about, right? That we know that. Why would people divide like, you know, are they? Yeah, we get philosophical here for a second. Is there's a pure evil. Just do it for the fun of it and be chaotic. Usually not right? Usually there's a power motive or a profit motive. And the way in which our politics and our media ecosystem intersect right now, I think people probably generally have a good, intuitive sense of what that is, but the outrage and that low percentage high entertainment, curiosity. Tawdry that that sort of dynamic that Jesus talked about is algorithmically rewarded, right? We like we get mad, we give it reactions, we comment angrily. 

And the algorithms go, there's a robot. It goes, Okay, I guess people are interested in this thing. Here it is more people. And you know, the more people see. The more ads are, you know, people know, the dynamic more ads that the social platforms serve. They make more money, rinse and repeat, to the detriment of so many of us. Similarly. Then, if you're a politician, you have, you know, our primary system where only the kind of, you know, most entrenched sort of people tend to turn out so they vote for the most extreme candidates, and then those candidates are more interested in becoming social media stars than they are in actually solving problems, because that's how they fundraise, and that's how they keep their jobs. These are human incentives. I say that sort of, even without judgment, we can argue about good or bad. It's just what the incentives are. People want to hang on to their jobs. People want to get attention. People want to right? So these things, it's easy, I think, to look at that and start pointing a finger. It's the politicians fault. It's the platform's fault, right? 

Another discussion we could have, but what we maintain at builders is that we as individuals have a lot of agency around the way in which we intersect with those dynamics, and we have not only the capability, but the duty in our modern sort of ecosystem to become better informed, to know that we Don't just vote every four years, or every two years, even if you're a midterm voter, but you're voting every second of every day with your intention, with the way that you like or comment or share, what you look at, what you read, you know, what you what you elevate. So it's on us to like when I get in a car, it's not the car's fault if I put the seat belt on or not. 

And I think we have to understand, like in our media political ecosystems, what the new guardrails are we need to do. So what we try to do now is to equip people with that kind of we illuminate the dynamics of this problem and the fact that, yes, all of us, in some way, even us three, are, you know, complicit in it sometimes. And it just takes diligence and vigilance. Takes work. We try to demonstrate what alternative means of kind of thinking of cooperation look like. And then we activate people with curricula tools and different ways of getting better at kind of navigating this new ecosystem that we're in. But it starts with us, right? We have to take control of our immediate behaviors in vicinity and start to act with Jesus mentioned the four C's right, with greater curiosity, greater compassion, greater courage and greater creativity in order to counteract those dynamics.

Marcel Schwantes 22:30

Yes, gosh, I want to get into those later in our conversation. But you know, the problem that I see, you're right, it starts with us, and I see that if we're entrenched in our own ideology, and I've seen this play out in workplaces as well. So chime in his if you see this as an issue as well, it's that we stop wanting to interact with, you know, air quotes the other side right, whatever the other side is politically or, I mean, even you know, religiously, or whatever your worldview is, and you don't agree with someone else's worldview, then they become othered, right? 

And so what happens is we avoid them and what, what I know about conflict avoidance, because I'm a, you know, I coach leaders, is that it makes things worse. You just, you build what build up walls, you create silos between departments, people, functions, etc. And then you just, you amplify the divide so guys, and I mean, you have so many tools and strategies for breaking this up. But how do we, if we are to engage people with differing political views? Because, you know, that's going to come into the workplace. That's just the reality, right? People are going to start talking and now you're going to, you're going to start labeling somebody as a MAGA republican or a radical leftist, whatever the label is, you know. So if we're going to start interacting and engaging in discussion, so what's the right way to do it? I mean, how do we get people to come back to the table and start talking again? 

Jesus Mantas 24:13

Yeah, that's a loaded question, right? I kind of start on this one Tom because, you know, I'm very passionate about this specific and I'm going to start I mean, we don't even have to take it to the political different views is any issue in the workplace. Let's say, any decision about funding a project, or any decision about like, who would go where in any decision, you can always have people that have one view of that decision and people that have another view of the decision and as you said, like our natural instinct, especially in large organizations, is to circle the wagons and rally around your point of view. And. And then try to push it through and push through your point of view to get it done. And one of the things that I've worked with in the organizations I've led is a different is a different view, and the way that you do that is creating different habits. So habits are a very important thing of who we become. You know, is the saying is like, you don't become what you wish. You become what you do. So the habits are very important. I created a habit in one of the organizations that we call embrace, diverse perspectives, and what that meant, and those three words were choosing very carefully, embrace is a different word than tolerate. We could have said tolerate diverse perspective, but we didn't say that. 

