Nonviolence and Killing

by Miki Kashtan

In the wake of Osama Bin-Laden’s killing a very active discussion emerged on the email forum used by the community of trainers certified with the Center for Nonviolent Communication. One thread of this conversation has been about responses to the particular event, and especially how to relate to the people celebrating Bin-Laden’s death. This exploration was the primary inspiration for my previous entry (to which I still intend to come back). Another thread has focused on a more general question: can killing in any way be compatible with nonviolence?

This is by far not a new dilemma in human affairs. The Dalai Lama, one of the living icons of nonviolence, also engaged with this same question, citing a Buddhist scripture that suggests killing may sometimes be necessary, so long as it’s done with utmost compassion and in extreme and rare circumstances. Whether or not the stringent criteria implicit in the story were met in this circumstance, the Dalai Lama’s essential claim is that Buddhism, in principle, is not categorically opposed to killing.

Others, including Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist leader who is also deeply associated with peace and nonviolence, and others who embrace a consciousness of nonviolence, are suggesting that killing is never to be done. For some, true nonviolence entails the willingness to die rather than to kill.

Earlier today an NVC trainer from Germany who is also a Sikh posted on the email forum, and included this sentence: “Killing seems to be part of nature – the question to me really is, what is the consciousness behind it.”

With some significant changes and additions, I am posting here my response to this post. This is an invitation to engage with this question, with all questions, with complexity and with love. In our times, with what we are facing, I don’t believe that simple one-dimensional answers will do. I sense that paradox and complexity are essential for our survival.

I was reminded of a very complex process I went through when I had cancer in 1997. At that time I was part of the Thich Nhat Hanh community, and, specifically, had taken the five precepts, the first of which is no killing and no condoning of killing. This was the background against which I was presented with the prevalent image of "war" against the cancer. I was deeply troubled, because I had complete clarity that these cells, no matter what else was true of them, were part of me, and were alive. I had a lot of difficulty embracing the idea of killing them.

What helped me were two insights, both of which seem relevant to this essential question.

The first was coming to understand that life depends on killing, at all levels. For example, if our immune system stops killing invading germs we will all die in short order. That realization was shocking, disturbing, and also expansive in terms of my understanding of life.

The second was that cancer is an unsustainable life form. It has no way to survive because of the indefinite growth that consumes more and more resources and will, eventually, kill the person whose cancer it is. My choice, as someone with cancer, was to do all I could so that the cancer would die faster and therefore I would stay alive.

In this moment it appears to me that most of the killing that happens in life is interwoven with the ongoing processes of living, eating, shelter, and other such basics. And then there are times when the option of killing happens as an active, conscious decision. I see the example of my cancer as a metaphor for one of the criteria about when killing is harmonious with life.

In a movie I saw many years ago I remember some people who were asking forgiveness of animals before killing them for food. In that act I saw recognition of the inevitability, as well as understanding of the grief and anguish of the necessity, of killing.

When it comes to killing humans I imagine that process being extraordinarily difficult. I have serious doubt that most of the killing that happens amongst humans receives that quality of immense care and attention.

Subsequent to my cancer experience, I lost my capacity to see “no killing” as a vow I could accept. I haven't yet found an elegant way to come up with a simple and tight set of criteria to use in deciding about killing. Nothing that is useful enough to share with others. It has been evident to me that the hermetic and single-focused “no killing” is in most instances easier to observe than the agonizing process of becoming conscious each time and deciding in the absence of clarity. I dropped out of the community, because I didn’t see that I could find companionship in the excruciating work of disentangling the complexity. So I wrestled by myself. Do I kill the ants that one day swarmed into my house in the many hundreds? I did kill them. Was it necessary? I doubt it. They were not threatening my survival in any way, only my comfort. Was the killing done with compassion? Hardly. I was frantic and shaking all over in primal disgust, and didn’t have any sense of presence of mind while spraying them.

Ants are not human, and I still also believe that I myself would not be able to kill another person even in very difficult circumstances. I hope very much that I don’t find myself in such circumstances, because whatever happens will no doubt be deeply traumatic for me.

Whatever else is true, I am confident that the more we can all learn and integrate into our body, mind, and soul the options of dialogue and nonviolent resistance the less likely it is that we would find killing the only option in any given circumstance. In addition to courage and love, I know I want to cultivate creativity so as to be able to find the nonviolent options: the magic of dialogue, the energy of nonviolent resistance, and the vision of love that grounds them both. I want all of us to walk beyond the constraining visions we have inherited, so we can truly see the possibility of transcending either/or thinking and develop trust that we can create outcomes that ultimately benefit everyone.

