Many years ago, I took part in a three-day conflict resolution between Palestinians and Israelis in the Middle East. Arbinger’s international bestseller on conflict resolution, The Anatomy of Peace, had just been released, and the Shimon Peres Center for Peace in Tel Aviv had gathered a group of Palestinians and Israelis for an interaction, sponsored by the Danish Embassy. Our goal was to foster togetherness and gain an understanding of how to resolve this centuries-old conflict — beginning with individuals. 

When you think about solving the conflict in the Middle East, three days seems woefully inadequate. But whether it’s three days or three years, successful conflict resolution depends on one counter-intuitive truth: Don’t focus on the conflict. 

People in conflict situations already believe their narrative about a situation, and speaking about it invites them to keep repeating the very story that perpetuates the problem. This is equally true in marital and workplace conflicts After three days, officials at the Peres Center said they’d never seen anything so effective in bringing these two ideologically opposed groups together.
Here’s a short timeline of how we achieved it.

Day 1 — Sharing Personal Stories

On our first day together, we asked the group to think about relationships with family members and neighbors. Through interpreters, they shared their stories, and it got participants to think differently about their lives. They shared stories that others in the group could relate to.

For example, a young Israeli listened to a young Palestinian tell a story about his relationship with his father, and both men could see themselves in that story. In the sharing of personal stories, a listener may react to the storyteller by thinking, “I have that exact situation at home or in my community.” The divide between these groups became narrower as they began to see each other as fellow human beings with similar situations and challenges. The concept of peace became immediately more tangible in the room, which in turn made peace in the Middle East slightly more conceivable. 

Day 2 — Rallying Around a Common Cause

The next morning, we had the group do first aid together. After studying a mix of lifesaving skills, they engaged in a series of competitions in mixed teams. The friendly rivalry brought participants together around a common cause and purpose. That afternoon, we set aside time for everyone to choose an activity to do together. Some swam, others talked, and many played soccer. We allowed them to mingle and enjoy these activities with whomever they chose, and we didn’t force integration or manage the groups. The trust they had already established resulted in the Israelis and Palestinians interacting more easily and sharing activities they both enjoyed. 

Day 3 — Applying Lessons Learned

We only got to the subject at hand on day three: conflict in the Middle East. We started by dividing everyone into smaller, mixed groups and assigning them some of the ideas we had studied on the first day around family and neighbors. Each smaller group presented their thoughts to the entire group, sharing examples from their lives. After each presentation, we discussed and clarified the ideas, with the whole morning devoted to examining them thoroughly.

Next, we applied these thoughts to the situation in the Middle East. Each mixed group was invited to apply a series of frameworks to the conflict, from Palestinian and Israeli perspectives. They discussed and used the framework from one perspective and then from the other. Israelis began thinking from their perspective and also from the perspective of the Palestinians, and vice versa. They placed themselves in each other’s shoes. By the end of this final day, the multi-cultural group had developed an unprecedented understanding and respect for each other — more than the seasoned members of the Peres Center for Peace had ever seen. 

How to Resolve Conflict in Seven Steps

1. Don’t focus on the conflict. If you find yourself in a conflict situation and want to resolve it, resist your impulse to focus on the conflict. This is always a mistake and will only make matters worse.

2. Learn together. To get opposing parties to see each other as people — rather than just blaming each other as objects — try to learn something from each other. You might study unrelated ideas that stimulate thought and discussion or engage in learning something about which you are both equally ignorant. 

3. Do things together. Strengthen each party’s ability to see the other as human beings by doing projects and activities together. These should be things both parties care about equally — things that require a joint effort. In the workplace, this might be a project to improve a process or solve a client service challenge. At home, this might include playing games together, hiking up a mountain, or taking a trip to a place of mutual interest.

4. Wait. Only start discussing difficulties in the relationship after successfully applying steps 2 and 3 above. You’ll know when these steps are successful when all parties have begun to develop or rekindle a level of appreciation for the other person as a human being. You’ll know this has happened when both sides start enjoying the joint learning and activities.

5. Consider all perspectives. Don’t allow each side to become a representative and mouthpiece of their viewpoint only. Together, apply each idea to both parties. If you want to think about your ideas separately, that’s fine as well, but take on the role of your partner as you do so and apply insights from your partner’s perspective. Explore, ponder, and stand in each other’s shoes.

6. Repeat Steps 2 and 3. Once you begin step 5, don’t forget to keep doing steps 2 and 3. These two foundational steps ultimately reduce the need for step 5.

