The mystic and sandals on the ground

Fisher and Ury accomplished enormous things nationally and internationally by their method of principled negotiation. It is so clear and straightforward. In my pantheon of core readings in conflict, I include the little text from Lederach, literally called The Little Book of Conflict Transformation, because he speaks to aspects in a more metaphorical and even mystical manner that I find piercingly revealing. 

I was fortunate enough to attend some of his talks at Notre Dame some years ago and he asked me to lunch one day. His commitment to work with the most disregarded people in the world, people in conflict but not doing so in violent ways, was inspiring. He told me of his work with the most disregarded people in Nepal, the landless tribal people who basically survive outside the official economy, outside the official political structure, owning nothing, living in the forests. 

Lederach said he's told those foundations who fund his work that, while it's a boost to get a one-time grant to do some work for a year, he would no longer seek funding that isn't committed to less than a decade. "The people on the ground--literally on the ground--in places like the indigenous villages along the coast of Nicaragua or the deep forests of Nepal need a sustained commitment to build sustainable structures of justice that serve to shield them from the traditional dominance and oppression inflicted on them from the governments of their countries. This requires long process work, not a flash of only a year." 

It was one of the most illuminating conversations I've ever had. Lederach is revered in the field of Conflict Transformation for his vision, groundtruthing based on lived, direct experience, and his penetrating analysis. Some find his work impenetrable, some find it the most revelatory of any writer in our field.

Increase the peace

"How do we address conflict in ways that reduce violence and increase justice in human relationships?" (Lederach, 2003, p. 20)

Far too often, vexingly, justice is defined as punishment, even killing. "Our family demands justice!" as they clamor for the death penalty. "Lock her up! Lock her up!" is framed by some as a call for justice. 

Part of the core approach inherent in the discipline of Conflict Transformation is that nonviolent methods achieve more justice and more sustainable justice than the tired old notions of justice by additional harm. 

This is not a path toward cowardice and injustice. This is not about abolishing law or law enforcement. This is not about allowing bullies to do what they want without costs. It's also not about Just War doctrines. 

Instead, it's about imposing costs that don't physically harm people's bodies. Those costs may be imposed in many other ways, which is the challenge to creativity rather than the simplistic "hang 'em high" code of vengeance.

Lederach, John Paul (2003). The little book of conflict transformation. Intercourse, PA: Good Books.

Ubuntu

Each culture has its own landmark philosophies and practices. With its many (44-51) countries, European philosophies and social norms and tools vary in the popular literature from country to country, culture to culture. However, even with its 54 nation-states and hundreds of historically distinct tribal or linguistic nations, some Eurocentric scholars, philosophers, and intercultural "experts" refer to Ubuntu as "African" humanism, encapsulating the norms, ethics, and humanistic values of the most diverse continent on Earth. 

This is clearly reductionist (Ujomu, 2024). Nevertheless, enough indigenous African cultures, especially at the tribal granularity levels, call Ubuntu their locus of social values, some of them stressing consensus processes, some stressing rationality and the African version of what Europeans call the Enlightenment. Far more than any European culture (except possibly Romany), Ubuntu also encompasses a collectivist view of life, of decisions made--even about the direction of a villager's life--by a far more consensus and collectivist method.

One of the most helpful questions might be, "Where has Western culture stumbled, failing many?" While Western cultures have clearly succeeded at a great deal, is there something they can learn from others, from indigenous ideas and practices? Bringing an intercultural lens to conflict, to decision-making, to philosophy, to ethics, and to problem-solving can be what William Ury refers to as Possible (2024). In short, what are the ideas from elsewhere that may solve heretofore perduring, seemingly intractable conflictual problems? 

As my father--our hockey coach when I was a boy--used to say, "When you are losing, change something." 

References

Ujomu, P. O. (2024). ‘Ubuntu’ African Philosophy or ‘Ubuntu’ as a Philosophy for Africa? Philosophical Alternatives Journal / Filosofski Alternativi, 33(5), 53–90. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.58945/UYHB1683

Ury, William (2024). Possible: How we survive (and thrive) in an age of conflict. Harper Business.

My strength is what counts!...well...

Folks who develop a great position leading into a negotiation, and whose work on their power produces a great alternative to an actual agreement can come to a rude surprise at times. The feeling when one has thought through what one can accomplish without any negotiation is a dangerous assumption unless "the other side's" best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA) is also well understood (Fisher, Ury & Patton, 2011, p. 167).

