# Strategic Resilience: Navigating Polarization in Business Leadership

**Podcast:** All Things Product with Teresa and Petra
**Published:** 2026-03-17

## Transcript

Hi folks, this is All Things Product with Petra Ville and Teresa Torres.
And we're so happy you're here.
The world is heavy on me these days.
Really?
How do we stay sane when the world goes bonkers?
Any tips and tricks?
What are you personal?
What is your personal approach?
Yeah, okay.
I know we have a global audience, so we're gonna try to keep politics out of this.
I will share I live in the United States.
I'm having a really hard time with some of the stuff that's happening here.
I'm gonna leave it at that.
Uh and so one of the things I'm trying to do is to find small ways to create the world I would prefer to live in.
Examples I don't know what else to do, right?
Obviously, I can vote.
I do vote.
Uh I go to um like public protest events.
Um, I do the things that help connect me with other people with shared values and to see that um what you read about in the news is not all Americans.
Um, I think that's important.
I also think I think about this a lot in my work.
Like little things like I'm not gonna go speak at a conference if which is a little weird because it's like I'm contributing to the problem, but like if your entire conference is men and I'm the only woman you're inviting, I'm probably not gonna go.
Yeah.
Um I look at things like I have a lot of conversations with conferences and companies about why I'm not getting on a plane for a one-hour talk.
Yeah.
And uh I always find it interesting when companies expouse sustainability, but then they want me to get on a plane for a one-hour talk when I can do it virtually.
This doesn't mean I don't ever get on a plane for a one-hour talk.
I'm coming to product at heart, but um, there's other things I'll be doing in Europe at that time, it's not just for a one-hour talk.
Um so some of it is just trying to live my values like day in and day out, even when it's hard.
And it's not always easy, like you could I could I could imagine someone's listening to this and they push back and they say, Yeah, but you use AI, and AI is terrible for the world.
It turns out so are cars, and so are so is TV, and so is plastic.
Um, so we have to all make trade-offs.
Um, I think the thing for me is it's the same mantra I use with Discovery is something is better than nothing.
And if every day I'm looking at something more that I can do, then I it's this continuous improvement mindset.
I will share a big thing I did recently.
Um, last year I joined the board of a nonprofit.
The nonprofit is called World Pulse, and their whole mission is to connect women's voices with other women's voices.
So they look at um women that are having an outsized impact that are having an impact on their communities in a positive way, how to connect them with other women who are having similar impact, or how to inspire other women to have similar impact.
And they're a horizontal nonprofit, so they tackle everything from helping women overcome domestic violence, helping women overcome poverty, helping women supporting women in countries that are run by authoritarian governments, um literally everything.
Um they have a giant, like the bulk of their community where they have the most engaged users is on the African continent.
Um, but they also are in Southeast Asia.
Um they're trying to grow in the Americas and in Western Europe, uh, mostly because they need uh first world countries to help with funding the nonprofit.
Um, but I would argue that given what's happening in Western Europe and in the and it definitely in the United States, uh, we could benefit from connecting with women who have been um through similar uh let's just call them changes for the lack of of for the sake of avoiding politics, um, and learning from their experience.
And I don't I know as an American we don't often think about like there's other there's developing countries we can learn from, but there absolutely is.
Yeah.
Um yeah, and I got invited to be part of their board as a tech person.
They wanted there this nonprofit is building a network, like in the social net social impact network from a technology standpoint.
So they brought me on as a product advisor, right?
Um, but it turns out like uh it's much bigger than that, and it's a really it's an area where I can help and feel like I'm contributing to the type of world I want to see.
And I know like you were recently in Egypt and at a conference, and yeah, maybe had similar experiences.
So if you want to share that, and then we can maybe riff on other things that we can do.
Yeah, first and foremost, I had the exact same um realization.
Not the first time, by the way, but I learned a ton from attending that conference as well in the conversations that I had.
Uh, and one would think I went there that they could learn from me, but I always come back so with so many new perspectives.