7. Stay the course. Don’t become anxious if you still face challenges near the end. Problems are the stuff of life — or rather, the stuff from which a better life is made. Keep following this seven-step conflict resolution roadmap, and remember the wisdom of songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen, who wrote: “Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” 

It’s important to realize that a memorable photograph doesn’t happen by itself. Firstly, a photographer chooses to press a button at the right moment. Then, an editor decides whether to publish it or not.

My hope as a curator, is that after presenting certain images to an audience they decide not to be bystanders anymore, but begin to participate actively in the world around them, promoting positive change. It’s a chain reaction that can start with a single, powerful image. A photograph makes you think, and since we can visualize what took place, we believe it to be true. The “truthfulness” a photograph represents is its strongest weapon.

The caption to the photograph above is one such example: Twenty-three year-old Abed (Muslim groom) and 19 year-old Arige (Christian bride) walk through the bombed ruins of Beirut, Lebanon, 1983.

Many people shy away from graphic, violent imagery as it makes them uncomfortable. Yet, while we should never force anyone to view anything against their will, the truth must be told. Today, more than ever, we are subjected to sensational and violent images every day, in a mistaken belief by the media that “this is what the audience wants.” It can leave us feeling disengaged and helpless, rather than informed and empowered.

Making Peace was first produced by the International Peace Bureau (IPB), the world’s largest and oldest peace federation to mark their Nobel Peace Prize centenary in 2010. Since then, this outdoor exhibition has traveled to nine major cities and been seen by millions of ordinary people. It presents 124 photos, from an initial research of more than  10,000, that covers a century of photography – from 1914 to the present. The exhibition brings together the work of 111 photographers of all nationalities and the photographs on the following pages are a small sample of their work.

I like to call it the “Beginners guide to peace” as it allows the general public, and especially the youth, to understand better the five elements that are crucial to forming peace. These are: disarmament and nonviolence, conflict prevention and resolution, economic and social justice, human rights, law and democracy, and the environment and sustainable development.

While you may wonder how a photograph can achieve all this, remember that many images have become iconic symbols of their time. The problem with these historic images – such as the photo of a napalmed Vietnamese girl or the raising of a flag over Iwo Jima – is that viewed on their own they tend to reinforce people’s belief that human history is only about conflict. Images have the power to elicit strong emotions and it’s important to present a different story to our children: using images that inspire and reaffirm our belief in humanity. This is the aim of Making Peace.

As the last panel in the exhibition depicts (a full-sized mirror), making peace is really up to you.

www.makingpeace.org

Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message for World Refugee Day, observed on 20 June:

On World Refugee Day, my thoughts are with the more than 70 million women, children and men — refugees and internally displaced persons — who have been forced to flee war, conflict and persecution. 

This is an astonishing number — twice what it was 20 years ago.  Most of the forcibly displaced came from just a handful of countries — Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar and Somalia.  In the past 18 months, millions more have fled Venezuela.

I want to recognize the humanity of countries that host refugees even as they struggle with their own economic challenges and security concerns.  We must match their hospitality with development and investment. It is regrettable that their example is not followed by all. We must re-establish the integrity of the international protection regime.

The Global Compact on Refugees, adopted last December, offers a blueprint for modern refugee response. What refugees need most urgently is peace.  Millions of people around the world have joined UNHCR’s [Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] World Refugee Day campaign and are taking steps, big and small, in solidarity with refugees.  Will you take a step with refugees too?

Design Thinking (DT), (also known as human-centered design) is an innovation process used to evolve products and services in business and social impact sectors. World-renowned companies like Apple, Google, and GE, use DT for business solutions, and top-tier colleges like Stanford, Harvard, and MIT teach DT to students looking to solve the world’s biggest problems.

But is DT the be-all and end-all to how we solve problems? The short answer is not always. DT is what it says it is: design thinking. We’ve been using our heads, and along the way, we’ve left out our hearts.

DT started being written about in 1987. I was introduced to DT in the early 2000s. Then, business leaders like Daniel Pink, one of the top 15 business thinkers in the world, Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, a design and innovation company, and the d.school, a design-focused learning program, at Stanford University, began introducing DT to the business world.

Throughout my career, I always felt something was missing in the innovation and design process. Design models discounted the impact of emotions and behaviors played in business. I was then introduced to DT and knew this was precisely what was missing. It brought a new perspective to the business world. It placed the “human” at the center of the problem and the solution. DT had the power to transform people and culture, and it has somewhat.

However, because of a lack of understanding of what it means to be genuinely human-centered (you have to connect to your emotions and humanness first), DT’s performance and success has been limited.

