In this 10‑minute facilitated session, Serenity Leadership’s CEO Tom Dennis introduces systemically trained coach Edward Nelson, whose background spans charity conflict work, policing, and diversity‑inclusion program design. Nelson draws on his Cold‑War childhood in Moscow to frame his exploration of polarity – the pull between opposing ideas or identities – as a powerful, inevitable force in human interaction. He explains why people gravitate toward polarities: they simplify complex issues, generate motivating energy, and provide a comforting sense of certainty and clarity. After outlining these attractions, Nelson leads a brief grounding exercise that asks participants to focus on the sensations in their feet and breath, creating mental space before engaging contentious topics. He then demonstrates a practical “negative‑positive articulation” exercise, using the stereotype of British people as an example: participants list negative attributes, then deliberately generate plausible positive counterparts, thereby exposing the incompleteness of each side and creating room for nuance. Building on this, Nelson offers three advanced strategies: (1) amplify the underlying unity in a debate (e.g., shared desire for less murder in the death‑penalty discussion), (2) uncover the personal story that fuels each side’s position, and (3) stay consciously aware of the process you are using, recognizing when you are amplifying your own narrative versus the other’s. He concludes by encouraging participants to first amplify their own side before extending compassion, reminding them that conflict work is rarely about a perfect middle but about navigating and integrating opposing forces. The session ends with a brief Q&A and closing remarks from both hosts.
Chapters
Welcome, everybody. My name is Tom Dennis. I'm the CEO of Serenity Leadership and we're a premier conflict resolution, culture integration and change specialists. I'd like to introduce our speaker, Edward Edwards, a systemically trained coach who was qualified in multiple coaching modalities. I first met him in the environment of a shared passion we both have for systemic constellations. He spent the first part of his career working in the charity sector around conflict and change, and went on to work with the Met Police and the Independent Police Complaints Commission. He uses his expertise in radical inclusion, designing and delivering diversity and inclusion programs in the UK and abroad. His MSc is in conflict resolution. And we're really looking forward to hearing your ideas around polarization and conflict. Edward, the stage is yours.
Lovely. Great. Excellent. Thanks for the intro, Tom. I hope it'll be something that I can live up to. Is quite a few different strings to that path that got me here. So my original beginnings, probably as a child of the Cold War, growing up for a little while in Moscow in the early 1980s, which was a very interesting experience. And I think, you know, a lot of things shape us and our worldview, so I would probably put a bit of that interesting conflict resolution down to. Down to that. And so today I wanted to talk about a particular aspect of that which is working with the power of polarity and how we can unpack it to work with conflict in a. In a healthy way where we need to. And so that's the hope. And I think my kind of starting point is that I'd like to suggest we could polarize a little bit more as a way to get through it. And I want to share a few ideas about why and how that is. So I wanted to do that today. And I partly think that a lot of us are afraid of polarization, especially if we see ourselves as people who work with people. We like to think of ourselves as considerate, caring and thoughtful and able to take in different sides. And yet at the same time, I doubt if any one of us has not been polarized at some point in the last 12 months by whatever topic it happens to be. And so I wanted to bring in some room for how that can happen and how we can then go into it more to be insightful and actually to work with what is a very common experience of being polarized. I don't know if that's familiar. If I asked you how many of you have been polarized in the last 12 months? You know, you could give me an indication with a. With a head nod or a Wave or something like that. But it'd be really interesting to see it touches us all at some level, I would suggest. So I think that's the thing about polarization is that they get our attention. And I think I would like to give it a little bit more attention today. You know, that's partly what they do. They have. They have energy. So today I want to talk about three things, which is the appeal of polarities and their power. Then I want to do an exercise to explore one in as. As safe a way as such an edgy topic can be. And then I'll leave you with a few thoughts about what else we can do to work with, with polarity and conflict more generally as a takeaway. And I'm going to aim to do that in the next 10 minutes before we put you back into pairs. So appreciate this might be a lot of content. So the essence, I think, you know, looking at polarity is there is no doubt whether it's good or bad, but there's no doubt that polarities come with a sense of energy and that that energy comes from the tension of opposites. We don't, when we talk about polarity, we don't just talk about random things. We look at things that are usually opposite or connected along in some way. Right. Those are where polarities really come out. There's also a connection as well as the opposites. And for, according to Jung, it's necessary to discover the opposite attitude of your unconscious mind. And