One key to a successful process is to know the difference between a bottom line--the absolute minimum you will accept--and the BATNA--what you achieve unilaterally, with no agreement. The bottom line is not something to share ("I can only go as high as $4000" is not a wise opening line to a used car salesperson). The BATNA, on the other hand, is best made quite transparent. Why?

When I am made aware that my opponent is capable of proceeding with another party toward a project that we are negotiating over, and if I really want that project to go forth with me integrally involved, I will tend to negotiate in better faith and look for ways to enhance collaboration, even ceding some power and rights that clearly matter more to the other party and not so much to me. That means it was quite advantageous for the other party to be open about their BATNA so that I understood their ability and willingness to just go ahead without me. And of course I want to be transparent about my BATNA if I want to incentivize them to negotiate in good faith with me, to really see their benefit in trying to work something out.

Of course it's crucial and best practice to do one's due diligence in investigating the BATNA revelation of the other party. If it turns out to be exaggerated, that only makes me the more powerful party in the talks. By the same token, I need to be crystal clear and correct when I reveal my BATNA, understating it a bit to be safe. I want to help them get to yes, not seem as though I'm trying to swindle them or bluff.

Understanding each other's alternatives is often a way to increase the desire to negotiate earnestly. On the other hand, if their BATNA is quite strong and I am not willing to give in much, they will likely see the futility of continuing to spend time and energy on negotiating with me. These are all important considerations that may or may not lead to an agreement, but they do make conditions more efficient for all parties.

In short, all this is essentially the direct opposite of what we often see in "peace talks" or "ceasefire negotiations," when apparently nobody is at the table in good faith, only to provide performative optics for public consumption, the opposite of best practices aiming for wise outcomes.

Reference

Fisher, Roger; Ury, William; Patton, Bruce (2011). Getting to yes: Negotiating agreement without giving in. (3^rd ed.). New York, NY: Penguin. 

People pleasers and principles

People pleasers are wonderful, and are ultimately suffering from self-harm if they yield on principle because of pressure. A former student of mine will always be a people pleaser, but he has built a successful career by only yielding to pressure that doesn't violate his principles. He took his Conflict Resolution degree and applied to be Human Resources Director for a franchise of seven restaurants. Even though there was no mention of Conflict Resolution in the job application announcement, he was about 15 minutes into the job interview when the owner of this string of restaurants said, "You're hired. This is exactly what we need."  The owner held no more interviews.

Now, two years later, my former student runs the employment of more than 300 people, with conflict management systems and subsystems that keep the inevitable conflicts from growing to harmful proportions. He does all this by being a people pleaser whose principles still ultimately serve as his beacons, his guardrails. He has, for example, managed conflicts that have included overt racism, conflicts that his boss, the owner of these seven restaurants, was willing to compromise on, but my former student was not. In instances like this, our principles can theoretically get us fired, and sometimes they do. 

Usually, however, when we show that we are of value, we can uphold our principles against all odds without dire consequences, even if it looks like we are not going to be people pleasers in this case. The longer we have shown our value, the more this is true. 

My former student--his name is Adam--literally finishes virtually every conversation with a version of, "Let me know if there's anything I can do to help." Could there be any more obvious definition of a people pleaser? Still, he never yields on principle, and he makes that a feature, not a bug, of his mode of management style. He's so good at relieving the pressures on others that, when he stands for something, the pressures on him, in turn, diminish.

BTW, as I write this, he has applied for a position in a neighboring state that would be much like his current position, except he'd be overseeing literally an order of magnitude more people in multiple states--more than 3,000 of them--and his salary would be approximately doubled. Not bad for a people pleaser...

Calling a penalty

How do we short-circuit that amygdala hijack in ourselves?

William Ury writes and speaks about "going to the balcony," to take a break and observe without acting or reacting.

In a football game, the ref might throw a red flag to stop the game and rule on a penalty committed by a player.

When can we call a penalty on ourselves and why would we do that?

If we are "seeing red" we are so enraged we may say to ourselves, the hell with conflict transformation, mediation, and win-win. Fire someone. Divorce. Quit a job. Sue somebody. Lock them out. It's a battle and only one is going to win.