It has now been almost 20 years since this concept was introduced into Business. With advancements in technology, smartphones, and social media apps, it seems the world has become more interconnected and disconnected at the same time. There’s a lack of engagement; people have retreated into their own worlds of self-separation and self-protection. This is having a significant effect on organizational outcomes, corporate outreach, and social impact. It limits the ability to connect, hold positive tension and cross-pollinate ideas. If we’re going to solve challenges in the world today, we will have to evolve, find new ways to reconnect and re-engage and work together. That’s where a heart centered approach comes in.

Two years ago, I started working with one of the world’s largest beverage companies.
Our goal was to create a DT innovation lab that would increase employee engagement and improve internal shared services. During workshops, we started noticing barriers that were limiting potential outcomes. Participants thought they were being human-centered, but in reality, they were self-centered. They were unconsciously focused on being right or “winning” rather than establishing meaningful connections.

With the best intentions, they would continue through the DT process and unconsciously revert to a self-centered approach. They mastered the process but could not truly embody the human-centered attributes of empathy, ambiguity, diversity and inclusion, altruism and patience.

We found participants had a lack of awareness of their own humanness; they had not developed their personal internal connections. It made it almost impossible to collapse inner polarities between right and wrong, us and them, and control and curiosity. One of the most significant divides was between the vulnerability and risk inside the workshop, and the fear and scarcity outside the workshop where support and adoption were critical to achieving success.

We came to realize that if we wanted to innovate genuinely, we all would have to connect internally first before we could connect to the problem, the solution and those around us. More meaningful innovation only occurs when we connect the head and the heart, and not, the head and the ego.

“In the past, jobs were about muscles,” said Minouche Shafik, director of the London School of Economics. “Now they’re about brains, but in the future, they’ll be about the heart.”

Both leaders and employees are going to have to become more aware and connected to their humanness. That means learning how to co-create using both the head and heart, collapsing the polarities within ourselves, and over time, with others. We will have to move beyond the user-experience to the human experience and go from a human-centered approach to a heart-centered approach. We will need to create safe spaces and new methodologies that allow us to practice becoming more fully connected, engaged and trusting.

“If we want people to fully show up, to bring their whole selves, including their unarmored, whole hearts – so that we can innovate, solve problems, and serve people – we have to be vigilant about creating a culture in which people feel safe, seen, heard and respected,” wrote Dr. Brene Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston, in her book “Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.”

DT practitioners would say that DT is excellent and that it does the job, and in some ways it does. However, those professionals may not recognize the disconnect. They see it as just an innovation tool, and not as a powerful transformational tool for people and organizational cultures.

I believe we have the power and the potential to do much more. First, we must change ourselves as facilitators, designers, and leaders. A heart-centered approach means taking off our armor and finding the courage to connect to our own vulnerability, worthiness, shame resilience, bravery, and trust. All of these are integral to innovate and create meaningful change truly. A heart-centered approach is the innovation process of the future.

 

A South African-born lawyer, Anne Heyman, and her husband raised more than $12 million to help care for families ripped apart by the genocide. Taking their model from Israel’s Youth Villages, which created new families for children whose parents had died in the Holocaust, the couple aim to help the 95,000 children orphaned in Rwanda’s genocide.

Vincent de Paul Ruhumuriza was born in Rwanda just a few months before genocide consigned his father to an unknown grave and traumatized his mother so badly she still screams and shakes at any mention of that time.

But, helped by a model of healing dating back to the Holocaust, the 25-year-old has finished his education and blended into a new family, where individuals grieving lost loved ones have rebuilt their lives by caring for each other.

“People should not be driven by the past,” the bearded young man told Reuters this week, as the country prepared to mark a quarter of a century since Hutu militias killed around 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. “I want to grow into someone who will benefit society.”

Seven years ago, Ruhumuriza’s life was on course to become another small tragedy in a nation where every family is touched by grief.

He and his mother lived in poverty. His father’s death in the genocide was a mystery – the only time he ever tried to ask about it, his mother had a breakdown.

“Other people … told how she was beaten, how she was tortured, got raped,” he said. “She became like a mad person. She got traumatized.”

THE PLACE WHERE TEARS ARE DRIED

Then, in 2014, just as Ruhumuriza was about to drop out, his school got in touch with the Agahozo Shalom Youth Village, whose Hebrew-Kinyarwandan name translates as “the place where tears are dried”.

The village was set up in 2008 by a South African-born lawyer, Anne Heyman, who had worked in the United States. Heyman and her husband raised more than $12 million to help care for families ripped apart by the genocide, taking their model from Israel’s Youth Villages, which created new families for children whose parents had died in the Holocaust.

Rwanda’s genocide, sparked by the assassination of the president, lasted around 100 days and stopped after rebels fought their way to the capital, led by Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s current ruler.

