SaddleBrooke Author’s Emergency Kit for Finding Common Ground

Dr. Andrea Molberg

Dr. Andrea Molberg

Diana Steinke

Psychologist and SaddleBrooke author Dr. Andrea Molberg spent her career resolving conflicts, evaluating job candidates, developing leaders, teaching people skills, and helping people get along at work and at home. Never did she think about applying those tools to the political world—until now.

Designed to help bridge the divide and stuffed with tools for talking about tough issues, her Emergency Kit for Finding Common Ground: Helping Americans Get Along is coming out as both an Amazon eBook and paperback. Molberg’s goal is to bring Americans together during this age of polarization, COVID, economic crisis, and racial tension.

As she explains, “People are making masks, serving on the front lines, and peacefully marching. This is my contribution to pull Americans together. I never want to hear my grandchildren ask me, ‘Why didn’t you do something?’”

On the back cover of her interpersonal toolkit, you’ll see an endorsement from the national influence guru and Arizona State University Professor Robert Cialdini. Inside you’ll find chapters titled, “Starting with Empathy for Both Sides,” “Getting Off the Defensive,” “How to Disagree without Being Disagreeable,” and “Having Courage, Confidence, and Hope” with strategies and inspiration to use them. The book encourages respect and provides skills for difficult conversations.

Andrea was on the undergraduate and graduate faculty at the University of St. Thomas (UST) in Minneapolis/St. Paul, and over a span of 30 years taught thousands of business professionals at the UST Center for Business Excellence. She has worked extensively with the Mayo Clinic, Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, governmental agencies, and individuals. Semi-retired, she is currently a senior faculty member of the College of Executive Coaching, working with CEOs, MBAs, mental health professionals, and human resource professionals.

You may know Andrea from the pickleball court and the articles she writes about both the Community Circle Players’ dinner theatre productions, and the Strategic Planning Committee of which she’s a member. She also teaches a “Managing Conflict” course for SaddleBrooke’s Institute for Learning in Retirement.