Um, that I think these exchanges are always mutual, um, at least.
So yeah, I I I try to do similar things whenever I'm super worried and anxious.
I try to read more about a certain topic because I think this Instagrammification of everything, breaking it down in just a few words and sentences doesn't help these days.
So I try to learn more about whatever topic there is to fight um in Germany.
We use the term undercomplexity.
I don't know if it's coined in um in the English uh already in this similar, similar way, but it there is even a book that is called Undercomplexity, which says, like, hey, because things are so undercomplexly presented sometimes, um, it's easy to be super worried about stuff.
Um, and I'm worried about one million things as well.
But for me, like it is for you, it's super important that I keep building bridges and not subscribe to this breaking contact because one person said something that is slightly out of my own set of values or something like that.
I think this is not helping anyone right now.
So I try to avoid to add to the polarization at any cost if I can while still staying true to my values.
I try to, if I give a so I'm really reluctant in giving time away.
And if I do so, I try to do a similar thing than you do, and only do it for I don't know, startups that um are looking at sustainability topics or democratic topics or these kind of things.
I have a super small um investment fund for angel investments in agricultural topics because I think that's so something that is real helps me to stay sane, because a farm is real, and farming robots with all the sensors are real.
Um so sometimes getting out of my artificial AI talking to Claude Cote the entire day world does help here and there.
Traveling definitely helps.
So not only me going to conferences um in other countries, but also personal travel just for leisure.
If you still keep your eyes open, that is still helping to do a bit of a reality check.
Um, because it's really easy to lose track with what is currently happening and what the for example tech sovereignty is a big topic in Europe right now, um, for obvious reasons without getting too much into politics there.
Um, but again, I think you could look at this topic again from this angle of contribu contributing to the polarization, or can we do it in a way that is still keeping bridges, building bridges.
Um so whatever we do, whatever whoever company I'm coaching, um, I always try to focus on these kind of things, and that helps me so small.
I do what you said as well.
So voting obviously, um, going to protests and demonstrations.
My daughter sometimes complains that they always happen in January, February.
But somehow always the world world gets bonkers in January, February, and when we have to go out to protest the streets, then it's usually cold in Germany.
She already hates it.
Um, she wants a good June protest, so maybe we can do this at some point.
There's all these things I want to expand on, which is this the idea of polarization.
And I this is something I try to actively do.
Um, I'm very aware of how what we read in the news is not always real.
So I try to, this is gonna be very US centric, but I'll give context for it.
Every day I read both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
So the New York Times is a left-leaning organization, and the Wall Street Journal is a right-leaning organization, liberal conservative.
What I like about that is sometimes I'll read something in the New York Times that seems insane and makes my blood boil, and then I read about the per same exact news story in the Wall Street Journal, and I'm like, oh, they didn't tell me the whole story.
And then vice versa, too.
And then there's another news organization.
Again, I apologize, it's US, but I think it's good to seek out organizations like this.
It's a small independent um journalism like publication.
It's called Tangle.
And it was started by the editor Isaac Saul.
They're a tiny team.
Um, they run on Ghost, which is my blog platform, which is open source software designed to support journalists.
It's another decision I made to support my values.
And what they do is they write about one topic every day.
Again, it's US centric, but the concept behind this is what matters.
Uh, they write about what the right is saying, they write about what the left is saying, and then the editor writes his take.
And um, I'll give an example.
It's not always just right and left.
When we I'm gonna try to avoid politically charged terms.
When we went into Venezuela, and the end result was Maduro ended up in New York.
We're gonna put whatever label on that you want.
Um sorry, my political left of it.
Yeah, they don't reason.
Yeah, I mean, I have an opinion on that, but I'll keep it to myself.
Uh it's probably obvious.
Uh they didn't just share here's what the right in the US is saying, here's what the left in the US is sharing.
They also shared this is what Venezuelans are saying.
So I appreciate that.
Like they're the whole point of their publication is to try to discuss a topic with here's what we know happened.
