How can we work with people who we vehemently disagree with?

Former U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe passed away earlier today at the age of 89.

Senator Inhofe spent three decades in the United States Senate and was consistently one of its most far-right members. Headlines from major media outlets today capture it best:

Former US Sen. Jim Inhofe, defense hawk who called human-caused climate change a ‘hoax,’ dies at 89 (Associated Press)

Jim Inhofe, 89, dies after a long Senate career marked by fight against climate science (Politico)

Former Sen. Jim Inhofe, defense hawk who called human-caused climate change a ‘hoax,’ dies at 89 (NBC News)

From the Politico article:

His focus in 1994 on “God, guns and gays” — he was in favor of the first two, against the third — helped him win election to the Senate and served as a template for other Republicans seeking to defeat Democrats by using social issues as a cudgel. Inhofe’s rejection of climate science was a central part of his legacy — typified by the moment in February 2015 when he threw a snowball on the Senate floor. For years, he was one of the GOP’s most vocal critics of environmental regulation, an issue he held vast sway over as chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee during George W. Bush and Barack Obama’s presidencies.

Left out of the obituaries is a story Senator Barbara Boxer told me on Thirty Minute Mentors:

“I shared my leadership of the Environment and Public Works Committee for many years with Jim Inhofe, who was my opposite in every way you can imagine.

He was from Oklahoma. He believed that the government should only do a couple of things. One of them was the military. The other was infrastructure.

And so I said, okay, let's try to work together now on the environment. I couldn't get anywhere near him if I said the words “global warming” or “climate change.”

So what I used to say is ‘clean energy jobs.’

And everything that I did with him - we always made some progress on climate, but it was disguised with words that didn't make him crazy.”

In business and in life, we often have to work with people who we don’t see eye to eye with.

Finding a path forward sometimes simply requires the right attitude and the right language.


Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one-on-one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.

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