Just a reminder, our new podcast “On Conflict” is out!  Check out our episodes with your favourite podcatcher or on our website www.onconflictpodcast.com.

1. HEALTH - Cooking Conflict

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I had the good fortune to sit down with Mark Gerzon recently.  Mark created and has written multiple books about conflict and leadership as well as facilitated many peacemaking initiatives. 
 
Gordon White and I interviewed him for our onconflict podcast. You can hear the episode when it is released on February 28.  In the meantime, I want to highlight for you a technique Mark talked about on our show and teaches and uses in his conflict work. 
 
Mark offers an analogy of conflict being like finding the right temperature to cook a meal.  If the meal is cooked with too much heat, you burn the meal.  If there is not enough heat, the food is raw and uneatable (unless it’s a raw food diet, of course!).
 
Mark applies this analogy to conflict situations in his work.  He can see conflict with this temperature lens and uses the appropriate tools depending on the temperature presenting in the conflict.
 
Let’s take a conflict that is too hot. That looks different in different contexts, but essentially it is when conflict or differences are in full flower.  It might be that people are shouting at each other, or using language that increases tension. It might be that the difference is visible, and more conflict may soon ensue: a peace protestor is standing in front of a tank.  Intense emotions of anger, or sadness or fear are present.
 
In these circumstances, it makes sense to take “cooling down” actions.  Take a break.  Disengage.  Connect with your own still, small voice inside to calm and ground in spirit.  These are all cooling down actions. 
 
As you think of conflicts in your own life, what are some cooling down techniques you use that work?
 
What about a conflict that is too cold?  These are the circumstances where there are differences but they are not being discussed. 
 
If not dealt with, differences can look like a quiet sense of dissatisfaction or increasing feelings of resentment.  They could take on a more overt display like muttering sarcastic remarks under one’s breath, rolling one’s eyes, walking away from the conversation, not talking at all. In these contexts, intense emotions don’t appear to be present; it might seem like there are no emotions at all attached to the person or issue.
 
I find personally it’s easy to let sleeping dogs lie.  It is easy to not bring up something I might have feelings about.  When we were off air in the podcast, Mark and I spoke about a situation in my life where the conflict was cold.  I wasn’t talking about what was really in my heart and how the actions of the others were impacting me.  Our exchange highlighted for me that it was going to take courage for me to overcome my fear of using my voice and truly speaking to the conflict. 
 
So, here are a few more specific ideas on how to heat up conflict from this personal insight:
 
Heating up conflict requires courage to overcome the fears we have about speaking from the heart.  Will my heart be hurt?  Will I be overcome?  Will I freeze and not know what to say?

One tool that can help us find courage is one I teach in my workshops and call the risk/benefit assessment.  In this exercise, people are asked a series of questions in four quadrants:

• Risks to you for bringing up the conversation
• Benefits to you for bringing up the conversation
• Risks to the other (if you were to bring up the conversation)
• Benefits to the other (if you were to bring up the conversation)

 
Through this exercise, people often discover a goal or benefit or mutual purpose that becomes their north star in the conversation. 
 
This higher vision or cause can help us overcome our fears enough to speak from the heart. Your sharing can then heat up a conversation.  Sharing the impact for you in any context is potent.  As is asking a question of the other person to invite them to reveal what might be a difference they see.  It often is more powerful to start with your own self-disclosure, however - to risk being vulnerable first.

As you think of conflicts in your own life, what are some heating up techniques you use that work?
 
“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” … Theodore Roosevelt 
 

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2. ENVIRONMENT - Indigenized Partnering

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I’ve had the good fortune over the years to work with some First Nations communities.  From those experiences, I have started to get a bit of a visceral understanding of what some values and beliefs are that may be different than my own, or perhaps missing from my own.

One such value is the idea of “respect.”  While the Judeo-Christian religion (and European culture) has many types of respect embedded in it, I would say “love” is more the value I grew up with than “respect” per se.

