A tribute to 9/11: how conversation can bring us together
No matter where I am in the world, I will always find a way to honor September 11th. After all, our first BRAVE Conversation® over coffee was in honor of 9/11. A day like today asks something of us: not to take sides, but to take responsibility.
Because there's too much Left vs. Right, Us vs. Them. If you're not with us, you're against us. But in fact, the reflex to take sides is the opposite of leadership.
Ray Dalio, in Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order, shows that great powers don’t fall because of one external enemy; they collapse when they turn inward. They collapse when the system turns on itself. When polarization becomes the operating system—when people take sides over and over—it erodes trust, drains resources, and eventually tears the system apart. Sound familiar?
And neuroscience tells the same story for us individually and at work:
• fMRI scans show that polarization lights up our amygdala (threat detection) while shutting down the medial prefrontal cortex (empathy and perspective-taking).
• Motivated reasoning shows that once our identity is tied to a side, we don’t process facts—we protect our team.
• Culture erodes when disagreement at work isn't safe, it reduces productivity, collaboration, and innovation. People stop believing in we and start protecting me.
• APA stress research confirms that division is now one of the top drivers of anxiety, depression, and sleep loss in the U.S.—with downstream health costs measured in lives lost.
So polarization doesn’t just lead to war, societal decline, and stalled innovation. It leads to disconnection, disease, and despair.
Here’s the other path: conversation.
As my teacher Dr. Dan Siegel, father of Interpersonal Neurobiology, taught me: the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our life. And the smallest building block of a relationship is the conversation.
That’s why I tell leaders again and again: “culture isn’t a training, it’s in every conversation.” Offsites, keynotes, personality workshops—these don’t work because they skip the foundation. The real lever to create change is the smallest unit: conversation.
Right now, the quality of our conversations is collapsing. At work—accelerated by AI. In politics. At home. We can call it a leadership crisis or a cultural crisis, but I believe at the core we face a conversation crisis.
But the good news is: that gives us our power back. It gives us skills we can build, habits we can practice, and a clear direction for turning intention into impact.
Today, as I honor those we lost on September 11th, I hope you’ll join me in committing to this:
• Standards. Not sides.
• Neighbors. Not enemies.
• Outreach. Not outrage.
Blaming the “other side” is the easy way out. That's not what leaders do. That enemy will always be there if we want it. This is about choosing differently. About self-responsibility. About choosing to show up as the person who leads others into the future.
That’s what The BRAVE® Framework is built for. (This is why I want to scream about it from rooftops!!) Alumni tell us that their BRAVE conversations® unlock underperformers, create unshakable trust in hypergrowth chaos, and rewire brains and teams to turn toward conflict with curiosity and support—the foundations of performance, productivity, and progress.
BRAVE® conversations are the smallest, repeatable act that builds (or rebuilds) trust at scale. Having a framework to follow ensures that we have the skills to make disagreement safe, decision-making faster, and progress possible.
Conversation is the infrastructure of progress. It’s the building block of a future we can live in—together.
So from today forward: if you lead, lead the conversation. Not against someone. Toward something.
Bravely,
Elisabeth