I wanted to explore how we can do that to release us a little bit from the times when we do get polarized. And in order to do that effectively, I think it's worth pointing out why they're so attractive. And so the first is they simplify complexity. So we probably all experience this. We see it very clearly in politics, in referendums, we deal with very complicated issues. And 2 party politics simplifies this. Referendums, for better or worse, simplify very complex things. And we fall foul of something called the binary bias, that when we're faced with something beyond our comprehension, we quickly look for a way of simplifying it to an either or, this or that, right or wrong. And that gives us some simplicity to make it feel more manageable. The second one, as you'll see in most of our experiences, that there's also an energy that comes with being polarized. Now we see this in sports, you know, this team versus that team. You know, batteries are example of, you know, energy within a polarity, but also happens in debates. So when we're debating with people, and then finally, you know, a cause that we can get motivated to be, to stand up for something over something else. And that, that. That polarizing gives us an energy to. To go and do that and. And a search for victory. So that's another thing that draws us toward these polarities. And out of that, probably the most fundamental thing is that they give us a sense of clarity amidst the complexity and all the options we have. Polarities and binaries give us clarity and a sense of certainty. And when we feel threatened or when we face that complex world, that sense of certainty is very comforting. And so we gravitate ourselves toward polarities. So if any of you have ever found yourself needing a bit of simplicity, needing a bit of energy, or needing a bit of certainty or clarity, you've probably found yourself being drawn into a polarity of some kind or another. So that's why I think it's worth recognizing that it's something that we're going to do because it has a very powerful impetus. And I don't want to spend too long talking about the image, of course, that a lot of people associate with it, of the yin yang, which is the line, if you notice, between two sides is very rarely straight, and that our experience during a polarity can waver from one side to another. And that I would suggest, in our ambition to find the balance, we are better off swinging a little bit first before finding a resting point. And that's why I'd advocate that it's worth exploring what the polarities are when we work with conflict. So that leads me to the second stage, which is how we might actually work with a conflict and how we might amplify a polarity around something that might be a contentious issue. Right? And there is no doubt you don't have to go far to find any, whether it's Brexit and politics or what's happening with the football, there are lots of things that bring up two sides, and the most basic of those polarities is sort of positive and negative. So I wanted to share an exercise which is a way of going into it in as safe a way as we possibly can to then release ourselves from the polarity or at least create a bit more space for the nuances in between. And before I did that, I just wanted to, just as it can be edgy to bring up a polarity, I just wanted to give you 30 seconds to connect to your own sense of yourself. As you listen, as you're here checking in on zoom, just make yourself aware of your feet and Your toes and your seat, on your seat, how your body feels right now where you're sitting. And if you can bring attention to all of your toes, your little toes, your middle toes, your big toes, and just be aware of how they feel and your heel and all of your foot and just try and be precise in your attention to notice where are each of your toes, how are they feeling? And of course you'll be distracted. If you get distracted, just notice your breath and come back and notice your feet again, notice your toes, notice your heel and then finally notice your breath. And by bringing awareness to our sensations, we can help step back from the way our mind might rush ahead into this or that, either or. So I just wanted to do that before I bring up a subject, apparently of an example of articulating both sides of a polarity. So I'm just going to share this as well. I'm going to stop sharing my screen and I just want to do a quick exercise on what might be an example. Okay, now, you can do this with Brexit, you can do it with politics, you can do it with a person, you can do it with a client that you don't like. And the exercise works like this is first, articulate a couple of the negative sides as you see them and then once you've done that, go over and articulate the positive sides. And I was trying to think of a non, like Australians or any topic that you will like. You know, you could pick anything. HR professionals, for example, what are some of the negative attributes we ascribe to HR professionals? What are some of the negative attributes we ascribe to Australians or men with beards or white men even, whatever it happens to be. So I thought I'd stick with something quite broad and all encompassing, like British people, you know, so what, what are some, you know, we know that British people can be reserved or they might drink too much, right? Or they might be, you know, they're posh or stuck in their ways. Is I'm speaking slightly as an Australian who's carried these, so forgive me if I'm inaccurate. Anyway, the list could go on and on. And when we read through these lists, right, the British people are reserved, they drink too much, they're posh, whatever