Sadly, while absolutely understandable and commonplace, that amygdala hijack is no longer as adaptive as it was when we were up against a bear coming into our cave in prehistoric times. Despite Hollywood versions of the amygdala hijack being just what we need on a routine basis, in real life it is a losing path in the overwhelming majority of situations. Not only does it usually result in a lose-lose outcome, or even a complete victory for the other guy, it damages reputations and future prospects in most cases. "He's not dumb, but he lets his temper control him instead of him controlling his temper." "She's abrasive." "He is abusive to his staff." "She is abrupt and insulting."

This can result in a feedback loop in which someone hears about your prickly nature and either avoids working with you or begins an interaction aggressively in order to gain the advantage over your well known aggression. You may have only acted in service to your amygdala once but now it's triggered more frequently because people "know" that's how you engage and so they come into relationship with you doing the things they believe they need to in order to handle your normal manner of reacting to conflict of any sort.

This is why calling a penalty on myself is helpful. When I feel my self-control beginning to slip away as I'm triggered and my amygdala begins to assert dominance over my attitude and actions, my vestigial pre-frontal cortex, my executive, evolved portion of my brain needs to toss a red flag, calling a halt to the game. I need to leave the field and walk up the long stairs to the balcony, as William Ury advises.

Sometimes that means literally leaving the room, hanging up the phone, or exiting the Zoom session. If possible, do so in a way that leaves some hope. "OK, I have to pause to think about all this. We can talk later. I'll process some of this and get back to you." But if your only choice is Attack or Leave, you will almost always be best served by just leaving. Harsh words linger. They can taint future interactions far more than the abrupt exit.

In it to win it

Hibakusha won the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize. The history of the organization and of the Japanese government's efforts to warn the world that nuclear arms are little more than a suicide pact is an important one right now. Those weapons, like so many aspects of war, are dependent on lies and cover-ups, as well as hidden agendas. 

Hiroshima is the classic, canonical piece that helped the US citizenry and others understand the effects of "just" one atomic bomb, written by John Hersey and published in 1946 first in The New Yorker and then as a small and highly influential book. I would estimate that literally tens of millions of us have read it, based on observations of the immediate aftermath: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31/hiroshima

The next iconic writing read by many more millions of us came out in 1982 in The New Yorker, also published subsequently as a book, Fate of the Earth, by Jonathan Schell. It was published on the cusp of the Euromissile Crisis of 1983, when Ronald Reagan was flippantly musing that nuclear war could be waged in Europe, confined to Europe, and that we could win it. Europe lost its collective mind at that ignorant, provocative US presidential idiocy and tens of thousands were arrested across the continent, largely at the gates of US military bases there, bases that not only were on other nation's "sovereign" soil but that housed US nuclear missiles, making them all absolute targets by Soviet SS-20s, which were not all that far away, and which were more crude, bigger, and more susceptible to accidental launch in periods of tension. Schell and the Nuclear Freeze movement were largely prompted by the analysis of Randy Forsberg, a previously little-known American analyst working at a disarmament organization in Scandinavia. She published alarming findings in the late 1970s, ironically based on the combination of the Cold War posturing and weapons production by the US under Jimmy Carter and the Soviets under a succession of strongmen leaders. https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1982-02-01/flipbook/046/

I was privileged to meet the late Randy Forsberg in St Louis at a national Nuclear Freeze conference, as we ramped up thousands of volunteers to get the Freeze onto the ballots of any state with initiative and referendum. We succeeded in doing so in many states--every one we tried except Arizona. It was, and still is, the largest direct democracy exercise in American history (in contrast to representative democracy, in which we vote for a person to make policy, direct democracy, as we use in Oregon and some other states, allows citizens to create and vote on particular public policy). 

After observing the impressive power of our global movement to rise up against the stupidest nuclear initiatives, Jonathan Schell went on to study and write about it in another book, Unconquerable world: Power, nonviolence, and the will of the people. Like many of us, he was interested in it strategically, not so much as a philosophy or as some religious mandate. Indeed, I met him in New York at Manhattan College where he gave a talk to an academic association for which I was co-chair for a couple terms, the Peace and Justice Studies Association. As he separated his thinking about the power of nonviolence as mass action contrasted with the nice but usually ineffective religous commitment to nonviolence, he challenged those who eschewed the strategic focus, "I am so tired of going down in noble defeat," he said, really summing up the weakness of just acting out of a wish to be a nice person. 