More than 95,000 children were orphaned, the United Nations estimates, and around 300,000 children were killed. For some of the survivors, Heyman’s village offered healing and purpose.

“Having 15 children around you can calling you Mama, and you helping them to conquer their past, that is a great contribution to the nation,” said Emeritha Mukarusagara, a slender, bespectacled 57-year-old with long braids who became a foster mother after being widowed in the genocide.

She spent months hidden by a neighbour, heavily pregnant, terrified and filled with grief for her murdered husband. She keeps his picture on her phone but still cannot discuss his death.

Since then, she has fostered dozens of vulnerable children, including Ruhumuriza, who needed families.

NEW PURPOSE

A shy teenager, he arrived into a large, boisterous community where children live 15 to a house, watched over by a strict but loving foster parent they are all encouraged to call Mama. It was strange to call another woman Mama, he said. It was even stranger to have a brother. He liked it.

Ruhumuriza threw himself into his studies, becoming the school president, learning about Steve Jobs, and forming a deep bond with his foster mother. When he graduated and found a job in the construction industry, and a steady paycheck, he asked her what he should do with it.

Go home, she said. Build a house for the lonely woman who gave birth to you.

“Now my mother lives in the house I built,” he said proudly. “Mama Emeritha is one of my cornerstones … she is one of the best advisors I have.”

Ruhumuriza is one of more 850 children who has passed through the village’s 26 houses. But although the children of the genocide have grown up, many more come seeking refuge: those orphaned by accidents and disease. Refugees from Burundi. Children at risk of abuse.

Ruhumuriza, which was also the name of Mukarusagara’s murdered husband, has a special place in his foster mother’s heart.

“Every time I saw him, I remembered my dead husband. He was as kind as my husband,” she said with a sigh.

“At his wedding party, I will put on the best attire I have and sit next to his mother.”

By Katharine Houreld. Editing by Robin Pomeroy.

All of us have characteristics and behaviors that define us – to ourselves and others. Keeping a vision of positivity, growth and longevity is crucial for us to maintain a healthy and thriving business, career and life.

Incorporating the Genshai principles has worked for me and many others. I encourage everyone to give Genshai a chance. The ancient word means, “Never treat another person in a manner which makes them feel small, including yourself.”

This sacred word draws upon our ability to step into our excellence, showing our true greatness and utilizing these traits for the betterment of our lives and the betterment of humanity as a whole. Within the principles and teachings of Genshai lies the knowledge of five elements.
Ask yourself which people in your life represent the five principles below:

Fire (Ignite) – Challenges you to be passionate about how you show up in the world and serve as a light within it. They kindle our possibilities

Water (Flowing) – Connects you to the ebb and flow of the experiences of your heart. They help us relate to others and exemplify compassion.

Wind (Freedom) – Liberates thoughts and ideas and gives them flight. They lift us and breathe into our dreams.

Spirit (Grace) – Elevates our awareness of the nature and goodness of humanity. They bring out the divine in our souls.

Earth (Grounding) – Brings us stability through practical advice, acceptance, and reliability. They escort us through life’s changes.

Depending on the situation, personal relationships and our ingrained behaviors, we can be each of these elements. For example, you might represent fire to your business partner. Maybe you are water to your spouse. You are possibly Earth to your child. We harbor all these characteristics, but one is often more predominant. Which one describes you? Which one could use some work today?

We are all work in progress. It’s our responsibility to keep evolving and doing our best to leave Earth in a better shape than we found it. Through a collective and coherent effort, we all have a profound effect on each other and the environment around us. We call this the “The Genshai Effect.” Through positive thought, we develop positive patterns of behavior. Through decisive action, we generate positive characteristics. These characteristics sculpt us into the people we present to the world each day. There has never been a more critical time than the present for us to use these practices in our lives and workplaces, regardless of whether you work in corporate, retail, food, construction or anything else.

All of us can find happiness and success in our lives, especially within our careers. It’s possible with the Genshai Mind. When we implement these beliefs and practice them regularly, the positivity can benefit our way of life, our way of thinking and our way of doing business. With Genshai at the forefront of our minds, we can see the effects on our fellow employees, customers, communities, economies and humanity in general.

When I realized Genshai was something I identified with, I could at last identify and align myself  against a mindset that I had been trying to cultivate. It helped me realize a way of being in the world that I had already chosen to live by. It also made me focus on authentic and important lessons that were necessary to grow internally as a person and be successful at a higher level in life.

As I strive to live as a Genshai Warrior, I share these principles as often as possible. The more frequently I give it away, the stronger and more successful I become. My prior relationships and friendships have deepened. I have made many new relationships with people who share the same thinking and similar goals in life; one’s that revolve around a genuine commitment to growth through positivity.