We said embrace diverse perspectives. And the translation of the habit is in any time that you're going to make a decision, you must actively seek out people that have the opposing view of your decision, and the reason to do that is not to be a good citizen or a good person, is to be a better performer, because when you actually seek out the other side of every decision, is less likely that you're going to take risks or you're going to be blindsided by risk that you never consider. Is going to be less likely that you're going to make mistakes because you didn't think of something. By the way, it doesn't mean that you should be persuaded by their arguments. It means when you're going to make a decision, you will have explore anybody that could tell you you're wrong, and then you will have that information to either still accept your viewpoint or have the humility of maybe saying, Wow, I haven't thought about that, and I was about to make a huge mistake. If I would have made this decision, this would have been a big mistake. 

Now that I've heard everything, I'm actually going to go a different direction. And again, the purpose of this is not to be better human beings. Is to be better performers, is to actually win more. Win grow more. Whatever the objective is, is to perform better. So this idea of forming a habit is really important. I think the other point that Tom said is very important is sometimes we get the solution because we say, Oh, we can change how the world works, or we can change how 100 people work. And that is true, but this idea of taking agency, of saying, but you have the power to in any given situation, you can either amplify the issue, or you can mitigate the issue. And that's your agency. That's your power. You don't need anybody's permission to do that. So this idea of the personal habits where you say, Okay, before I'm going to make a decision, I'm going to have the humility to not assume I'm always right. And I'm actually going to seek out the people that actually are trying to kill my idea, and I'm going to them, and I'm going to say, Why do you want to kill my idea, because maybe I learned something, or maybe I won't, but at least I'll be certain that I have listened to every point that may make my idea a bad a bad thing in the future.

Marcel Schwantes 28:12

Yeah, that's why the power of curiosity that speaks so highly to me, and that's such a leadership strength. Go Tom.

Tom Fishman 28:19

No, you hit it on the head. We were in the same place. I think if your listeners underline anything from actively seeking out different perspectives, steel Manning your own arguments, even if you, as Jesus said, You might land where you started, but your argument will be stronger, or you might evolve it based on new information. Either way, you win. So starting with curiosity is such a good one to that that so I mentioned before that, right? I talked about there's a reality problem and a perception problem. I talked about the reality of incentives and the ways in which the perception problem has to do, in some ways, with what our another of our founding partners, the social scientist, Dr J van Babel, over at NYU calls the fun house mirror, right? We actually when we're able to decouple from just entrenched positions, and I'm talking about the SEC, right? Because that can mean political positions, or it can mean being in love with your own idea in the workplace, and that I'm in love with a solution that you know, as opposed to the best way to solve a problem when we can decouple from that and focus on common needs, values and concerns, right? 

We all have similar needs, values and concerns in our homes, in our communities, often at our workplaces. Right to improve the performance of our organizations and our teams and our culture that focus reveals incredible hidden common ground. And there are the study after study shows that both on policy issues and on core value issues, builders ran a study that showed that nine out of 10 Democrats and nine out of 10 Republicans agreed on. A list of what we consider to be core American values, that a government should be representative of its people, that a government should be accountable to its people, that the rule of law should be fairly and equally applied, that we should learn from the past to improve the future. All these things that we agree on, but each side and the symmetry was amazing. 

Only believed that about 25, 30% of the other side would agree. So that misinterpretation of how much we have in common means that our starting point is much on much less solid ground than we think it might be, and that perception gap makes us think that a real problem in polarization is actually much worse than it is and much more intractable than it is that that there's not a pathway for us to start to do everything from filling the potholes that we all run over on Main Street to solving enormous, you know, potential crises that the technological, the environmental, the social, the political, all these things, we have to have that sort of common ground to build from. 

