Conflict Unplugged

Segment 1: Why Don’t We Try Cooperation?

Our guest on this edition of The Doug Noll Show is up-and-coming young peacemaker Jesse Treakle, founder and director of the organization Conflict Unplugged. Jesse is based in San Diego and is currently finishing up his PhD in Conflict Resolution. When asked about his personal journey as a peacemaker, Jesse remembers at the age of five settling a conflict between two cousins. They were arguing over who was going to climb the ladder of a hen house first, and as the story goes, Jesse asked them, “Why don’t we try cooperation?” In 2000 as a member of AmeriCorps, Jesse had his first official mediation training seminar and walked out of the event a changed man. The skills spoke to him and he knew they would speak to others. He then spent a year in Switzerland studying peacemaking and pursued a Master’s degree in conflict resolution.

 

Segment 2: Teach the Children.

Eventually Jesse ended up in United Arab Emirates teaching English and conflict resolution to school kids. He had no idea the response to his first after-school program would be so huge. The school kids came each week and learned conflict resolution techniques and skills, which was completely new terrain to them. It was a very powerful experience, for Jesse as well as the students.

 

Segment 3: Conflict Unplugged.

Jesse tell us that he set up his peacemaking organization, Conflict Unplugged, on two simple ideas:

1) Conflict is not synonymous with disagreement. Often we think if we get into a disagreement we automatically get into a conflict. Instead, we need to ask ourselves, “What triggers lead us into conflict and how can we catch ourselves before we go down that road?”

2) It’s important to create a clear definition of conflict and to stress that is it NOT positive and inevitable, but instead, negative and preventable. This change of mindset is not easy and takes effort, but if we want to create a world that is harmonious and break the cycles of violence then we need to get past the idea that we are inevitably driven toward conflict.

 

Segment 4: Study the Instigators.

So how do you teach people to become less reactive to the triggers that cause conflict? The first thing is to separate disagreement and conflict. Then identify and study the instigators: anger and other negative feelings, negative character judgment, and feelings of inferiority or superiority. It’s a process of engaging in reflection. Take the negative emotion and let it be an indicator of what is missing in a relationship (with someone else or even with yourself). This self-reflection calls for a tremendous amount of discipline and system-2 thinking. The most challenging thing to do is to have that new thought pattern become habitual. To read more about Jesse’s crucial work, please visit his website: http://www.conflict-unplugged.com/.>

 

To listen to the entire interview:

 

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Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish: Wisdom is Stronger than Bombs

Segment 1: Conflict is Caused by Fear.

Our guest on this edition of The Doug Noll Show is the esteemed Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Palestinian medical doctor who has dedicated his life to raising awareness for peace between Israel and Palestine. Dr. Abuelaish is also the founder of Daughters for Life, a foundation established to advance the education and health of girls and women from the Middle East.

 

Dr. Abuelaish believes the Palestinians need to be responsible for their own lives and for their own health and well-being, but the world needs to help them. It’s a mutual responsibility. A lot of conflict is caused by fear. In order to overcome that deep seated fear we need to be open and honest. Most fear comes from misinformation, a psychological barrier or ignorance. It’s easy to hide behind fear, but we must take responsibility to face our fears and learn about other cultures in order to find common ground.

 

Segment 2: No Child is Born a Warrior.

It is fear, ignorance and greed that drive the vast majority of violence and conflict. Humans become habitual in the way they view the world and violence becomes a means to an end. It is difficult to end that cycle. Dr. Abuelaish thinks once we have justice in life, we can attain peace. Once we have the human values we were born with, we have no need for violence. Violence is a disease and must be studied and treated as a disease. This disease is man-made; it is manufactured. No child is born a warrior. The best thing to do, if you want to remove violence and fear, is to change the environment in which children are raised.

 

Segment 3: Wisdom is Stronger than Bombs.

Dr. Abuelaish says it’s time for the international community to step up and tell the Israeli government that its attitude toward the Palestinians is not tolerable and we need to have peace in the region. Any progress in the peace process is for the interest of the world, not just for the Palestinians. It will save the Israelis from their self-destructive behavior. The solution is there; now all it takes is the governments to come together and make it happen. It’s time to start to build some trust. Let the actions speak. It’s time for us to ask, “What world do we want for our children? What legacy do we want them to have? What do we want them to inherit?”

 

Despite unimaginable tragedy, Dr. Abuelaish says he is not a victim. The death of his daughters just strengthened his resolve to work tirelessly for peace and justice and freedom. Anger and violence is a destructive disease to the one who carries it. Wisdom and good deeds are stronger than bullets and bombs.