Understanding Everyone: Empathic Reflections about Osama Bin-Laden’s Killing

by Miki Kashtan

I have had a dream for many years now to be able to provide an empathic response to the news, whatever they are, so that everyone is seen as fully human. I see this situation as just the right time to explore this approach. There are so many ways in which people have participated in or responded to this event, and I want to capture the humanity of all of them. Some are rejoicing, some are horrified, some are skeptical, some are apathetic, and all are fellow humans. As tough as it sometimes is to really feel that commonality, that is what I most want to do.

People Celebrating Bin-Laden’s Death

I confess that this one is particularly challenging for me. Then I remind myself: the more challenging it is to viscerally step into the experience of another, the more necessary it is for me to do so in order to mend the separation. Whatever else is true, what is foreign to me, what is challenging, what is frightening, what I may judge, is also part of life. By distancing myself from it, I remain closed to some aspect of life. When I can truly get into those different experiences, then I embrace life, then I am in flow, without resistance, without claiming to know, and certainly without claiming to control any outcomes. Certainly a tall order.

And so I try to imagine myself being so happy that someone is dead. Why would I be happy that someone is dead? What could possibly be the experience that would lead me to wish for someone’s death? I don’t have to go very far. While I never wanted to kill anyone, I did have a few experiences in my life of reaching such a degree of helplessness and despair in a relationship, that I fantasized about the possibility that a particular person would die, somehow, and relieve me of my immense suffering. I also remember twice in my life when someone died and the primary feeling I had was one of relief. Now I can use these experiences as entry points. I can imagine having so much fear, so much helplessness about the basic, primal sense of safety for me and for the people I care about, both individually and collectively, that I would just be consumed with thoughts about how to get rid of this individual I see as the direct cause of my suffering. Of course, my fear, if I am this person, is likely fed by the media. That doesn’t make my experience one bit less real. I am rejoicing because, for a moment, I actually believe that the source of my troubles is removed.

And what’s the effect on me of having done this exploration? Twofold. First, I feel much less separate. For as long as I held the people celebrating Bin-Laden’s death as “other,” I didn’t even have the memory of my own experiences of extreme helplessness. Now I have more tenderness, for them, and for me. Something feels soft, and in that softness I relax into such immense anguish, and I have tears streaming down my face, and they are the first since I heard the news. My reaching across the divide to understand has opened me to me more fully to my own fallible humanity, as well as to my passion and dreams for how I want the world to be. I know I want different responses, and now I can stand within that dream more fully. I am soft, and I am committed to do what I can.

People Judging the Killing and the Celebration

I have a different challenge altogether in opening my heart here. As is likely evident already, I, too, responded with shock and despair when I heard about people celebrating. On that level it’s so much easier for me to understand the experience that leads to the judgment. At the same time I can also easily access disappointment that people who speak about nonviolent solutions, especially those who have been steeped in the study and practice of nonviolence, respond with distance and judgment. I can easily tell myself that they are reaffirming the very kind of thinking that perpetuates the structures and practices we have in the world. In moments of unconscious righteousness I can be pulled to minimize the differences between the celebrators and the judgers of the celebration.

I wake up from such moments through remembering that my own judging of the judgers is no different, either. Once I remember, the full openness is right there. Why do they judge, why do I judge? Time and again I have come back to the same clarity: when I judge, I am protected in some way. I don’t have to feel whatever is going on in its fullness. I have done that so many times, and continue to do it. Most of the time only for brief seconds, because I so prefer the open-hearted state that I easily choose to unfurl my protection and enter into the experience underneath. Not all the time. In some areas my judgments have not yet been dissolved. Those are the ones that are most likely to help me understand those who judge others. It’s not my agreement with their fundamental perspective. Agreement does not easily lead to empathy, because agreement keeps us at the level of content, and empathy arises at a different level of meaning, closer to the core of our shared human experience of responding to life, moment by moment.