And I think that really applies at the workplace, when we realize workplace, when we realize, hey, we're all on the same team, the rising tide here is going to lift all boats. So I need to decouple from my entrenched position on a strategy or on a tactic or on a pathway, on how to move forward, and start to think about if we have common needs, values and concerns in terms of the success of our organization. All of a sudden I'm much more open to differing ideas and less attached to talking points. So that openness that Jesus is talking about becomes much more available to us when we're starting from a point of common cause. Yeah, finding that common cause takes courage. That can be scary, you know? And I think that that's scary in the political sense. It can be scary at work. It can be scary in our own living rooms, our own Thanksgiving tables, right? So that that is just a layer I would add, is to not give in to the perception that we don't have commonality, that we don't have common cause, that we don't have common needs, values and concerns. Yeah,

Marcel Schwantes 32:01

I love that. And really, what you're speaking to is really building your self-awareness. It's understanding, it's really yes self-awareness and knowing that if you hop off this, this, this train of confirmation bias, trying to find more facts and trying to, trying to prove that you're right and they're wrong. If you hop off that train, make the choice to want to lean in more towards, you know, talking to somebody that you disagree with. To your point, I have seen this, and it's like magic. You realize that you have much more in common than you do differences, if you just start to talk that there's more common humanity there in the conversation. I've seen this play out in my own life and with a with a relative that has a different way of seeing the world than I do. But we were, you know, we were, we were sort of like subscribing to our own ideologies, until we got together and decided to talk about it, and that's when the wall started to break down. Do we agree on everything? Of course not. We still don't, but we chose to dignify the other person and respect the other person's opinions, and really make the choice to live with our differences, but at least have a relationship and knowing that now we can actually interact with one another and talk about other things that we agree on,

Tom Fishman 33:42

Personally, just congratulations, you earned your builder badge. That's like, that's one of the hardest things to do, is to but the another social scientific principle, contact theory, which tells us it's hard to hate up close, is true. So the work to be in community with people, there's a whole spectrum of benefits that come from that work. And we've talked a lot about, I think, the amazing sort of the far end of the upside, which is innovative solutions, better performance, better cooperation, more productive cooperation, more functional society. That's the end goal. That's the North Star. But all the way at the way at the other end of the spectrum of benefits, at minimum, is sort of, is violence prevention, is dehumanization prevention, even if we often have the experience where you come together and your opinions don't move at all, you know, but you've heard somebody and realized, hey, this person is complex. They've lived a life. I might have, I might believe the same things as they do, if I grew up where they did or what the same parents they had, like these. There's a humanization that happens from that proximity, that, at minimum, allows us to maintain each other's humanity. And that's the starting point. And then from there. We can seek out the even greater upsides of builders mindset and builder behavior.

Marcel Schwantes 35:07

Yeah, gentlemen, I saw on your web, speaking of bias, I read on your website somewhere Tom that toxic polarization can be explained mainly by negativity bias. There's a lot of research on that. And you know that's just our tendency to focus more on the negative than the positive. Are we caught in this cycle now? Or is this trap of falling into negativity bias, where people are now just tuned in to more, almost to say, Are we addicted to negativity is a better, a better term.

Tom Fishman 35:44

I mean, you look at the way that, I don't know, I guess it's a good question. I think addicted to negativity feels a little too far, because I think what we're talking about is something Jesus mentioned before that that there's a human nature to this, right? There's probably something evolutionary about paying attention to the fringier but most negative things, because we probably survive by, you know, in some way, by paying attention to those things, as opposed to, you know, hey, another, another day in the, you know, prehistoric Earth, right? It didn't get eaten by a lion. Like, if that's all you're paying attention to, you gotta, you know, whereas the people who survived were probably worried, and I think that, you know, so I hesitate to call it an addiction, more than sort of an aspect of our nature. We pay attention to the negative. Are those things exacerbated by some of the Eco systemic things which we're subject to, in particular social media platforms. 