 

Segment 4: Daughters for Life Foundation.

The Daughters for Life Foundation was established in memory of his daughters. Its goal is to promote education of girls and women from the Middle East — girls who have the potential but not the resources. The most efficient and effective means for change is to invest in the education of girls and women and to enable them to reach their full potential. The child who is educated will have educated children. With that, Dr. Abuelaish can keep his daughters’ memories alive. To learn more about Dr. Abuelaish and his invaluable work, visit http://www.daughtersforlife.com/.>

  

To listen to the entire interview:

 

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Taming the Temper Within

Segment 1: Anger is a Normal Human Emotion.

Our guest on this episode of The Doug Noll Show is Nathanial Smith. Nathanial is a professional counselor specializing in anger, depression, anxiety and domestic violence. His is the author of Taming Your Temper, a Workbook for Individuals, Couples and Groups. His website is http://www.nathanielsmithcounselor.com/.

 

Nathanial’s father was in the mental health profession for many years and helped thousands of people, which is ultimately what drew Nathanial to this career. He’d like his legacy to be the same as his father’s: help people get in touch with their emotions and become empowered and courageous enough to address feelings of anger, anxiety and depression. Anger is a normal human emotion, but when it’s applied as a form of aggression and people’s rights are violated, it becomes a problem.

 

So how do you teach people to manage their anger? In his book Taming Your Temper, Nathanial gives exercises to practice control. There are pragmatic ways to communicate and solve conflicts, but it needs to start at a young age. Parents need to sit down with their children and talk about communication and feelings.

 

Segment 2: Emotional Intelligence.

In Nathanial’s experience, men don’t learn to express feelings. It’s important to teach our kids emotional intelligence at an early age so they can become empathic adults. Nathanial is a cognitive coach: he helps people become aware and articulate what they’re feeling and make a choice about how they want to respond in that moment. Once people realize they do have a choice, they become empowered.

 

Segment 3: The Physical Response to Anger.

Nathanial wanted to write a book to help people realize that their anger is manageable. He began putting together a list of tools to help clients during their counseling sessions, and realized after a while that he had enough information to create a workbook. The book is full of exercises and examples that people can use to become emotionally aware. He wanted to give people a way to get help in the privacy of their own home.

 

There is a physical response to anger: your heart rate gets faster, your adrenalin surges, your muscles tense up, your prefrontal cortex shuts down and you look for some sort of a release. With people who are resistant to becoming vulnerable and exploring feelings, Nathanial starts with teaching them the physical response. Once they understand that, he moves into the emotional part. Somatic awareness is one of the first steps of developing emotional intelligence.

 

Segment 4: Fear Shuts Us Down.

Empathy is defined as recognizing the emotions of others. To do this, we need to learn how to be in touch with our own emotions. Fear shuts us down and can devastate our lives. Nathanial finds that once people push through the fear of having to open up and be vulnerable, they bloom and have a fantastic transformation.  

 

To listen to the entire interview:

 

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Soha Al-Jurf: Finding Peace as a Palestinian-American Woman

Segment 1: Born In the Occupied West Bank.

Our guest on this edition of The Doug Noll Show is Soha Al-Jurf, a Muslim woman born the occupied West Bank to Palestine parents, and raised in an Arab community in Iowa City. Soha is the author of a new “fictional memoir” Even My Voice Is Silence. Although she is a speech pathologist by profession, her true passion is understanding and communicating the plight of the Palestinians.

 

As a Palestinian-American raised in the USA, Soha’s mother made sure she was intimately connected to her heritage. For as long as she can remember, Soha has always been trying to find ways to relate to her heritage culturally and as an activist.

 

Segment 2: Peace Starts by Humanizing Each Other.

Soha was raised in Iowa, but travelled back to Palestine in 2004-2005 and again in 2009. She also spent summers there as a kid. She believes the current Palestinian conflict has been a difficult conflict to get resolved because there are many layers, and the fact that much of politics today is fraught with deep self-interests. No solution is going to be achieved by putting our faith and trust in government heads who we think will suddenly become less self-interested and more altruistic. In order for the Israeli-Palestinian issue to be resolved, enough of a critical mass must stand up and say “no, we’re not going to take it anymore.” Peace starts by humanizing one another and finding basic common ground. That’s the only way a shift will happen.

 

Segment 3: Find Peace Within.