Let's start with what's grounded in reality.
Here's different people's takes on it.
And it really helps because there's a lot of times I read the and the editor is very moderate, and it actually has really helped me because there's a lot of people.
And then he's fighting what we call the undercomplexity issue, right?
Oh, okay.
Okay, good.
To get a more noir.
Yeah, opinion.
Yeah, there's times where like I read something and I have a like I'll give an example.
We recently in the US, it's gonna be months ago when this comes out, but whatever.
We recently a journalist was arrested um for a protest that happened in a church.
And here in the US, we have laws against protesting in the church as part of freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
And there was a huge uproar, like this was a huge overreach, and Trump is prosecuting his his enemies.
And then I re and I was like, oh my god, we've crossed a line.
And then I read the Tangle article, and it looks like from that journalist's own footage, it's clear he obstructed congregationists from leaving the building.
Like there's more nuance to it.
He wasn't acting just as a journalist, he blurred the lines between journalism and protest.
Now, did he deserve to get charged?
I have no idea.
I'm not a judge, I'm not a prosecutor, I'm not gonna make any judgment on that whatsoever.
But the story was more complex than the way most of the news reported it.
And so I think like it's really important that we like to like break this cycle of polarization to not just read one side and like have steam come out your ears, but to also think about what's what are what's the other side saying about it.
Yeah.
And then sometimes I see what the other side is saying about it, and I still have steam coming out of my ears, but at least I'm more educated about the whole picture.
Yeah, in and in your next debate, you could add more context to maybe other people's opinions, and that's an important part as well.
And to me, it's like what I always try to do is can I get back to looking another human being in the eye around a certain topic?
Because that helps, it always helps me to have this calls with all my American friends like you, like you, and really unpack what you currently see and observing because already the press coverage in Europe is different than what you actually get to hear and see.
Um so it really is important that we stay connected, the bridges that we have, or even building more of the bridges that we have, that we allow more nuance in all of that, and that all of us are fighting our own biases all the time and constantly.
Because I'm a German, so many people had so many biases about Germans, the last 100,000 years, more 60 years, but you get the idea.
Um is every German a Nazi?
Definitely not.
Was that ever the truth?
Maybe, yes, at some point.
Um, but yeah, I think if you get to know the person better, learn more about their opinions and learn more about where they're coming from and why they're having these values and how their values are forming.
I think this is always a good thing to do.
And that it really helps me stay sane to do to these because even sometimes if people behave in a way where I really don't understand why they're doing so, if I look a bit closer at their upbringing or their cultural background or the current situation in their country or the current situation in their company, by the way, that is also some sometimes um a thing, then I usually can relate much better to their behavior and why they said a certain thing and all these kinds of things.
But to be able to do that, you need to be able to have the conversation, sit down with them, being human, human to human, um, connection and conversation.
I think that is another thing that I always try to do is kind of um get rid of all the proxies.
And press, for example, is a proxy.
Um in that system.
So and also I think related to this is recognize that a lot of what's on the internet isn't real.
Like there's a lot of fake news, there's a lot of headlines, there's a lot of bombastic, there's a lot of fake videos, there's a lot of fake images.
And like it is on us to dig a little bit deeper and to be curious about what really happened and to ask questions and to and like you said, like one-on-one be curious about people.
Yeah.
Also, I was recently in Vancouver, and a lot of Canadians are no longer coming to the US.
I understand.
And I was really worried that like while we were traveling, we were gonna get like hostility towards Americans.
And that is not what happened at all.
In fact, most Canadians were like, if you were the Americans, we didn't like you, wouldn't even be here.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, they were like the Americans that travel are not the one, you know.
Um it's really hard to think about a body of people as homogenous.
They're not right, yeah.
And so I think, and that's true everywhere.
It's true for the company rival that you think is full of evil people, it's true for the political party that you think is evil, it's true, like universal, right?
And so I think it also helps to remember that like humans are unique.
Yeah, and it helps.