Do those platforms take advantage of human nature in that way. I don't know. I mean, I think that it's, again, I'm going to stop short of a judgment call, but they surely do tap into our desire to have the slot machine of content and to see the most tawdry and the most extreme and the most outrageous. We know that to be true, and I don't think that. You know, I spent time at Facebook, as I mentioned, and when, when I, when I worked there for a couple of years, I didn't see a group of diabolical people like in robes figuring out how to addict people. I saw the best and brightest from across a bunch of organizations trying to connect the world. And I saw the upside of that being, you know, what's a good example? If there are, you know, there are diseases in the world that are quite rare, that maybe 1000 people have them. 

They're scattered all over the earth, and they find each other and find community through the platforms that we have, you know, I think there's the you know, movements, whatever we think of them, like, you know, like, like me too, right? Bringing, you know, women's plight in sort of the workplace for many years to the or there's, there's immeasurable value of connection and movement building and community finding that happens to the platforms. This is like, it's like the emissions or the runoff of a new technology is that they tap into something very basic about us. And I also think polarization is really, is really complex, right? 

And we're seeing this now increasingly, I think post-election in particular, you know, here at builders, we've focused a lot on political polarization as one pipe, right, the sort of left, right, red, blue, Democrat, Republican. But there are many kinds of axes of polarization. I think this sort of populist establishment, sort of populist elite polarization is coming to the fore. So the inherent complexity of the causes. Is it nature? Is it nurture? It's my it's my nature as both a business person and, you know, an erstwhile physics student, to try to simplify problems, and to me, the simplest way to start with the way that we interact with our environment, with all these axes of polarization, polarization is with our own behavior, and going back to that agency, what do I control about my mindset? 

What do I control about the way that I do show that curiosity and actively seek other viewpoints? What do I how can I be compassionate across lines of difference to people who lived a different life than me and landed somewhere else? How can I be courageous about holding space for them the way that you did Marcel with your relative? And how can I ultimately be creative about solving problems together with these people in the best case scenario? That's how I control and that's how I simplify a really complex knot of problems.

Marcel Schwantes 39:13

Yeah, I want to get into problem solving. How to be more creative things of that nature. So hold me accountable to this. But I wanted to first ask Jesus, a question, as one of the founders, and you have seen this process of evolution, and so my question is, what are the biggest lessons that you have learned so far, seeing from where you started to where you are now, what stands out for you?

Jesus Mantas 39:45

I think, is this, some of these things that we're saying, like, you know, have a habit of embracing diverse perspectives, or having this control agency is extremely hard thing to do. Like, they sound really simple. They sound very large. Political but they're intrinsically almost against some of our encoded human nature and in a test that I would propose everybody to do is whichever your political affiliation is, just try to watch the other side of the media for a week, and I did this, right? So, so I went, you know, typically, you know, one side. So I said, like, Oh, this is, this seems like a really good practice. And the visceral reaction that you have the very first day when you're hearing these things, and it's like, your entire body kind of like, like, raises up, and you almost want to, like, you really want to harm the person. How can you be saying these things? This is absolutely crazy and but you have to have the discipline to say, No, I'm going to stay listening. I'm going to stay listening. I'm going to stay listening. And that is incredibly hard to do. 

And once you do it the second day, the third day, then there is this kind of, like, you know, a little bit of light to say, like, wow. So if somebody is actually listening to this and hearing this and seeing these facts, you start seeing more of the logic to those points of view. And then you start understanding that somebody who spends as much day as you spend with the other side of the argument listening to this side of the arguments, they would rationally be persuaded by those arguments, and they're not a bad person for doing that. They're just listening to a way to depict reality that is different from yours and this idea of not presuming that people are good or bad just because they agree with you or disagree with you, but just learning that the influence of what we all listen to every day, by definition, form our biases, and that is really hard to have, like that discipline to say, 

Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna now go to the other side and Hear the other point of view. And if I would think this way, and I would heard this, could I reach to the same conclusion that those other people are reaching that a minute ago, I thought it was the craziest idea in the world. More often than not, you actually answer yes to that question. You say yes. So I think, I think doing that is a really, really, really hard thing to do. It becomes like emotional. It becomes personal. And that's why this idea of the personal journey of not pretending that this is really easy but really trying to empower people to say you really want to want to do this, because we can't make you do it is harder than everybody thinks. 