Indeed, at another such conference earlier in Albany, New York, the father of nonviolence history, Dr. Gene Sharp, offered a similar challenge. He said that reliance on nice ethical and moral values was fine as a baby first step but pointed to the many times when nonviolent action was victorious and they were essentially all based on a careful strategy, mixing politics, resistance, and media work.

Yes, part of the strategy is willingness to suffer, to sacrifice for the advancement of the campaign. In that, there is effectively no difference from a military campaign. The idea is to win, and in the case of social movements, winning is dependent on remaining nonviolent and thus increasingly attractive to, and recruiting from, the greater populace. 

Golden bridging and bonding

Sun Tzu advised leaders to build a golden bridge over which your opponent can retreat. In other words, make any option except retreat seem inadvisable and unattractive. Corner your adversary so that even a modest gain can seem preferable to massive loss. Do not make them fight to the death; do not make them choose between losing face or experiencing massive loss. The sense of an honorable "negotiated" outcome is a way to tie up the conflict faster and make the outcome more sustainable. A home on the French Riviera for the dictator is a small price to end a brutal war. 

The other common use of bridge in our social science lexicon was most popularized by Robert Putnam in his germinal volume, Bowling Alone. Putnam's exegesis called the relational development within a community "bonding" and the relational development between a community and an external party "bridging." 

For example, a community that is in a food desert is approached by a grocery chain specializing in health foods and it buys the building first, only eventually announcing their plans. They are resisted by the community and eventually give up, sell the building, and move somewhere else.

A good community organizer might have worked on the bridging possibilities to get the external party to develop a relationship first, discuss advantages to the community, and to ask the community to help plan its move, and to just generally listen. That bridging can be a golden bridge bringing advantages back and forth to both the external investor and to the community. 

Build more golden bridges...

Set the table

Every conflict transformation authority says it in some fashion: if you fail to invite all the stakeholders to meetings you will more likely fail in your project because you convince the neglected parties that you don't respect them or you intend to deceive them. 

What?! You do not disrespect them! You have no intention of deceiving them! Why would they jump to either or both of those erroneous conclusions?

Say it: Human Nature. If Mom gives your brother a big grilled cheese and only gives you a half, or a small one, you feel left out and you will often wail until you are treated better, but that may just as easily lead to you being punished or treated even worse. This can set up some lifetime issues, especially when you begin to socialize outside the family and a couple other children ignore you and clearly just want to play together without you. Hateful!

Yes, there are those who are either extraordinarily well adjusted or who have been trained not to jump to ill-informed conclusions, but most days they feel like the minority. 

If you are part of a planning group, double check with your colleagues. Who needs to be in the loop? Who needs a voice in the deliberations as we make our group decisions? Make sure you've really given this full consideration.

So what if someone mistakenly feels disrespected or left out? Why is that your problem?

From business deals to neighborhood initiatives to peace accords to any number of decision-making processes, those who feel scorned can become spoilers--the ones who manage to halt all forward motion. They might do so in any number of ways and, by the time they do, you may not understand that all you had to do was include them from the beginning and they would have been just one voice in the negotiated goals of the group, rather than the one who felt humiliated and whose blood was up seeking to inflict hurt in return. 

Bill Ury writes about the various "tables" that stakeholders should be at. One is the general table of parties who may ultimately be affected by whatever project we devise, but the other, earlier table is the internal parties as we contemplate what sort of possible project we wish to launch. 

Plotting to lose--I know how!

One of the stupidest, most ineffective, maladaptive approaches is very common in Portland, Oregon, which is to dehumanize and vilify cops. ACAB is a common spraypainted bit if poor activism and when it is chanted at cops it's just beyond a loser practice. It's the sort of thing that an undercover cop would do as an agent provocateur in order to make sure the campaign fails.

I've worked with the Serbs who overthrew Milosevic and they went out of their way to draw police and soldiers to them, which they achieved in three ways. 

One, cops stopped beating them. 

Two, cops got out of their way. 

Three, at the end, cops and soldiers joined them. 

The nonviolent campaign to overthrow Augusto Pinochet in Chile did the same thing. It was brutal, the campaign worked to recruit the armed agents of the state, and the beatings and arrests stopped even as--after a three-day stalemate in which the people knew they had voted out Pinochet but he remained in the presidential palace while the streets filled with demonstrators--the other generals announced that they accepted the vote of the people. 