I think if people can, so listeners, I bet all of you have a platform to some extent, even if it might not be as big as Teresa's and mine, for example, but most product people still have a bit of um fellowship, or maybe it's just your peers in your organization, or whatever platform you have.
But I think it is important to be aware of that platform.
And I think you and I are very aware of the platform that we're having.
And at some times, even short notes, comments, and sentences of ours could go into a weird direction if we're not paying attention to what we actually say.
Um, but not everybody is aware of that.
So even if you have just a small platform, then be aware of still the reach that you're having and who you promote.
For example, that's that's one reason why I love to attend um the MENA Product Summit in Egypt because I love that the organizers put so much effort in curating that event.
For example, um, there was a 50-50 female um ratio on stage, um, given that in product management, even here in Europe, it's not a 50-50 um ratio, and then getting 50-50 on stage is already a challenge for Arna and me for product at heart every year.
So we need to go dig and find and convince people that they deserve to be on that stage, and I think that is even harder in um in an area like um the Egyptian product community, for example.
So they they use their platform really to do this and to emphasize some female voices, and I love them for that.
Um, if you have a platform, then really use it wisely and try to contribute to the positive narrative out there, I'd say.
Yeah, and this is this is where it gets a little touchy for me because first of all, I share that value with you, and I have even posted, like I remember somebody posted a long list of their favorite product people and it was all men, and so I responded by posting my favorite list of product leaders and it was all women, and people kind of missed the point and kept suggesting men in the comments.
Yeah, um we loved that voice.
It gave us a few funny days.
Yeah, but I also like I also want to recognize not everybody shares that value, and when we're talking about a global community, it's not assumed that everybody shares that value.
No, I want to work to lit to create a world where everybody shares that value, but I don't want to tell someone it's wrong to not share that value.
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.
Like because they wouldn't contribute to the product uh to the polarization.
We don't do this.
Yeah, and I actually think this is why the US is in the situation where we're in, because we had a party for a very long time tell the other party that they were wrong for their beliefs, and I think this is can get really toxic.
Now, and I struggle with this.
Like, I actually I personally have a hard time if somebody doesn't think that women should have equal representation, but I believe they have a right to hold that belief and to espouse that belief, right?
And I think that's the key difference here.
And so I wouldn't have to be able to do that we have to be careful about how we share publicly.
Because like I don't want to alienate.
If people are coming to me for discovery advice, I want to help them regardless of what their beliefs on gender are.
And so like I don't want to alienate them.
And this has been really hard for me recently because of the politics in the US.
Like it's hard for me to find what's the right way to share my values and be true to my values without alienating a whole bunch of people that might have different beliefs.
Yeah, and I share that struggle.
It's it it I always had this policy around um companies that I'm working with or not working with, but this is more I never talk publicly about where I draw the line because this is a bit like if you're eating meat or not, right?
So it's kind of it's a personal decision, and it's a personal decision of mine for which companies or industries I am able to work, and where is I'm not able to work, and I have to say, like, sorry, I'm not working for this particular type of company or industry.
I don't want to contribute to a product um like that.
Um, so that would uh be not something that I would make publicly, but I hold these values and I have a bit of a blacklist um of companies that I would not work for.
Um but on the other hand, I would never blame somebody who does, because they may have a completely different set of values, they may have a comp it's not, for example, it's not always that people are so privileged than the two of us and can decide we're not working for these companies because some people um maybe just need to go work for these companies because of missing alternatives.
And but what is another thing that I just briefly want to highlight, I see saw the most creative little acts of resistance happening over the last few months and weeks, and I really celebrate all those because it's I think even if it's small creative ways of resistance, um, if you want to go find something that you personally can do.
And if you look through German history books, there are plenty of things that people even did in um Nazi Germany that were like little acts of resistance, even personal ones, and sometimes they made a real big difference, even if this looked so small in the beginning, but then in the end they added up to make a real big difference.
So, whenever you see this opportunity to small creative acts of resistance, not doing something, not doing something as fast as you usually would, whatever it is, I think that's still beautiful things that you could do.