And I think this idea that we need to create a movement of people who become better at this, and start showcasing people that actually solved problems and actually transcended into that, you know, level of empathy of you, one which is this combination of curiosity, compassion, courage and the creativity to see new ways, right? Then you start thinking, Okay, well, maybe there is a way that it takes some points from here, some points from here, and it's a better solution. I think, I think showcasing people that are very good, and showcasing every habit, every effort, every mechanism for everybody to adopt it, it's been one of the, one of the thrusts of the organization, to really, really get everybody there. 

Marcel Schwantes 43:58

Tom, anything you want to add here?

Tom Fishman 44:01

Firstly, I'm just grateful to Jesus, like your articulation of this stuff, and in particular, the honesty about how it feels, um, right, the fact that it brings up anger. Uh, that's everybody, like everybody feels that way. This is such hard work and to actually empathize with the other side, in any context, political or otherwise, it's a form of it's a form of exercise, right? Like it's a it strengthens you, but it's hard. And I think that that's, that's a really great thing to acknowledge. I think the other piece, something that I really realized in our evolution, is that the builders mindset, by and large, is about the how. It's not a comprehensive theory of life. It doesn't account for the what, right. You can be a Democrat builder, a Republican builder, a pro choice builder, a pro life builder, a white builder or a black builder or a Mexican builder. Aura. It's not it's about how you approach the opportunity of conflict and friction, and not about what you believe. And for very many people, that tension is really hard because it feels like I cannot focus on the how at all, because the what is so concerning to me in particular, right? These are, there are common objections to the work, right? 

And we might find from a from people from a marginalized community, or fighting for rights, fighting for fighting for equality. It's like, How can I think about curiosity, about encouraging creativity? My house is on fire, right? I feel, I feel endangered by my current situation, and thinking about the work that we do as building fireproof neighborhoods, right? That is a secondary thought to putting out the fire in my house sometimes. And I think just being honest about that is that the way in which people approach the work, everybody's comfort zone is a different size and shape based on the life that they've lived. And all we ask is that you push the boundaries of it to strengthen yourself. That'll look different for me and for you Marcel, and for you Jesus, and for any number of our audiences, and not expecting everybody to go to the most extreme degree of the work all the time. Because, as Jesus said, it's very hard, right? A black member of our community, might ask. 

And this has come up, okay, are you asking me to empathize with a KKK member, a Jewish member of our community might ask, Am I empathizing with Nazis? Like these objections come across all the time, and the answer is, of course, not. Are KKK members and Nazis completely you know? Is it is a redemption arc, impossible, a conversation for another day. What we are asking you to do is just seek out a little bit of information that generally you consider to be in contrast with your own. Just hold space for people, not to put yourself in some extreme situation in harm's way. We need to so the yin and the yang of peacemaking and justice seeking, of agitation and reconciliation, of galvanizing and connection, you need both. 

And what we really focus on is the how we want Democrats to insist that their representatives be builder Democrats, right, not that they change their pot, right? There's still a great hearty debate to be had about the what, across all number of issues politically, across all number of ideas, you know, at work or in our living rooms or in our houses of faith that those debates are fine. This is about the how, and I think when we can embrace that, the how exists, that the builders mindset exists alongside our advocacy and our activism, whatever it is, not because, ASU said, it's a nice thing to do, but because it creates the opportunity to forge durable solutions, to be persuasive, to be convincing, to move forward on the path to progress, arm in arm with people that you disagree with. Right? This thing we have of our, you know, our executive branch coming in and, like, each one wipes out all the executive orders of the last one, and then, like, you know, another one comes in and they wipe out all the executive orders and write a bunch of new ones. We are meant to legislate through the hard slog of negotiation in Congress, right? So this is about the how. It's about forging durable solutions across lines of difference. But it doesn't determine the what. It determines the how. Yeah, yeah. Hey,

Jesus Mantas 48:38

Marcel, I want to, I want to double-click on a really important point that Tom mentioned, which I think is sometimes in the question. It illustrates the problem. You know, when we put a label on something, we almost assign 100% of that label to that person. So, so let's go with the point of Nazi, it's like, oh, well, this person is a Nazi and somehow that that is a stereotype of 100% one way. But I think learning to understand that most, if not everything, in the universe and in life is all about probabilities, and there is rarely 100% or 0% of anything. It's all a range of colors than saying, you know, when you actually are calling someone a Nazi is, what does that mean? Because, you know, in the in the in the past election, there have been many cases where it says like, oh, in this, you know, get together, they were all Nazis. 