This sort of dynamic is part of many of the stories of successfully defending democracy against autocrats. I would mark it as the most important sub-theme of defending democracy against election theft. 

Does peace count?

Who counts the costs of war? Historically--and sadly, still in many "analyses," the costs of war are just two, referred to reflexively as "blood and treasure." 

Stop. Please stop. 

The battlefield deaths are the blood. The money it takes to wage war is the treasure. In truth, those are simply the obvious opening costs. More include, but are not limited to: 

·       pollution

·       infrastructure

·       mental health

·       education

·       healthcare

·       morals

·       norms and ethics

·       cultural care and compassion

·       regard for the humanity of all

These costs linger for years, sometimes generations. They produce populations whose distorted outlooks auger new destruction--the victors viewing others as inferior and the losers nursing deep desires for vengeance no matter how long it takes. 

Breaking the war cycle means unilateral sacrifice for the long-term greater good. This is hard. Often that unilateral sacrifice is destined to come from traumatized people, making it immeasurably harder. But it's been done, movingly so, from time-to-time. 

·       Liberian women set aside all legitimate desire for revenge and ended their poor country's godawful war.

·       Serbians who had been victimized horrifically by Slobodan Milosevic set aside their historical culture of vendetta and used mass nonviolence to bring down the dictator. 

·       Chileans, repressed violently for more than a decade and a half, rose up in joy and resistance, ending the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and restoring democracy.

·       Filipinos and Filipinas had been traumatized by brute force under Marcos for many years and yet set all the normal need for a bloodbath aside to nonviolently stop a civil war. 

The list goes on. People have proven again and again we are not irrevocably chained to the ultimate dysfunctional craving for vengeance and bloodshed. 

We cannot change the past. But the future is ours to create anew.

Hating hate, war on war, victory over political enemies, and other malfunctioning approaches

To transform conflict, transformative methods are required. If our primary goal is to gain decisive victory over others, we will quickly resort to destructive methods--demonizing the other, using parliamentary tricks that flout ethical standards, and lying when "necessary." 

As this is written we in the US are finishing the 2024 election season and one side is relying on this method every day. Opponents are called enemies, they are given pejorative nicknames, and the lies are both planned and spontaneous. When fact-checked and proven false, there is no acknowledgement, certainly no apology, I'm constantly reminded of Nixon's deplorable maxim, "Contrition is bullshit." 

While engaging in word battles in the political trenches isn't going to always give us infinite patience or good humor, it remains a polestar aspiration to heed Michele Obama, "When they go low, we go high." 

Or, in the poem[1] from more than a century ago by Edward Markham, 
“He drew a circle that shut me out—

Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.

But Love and I had the wit to win:

We drew a circle that took him in!”

(Edwin Markham, 1852-1940)

This contrast in models is evident as well in evolving community organizing. While breakout organizers like Saul Alinsky showed us how to roll up our sleeves, do battle, and win, evolving approaches have given us a gentler paradigm, not meant to skirt tough struggles but to leave the door open a bit to unity, to consensus, and to growing, however slowly, toward Dr. King's Beloved Community. The best workbook on these newer models is one from a school of thought and action called Consensus Organizing (Ohmer & DeMasi, 2009).

From a focus on what works (asset mapping) to developing next-gen youth leadership to rigorous assessment and evaluation, community organizers are far more likely to succeed sustainably by creating the parallel structures based on egalitarian and transformative values and practices. 

Reference

Ohmer, Mary L. & DeMasi, Karen (2009). Consensus organizing: A community development workbook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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[1] https://hebfdn.org/echoes/outwitted/

What did you do when you were in power?

 JD Vance has called out Kamala Harris for making proposals--he said she's been in office for more than three years and so why hasn't she already done those things?

Right. Does Vance even understand the job he's trying for?

Vice-presidents in my lifetime are (or should be) nicknamed Seldom Seen, much like Ed Abbey's fictional character. They are given general briefs by their boss, sometimes wisely and sometimes stupidly. Joe Biden, for all his many good points, made some colossal goofs, such as his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan but also in his out-of-the-gate assignments for his VP. Go fix the immigration issue.

