Read the full transcript of Michael Sheldrick’s talk titled “Creating Change: The Power of Working With People You Don’t Like” at TEDxArendal 2024 conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
The Power of Collaboration
MICHAEL SHELDRICK: I want to ask you to reflect on a recent moment you might have had where you found yourself talking, maybe even working with someone you didn’t agree with. In fact, maybe you didn’t even like them. But you did it anyway. Because in your heart of hearts, you knew you needed to in order to complete whatever task you were trying to get done.
Remember how you felt in that moment. Remember, were you feeling afraid? Maybe you were feeling a sense of shame. Maybe you were feeling you were doing something a little bit wrong. Or maybe you were worried about what your friends and family might be thinking. Or if you were, I can relate to that feeling.
A Challenging Encounter
A few years ago, I found myself leaving this event I had just helped organize. And if any of you here have ever organized an event, whatever it is, you know that that passion, the excitement, the adrenaline, all of that which you rely on to get you through the day, by the time people are coming up to you, shaking your hand, wishing you farewell, going about their day, leaving the venue, you’re just exhausted.
And you’re also vulnerable. You’re vulnerable to any kind of feedback. And I think that’s why it hit me so hard when after leaving this event I had been working on all day, I walked out the door, I walked down the elevator, I opened the door, threw the atrium, stood on the street outside, but I was approached by this visibly distressed partner. This partner who I’m pretty sure had spent several hours waiting on that street outside just to approach me afterwards and tell me what they really thought.
“How could you? How could you have allowed that man on your stage?” As I sat there taking this all in, Bonnaroo, who was also speechless, because on the one hand, I wondered, maybe that partner had a point. You see, that man who he was referring to was a U.S. senator.
And to be honest, recent comments he had made on issues like abortion and women’s health, I personally could not agree with or condone in any way. On the other hand, the reason why we had invited that senator to come and speak at that event was specifically to be part of a panel discussion focused on addressing climate change. Because that senator was one of the few members in his own party willing to support a brand new law that if passed would unlock billions, we’re talking billions of new dollars to help reforest and plant new forests and trees right across America.
And so in the years since, people have told me, they said, you know what, that law, it did pass, and it marked a significant turning point in America’s response to the climate crisis.
The Importance of Collaboration
And yet the reality is, whether we like it or not, it was likely only possible with the support of a few individuals that we fundamentally disagreed with on other issues. So since that encounter, I’ve gone out my way. I’ve tried to sit down with trade union officials, leaders in government, grassroots advocates, everyday citizens like you and me, and I’ve asked each and every one of them, how did you drive change in this divided world? And you know what?
Every single one of them, regardless of who they are, every single one of them who’ve told me they successfully brokered some agreement, brought about change, doesn’t matter where, but they all said it required them working, engaging with ideas, individuals, organizations they didn’t always like, and sometimes they just hated or disagreed with.
I’m going to share three quick examples. In June 2023, I found myself in Paris, organizing yet another event. This was taking place during this big global summit that French President Emmanuel Macron was convening, and it was focused on addressing the communities in need on the front lines of climate change to make sure they had what they needed to respond.
And look, I’m not getting political here, but anyone who was in Paris that day, you could tell Macron he was under a lot of pressure, right? You walk through the streets of Paris, the tension was pretty palpable. And yet, as this summit started, we organized this event in front of the Eiffel Tower. We brought together 20,000 climate advocates. It was a sea. It was incredible. It was a beautiful summer day.
And we invited the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, an incredible speaker, to come on stage and share her story about what her island nation was facing. And I’ll never forget the day, because she took the stage, she grabbed the microphone, and she began by saying, by thanking President Macron for hosting this summit. Well, you can imagine how that went down. The crowd was silent, like you are all now. And then a voice, deep in the back, yelled out, “Macron must resign!”
And before I knew it, it seemed that every single person in that crowd, in that audience, started chanting, “Macron must resign! Macron must resign!” And honestly, if it was perhaps anyone else on stage, you might be feeling, okay, someone please rescue me. I wondered what was going to happen.
Could have gone in any way. But Mottley, she stood her ground. She grabbed that microphone. And above the roar, she said, “My friends, you might very well think that. But let me tell you, I went to Washington. I went to London. And then I came here to France. And whether you like it or not, this man was the only guy who bothered to do anything to help nations like mine.
So whether you like it or not, that is my reality. That is our reality as small island nations.”
Then the crowd went silent, again, like you are now. And then someone in this front started clapping. And then the whole audience burst into this applause. Not for Macron, but because Mottley in that moment had reminded them what they were there to achieve. And achieve something they did. That summit resulted in new promises from organizations like the World Bank. New promises that would guarantee immediate financial relief if her nation is hit by a hurricane. They changed lives and might have even saved lives. That was the promise. That was the commitment they delivered.
A Coal Town’s Transformation
My next story takes me back to my roots. Before starting Global Citizen, I had my formative years in the Australian labor movement. And in Western Australia, where I grew up, there is this small town, Collie. Collie is this town where coal, coal has been the lifeblood, the identity of this town for more than 100 years.