And I would go there. It's like, I don't think, I don't think these people are Nazis. Like, I mean, we use this label, and suddenly we, we immediately by this question, by like, Well, I'm a Jew. Are you saying that I need to empathize with a Nazi? You're already polarizing. That's. Free before you even you've turned right so, and it's like, well, take the label out. Can we talk about this person? Let's talk about this person. There may be some things that they do that they're of Nazis, and then, like, if their objection is like, no, then you don't need but there's a lot of people that maybe they would be labeled as is that they're actually not. And I think you need to get underneath this habit. That's why it becomes a habit of saying, Well, you've got to be careful with labeling people, right? 

So they didn't know when I came to this country, they didn't know how to label me because I kind of sounded Mexican, but I wasn't Mexican, and was a European, but I didn't sound like one. It's like they didn't know where to put me right. So I think, I think part of this idea of just being careful how, yeah, the question is being framed may already have a polarized bias before you even trying to get to it right. And I think it's very important for people, and that's why, you know, this comes up all the time. It's like, well, and frankly, Daniel does a great job illustrate of his own experience with his father, how hard it is to like, empathize or trying to understand people that have harmed somebody. 

So imagine a situation where, you know, somebody dries, dies because somebody was driving under the influence, and then you would have to talk to that person. I mean, that would be the toughest thing that anybody would have to do, right? But, you know? I mean, you should have labeled that. You should actually understand what you know, what was the circumstance? What do you do about it? What is it actually going to help? Right? So this idea of, you know, trying to approach situations from a move forward perspective, as opposed to punish the past, I love, I love an analogy from tennis, you know, feather said once I think, is like, when the point is behind you, the point is behind you, that is no sense of keep replaying that point that you lost in your head. The only thing you can do right now is to play the next point. So this idea of moving forward to actually solve whatever you're trying to solve, being very vigilant not to framing what you're trying to resolve as an already polarized option. 

Tom Fishman 52:26

I think it's very helpful. That's right? The labels issues that you're describing, right? They let us, they immediately let us off the hook of doing the hard work. When I say, okay, Nazi, Nope, don't have to. Don't have to, right? I give them the label pure evil, right? The standard, right? And this happens all the time. If I Oh, you know, you see these things Nazis and groomers and communist you know, it's just these labels that let us off the hook. Nope, they're the they're the storm troopers. They're all they all look the same. They all think the same. They all wear the same uniform. There's no faces, just masks. That's dehumanizing. Okay, so as you mentioned, Daniel, that's Daniel Lubezki, our founder, who's best known as from, you know, founding kind snacks and, you know, Shark Tank has this incredible career of Bucha the for profit and the nonprofit side. And Daniel's father is a Holocaust survivor. 

And Daniel often tells the story, I encourage your listeners to go find his TED talk he just did this year where he tells he relates this story. His father and their family escaped the Dachau concentration camp because of a superintendent of a building who was by and large, extremely cruel, but showed a moment of kindness. And the kernel there is that even that person had it in them somewhere, you know, to not that that person, even that person, was not 100% evil, right? So to Jesus's point about probabilities, this, but this is quite hard, because our platforms train us to do this when they're short, character limit wise, when they're fast, when they reward the labeling, and it's like they don't reward saying, Well, maybe they're not all bad. They reward saying that person's a Nazi. 

So these labels, it's such a good insight, we have to resist the temptation, even for people we find really objectionable, people with really objectionable views, if we don't rebuild the muscle to look beyond the label and find again, common needs, values and concerns, right? Then it just it becomes mutually exclusive, like the opportunity for problem solving. It cuts it off completely at the start, and then we can sit in the comfort of our, you know, kind of I'm on the good team and they're on the bad team. And that is just not a recipe for problem solving.