As I keep asking, I see my judgment arising from the depth of my care, and in those places where I least know how to contribute to transformation. I judge, most easily, any time I view someone else as not caring, or not caring enough, and taking actions that I see as potentially harmful. I know that believing there’s lack of care on anyone’s part, whether small or large, frightens me deeply. So I judge as a way to have hope, perhaps. Because the judgment has some strength to it, some conviction. Even after so many years of study and practice, I still don’t have sufficient visceral trust in the power of just being with my own depth of experience, with my own needs, and dreams, and visions. I have seen time and again that the willingness to be with my experience, and to open my heart to another’s, has created breakthrough outcomes. How very sad that this is so. And how very human, given the thousands of years of being taught separation, distance, and creating order through enforecement.

Now the cycle is complete. I can now experience that blessed tenderness, that essential compassion, for the judgers, too. Because, once again, I am not separate. I am, once again, in the flow of life, open to all of us, regardless of where we are.

More to Come

This piece is only the beginning, as there are so many more players. I had, truly, no idea of where this writing would take me. This has been a personal exploration. Without quite planning to do so, the internal integrity or following truth led me to delve into the one-person experience that I have in trying to imagine how all the players are human like me. I am amazed, moved, and grateful for the many years of practice that allow me to share with such vulnerability, and through that experience such connection with life. As I am about to post this piece, I now imagine you reading it, and I feel the stretching into the vulnerability extending further. So many of you I don’t even know. Will you accept me? I see, vividly, that my own relaxed and complete acceptance of myself is what makes it possible to post this. I share this, because I am longing to inspire you all to embrace who you are more and more, so you can be stronger and stronger.

In the coming days I plan to come back and explore additional perspectives. You can help me with this by letting me know through your comments about anyone whose response is challenging for you to understand. Depending on how many such comments I receive, I may or may not find ways to explore them all. I am also inviting you to engage in the same way I did, or in any other way that would support you in seeing the humanity of all.

Dialogue and Nonviolence

by Miki Kashtan

I have often reminded others (and myself in the process) that our commitment to nonviolence is only tested when people do things we don’t like. How are we going to respond when we see an individual, a leader, a group, or even a nation, acting in ways that are not aligned with what we want to see happen in the world?

Nonviolence gets its power from love, from breaking down the barriers of separation and cultivating compassion for everyone, from the courage to face consequences to our actions, from the willingness to stand for truth, from the fierce commitment to overcome fear and act in integrity.

Responding nonviolently to what we don’t like, then, invites us to find ways of bringing love, courage, and truth to the situation even while we are trying to transform it.

Nonviolent Resistance and Dialogue

What can our actions look like when we come from this perspective? We either engage in dialogue, when such is available, or we engage in nonviolent resistance. Nonviolent resistance can be seen as an escalation of dialogue just as much as war can be seen as an escalation of diplomatic fear-based negotiations. In nonviolent resistance we bring to bear resources to increase engagement, to make visible our plight, to appeal to the humanity of those whose actions we want to change, or simply to reduce their ability to keep doing their actions without cost so as to invite more consideration of other options. Nonviolent resistance was the quintessential method of Gandhi, MLK, and many other movements, including the recent ones in the Arab world.

Truly nonviolent resistance aims to create an outcome that works for everyone through the recognition that only solutions that work for everyone are sustainable. Any solution that is forced on another person, group, or nation simply has too much potential to breed resentment, even hatred, and therefore to backfire at the soonest opportunity of the forced party to seize power again.

This deep commitment to an outcome that works for everyone is the connecting link between nonviolent resistance and dialogue. Dialogue, unlike nonviolent resistance, requires two (or more) people or groups that are in agreement to talk with each other. However, dialogue doesn’t require both parties to agree to be in dialogue, only to agree to talk. The discipline of dialogue, at its heart, is a commitment to make dialogue possible, to continue to pursue the goal of an outcome that truly works for everyone even when others are only looking out for their own interest.

Dialogue and Conversation

“Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a witness.” -- Margaret Millar

“Dialogue is a conversation … the outcome of which is unknown.”  -- Martin Buber

While every dialogue is a conversation, not every conversation is a dialogue. What are the features that distinguish dialogue from other forms of conversation? If we accept Buber’s characterization of dialogue, what makes it possible for the outcome to be unknown?

Listening: I know I have embraced dialogue when I recognize in me a sense of openness to the other person’s experience. Part of what makes so many conversations different from the true magic of dialogue is that so often we use the time during which others are speaking to think about the next thing we are going to say, without giving our ears and hearts to the person speaking. This is even more pronounced when whoever is speaking is someone whose actions, words, or opinions we are opposing. This, after all, is the context for this exploration: dialogue as a response to a situation we don’t like.

