04/04/2026
Weekend Reflections #31: How to shift a conversation without making it a fight
We’ve been teaching the bias card game in a few places lately and I keep hearing the same sort of feedback. People say it helps them talk about bias, prejudice and discrimination without anyone feeling like they’ve just been put on the spot. It stays light enough that people don’t shut down, but it still gets to real stuff. Kids can play it, adults don’t get to hide behind big words, and it gives people a way to notice their own patterns without the shame spiral.
And then I open my phone and it’s the opposite experience, no rules, no tone, just vibes and a comment section with a thirst for blood.
This week someone tried to back me into a political position online, one of those set-ups where any answer is wrong because the goal is a gotcha, or a screenshot. I could feel myself doing that little internal scan, do I ignore it, do I answer it, do I explain the role again, do I end up in the weeds arguing about something that isn’t even what they’re asking. It’s exhausting, and it’s also a very effective way to drag people into harder and harder positions, because the only moves on offer are silence, anger, or an essay nobody came for.
I’ve also been hearing really diverse perspectives on the election result. People reading the same outcome and saying completely different things about what it means, and what it says about us. Some of it is anger, some of it is fear, some of it is fatigue. Under the politics there’s a lot of real struggle, housing, cost of living, access to services, feeling ignored until you shout. When people feel cornered in life, they start cornering each other. That’s not an excuse for cruelty, but it does explain why the temperature keeps rising.
I listened to an interview on Diary of a CEO with Chase Hughes and he talked about a simple way to think about shifting minds and behaviour: perception, context, permission. I’ve been chewing on that, because it fits what I’m seeing, both with global politics and with mental health discrimination.
Perception is the story someone thinks is true. About politics, about other groups, about mental health, about who is “dangerous” or “lazy” or “making excuses”. Context is what the room rewards, what gets a laugh, what gets shut down, what gets you accepted. Permission is the part people forget. Most people don’t change because they lost an argument and they certainly don’t change if they’re accused of being stupid or an “ist”. They change when they’re validated for the reason they might think that way and given a way to change without being humiliated.
That’s where I think tools like the bias card game are genuinely useful. They create a sort of social safety that makes it possible for someone to go, hang on, I’ve never thought about it like that, without feeling like they’ve just been exposed. People can say something clunky, learn, try again. It also helps with self-stigma, because it quietly normalises the idea that we all absorb bias, and that having it isn’t a moral failure, just part of being human.
We keep hoping facts will do the job on their own. Sometimes they do. Often they don’t. Often what shifts things is whether the person can step back without losing face.
I don’t have a neat ending for this, except maybe a small intention for the week ahead. I’m trying to be someone who offers an exit ramp. Online, in a room, in a conversation where someone’s dug in. I’ll never tolerate racism or harm, and I’m not pretending extremes are harmless, but I do want to make it easier for someone to climb down if they’re ready. The world could do with a bit more of that.
Podcast link here if you want it: https://spotify.pulse.ly/ltenk7tmw7
Just a personal reflection, not advice, and not a substitute for professional support