kind of, you know, negative we can, we can get stuck in it, but we can also see the incompleteness of it. Now, to amplify this, I would get you to write a list a little bit longer and then what can happen is two things can happen. You can find yourself agreeing, or if you Go far enough, sometimes it kicks you out and you go, oh, yeah, but that's not always the case. But it's much easier to do when you make those negative stories explicit. And that can be a valuable exercise on its own. Now, the next part of this is to articulate a plausible alternative, the opposite. Now, not one that's just the opposite out of nowhere, but one that's somewhat connected, say, to being a little bit offhand or detached or reserved. What could be good about it? And somebody, you might say, well, they're discerning, or what might be the positive of drinking too much. They like to have fun. What might be nice about something, about them being posh or stuck in their ways, that might be. They might be respectful. Yeah. Or powerful. And then we go, british people are discerning, fun, respectful, powerful. And we can go, yeah, that's nice. And is also incomplete. And by articulating both sides, we actually free ourselves of the incompleteness of them. The last thing I'd like to say about this tool is, is that you can do it anywhere for anything that you don't have to believe one side or the other, but that when you do, if just by doing it, even if you don't fully buy this side or that side, you create a bit of space in between them, but because you've spent a little bit of mental effort articulating the opposite. So that's. That's one way of amplifying. If I worked with you personally on something, we could do it much more depth, much more safety, but it'd be a way of noticing the sides in you that are polarized and what that is. So just as a way of finishing up, I think if I. If I've got a minute left, Tom, there is a couple of things that you can do with that. As I said earlier, it's not just polarities aren't just opposites. They also often represent a unity. So the other thing we can do is amplify what connects things. So in the death penalty debate, for example, in the United States, there is those who are for and against, and it's a very heated hot topic, but where they both agree and where they're unified is that they want less murder. And then when we go in and we find out what's underneath, what's the unity and start working with that, that's really powerful. The other way through is to uncover the personal story that's connected to their original position. So often people will start going, this is the way it is. I'm this way and they're bad. And there's often a very personal reason for that experience. And the third tip is about knowing where you are and what process you're using to work with the polarity or the conflict. Sometimes we don't even realize it, but we're amplifying. We're amplifying our story. Now, that can be really useful, but often it makes them amplify theirs. If we do it consciously, it can be helpful. So being conscious of the process that you're in is another strategy that we can use. So there's quite a few to work with, but I just wanted to give you a taste today. So I don't know if you've got a question in their pears, Tom. I thought that people could think, how's what I talked about today show up in their experience of polarities? Have they been what has been as polarizing for them and really what have you done to support yourself in those moments? And then we'll go out into the break. So that's me. Thank you very much, Tom. A whistle stop tour of something I'd probably like to do with a lot more time, but thank you very much, Edward.
Thank you very much. That's really great. Edward, would you like to just.
Just to fill up some space at the end? Yeah, okay. Thanks, Tom. Yeah, thank you. I've. I've actually been. It's lovely to hear different, different ways of hearing and, you know, different ways you've experiencing the polarities. And I think if I, if I go back to this as a kind of takeaway just to, you know, it's very rarely just one, it's very rarely just down the middle, it's usually one, the other and that if we can forgive ourselves, that. And I would also say amplify it, whether it's to, as I said with Mira's example or with Nicola, like, going, what is it about Britishness that I like? What is it about, you know, teamwork that I want? And actually my stance would be to actually amplify your own side first before trying to be compassionate to the other. It's another way to go. How can I take mine and really stand for it also as a way of. As exploring that polarity, not just to be the. To go over and amplify the negative, but often to start with what's good about my view, stand up for it as a way through. So. And I think that confusion in complexity, that vulnerability that we feel in the face of the world is a hard thing to sit with. And so we like to take a stance to give us a sense of power and it's a brave person who doesn't get compelled to take a powerful position and great take powerful positions, understand them. It's great. So thank you. I'm going to be quiet now. It's lovely to hear all your stories. Thanks for having me Tom and everyone.
As ever Edward, it's a real pleasure for you to be part of the serenity and leadership offering. So thank you. Thank you very much and thank you for everybody for coming today. Come back next month. If you enjoyed this please let us know in the feedback and if you didn't enjoy it please let us know in the feedback. But if you enjoyed it then please tell your friends about us and the work that we're doing and come back next month.