Yeah, Kamala was supposed to go to Central and South America and lie? Make false promises? Tell the unvarnished truth? She did none of that. 

Lying would only encourage larger waves of doomed refugees. 

False promises would have only increased that. 

Telling the truth--that the waves of refugees pouring north from Central America in particular were a consequence of the years when the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union was hot proxy wars in that region--not a winning message for a powerless Vice President. The US and the Soviets did to the region in the last two decades of the 20th century what the US and Iran are doing to Palestine, Lebanon, and Israel right now. Flood the zone with weapons and watch it burn.

So Biden gave Harris an undoable job, so she essentially just told Central Americans, Don't show up at our borders. She was powerless to do much else. 

In turn, then, JD, what did your boss Trump do for the four full years he was in office?

Now he's saying he will magically protect women. But he and his henchperson McConnell in the Senate engineered the MAGA takeover of the Supreme Court, which has taken away rights and freedoms from women. His four years in power were a disaster for women. 

He's making one wild claim and promise after another, about all the groovy things he's going to do once he's back in power. So, Trump, why did you do NONE of it when you were at the top of the command and control pyramid for four full years? 'Splain that, JD. 

No tax on tips? Trump had four years to get that one done, never did. 

No tax on Social Security? Yeah, why didn't you touch that when you controlled the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches? Why?

The list goes on. Trump and Vance are promising the moon that was there for Trump's 2017-2021 reign, the moon that was not even mentioned then, so stop already with the sad-assed rhetoric about why hasn't the powerless Kamala already achieved everything she has said she's ready to get done out of the gate once elected.

Kamala won't give everyone in America a money ton and a perfect life, but Trump will break all his campaign promises, except those he's already made to his fellow citizens of Richistan.

When principal principles produce problems

Some come to discussions armed with data and other evidentiary arguments. Some come with principles so ironclad they preclude negotiation as they "refuse even to consider the other side's case" (Fisher, Ury & Patton, 2011, p. 90). But those inviolable principles are not what the authors mean by "principled negotiation." 

Data, standards, and evidence gathered, curated, organized, and presented to advance one argument should inform all parties--it's a bit like watching a fictionalized film in the sense that you the viewer are suspending your disbelief so you can enter into viewership and fully experience the story. Suspend your disbelief as a party to a conflict; listen prepared to accept actual facts. Express appreciation for that body of evidence. 

Then present your own case. Just as you absorbed the evidence of the other side, expect all parties to treat your facts as legitimate. Acknowledge the truths on all sides and return to a commitment to seek fairness, not the zero-sum, winner-take-all, hard positional commitment to one outcome only. 

A commitment to a fair outcome is something that might seem obvious, but it is not necessarily. If we look at the adversarial systems such as the legal system or legislative bodies, we see that, for many of the parties, the goal is total victory and the methods include shutting down the opportunities of others to present evidence. This is not how principled negotiation works and, sure enough, many decisions are made by the courts and by legislatures that were achieved by unfair processes, often including technical methods of shutting down part or all of a party's argument. "Objection!" "Sustained." 

The principle of principled negotiation is commitment to fair process and fair outcome, not to other principles touted by parties arguing over their beliefs.

When Hamas attacked Israel 7 October 2023 they did so based on their positions. Israel then attacked based on their positions. Both sides had very legitimate arguments and evidence. Both sides operate as deeply traumatized people. But the methods chosen by both sides are destructive, constructing nothing, transmogrifying rather than transforming. The rest of the world--Iran, the US, and all who supply arms to both sides--are simply spraying gasoline on the fire, adding to misery, not promoting any wise outcomes at all. Both sides--Hamas and Israel--are engaged in genocidal actions so driven by utter hatred that principles we might associate with life--protection of children, for example--are not features of either side's actions. Hamas isn't hesitant to call for the annihilation of the Jewish people, as evidenced in their original 1987 Charter and as evidenced by documents discovered[1] by Israel in Hamas war rooms. Israel continues to commit genocidal attacks that "target" Hamas leaders and kill everyone around those leaders, including babies.

Principled negotiation is hard sometimes. But war is harder.

Reference

Fisher, Roger; Ury, William; Patton, Bruce (2011). Getting to yes: Negotiating agreement without giving in. (3^rd ed.). New York, NY: Penguin. 