And like many coal communities here in Europe or in America or other parts of the world, the trade unions in this town, they are loyal to their workers. And they will fiercely defend those workers and their industries. And sometimes this means that they will get into quite tense moments with grassroots environmental activists who want to shut those industries down.
And so in 2007, when one of these trade union officials, Steve, stood in front of the community and the workforce, and he said, “You know what? Maybe they’ve got a point. Maybe we should be planning for a future beyond coal.” Well, Steve was labeled a traitor and he was driven out the town. But you know what?
He didn’t give up. He stuck the course. He stayed working with a few workers who were interested. And years later, they did the unthinkable. They sat down with those activists. Because as Steve said, “You know what? If we’re thinking about opportunities in the future, maybe it makes sense to sit down with some of these young people who are obsessing about the future. Maybe they’ve got some ideas that might actually help us.”
So sit down they did. They somehow put aside their animosities, their biases, their prejudices, and they came up with win-win solutions. And in 2022, when the government returned to Collie, Steve told me this story. He said it was a moment I would never forget. He said he was standing at the back of the community hall with all the workforce there. And the government announced, they said the last coal power plants in this town will be closed down in the next few years. This decade. And the town, they applauded.
They cheered because working with those activists, they had achieved hundreds of millions of new dollars in funding. New funding that was literally changing the main street for the better. New funding that was bringing new industries like green steel to town. New funding that was bringing one of the world’s largest battery projects in the world.
And no, they didn’t get that by working with Elon Musk. They did it by working together. Together, they achieved these outcomes that secured hundreds of new jobs and secured a future for the town. That was their change.
Addressing Period Poverty in South Africa
My last story takes us to South Africa, where in 2018, we launched what was one of our biggest campaigns yet. And you know what? We had some of the biggest musicians in the world announce that day. But despite all of that, it didn’t matter.
Because our campaign was overrun by this trending hashtag. It’s bloody time. It’s bloody time. We said, where is this coming from? Who is overrunning our campaign launch? So I went out and I found these advocates, young advocates like Nokuzola Ndwandwe and Candice Chirwa, who literally when I met her, she introduced us. I said, “Hi, I’m the Minister of Administration.” And they explained to me, they said, “You know what, in our society, like too many societies in the world, they said, some girls, because period poverty is an issue, menstruation still has stigma, sanitary pads and napkins are too expensive, some girls lose up to 60 days, 60 days of school a year.”
And when I met with these advocates, oh, they were angry. You could feel the anger. And rightly so, because it wasn’t just about affordability. It was our attitudes, whether it was men, young boys. One government official I spoke to said, “This isn’t a serious issue, this is peripheral.” And yet, these advocates, they never let that anger blind them. They actually went out and they did workshops with young boys. They recruited allies in government and together we drove a campaign that mobilized more than 100,000 citizen actions, tweets, emails, phone calls, petition signatures.
And when we did this event, musicians were about to get on stage. The president of the country comes along. He pulls out his speech and at the last minute, he starts making changes, inspired by all of this energy of this campaign. And he stands on that stage and he pledges a promise to provide period products, sanitary pads and napkins in schools right across the country.
But these advocates, you know, you spoke to them afterwards, said, “Yep, talk is cheap. Let’s turn talk into action.” So that same spirit of partnership, they persevered. And look, to be honest, you can be skeptical because some of those government officials, they did let them down. They did break their promise on occasions. It was constantly, like everything in life, it was constantly two steps forward, one step back. But they persevered. And because of that, more than four million girls in the years since have had access to period products.
And just maybe for some of those girls, that’s the difference between staying in school and dropping out of school. These stories I just told you, and there’s far more stories beneath the radar, trust me, but these stories I told you, I think there’s three takeaways that each of us can look to if we’re serious about driving change in our local communities.
Three Takeaways for Driving Change
You see, number one, don’t focus on blame. Focus on solutions. Rally around clear, actionable goals that bring people together. Number two, embrace unlikely allies, however flawed they might be. As Helen Keller once said, “Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.”
Number three, embrace impact over ideology. Don’t sit around waiting for the perfect solution. You might be waiting a long time. Instead, try and seek the best possible outcome with the hand you’ve been dealt.
Listen, I know you’re watching this, and I know in our society right now, we question whether our actions can make a difference. And if you’re out there, you’re not alone. A year ago, a friend of mine said that his daughter asked him, she said, “Dad, you keep on talking about all these big things you’re trying to do, but let’s be honest, are we going to be okay? Are we going to get through this?”
And he said to her, he was honest, he said, “We don’t know the answer to that. But one thing I do know is we are alive in this moment in time where we potentially have greater ability than any previous generation before to live a profoundly meaningful life. Because of the actions we take today, people born in the next 5, 10, 15, 50 years from now will be impacted as a result.”
Ensuring that that impact is positive doesn’t mean we have to give up what we believe in. It doesn’t mean we have to trade away our ideals. But it does mean we have to engage and work with people, ideas, organizations we may not like or agree with. It does mean we have to make the most of what we’ve got to build something better.
I’m not going to stand here and say it’s not going to be easy. Sometimes it might even feel wrong. But we can all start somewhere. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “The way to begin is to begin.” Change, it starts with each of us.