Soha says we need to find a balance between the non-violent, passive approach and the ultra-violent extremists. She believes the only way for things to change is for people to take conscious responsibility for their own self-awareness and self-evolution, and aim toward a higher consciousness. To reach genuine peace, we need to step back and ask, “What’s my role in the world? How can I shift my own consciousness to heal what is broken in me and in my community?”  We must deal with the trauma within ourselves and find peace within ourselves before we can deal with external violence.

 

Segment 4: We Can’t Source-Check Scripture.

Religion is different than spirituality. What we find in many conflicts is that religion is a very important identity driver. People start to identify themselves and justify themselves through a narrow view of what they believe in religiously. In terms of Palestinian society, certainly the society is religious, and much of the Arab Muslim world has become more religious in recent years. The zealots on the other side are the Orthodox Jews, who are making the claim that God promised the land to the Jews. Unfortunately, scripture has descended from a source with which we can’t communicate. We can’t source-check the scripture.

 

To listen to the entire interview:

 

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Judithe Registre: Because I Am a Girl

Segment 1: Social Justice and Basic Human Rights.

Our guest on this edition of The Doug Noll Show is Judithe Registre, Program Director for the Because I Am a Girl campaign at Plan International USA.  Judithe holds a Master’s degree in Philosophy and Social Policy from American University and a Masters Certificate in Advanced Social Research from Afrikaans University in South Africa, in addition to being a Fellow Alumnus of the Salzburg Seminar, a forum that brings together thinkers and leaders from different global institutions to develop ideas geared towards solving international issues.

 

Judithe was born in Haiti and discovered a passion for justice and social change at a very young age. At 9 she first realized that young girls have to wash, cook, and clean, while young boys got to play. That idea did not resonate well with her. She wanted to understand how society is structured and how people relate to one another, as well as learn about social justice. Judithe defines social justice as the idea that we are all born with innate human rights: education, quality of life, access to food and water, basic things we need to grow up as dignified human beings.

 

Segment 2: Invest In Kids Today.

Judithe has been in some of the most difficult places in the world, one of the most challenging being the  Democratic Republic of Congo. Spending time there taught her the true meaning of trauma. In any post-conflict environment, the population experiences trauma and violence at a greater rate than a mainstream population. We need to take into consideration the trauma that the women and girls in those environments have experienced when we attempt to rebuild their society.

 

The process of healing takes multiple generations. Change happens if we are patient and committed to the long process. The process needs to be centered around the community. If we want to get rid of the problems that occurred 20 years ago, invest in the kids of today. If we educate women and children, change can happen faster than anticipated.

 

The Because I Am a Girl campaign focuses on girls and invests in educating them before they become women. By 2016 they estimate they will have helped 4 million girls with education, financial skills, basic life training, issues of early marriage, and improved maternity health. The heart of addressing women is to address girls before they hit puberty.

 

Segment 3: Steady, Persistent and Consistent Efforts.

In developing or post-conflict countries, when young women start to reach puberty they become objects of reproduction and lose opportunity, whereas when young men reach puberty in those same countries, they gain opportunity. The expectations for boys and girls are very different. If we invest in the girl’s education, her contribution to society will be far greater.

 

Plan International was founded in 1937. They operate in 50 developing countries and have over 600 volunteers all over the world, primarily working with children. They work to ensure education and protection for the rights of kids so they can grow up to become active citizens who hold leadership roles in the community. Their mission is 3-fold: they work at the grassroots level, and at the government level, as well as the international level. Change in any environment is difficult, even when we know change is good for us. Steady, persistent and consistent efforts lead to change.

 

Segment 4: The Discussion Changes.

The moment someone believes they can do something, the moment we start believing that we have the confidence and the intelligence to make something happen…everything changes. When you have a nation of young women and young girls unable to realize their full potential, it prevents that society from realizing its full potential. It goes far beyond the individual girl. When people start recognizing the overall benefits to investing in girls, and that an educated and intelligent woman makes a better partner, mother, and role model as a whole, the discussion changes. Everything changes.

 

To listen to the entire interview:

 

Segment 1

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The Lawyer as Cognitive Counselor

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In legal negotiation, your client will have to make the final decision about whether to make a deal or not. As we have seen, human decision-making in the face of great risk and uncertainty is fraught with peril. Our brains simply do not handle statistics, probabilities, or logical thinking very well, especially when under stress, fear, or other emotion.

The job of the lawyer is to not only manage the negotiation so that the best possible outcome can be obtained, but also to help the client overcome the inherent distortions of the human brain so that decisional error is minimized. This is what I mean by cognitive counseling.
Some lawyers shy away from this idea saying that they are not therapists. I think it is important to understand that were not talking about therapy. Therapy involves diagnosis, prescription, and prognosis with the goal of healing injury. Cognitive counseling is more like coaching to help clients make good decisions.