I also think there's a line that when a line is crossed, it's more than appropriate to speak up and to say that this is not a course.
Yeah.
And I think it's like we we have this weird, maybe this happens in Europe too, but like we have this weird meme in the US that like when athletes speak out about politics, uh they're told to stay in the no, it's not it's not so much a European, but to some extent, yeah.
Um, but I'm gonna highlight what I think was a really positive example in the last week or two.
So when we're recording this, it we're right in the middle of the hubbub of all the crap that's happening in Minnesota.
And for people that aren't aware of it, we basically have um federal agencies in the US that have a very large presence in a city under the guise of immigration control.
Um, but two American citizens have lost their lives through this operation.
Again, I don't want to get too political, we're not gonna get too into it.
But it's something that has really affected the city of Minneapolis.
It's affecting neighborhoods, it's affecting the people that live there, right or wrong, whether they should be there or not, I'm not gonna get into.
But a number of athletes in the city of Minnesota have recently spoken up.
And I fully support them.
And I don't care what your politics are, I don't care if you agree with um what you beliefs are on immigration and how aggressive we should be about kicking people out of the country.
I think all of that is beside the fact.
I think that some lines were crossed.
I think most Americans, it's looking like agree that lines were crop clock crossed, including Americans that support our current administration.
Um I think that is when it's appropriate to speak up, even if you're gonna alienate some people.
Yeah, and that's again what I said with platform.
Don't underestimate you speaking up or out, even if your platform is rather small, because sometimes it's a bit of a snowball effect that we're seeing.
And if basically everybody keeps their mouth shut all the time and is not touching on these topics at all, then how could how would others know that you basically would agree and would be in their camp and would maybe go to the protest and all these kind of things?
So yeah, I think stating your opinion without alienating others is step number one and a good thing to stay sane in this world right now.
I also think that it's a good example of local.
Like, yeah.
Um I was talking to um my buddy Jeff, who was my co-instructor at Northwestern when I taught classes there, and he's based in Evanston, it's a sh uh northern suburb of the city of Chicago.
And he talked about um, and I'm hearing this about Minneapolis as well, is that like a lot of what's driving um advocacy in these areas um is this meant this mentality of don't mess with my neighbors.
And it's like a very, it's not a national politics narrative.
It's a very this is our community, these are our people, we are together on this.
And I think that's actually what keeps it grounded in like I'm a human, you're a human.
Let's be human about this.
And like politics aside, national narratives aside, global narratives aside, like how do we just remember how to be good neighbors?
Yeah, and solving the problem at a larger scale aside, because that's often what people try to do.
Well, it turns out the larger problem gets solved when it gets solved locally.
Yeah.
Right?
Indeed.
So I loved that perspective too, is just go connect with your neighbors.
And this is, I even struggled with this.
So here in the US, um, a number of organizations have organized no kings protests.
So this idea of the United States does not have a king.
And um when it first started, I was a little cynical about like what is the point of these protests?
Like it's not gonna change, like nothing is gonna change until we have another election and there's some checks and balances in our system again.
Um, but I actually went to one locally and I was blown away by how many people were there.
I was blown away by how positive it was.
Like it wasn't negative, it was positive.
Um, there were flags, there were um patriotism by a party that is opposed to the current, you know, like it was very um, it was silly because of what happened in Portland right before that.
Portlanders dressed up in animal costumes to try to make it really clear they weren't trying to be a threat.
And so even in my town, people came in costumes, like it was it was um almost joyful in a way, which I it blew my mind because I was like, nothing about our situation is joyful, but if you can find that and connect with that, and then that's in your local community.
I walked away like super inspired and yeah and so yeah like and it's so empowering.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And I'm gonna just also acknowledge that we didn't totally stay out of politics because it's really hard to talk about this and not.
Um, hopefully, we did it in a way that didn't alienate anybody.
Yeah, hopefully, yes, that is not what we intend to do.
Thank you Teresa thanks Petra