Marcel Schwantes 54:46

Yeah. And speaking of problem solving, let's go into a quick problem solving round. And Jesus, I want you to bring this back to the workplace. And really application, okay, how do we build bridges and stop the. COVID at work in business.

Jesus Mantas 55:02

Yeah, you have to start with building habits, right? So I'm a big believer that you don't change cultures. Cultures are the consequence of changing habits and behaviors and a value system that rewards those habits and behaviors in a consistent way. So, so, as I mentioned, one of the examples is, is, is this habit that I have implemented in in in one of our groups that is called, you know, just reaching out. Just make sure that before you're going to make any decision, actually reach out, like, make a list of the people that disagree with you. These are the people that typically you would always avoid. You would always trying to block them to diminish their power. They manage their like, you know, it's like you don't want them to talk to anybody, because you want your way to go forward. 

And we're telling people do the opposite. Like, actually do the opposite, which is really, really hard, because it goes and think about that, as Tom said, this is encoded very deeply in our fight or flight response that evolution has built on us as a way to survive. Is you stay away from anything. You immediately see a situation, you evaluate if it is a threat, if it's not a threat, and once you determine it's a threat, you're either going forward to attack it or you're going backward to avoid it. So we're telling people, you're not going to do that. You're actually going to go forward to understand that, which is very anti nature. 

And we do that, and I think you convince people to do this because it will raise performance. So it's the idea of you don't stay away from your weakness. You actually leaning on your weakness until become a strength. I think the argument for people to do this, the one that works the better for me is performance and economic advantage. I think business is a very powerful force for change. And therefore, if you can turn this into a habit that is good for business, then it's good for change. And I think the byproduct is everybody gains more agency in the organization itself become a better performing organization. The other byproduct that you have of this is much better risk management is when you're embracing orthogonal views or different views, is less likely that you're going to make bad decisions or you're going to be blindsided by risk that you then consider, because the more diversity of options, the less likely is that you're not going to do that right. 

So, so it has a lot of like positive performance and business elements to it, to adopt these behaviors, and that, I think that that's what I would recommend everybody is really hard to tell people just be good for goodness sake. It is really doesn't create a call to action. It doesn't create, you know, any kind of discipline for it. But most of us, intrinsically, are motivated to be better at whatever we do every day. That's why, even though it's really hard to, like, run a marathon, people work out every day. I mean, it's just like, it's what you do, because your desire to be better at something is superior to the actual fact that you have to get up and go to work out and, you know, take the time, and it sometimes hurts, right? So I think, I think that's the argument that I would recommend, is don't make this just to be good. Just make this to be better, just better performing at life, at your business, at whatever projects you do. When you adopt these mindsets, you're probably going to outperform others. You're going to do better.

Marcel Schwantes 58:52

That's great. All right, gentlemen. As we wind down here to our closing questions, we like to ask the love question, right? So sticking with themes we've discussed about breaking down divisiveness and really killing toxicity in the workplace or in the world at large, okay, Tom, I'll start with you. How do I lead myself with more actionable love, day in and day out? 

Tom Fishman 59:22

Yeah, so we mentioned before, right? We've talked a lot about the four C's, curiosity, compassion, courage and creativity and those, not always, but often, happen in an order. I think curiosity is a great starting point. And as we've dug into what exactly that means, seeking out other perspectives, introspection, Asus hit on a word that I want to underline here, that I think is a great way to lead with love, and that is humility. When we're willing to have the intellectual humility to understand that we can have passionate convictions but be open to hearing how sort of other people have not landed on the same convictions we have. When we have the humility to know that we are not possessed of some divine knowledge and moral superiority, but that different people who grew up in different places with different values can land in very different places and have every intention of wanting many of the same things. 

We want those American values, their health, their family to be safe, to be able to go to the doctor, and for their kids to do a little better than they did, these things that are kind of part of the fabric of the American dream, when we know we want those same things, but we're humble enough to understand that people want to get them in a different way. That's just such a important starting point. When we start from a place of superiority, of radical certainty that closes off so much from the beginning. And I think humility, it's sort of inherent in that is giving a little bit of yourself to someone and be willing, being willing to accept a little bit of them at the starting point. So Humility is a great starting point.

