Archives for April 2019

Recently, I was presenting at a National Conference on Housing on the topic of Leadership and conflict.  Before presenting, I was standing at the registration desk admiring a brochure I had noticed about “Circles for Reconciliation.”  The title caught my attention and I asked the person at the registration desk if she knew anything about the initiative. 

She looked up and said: “Well, the person who created them is standing right behind you.”

I looked behind me and this kind, older looking man was standing there, just finishing up another conversation.  So, I jumped right in after and introduced myself.  He was so generous in the shared space and so keen on the concept of circles of reconciliation. It sounded fascinating, Turns out, he was also presenting at the conference and was only in town, from his native Winnipeg, for a few days. 

Spontaneously, I asked him if he’d be willing to come out for coffee the next day and if he’d be open to others joining us from the local dispute resolution community.  He agreed. 

The next day, 8 of us joined Raymond Currie in the lounge adjoining his hotel, to talk Truth and Reconciliation, Indigenous relations in Canada and this little initiative that is taking off like wildfire, Circles for Reconciliation.

The main goal of the Circles for Reconciliation is to bring together and build a healthy relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people through partnership circles. It’s a simple, and yet powerful, idea of setting up 10 week circles, where participants are both Indigenous and non-Indigenous and both speak to building a new vision for Canada.

I can’t begin to express how special it was to spend two hours with Raymond Currie and a few of our folks from Victoria to hear his inspiring stories and hopes of spreading this structure right across Canada.

The concept has taken off intensely in the last few months, and they are outgrowing the original funding they had in place, so they are presently fundraising as well.  Check out their website and watch the short 2 minute video to get an idea of Raymond and his leader partner, Clayton Sandy.  Raymond mentions in the video if only 200 people donate $100 each, they will make their goal.

I’ve done my part.  What about you?

“Too many Canadians know little or nothing about the deep historical roots of these conflicts. This lack of knowledge has serious consequences for First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples and for Canada.” … Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Final Report.

Last month, I passed along an article about climate change and the inevitability of climate collapse.  Soon after, a dear friend Gabe Epstein, send me along this article on Deep Adaptation, written by Dr. Jem Bendell and first published in July of 2018.

The basic premise of the paper is that considering the possibility (in fact accepting) a coming societal collapse, in addition to an eco-collapse, will help us going forward. 

As Dr. Bendell puts it:
“The purpose of this conceptual paper is to provide readers with an opportunity to reassess their work and life in the face of an inevitable near- term social collapse due to climate change.”

The bitter truth Bendell puts out is that climate-induced societal collapse is now inevitable. He tells us that recent research suggests:
“…human societies will experience disruptions to their basic functioning within less than ten years due to climate stress. Such disruptions include increased levels of malnutrition, starvation, disease, civil conflict and war – and will not avoid affluent nations.”

He posits if we can accept that as a real possibility, it allows us to take different actions in the present.

Jim Collins, in the book Good to Great, talks about the “Stockdale Paradox.”  This is named for Admiral Jim Stockdale, a United States military officer held captive for eight years during the Vietnam War. He never doubted he would prevail in the end, but he said it was those who believed they’d be “out by Christmas” but then not be, then “out by Easter” then not be.  Then Thanksgiving, then Christmas again. Stockdale tells us those were the ones who “died of a broken heart.”

So the Stockdale Paradox applies here too.  It seems counter-intuitive to accept the “brutal facts” of climate collapse.  However, accepting it as inevitable allows us to get on with planning what we can do in the face of such times.

If we accept that societal collapse is starting, we can refocus to sharing more on how to shift our livelihoods and lifestyles. We can talk more about how to create support networks of self-sufficiency.  We can ask our local governments to help our local communities collaborate, not fracture, during collapse. We need to plan for, and help with, creating systems for productive cooperation between neighbours, which can take many forms and include food security systems.

Dr. Bendell is working actively to bring people together on this dialogue, and you can find his recently released Forum here.

I used to be very active in a local Food Security group I co-founded, called the Gorge Tillicum Urban Farmers.  The group is still active and over the years has created many fruitful relationships.  It’s time for us all to instigate and nurture more local, neighbourhood, civic, national and international dialogues on climate change. 

Let’s stay connected!

“Grace happens when we act with others on behalf of our world.”
…  Joanna Macy

I’m on a listserve out of New York, for mediators situated in New York and anyone with a general interest in mediation.  I have local mediator and visual mediation guru Lisa Arora to thank for that connection!  Check out Lisa’s website if you’re interested in how visual graphics and dispute resolution can go together. 

One benefit of being on this New York listserve is to hear what is catching the attention of various mediators.  New York mediator Charles Newman offered a wonderful email recently about the idea of “breaking bread” as a way to encourage peacemaking. He sparked an online conversation about what mediators have noticed about having food present in conflict/dispute resolution situations.

Charles cited the article that got him thinking: a March 16 edition of the The Economist, about sharing food and cooperative behaviours. The article cited a study published showing that in a negotiation, the increase in cooperation is greater when participants take from shared serving plates, rather than being served individual portions.  And it’s true for friends and strangers.

One surprising result Charles highlighted is that setting up the meal so that all parties take their portions from a shared resource, can help regulate behaviours toward being more mindful of the needs of other people.  The study (from the March 2019 issue of Psychological Science) set up meals which had individuals eat food from the same bowl (for example, sharing taco chips and salsa) vs from individual bowls.  It was the ones who had the shared meal who behaved more cooperatively and less competitively toward each other, compared with those eating the same food from separate plates. The shared eating, reinforced by social norms such as not wanting to be seen as taking too much, puts one in a cooperative state of mind.

That makes sense!

Early on in my mediation career, my co-mediator and I brought a bowl of jelly beans to a mediation.  It was a victim-offender mediation, where the parents of a young man were meeting with him and the person he had offended to talk about what happened and how to make things right.  My co-mediator and I (a wonderful mentor of mine, Camilla Witt, who left us too soon a few years ago) – got this brainstormed idea to get jelly beans and put them in a bowl.  We started the mediation with the chairs arranged in a circle, and the bowl of jelly beans in the middle of the circle. 

Seeing the jelly beans sitting there was already a type of unifying force and when the young man reached down to take the bowl and then to pass them around the circle, his gesture said volumes about the kind of tone he wanted to set with the adults gathered. Needless to say, it resolved well.

The kind of research this study conducted reminds us that we might not realize all the benefits we get out of eating with other people. 

So the next time you might be experiencing tensions with another, can you bring the sharing of food together in, to help you work together on solving tough problems.

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”
… Virginia Woolf