Openness to change: An unknown outcome means that something along the way has changed from whatever it was that could have been predicted as an outcome. Especially if we are unhappy with how things are, this willingness takes active dedication and commitment. Without it, I don’t trust my own integrity. If I am unwilling to change, to be affected by what I hear sufficiently to consider options which are new to me, on what grounds am I expecting the other person to change?

Holding everyone’s needs: At bottom, embracing the spirit of dialogue is a commitment to caring for everyone who is part of the dialogue, even if they have taken actions that deeply concern me. I love what I see as the radical gift of this commitment. Without it I could so easily be tempted to impose solutions on a less-than-willing person just because I believe they address my own needs better. With this commitment in place I work for an inclusive solution even when the other person may still be advocating for their needs only. This, to me, is where the strength of the commitment to nonviolence gets tested: I want to be able to hold enough love and trust, both in myself and in the humanity of the other parties, that I will stay the course until we are connected, until we have some solution with which we can all live. I have seen it happen on a small scale, and I continue to have faith that such dialogue is possible at all levels.

Honoring Our Limits

The commitment to dialogue may appear to ask of us to have infinite capacity. Always be open to dialogue? With anyone? About anything? Any time they want it?

I have wrestled with this question for years in various contexts, and just recently I reached some clarity that has helped me put it to rest, at least in part. Key to my peace was the distinction between the openness to shifting through dialogue and the act of having an actual conversation with a particular person. Inner and outer aspects.

As to the act of being in conversation with another, that act happens on the material plane, and is therefore subject to finitude in a way that willingness is not. Willingness, like any inner state, has not limits. Our capacity to schedule, mobilize resources, and create the conditions for dialogue to occur, is humanly limited. I have often seen many of us get so confused by material limitations that we close ourselves down and disengage. If I am going to say “no” to participating in a dialogue, I want absolute honesty with myself that my choice is based on clear assessment of my resources rather than a subtle form of avoidance, closed-heartedness, or any other form of putting a barrier between me and another person.

I have found repeatedly that the experience of openness to dialogue in and of itself is transformative. I can tell the difference, sometimes in a very visceral way, in my body itself, when I am or am not open in that way. I know how attachment feels because I have had so many times now the experience of not having it, and the immense freedom that comes with that. It’s not about not wanting, even wanting passionately; it’s not about not having opinions, even strong ones; it’s not about going along with anything or anyone. It’s simply about the willingness to be affected by what I hear, or even by my own imagination about another’s needs or perspective. It’s about allowing connection with needs, my own and another’s, to be the moving force of life, the source of creative strategies.

Why Would I Want to Understand?

by Miki Kashtan

I recently wrote an article linking NVC to the legacy of Gandhi in which I identified seven principles that are common to both. I consider the third principle - seeing others’ humanity – as core to the practice of nonviolence, and at the same time as profoundly demanding. It is so much easier, on so many levels, to only “grant” full humanity to some people and not others.

NVC provides a practical method for cultivating this capacity to see others’ humanity, based on the principle that every human action, no matter how destructive or abhorrent to us, is an expression of basic human needs that are shared by all of us.

When I express the full extent and radical ramifications of this principle, very often people raise the example of Hitler. Isn’t he, ultimately, beyond the pale? To me, nothing is. As I wrote the article, I was amazed to learn that Gandhi wrote to Hitler, and addressed him as “Dear Friend.” I know that Marshall Rosenberg dedicated significant research and personal reflection to studying Hitler’s life so he could see and understand his humanity. I know it’s possible. And so I included a paragraph in which I explored what could possibly be some basic human needs that could possibly be hidden deep underneath the choices that led him to such extremes. The paradox is astonishing to me. The choices themselves are so beyond comprehension to me that I can barely breathe when I truly attempt to take them in, and yet the needs I could imagine are fully and easily understandable to me. Here’s what I identified: “I can easily see, and often experience, being only with people similar to us as one strategy for the human needs to belong, to have ease in relating, and to have a sense of meaning and connection. Seeing this, I can resonate with Hitler’s underlying needs, and thus make human sense of Hitler despite of and independently of his actions.” (If you are curious about why acting on these needs would take the form of such unimaginable actions, I highly recommend James Gilligan’s book Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and Its Causes. Gilligan discusses, in particular, the role of shame in leading to violence and cruelty.)