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[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/10/12/exclusive-hamas-documents-sinwar-planning-iran/?utm_campaign=wp_todays_headlines&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_headlines&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3f47a5d%2F670b9a269d95b43d9f313b6d%2F596d40a4ae7e8a44e70297c3%2F8%2F50%2F670b9a269d95b43d9f313b6d

 

Setting the stage

Whenever possible, especially when listing factors that come out of a group session, the use of priorities is helpful. For instance, there may be things that fall into the "want" list that need to be ranked so a great deal of time isn't wasted negotiating toward perfection when it's often unachievable. 

One technique that can help a facilitator of any mediation or a consensus process is the pre-survey. In it, for instance, each participant is asked to list five desired outcomes, but also rank each of those desired outcomes on a scale (e.g., 1-10). This gives the moderator a great deal of information ahead of time. If a particular desired outcome is mentioned by someone in the actual meeting and it hasn't appeared in anyone's survey, the facilitator can mention that and ask for consensus on regarding that stated desired outcome as beyond the scope of the current process. Of course, if a groundswell seems to be growing to include it, that is a time to flex and even reformulate the proposal under consideration.

The same logic applies to a desired outcome mentioned by a few participants but ranked low (1-4). Honing in on what matters most to most of the participants can both honor the longer consensus process but also make it more efficient. 

Having said that, the facilitator needs to see if something can go to the participants who listed that desired outcome, ranked it lower, and are then asked to give up on getting it done. Do those people seem to share one or more desired outcomes they rank very highly? If so, the facilitator can test it to the group by saying something like, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I'm hearing is that some of you have a high priority on addressing racism in our organization and a somewhat lower priority on achieving great fiscal position. Some of you might flip that priority. Is there a way to achieve enough of both to feel successful?"

This is harder without an outside expert facilitator, but if one of the organization is also the facilitator, it should be someone with fewer strong opinions, so the facilitator isn't frequently taking an advocacy stance, which can corrode the perception of a decent process.  

What about consensus in massive complex government projects?

In complex government projects some innovative consensus methods have helped to reduce non-expert but fully stakeholder conflict with experts by a modified consensus approach that seeks the basic elements of consensus but in a streamlined fashion to reduce the high costs of a longer, classical consensus process. This may not only reduce costs and timelines on the front end, but may very well reduce subsequent resistance and slowdowns from the classical command-and-control approach.

"In this way, collective intelligence across different subgroups of society can be leveraged simultaneously, involving experts and non-experts, called heterogeneous decision-makers in this study" (Singh, Baranwal & Tripathi, 2023, p. 3936).

References

Singh, M., Baranwal, G., & Tripathi, A. K. (2023). A novel 2-phase consensus with customized feedback based group decision-making involving heterogeneous decision-makers. Journal of Supercomputing, 79(4), 3936–3973. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1007/s11227-022-04796-7

Who should decide?

Consensus is a slow process, and is usually reserved for the decisions that require real buy-in and commitment to follow through. It is the day-to-day minor decisions that don't benefit from that time requirement that shouldn't be a consensus process. We make those decisions every day in our families, in our work, and in our community affairs. So part of the art in leadership is figuring out when to flatten that hierarchy and engage in a process that is more inclusive than any other, consensus. The decision spectrum is, in a simplistic sense: 

Command-and-control_______representative democracy________consensus process

Each of these models is good for something and absolutely terrible at other things. The extremists who want one and only one are not wise, just doctrinaire. We see that in politics but also in so many areas of life. 

Feel a draft? Be a peace church.

Of course we will never have a world free from conflict, but we can radically reduce destructive conflict while engaging in constructive, creative conflict.

Social norms are important, and of course they are fed by home life, school life, all forms of media, and the norms of all organizations to which we belong. 

For example, some years ago I testified to a church council as they considered whether to formally declare that the Just War Doctrine was antithetical to their faith. I made two primary points: 

1. The Just War Doctrine requires a nation to exhaust all avenues before launching a war. Since there are literally hundreds of potential nonviolent acts of resisting injustice, it is essentially impossible to satisfy that criterion. 

2. Any faith that officially rejects the Just War Doctrine is not only changing its own internal practices, norms, and culture, it also protects its young people against conscription into an unjust war. For example, during the Vietnam War there was a draft and young men who were born and raised in one of the historic peace churches--most Quaker sects, many Anabaptist sects, and other recognized sects--those young men were virtually always granted Conscientious Objector status. Of course they could go off to war if they wished, but they were not usually conscripted.