Marcel Schwantes 1:00:55

Jesus?

Jesus Mantas 1:00:58

Yeah, I think it's okay if I recommend the book. So I'm going to recommend the book to all of your listeners. Here is from another one of our builders founding partners is from Adam Grant, and the book title is, think again, I think he does a phenomenal job in that book at dissecting and providing very practical advice of what to do when you think you're so certain on something, you're so committed to your believe or to your fact or to your way of doing things as the title says, think again, and what are the mechanisms that you can use to check your own beliefs, and eventually, as the world is changing so fast, being able to actually keep up with the fact that some of those beliefs that were formed term 1520, years ago in a very different world with very different possibilities with very different standards may no longer be right, but we all instinctively have that you know desire to be right and how to exchange or moderate the desire to be right and change it for the desire to do right, to actually do something that works, as opposed to being right. But maybe that's not going to work. I think it's a fantastic job. So I think more than me explaining it, I would recommend anybody who really wants to develop a very good habit of persuading others and checking yourselves and being able to effectively know when to hold your way of thinking and when to be open to change it. That book Think again is a great tool.

Marcel Schwantes 1:02:54

Great, great recommendation. All right, gentlemen, bring us home. What is that one thing you would like us to walk away with? Tom, I'll start with you again.

Tom Fishman 1:03:06

Marcel, such a great conversation. Jesus, always so good to see you and get to talk to you guys about this stuff. I'd love for your listeners to dig deeper. If these concepts are interesting and resonant, go check out builders movement.org you'll get access to a bunch of from there. You able to find us on social media. You can join our movement. Start to receive our newsletter. Get equipped with the inspiration and tools to start to approach this really tough work every day, and you can learn much more about our programs. We have many things in the education space, from a polarization detox challenge to a builders Crash Course all the way to work we're doing in the civic space to actually convene people at the state level to solve really intractable, tangible problems using the builders mindset. You can learn a ton more at builders movement.org and yeah, let's, let's try to be builders in 2025.

Marcel Schwantes 1:03:59

Beautiful, beautiful. How about you?

Jesus Mantas 1:04:02

Yeah, I think, I think, I think this personal work of developing the muscle of empathy, right? It's it takes, it takes work, and it takes different, different ways to do it is this idea of putting yourself in the shoes of other, right? Which is a way to define what empathy is it for me, what it worked? You know, I mentioned when, when I came to the United States, and I realized that the image of myself that I had in my brain and the image of myself that other person had in their brain, they were very different, and that was like an interesting personal realization to say, wow, I like, I know who I am, and somehow I assume that everybody else sees myself the same way I see myself. And just that. Meant to say, actually, that's not true. 

Like every single individual have a slightly different version of me in their brain when they look at me, and then one accept that that is like, that is not an absolute, that everybody else that you're interacting with has a very different version of you, and then learn the tools of okay, so then, how do you, how do you help those people evolve the image of you, to be closer to what you think the image of you is, and vice versa? Is there something you are not seeing of yourself that they're seeing, that you need to do to change the image of yourself, that curiosity, to have that that humility, that it takes to kind of realize that you may think something of yourself, but many other people think something very different, and then being able to use curiosity, compassion, courage and creativity to help bridge those gaps. 

Help them see what you see. Help them for you to see what they see. I think it's a very, very helpful life skill. I think it will make everybody better at almost anything you do, because pretty much everything we do in society depends on interacting with other people, and that is universal. It's like every other person that you interact whether it's for like, three seconds, or whether it's for a lifetime, they still have an image of you in their brain that is slightly different than the one you have, and every day you've got to try to bridge it. So that has been very helpful for me.

Marcel Schwantes 1:06:35

Gentlemen, I can't thank you enough. I think this has been a very important conversation in the today and age that we are in, and so thank you so much for all the lessons that we've learned. Folks get involved. Go to the builders movement website. I'm going to have that in my show notes. Thank you again, folks for Tom and Jose, I'm sorry. Let me do that again. Thank you again, folks. For Tom and Jesus, I'm Marcel Schwantes. You can find all the information from today's episode on my website, marcelschwantes.com We'll see you next time and remember, love wins. Take care.