From Emotional Protection to Open-Hearted Grief

For some people it seems virtually impossible to fathom the possibility of such compassion. They want to protect themselves from the excruciating pain that the specter of the actions raises for them. As one reader wrote after the article was posted: “It is so painful for me to ponder what needs of his he was trying to meet by his actions. I have a preference to stay away from people or things that are just so "needy" and require so much work on my part to not judge or condemn.”

On the most personal level, my own main reason for wanting to extend understanding is the profound effect it has on me. I believe it was Martin Luther King who said that the practice of nonviolence first of all affects the person who practices it, before it affects anyone else.

From the moment I understood the revolutionary depth of this principle, I have been working systematically to integrate it and make it available to me in more and more circumstances. Sometimes I have taken days and weeks to reflect on what could possibly be the human needs of someone whose actions I could not comprehend, whether someone I know personally or a public figure. I have also been in dialogue with people very different from me and focused on understanding, really trying to make sense of their actions from within their own frame of reference, and get a visceral feel for their needs. Many times I have taken on very difficult roles as part of my work with people, and have always found a human nugget at the heart of sometimes extreme actions. Each time this happens, I feel bigger and stronger as a human being. Most of the time, these days, I no longer need to reflect much; the experience of entering another person’s reality is now fairly easily available to me, and I consider that a blessing.

I am not without pain. I would never trade that pain for what I felt before. I have so much less fear these days, so much more room to be, to explore, to experiment. I am so much more at one with the whole of humanity, without separation, without enemies. My world feels safer and bigger when everyone is essentially human like me.

From Moral Indignation to Compassionate Determination

A more common concern I have heard often is that compassion is somehow the same as making the actions OK. In particular, I have heard many express the fear that with compassion we would do nothing to stop actions that are harmful. Because of the millennia of training to see everything as either right or wrong, if I don’t call something “wrong” it’s easy to see me as saying that it’s “right.” Understanding, for me, is entirely different from agreement or acceptance. It’s an entirely different orientation. I do not have to hate or condemn someone in order to do everything in my power to stop their actions. I can do it with compassion, and I can have just as much intensity, determination, and passion for what matter to me. I can act with as much conviction and decisiveness while still having care for the person whose actions I am trying to stop. Gandhi, again, comes to mind. He didn’t hate the British officers. He stood up to them, resisted, mobilized millions, and all the while maintained a sense of full respect for their humanity. In fact, he fully believed it was to their benefit to leave India.

Compassion and Nonviolence

What many people don’t know is that nonviolence was used, and successfully so, even during WWII. (See Michael Nagler’s book The Search for a Nonviolent Future for examples.) As our capacity to destroy increases, and our collective global willingness to use that capacity remains high, I am more and more eager to see the nonviolent alternatives. I have complete faith that nonviolence can be a primary approach to resolving international conflict. I don’t believe we can get there without learning to see others’ humanity no matter the circumstances.

What Makes Collaboration Work? - Part 2

by Miki Kashtan

This piece is a continuation of yesterday’s post.

Telling the Truth with Care

The founder of a start-up company brought to the workshop the challenge he had about having a sales person whose judgment calls he doesn’t always trust. What can he do to move towards a collaborative experience with this employee?

Sometimes the most important thing about collaborating is truth telling. Often enough we avoid telling the truth because of fear of hurting other people. This is because we’ve been trained to believe that truth and care are mutually exclusive. Instead, I aim for truth with care. In order to find a way to shift the dynamics with the employee, I invited everyone at the workshop to imagine themselves being that employee, and what they would want to hear from the founder in such a situation. Within moments we came up with several ways to present the truth. One example: “I have some concerns about how you respond to some situations. I want us to work together well, and I want to support you in being successful in this job. Are you open to reviewing a few situations together so we can get more alignment around our priorities?”

More generally, whenever we have a difficult message to deliver, we can imagine being the other person, really and truly stepping into their proverbial shoes. From within that perspective we can often feel directly what would register as care, what’s necessary to say or highlight to make room for the truth to be digestible. It’s never about compromising the truth; it’s only about framing it in a context of collaboration.

Shared Ownership of Outcome

One young facilitator in a hi-tech area brought forward the challenge of having very acrimonious meetings, full of arguments and without any clear resolution. She was daunted by the prospect of navigating such a meeting to a collaborative spirit.

