Leaders Make the Future, 2nd Edition

6 Constructive Depolarizing

Ability to calm tense situations where differences dominate and communication has broken down— and bring people from divergent cultures toward positive engagement.

Very little good has ever been done by the absolute shall. ANONYMOUS CLERGYMAN IN THE ERA OF PROHIBITION¹

NEUROLOGIST ROBERT BURTON is studying the neuroscience of certainty. He writes: “Despite how certainty feels, it is neither a conscious choice nor even a thought process. Certainty and similar states of ‘knowing we know’ arise out of involuntary brain mechanisms that, like love and anger, function independently of reason.”²

Burton’s conclusions show ...