Q&A with Nate Garvis

Nate Garvis, vice president of government affairs for Target, is part fixer, part lobbyist, part strategic thinker. He’s a guy who knows everyone who matters and does not limit his efforts to glad-handing. His lecture—“Uncivil Discourse and the Rise of the Outrage Industry” (given on behalf of the Citizen’s League; he sits on its board)—attempts to explain the effect that today’s information technology has on the “quality of civic conversation” and has become water cooler conversation among the town’s big thinkers. Garvis, forty-three, distinguishes between information and reconfirmation, noting that most of us today reside “in separate echo chambers.”

Who’s the Freemason behind the outrage industry?
I hate to burst your bubble, but the answer is us. I’ve been thinking about it in this way: Technological leaps have huge dislocating effects on society, and we are in the midst of a big one. The question of our existence—in the face of chaos, ambiguity, and unpredictability—is, What does it all mean?

I thought technology was for porn.
Porn and jokes, actually.

But perhaps we’re not as smart and sophisticated as the people crafting the messages of fear and outrage.
I could buy into that. In lieu of showing you what I stand for and what we can do together, I’ll just scare the hell out of you about the other guy. That’s the nature of a lot of our elections right now. I hope people are getting wise to that and want more—leadership, to respect someone.

You make the point that we need organizations to increase transparency, but Target is opaque to media inquiry.
Target is not monolithic. There are people on various ends of that question. It is a matter of the current culture of any institution as to how it wants to engage. I believe in discourse.

You say it’s important for a company to recognize intangible benefits beyond the bottom line. Newspapers are struggling because of smart money’s dismissal of intangibles such as investigative reporting or storytelling that costs more and reads longer but is an intangible good. Aren’t owners of capital really the ones with the power of choice?
The bottom line is too often defined as only what is quantifiable. Everything you mentioned, I believe, will hurt the Star Tribune. A business should be invested in sustainability at every level—how it treats its employees, its community, its investors, and its vendors. Good, truthful relationships make a sustainable business. You don’t belong in business these days unless you can answer the question, What do I mean? The public places great value on what does it mean to buy your good or service, what does it mean for my kids to go work for you? A good business will shape itself around a definition of meaning. I would argue that out of all the institutional forces, business is the most nimble and applicable. Want red today? You’ll get red. Want blue tomorrow? We’ll give you blue.

Do most institutions believe the media is representing the media, not the public, and that negativity sells?
I’ll agree with you. They’re fearful. And there’s pretty good rationale behind it. I believe the major institutional world, not just business, but government, whatever, the question they’re asking of the open-source community is, When is it safe to jump in? That’s the wrong question to ask when you’re being pulled in. So the question is how do you want to be pulled in? My personal—I’m not talking as Target right now—predilection is to roll up your sleeves and have a conversation.