In polarized situations one key skill is particularly helpful – the ability to hear the dream, vision, value, need, or goal that is hidden behind the different opinions. For example, let’s say that we are in a meeting to evaluate two different software platforms, and someone says: “This product sucks. They haven’t been supporting it for years.” What I hear is that what’s important to this person is reliability in terms of tech support. Or if someone says: “It’s so boring, there’s nothing to it,” I hear that they want a product that’s innovative or has complex functionality. Why is this capacity important? Because moving towards something has more potential for getting people together than arguing about what’s not working.

Once we verify with each person that we got clearly what’s important to them, the next step is to generate one list with all that’s important. This, then, becomes the list of criteria to use to evaluate the product in this case, or to evaluate any proposal that’s on the table more generally. Key to the success of this approach is to create one list with the core qualities that are sought without any reference to the specific product, direction, or strategy that’s being discussed. What then happens is that the group can move to shared ownership of the list, an act which gradually de-polarizes the group and shifts it into an orientation of finding, together, a solution that meets as many of the criteria as possible. In that way we support collaboration even in a charged context.

Learning to Collaborate

Most of us have been raised to work alone and in competition with others. I have a lot of compassion and tenderness for our efforts to collaborate without having all the necessary tools, and I feel passionate about providing these tools. I can only do so much online through this blog. To move more clearly towards transforming our work lives and making collaboration be the norm in our society, I am collaborating with a group of other NVC trainers to create the Making Collaboration Real retreat and optional yearlong program that’s starting next month.

As part of our vision, we want to transform the way businesses deal with money, and we are committed to modeling this transformation in our own practice around money. Now that the curriculum for the program is ready, I am itching to make this unique opportunity available to more people. If you are drawn to participate in this retreat or program and cost is the only reason you would not attend, please read our brief philosophy about money, and contact us to talk about how to make attendance at this program possible for you.

The depth and level of detail of the curriculum leave me in awe about how much is needed in order to make collaboration work. I am so excited to have a coherent and systematic way that collaboration can be taught, experienced, and practiced. I have confidence that with focus and dedication we can all master the art of collaboration at all levels.

What Makes Collaboration Work?

by Miki Kashtan

Why is collaboration so difficult and tenuous for so many people? Since we are so clearly social animals, wouldn’t we naturally know how to collaborate?

In the last several weeks I have been deeply immersed in learning and teaching about collaboration. I participated in planning and leading the Making Collaboration Real conference, and noticed the immense hunger people had for more tips about how to do collaboration. I attended the Social Venture Network gathering, where I led a breakout session about collaboration, I led one other workshop on collaboration at the Hub SoMa, and I have worked with people struggling to collaborate effectively.

I heard the entire gamut of challenges: from performance reviews to decision making, from interpersonal relationships to leadership styles, from online relationships to in-person group meetings, and from innermost experience to how systems are set up. I now can say more clearly than ever that in today’s workplace effective collaboration is an accomplishment rather than a given. Here are some snippets from my recent weeks with some tips you can use to increase your chances of collaborating successfully.

Full Responsibility

I often hear from people something to the effect that they can’t collaborate with someone because of that person’s actions, choices, or communication. For myself, I hold that if I want to collaborate with someone the responsibility is on me to make that collaboration work. In tough moments I remind myself that I am the one who wants to collaborate, and therefore I want to take the responsibility for making it happen. The less willingness another person has, the more presence, skill, and commitment are required from me. Expecting fairness interferes with the possibility of collaboration. Instead of thinking about what’s fair, I think about what’s possible in any situation given the level of skill and interest that all the players have. Sometimes this may be more than I want to do, in which case I may choose not to collaborate. I still know that it’s my choice, and not the other person’s limitations, which end the collaboration. This orientation has helped me tremendously to the point of carrying no resentment to speak of even in situations that break down.

Making Use of Input

In one of the workshops a senior program officer in a high-profile non-profit organization talked about dreading the experience of bringing her ideas to her team. The reason? They usually don’t like what she says, then she sits and endures their input despite the pain without saying anything to them, and finally she thanks them for the input and makes whatever decision she makes.