The first step in cognitive counseling is to recognize decisional errors. This will take some practice, but armed with the information he received from you so far, you can see that any type of emotional reaction is potentially the cause of decisional error.

In addition to calling out decisional errors, you can slow the process down. Sometimes getting outside and walking around for a while is a useful way of getting some cognitive rest. Do not allow the process to accelerate so quickly that your client becomes overwhelmed emotionally or cognitively. Frequently, clients will leap ahead to find objections why a certain decision should not be made. As a cognitive counselor, try to maintain the decision-making one step at a time and bring your client back when he or she leaps forward.

In these situations, you will have to make an empathic connection with your client by listening, reading his or her emotional data field, summarizing the essence of what your client is saying, and labeling his or her emotional experience. When your client seems overwhelmed, have your client focus on what is really important. Most lawsuits are not life-changing. Therefore, you can ask questions about what life will look like five and 10 years ahead. Helping your client gain perspective on what is really important can be of crucial importance during the heat of a negotiation.

As I have repeatedly said, take good notes and be sure to memorialize your conversations with your client in a follow-up letter. The problem of the under settled case is growing as negotiation and mediation becomes more of a mainline practice. You will need to keep your client in line by making a written history of what happened.

Cognitive counseling is an iterative process, which means that you will repeat the same things over and over again. Sometimes it will seem like you are spinning your wheels. However, it is your repetition, patience, compassion, and understanding that will be the greatest service to your client. Your client will not remember your brilliant legal analysis. She will remember how you treated her and a very difficult and extreme moment of her life.

Remember, the best way to win the game is to call it yourself.

Better still, change the game completely.

Douglas E. Noll
Mediator, Author, and
California Lawyer 2012 Attorney of the Year
for Pro Bono Service
Creator of Negotiation Mastery for the Legal Pro
A new online course in cutting-edge legal negotiation
legalpronegotiator.com

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Portable Careers for Military Spouses

Segment 1: Ambiguous Loss: Never Any Closure.
It is rare that we think about how military life can disrupt the career aspirations of its servicemen and women and how coming home from war zones and returning to normal life is difficult for all involved. On this edition of The Doug Noll Show we speak with Stacy Swearengen, founder of
www.portablecareerplanning.com, a website to help guide military spouses in their career choices and professional goals.

 

Stacy tells us that there are a multitude of unique challenges to being a military spouse, the most obvious being having to manage a household single-handedly. According to Stacy, when a spouse first leaves there is a learning curve during which you have to learn how to do everything yourself. Then you start to develop the independence, and then the spouse comes back. Finally, there’s the whole process of adjusting to them coming home. Everything feels temporary and there is never any closure. As soon as they’re gone, they’re coming back again, but even when they’re back, they’re not really back (they’re in training or on leave).

 

Segment 2: Emotional Inconsistency.

Military spouses endure great emotional inconsistency. They are very resilient — there isn’t any choice. The homecoming is extremely emotional, and there is no routine or sense of closure.

 

Segment 3: A Portable Career.

Portable Career Planning is like a moving company for your career. A career is part of a person’s identity. We can pack up our personal things and our household belongings, but what about the intangible things? Every day military spouses choose to put other people first instead of connecting with themselves. It’s easy for them to start losing track of who they are and what they love to do. Stacy discovers what her clients’ passions are and how those passions can translate into a portable career. A “portable career” doesn’t necessarily mean you work from home. It could mean being able to move from city to city, state to state, or even country to country.

 

Segment 4: Passionate Employees.

Stacy is always on the lookout for companies that have telecommuting available or international locations. Statistics show that Military Spouses stay at companies longer than non-Military folks. Generally speaking, Stacy has found that smaller start-ups are technologically savvy and they see the benefits of flexibility or telecommuting. They just want passionate employees, they don’t care if they are military or not.

 

To listen to the entire interview:

 

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Supporting Your Boss in Negotiation

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This post is about how to support your boss in negotiation.

As a young lawyer, you may not be in charge of a negotiation but may be asked to be an assistant or second chair. There is quite a bit that you can do to help the principal lawyer prepare for and execute the negotiation. The fact that you lack experience will be made up by the thoroughness of your briefing book. Your primary function is information gathering and synthesis.
While the final negotiation strategy will be developed between the principal attorney and client, to the extent that they are well informed by you, they will be that much better prepared. So your job is to put together the information, distillate, synthesize it, and presented in a way that is immediately usable.