In life, we can sometimes become stagnant, rest on our laurels or get too comfortable; unable to see what greatness, happiness, success and legacy is right in front of us. I encourage you to go to www.genshai.com to learn more and to assess what element represents your life force. Let’s all step into our excellence and share the Genshai gift. Amazingly, that gift is you!

Robert W. Payne will release his book “Chaos Agent” (working title) in early 2019. He grew up mostly in Bolingbrook, Illinois (south of Chicago) and is an agent of change based on his life experiences. He is a member of the Genshai team – a word meaning, “Never treat another person in a manner which makes them feel small, including yourself.” 

During a sudden downpour in 2012, Paul Cummins sought refuge in a public library. He explored the archives and came across wills written by soldiers fighting in the first world war. One written phonetically, captivated him.

Paul is dyslexic and the phonetics made it easier for him to read. He realized that it was the will and last testament of a woman who had disguised herself and gone off to fight and make the ultimate sacrifice in the trenches. A phrase: “Blood swept lands and seas of red where angels fear to tread” shot out. Paul was overwhelmed and it made him think about the war’s massive death toll. There were 888,246 British and Commonwealth fatalities during World War One.

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Fueled with a crazy idea, Paul embarked on an audacious quest to create nearly a million handmade ceramic poppies – a lone ceramics guy who became a real leader with a vision that inspired thousands of volunteers to help make an impossible vision possible.

Quests Are Part of Every Culture’s Folklore

Since the dawn of civilization, quests have been a driving force behind humankind’s’ progress. Take JFK’s moonshooting quest; or Nelson Mandela’s and Martin Luther King’s noble quests for all persons to be free regardless of color or creed. But consider too the Polynesian islander in a dug-out canoe who one-day said: “Let’s go that way!” No one had ever been that way before. No one even knew what existed that way. Quests are amazing, they overcome the impossible, are open to anyone and they change the world.

Why Are Quests Important in 2019?

We are living through revolutionary times. Every 150-200 years forces of progress collide. You can see these disruptive periods in history: The Age of Enlightenment, The Renaissance, The Age of Discovery and The Industrial Revolution; when everything changes. The same is happening now.

At Davos, the World Economic Forum called our current age: The Fourth Industrial Revolution. Not to knock them, but they could have been more creative – we are living in the Age of Quests. Never before have so many doors of progress opened up in the fields of science, health, engineering, education, entertainment and space travel. Perhaps the defining quest of our age will be a human colony on Mars. But you do not need to travel to the red planet for your own quest. Explore any of the 17 U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and you will discover a multitude of questing opportunities awaiting real leaders. When leaders get these four qualities right, amazing results happen, as Paul’s quest demonstrates:

Is There a Better Way?

Paul Cummins left the library asking: Is there a better way? – To commemorate a century since the start of WW1. He devised an inspired solution: A ‘sea of red’ ceramic poppies, filling the moat around the Tower of London. “Ceramics are transient and fragile, like we are” says Paul in an interview with the Guardian. “They feel part of our very humanity. Societies have always been carbon-dated by their ceramics and pottery. I settled on poppies because of their color and links to war remembrance.”

An Inspiring Destination

The goal: 888,246 ceramic poppies created and planted before 11 November 2014. There was no ambiguity and his quest was crystal clear.

 

Challenging The Impossible

Making nearly one million ceramic poppies is an immense undertaking. Paul wanted the poppies to be individual, like every soldier. So, the ceramic flowers were lovingly handcrafted. But Paul operates alone out of a small studio. He needed an army of supporters to craft the 3,500 daily poppies required to meet his quest’s target and deadline. Plus, his quest required a poppy planting odyssey. It was calculated that one person working on their own would take three and a half years to plant all the poppies. In the end, 300 artists worked day and night for a year crafting the poppies; and, over 27,000 people volunteered their time planting, and ultimately removing, the scarlet sea of remembrance.

Delivering Meaningful Benefits

Quests require innovations. Paul devised a revolutionary way to fund his quest and the sale of poppies raised over £10m for charities. Perhaps the greatest achievement though was the estimated five million people who came in person to pay homage, and for a time, the installation was the most viewed photograph on Google.

So, what can you take with you as you look towards 2019? Today because of breakthrough technologies, anyone anywhere, with a radical idea, leveraging the power of social can embark on a meaningful quest. It’s never been easier to make a real difference in the world. Few leaders think in terms of their business and quests. The great ones like Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Paul Cummins do it intuitively and they achieve remarkable results.

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