Conflict on the team

Continuing to draw the naturally divergent views on how to achieve a goal back to the basic shared interest of everyone is a way to ground the conversation in civility and shared purpose. Whether someone is a facilitator or simply a participating member of a work team, reminding everyone that we share more than we don't is one factor in keeping the contamination of egos and stubbornness at a minimum.

Doing so is always easier when we can credit others with that reminder, e.g., "I for one appreciate our search for the best way to serve our clients, as Kerry reminded us last week. All these ideas are pointed toward that one mandate and even when we seem to disagree we are all just seeking that same good outcome." Everyone thus shares in the credit and is less alienated by the process.

A role that was a part of a large group I worked with back in the 90s was Vibeswatcher. One person, who also participated in the group process, was tasked with just looking at body language, tone, side communications, and general emotional content of the group and group members. They had no direct input into facilitation unless they felt the emotional content was getting seriously escalated. Then they had the power to interrupt the process, make their observations, and the group attempted to find ways to deescalate. This is especially valuable in larger groups with one or more verbose speakers, as the emotional signs frequently begin to come from those who feel unheard, not called on, or shut out. 

The power of one vs groupthink

 Groupthink may be the biggest threat to our species in some ways, especially when it is augmented by the notion you mention, that, as "everybody knows," one person can't really do much. 

Rosa Parks was just one seamstress in one town in the South, but she sparked a movement that showed others what one person can do, offering a model that others emulated for a decade of nonviolent civil rights victories.

Greta Thunberg was just one Swedish girl in her teens, but she sparked a movement that sent thousands of schoolchildren out of school and into the streets in "Climate Strike Fridays," even resulting in insults from Trump when he was in the White House.

Julia Butterfly Hill was just one preacher's daughter from the South who climbed a Redwood tree that was slated to be cut down by a corporation taking down old growth Redwoods faster than ever. She stopped it, saved the tree, and launched a national movement to fight against logging the last of the old growth. 

A group of high school kids from Florida who had survived a mass shooting that killed 17 of their classmates refused to just be another group of young victims and they grew a movement in the US that drew millions into the streets to protest the easy availability of assault rifles. Now they are affecting dozens of races for seats in Congress to get gun control advocates in office.

Does standing up against the odds always work? No, and that's not the question. Can it work? Yes, and there are many more examples. When "everybody knows" feels wrong, it just might be. 

Striving for consensus: when the work is a burden

Whether the decision under consideration is one of public policy, institutional policy, or corporate policy, the traps that doom consensus are only avoided when two things happen. 

1. Facilitation is skilled. 

2. Those included in the process have honest and beneficial intentions. 

So, for example, when the actual effort is being put forth to use a robust consensus process, that implies that the time has been set aside to pursue it properly. This hearkens back to an original decision made by the person or small group of people to actually engage in a consensus process. 

Overuse of this can lead to frustrated groups who rush things. When an executive decision can get something accomplished in a relatively minor question, but people are put through a rigorous process of seemingly endless discussion and debate over minor issues, consensus begins to look like a chore and a waste of time. A balanced approach, with all minor decisions simply made by the person tasked with that authority, and a serious consensus process undertaken only in the truly weighty decisions, gives consensus its proper role. 

Consensus vs hierarchy

Virtually all forms of decision-making tend to favor a hierarchical organizational structure except for consensus. Ah, one might say, so consensus is anarchy! No hierarchy!

Well, if so, it is the most solid, informed, deliberate form of anarchy imaginable. And, in many cases, like some situations of anarchy, it's only briefly anarchical before returning to some form of hierarchy. 

But when a group commits to making a particular decision using consensus, the hierarchy is flattened. Positions with titles--President, Chief Operating Officer, Grand Poobah--are all checked at the door, as are all intelligence-gathering for purposes of revenge. No disagreements that flare up in a consensus process may be used for later punitive purposes. 

In short, willingness to engage in a real consensus process involves trust. Any violation of that trust may doom future use of consensus, and that is crucial for the facilitator to emphasize. 

It is not a coincidence that many feminist-value groups use consensus, as they usually feature a nurturing, flatter hierarchy than typical command-and-control organizations. This is partially why consensus is a natural component of a conflict transformation practice (or degree program).