I am presently reading a Master’s Thesis by Dale Hunt entitled: “We Are All Different, Still Living Under the Same Culture" A Kwakwaka’wakw Perspective on Dispute Resolution and Relationship Building.”  A most fascinating read!

The value of respect is being described in so many different ways and it often circles back to respect for the land as well.  When a culture has a value of respect that is central to their lives and operates on the individual, familial, societal and then the land level, there is a wisdom there that is deep.  Of course, this wisdom goes back thousands of years in relation to the land they are living on.

I remember being involved in a First Nations and Fisheries dialogue, where it was evident that the people who lived in that part of the world, and had for centuries, had intimate knowledge of what was happening in the seas. This put them in a stewardship position by virtue of their knowledge.

Can we take this perspective and apply it to the way the broader (dominant) culture is relating to the land?  And, can we look to our First Nations leaders for such guidance?

I wonder what would happen if we could walk the concept of “respect” and apply it to the land we live on as well as our relationships?  I lived for a year in Japan, and saw the impact of a culture living a concept of beauty together as well as their culturally-contextualized definition of respect.  It is transformative when a mass of people embrace certain elevating ideals and principles. 

Here are a few quotes from Hunt’s thesis to illustrate a glimpse of what I mean:

Hunt quotes from David Neel’s 1992 book called Our Chiefs and Elders: Words and Photographs of Native Leaders to illustrate a definition of respect:

"Respect is the foundation for all relationships: between individuals, with future and past generations, with Earth, with animals, with our Creator (use what name you will), and with ourselves. Respect is both simple and difficult, small and vast. To understand and apply it to our lives is an ongoing process.”

He also quotes from Richard Atleo’s 2004 book Tsawalk:A Nuu-chah-nulth Worldview: "respect (isaak) necessitates a consciousness that all creation has a common origin, for this reason isaak is extended to all life forms.”

Also having spent many years working in a refugee agency, I have come to see the wisdom in both holding on to one’s own culture and partnering and embracing aspects of another's.  

There is a space, and a necessity, for inter-cultural dialogue.

How can we enter into those spaces more now?  Can we enter with humility and at the same time with an open hand?  We each have wisdom to offer the other. 

Can we partner?

"Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean."  …. Ryunosuke Satoro

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3. NEGOTIATION - Dancing Through Conflict

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Creative and artful ways of engaging conflict….

Recently, we had the pleasure of interviewing Michelle LeBaron for our onconflict podcast. Her episode is coming out March 14.
 

One aspect of Michelle’s work that intrigues me, and that we didn’t get a chance to dive into, is her work with internationally known Canadian dancer and choreographer Margie Gillis.  Michelle and Margie did a lot of collaborating resulting in a book entitled The Choreograph of Resolution: Conflict, Movement and Neuroscience.

Michelle’s book focuses on examining what dancers already know about conflict and exploring how those lessons and principles can be used by those of us with an interest in engaging conflict.  What they discovered together is that dancers know a great deal about conflict, as it is inherent in what they express in their movement and their dance. 

One of the cross-applications is something that I’ve been aware of and using in my mediation work for years.  Drawing on my years (and former life) as an aerobics dance teacher, I have been very aware of how my body and others’ bodies interact in space. 

The art of dance offers for us the opportunity to be more aware of our bodies and how they function in conflict.  Through dance, we can learn where and when our bodies are out of alignment.  In this way, physically-based training helps us be more present to conflict.

One of the exercises Margie Gillis created is called “Everyone you aren’t.”  The idea is  to move in relation to the other person and to be aware of occupying space they are not in.  This is a helpful analogue with conflict, as we tend to occupy space competitively, instead of cooperatively.

If you are interested in more on this topic, this is a great review and summary of some of the gems of Michelle’s book.
 
“The truest expression of a people is in its dance and in its music. Bodies never lie."  …  Agnes de Mille

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