Reflections from the Convergence Compass Pilot Cohort Program with the National Association of Counties
By: Gabriel Herrera
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There is a common assumption that progress requires agreement. But agreement isn’t the starting point — understanding is. When people feel heard and respected, they don’t have to abandon their values — they often become more willing to explore new possibilities. And when folks maintain relationships long enough, they’re often surprised by what they are able to build together.
These are exactly the type of skills and approaches we aimed to instill during our inaugural Convergence Compass cohort, where we brought together county officials from eleven different communities across the country through the National Association of Counties (NACo), with generous support from the JAMS Foundation. Each participant serves a distinct population, navigates unique political pressures, and confronts specific challenges facing their counties. Yet, they all shared one important area of common ground: they’re working on tough problems across their communities with people who don’t always agree, and they joined the cohort to build their capacity to be more effective in navigating those situations.
Over eleven weeks, we blended asynchronous Convergence Compass coursework with live virtual cohort sessions and coaching. We focused on practical skills during the sessions: listening for values rather than positions, reframing assumptions, clarifying interests, and shifting from debate to collaborative problem-solving. Participants shared ongoing challenges from their communities — not hypotheticals — and worked through tackling them together.
Collaborative problem-solving doesn’t erase difference. It extracts the strength from difference. Near the end of the cohort, one participant described the shift this way: “It’s now my default operating system: looking for dialogue and not debating, elevating and reframing into a values conversation that lends itself to effective collaboration.”
I’ve seen first-hand what becomes possible when conversations move from adversarial to meaningful. Real progress doesn’t begin with having the right answers. It begins with how we show up and whether we make space for others to show up, too. And that is why I do this work.
The participants in this cohort modeled a form of leadership grounded in steadiness rather than certainty. They choose to lead by listening, by asking honest questions, and by treating disagreement not as a threat but as a place where new understanding could emerge.
At a time when so many people are exhausted by the win/lose dynamic, these mindsets and approaches light the way to a viable path forward.
This was only our first cohort. The need for this kind of skill-building is growing — not only for the sake of civility or surface-level harmony, but because communities cannot make progress on critical problems if people cannot stay in the room together long enough to do the work.
We don’t need everyone to agree. We need people who can disagree and use those differences to build something better together.
That’s what this cohort demonstrated. And that’s what gives me hope.
This January, we are offering an opportunity for anyone to join this type of cohort. Take the lead in building solutions. Find more details here.
Hear more about the program from National Association of Counties Convergence Compass Cohort Participant, James Dyer (Jim Dyer).