One way of transforming such a challenge is to be proactive about the kind of input that we want. For example, when she proposes a plan, she can start by saying that she wants to hear a few people express only what they like about the proposal. Providing specific positive comments supports her in relaxing, and supports the others in connecting more with the reason the proposal is there in the first place. Then she can ask the team to name those areas that they don’t like and for which they have concrete suggestions for improvement. This builds a sense of movement and possibility. Finally, she can ask for any additional concerns for which people may not have a solution. By then enough goodwill gets generated that the group can look at those concerns together and brainstorm suggestions with her. She is then not alone and overwhelmed with so much input without solutions. And everyone has the experience that their input is valued. In that way she leads them to collaborate.

I plan to post the 2^nd part of this post tomorrow, with two more tips: how to tell the truth with care, and how to create shared ownership of the outcome.

Facts, Controversies, and Change of Mind – Part 2

by Miki Kashtan

This is a continuation of yesterday’s post.

Can Facts Settle a Controversy?

When emotionally charged controversies are at play, even when agreement on the facts is possible, it’s unlikely to lead to any settling of the real issues, because beyond the facts comes the meaning we assign to them.

For example, I have been in an ongoing conversation with a colleague about the healthcare situation in the US. We have absolutely no disagreement about the basic facts of there being dozens of millions of people who have no or low access to adequate healthcare. However, the meaning of this fact remains fully divided between us. Is it government stepping in that has created this, or government stepping out? Is it more important to provide care, or more important to support autonomy?

To come back to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, whatever facts we can possibly agree on are always seen through the lens of the framing story. That story informs what we see as cause of anything, how we evaluate the actors, and how we want to respond. A bomb explodes inside Israel. Is it a terrorist act designed to kill Israeli civilians and demoralize the people who are trying to live in peace in their land, or is it an act of a courageous freedom-fighter who believes no other way exists to call attention to the plight of Palestinians? If you believe the former, your response is likely to be doing whatever is necessary to protect life. If you believe the latter, you are more likely to want to be in dialogue to end the conditions that make life hard for Palestinians.

Given this wrinkle, I would much rather focus on attempting to create mutual understanding about matters of meaning than about the facts. I simply don’t see that facts can serve that big of a role in reaching across an opinion difference, a point to which I come back momentarily.

This is the primary reason why I wrote the original article the way I did: I was trying to uncover and connect with the underlying meaning for both parties. Our habit is to point to what we think of as “gross mis-statements of fact” and to believe that once the facts are settled, the rest will logically follow.

What I try to focus on, instead, is to understand this: if the other person agreed with you on the facts, what would be the meaning of that? What is underneath that wish for shared reality? What is it that you want to be seen for that what you think of as facts illustrates for you? This is the level at which I hope dialogues can happen. I trust what I have seen come out of such dialogues.

Do Facts Lead to Change of Minds?

In my work with volunteers in the Campaign to establish a US Department of Peace, I was repeatedly faced with the focus everyone puts on what they are going to say, such as the arguments they are going to present to support the proposed legislation or the facts and figures they can cite to make a case for the campaign. I have rarely met an activist who is trained in how to listen, or in being able to engage with others at the level of the deeper meaning that facts, arguments, and counter-arguments represent.

In the absence of engagement with the deeper layers, any fact and any argument can be subsumed into a pre-existing worldview without challenging it. It is well known that even hard core scientists are happily living with counter-arguments to the theory they espouse in their scientific field. You only need to read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to see how widespread and intrinsic to the development of science this phenomenon is. Of course, here I am doing the exact same thing: citing a book, making an argument, pointing to facts…

I have been monitoring when I or others are being asked for reference for something we say. This rarely happens when the person asking for the reference is in agreement, except when they want the reference to be able to refute someone else’s position… Rather, people ask for a reference when what I or others say is not in alignment with their worldview. This is just one small example of how the underlying story of life that we have affects how we listen to everything.

So what is the alternative? The long version is likely to be a topic for another day. The short version for me is simple. I aim for mutual understanding rather than change of mind. When I enter a dialogue I remind myself that unless I am truly willing to change my own mind, I have no business asking the other person to change theirs, no matter how much I may think that my position is right and theirs off. I aim to see the humanity of someone with whom I disagree, and support them in seeing mine, because that is the best foundation for creating connection. It is, indeed, my belief that when we change our minds it is usually over time, in relationship with something or someone about which we care, and when we experience a respectful invitation. It is my hope that my work can contribute to more such conversations happening in the world.