Your secondary function is to provide devil’s advocacy. You will want to take the other side and develop its negotiation strategy based on the information you have developed to date. This will, of course, require some research on the other side. Fortunately, as you have probably learned, the explosion of social media sites provides a vast amount of information on people. Spending some time doing this research can give you tidbits of information and insight into who people are, their backgrounds, and their predispositions.

The usual function of young lawyers is to do legal research until you learn more about the other skills of lawyering. That role is no different in negotiation, where you are called upon to do a thorough case analysis. This will include a distillation of the salient facts and an analysis of the law applied to those facts. This is core lawyering with which you should be very familiar.
You will also want to do a comprehensive damage analysis. Again, you will have to start with the basic remedial concepts of damages, understand the claims, and work up various damage scenarios. You may be relying upon experts for some of this information and analysis. Do not be afraid to ask them hard questions and do not be afraid to professional ignorance if damage analysis and numbers are not your thing. It is their job to educate you, not impress you with how smart they are.

Very few lawyers are familiar with decision tree analysis so you can provide a useful addition to your briefing book with a decision tree. You may not be able to build a complex tree, but that is unnecessary. If you do nothing else than assess the probabilities of for trial outcomes, you will be adding value to the briefing book.

The briefing book can be something as short as a 2-3 page memo or a binder with detailed analysis and appendices. The amount of time and effort you put into a briefing book will depend upon the nature and size of the case, the litigation case budget, and your time constraints. You will probably never be asked to produce a negotiation briefing book. However, imagine the surprise of the principal lawyer when you present a detailed briefing book for review. I can pretty much guarantee you that you will create a positive buzz about your competency as young lawyer when you do this. The briefing book should contain all of the elements that we have discussed so far. In addition it should have a blank concession strategy plan that can be filled out by the principal lawyer and the client.

You may find yourself in the interesting position of having to explain a concession strategy to them as most lawyers have no clue what they are. We will be covering concession strategies later on.
In all of this work your primary job is to learn. You will take the information you’re learning in this course and apply it on the job. You will probably see behaviors and strategies that I recommend against. Be very careful not to criticize. Simply make note of what is observed and engage in the kind of reflective practice I discussed at the beginning of this course. What you want to do is learn from mistakes of others rather than adopt those behaviors and strategies as acceptable practice.
 In addition, you will see smart negotiators. Watch them very carefully and learn as much as you can about what makes them so good. Again, having taken this course will give you insight as to why they have become master negotiators.

I cannot emphasize enough how important reflective practice as an associate is. The first five years of law practice are an intense learning experience. You have to find time to step back and reflect upon what you are learning.

•    What works?
•    What does not work?
•    What did you do wrong?
•    What did you do right?
•    What could do better?

If you do not engage in reflective practice, your education will be hit or miss. Just do it.

Remember, the best way to win the game is to call it yourself.

Better still, change the game completely.

Douglas E. Noll
Mediator, Author, and
California Lawyer 2012 Attorney of the Year
for Pro Bono Service
Creator of Negotiation Mastery for the Legal Pro
A new online course in cutting-edge legal negotiation
legalpronegotiator.com

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Preparing Clients for Negotiation

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Clients have interests, needs, goals, and desires. Some of these cannot be fulfilled by the legal system. You need to help your client sort through all of this so that he or she understands what is possible through negotiation. The trick is to listen to your client deeply.
This is not a skill that is taught in law school. There are places to go to learn how to listen. I strongly recommend to young lawyers that they take a course in coaching, motivational interviewing, or the like. Learning how to probe the client’s true needs and helping the client clarify them is essential in the process of preparing for negotiation.

As you prepare your client for negotiation, be sure to set clear boundaries of responsibility. Who needs to be in the decisional loop? In many cases, the settlement decision affects more than just the direct client. Make sure that you know who has to participate in the decision early on. Have all decision makers and influencers been thoroughly informed about the case, the negotiation, and a range of reasonable outcomes?

Spouses and business partners can easily be forgotten about. It is your job to make sure that they are fully informed, consistent with protecting attorney-client privilege. At the very least, you must inform your client to keep influencers up-to-date on case developments and the negotiation strategy. Again, a letter outlining all of this can be an important protection for you.

Who will be present during the negotiation? Generally speaking, you want all of the decision-makers at the negotiation if the negotiation is in the form of mediation or some other group conference. Sometimes, for strategic or tactical reasons, certain decision-makers might not be physically present. They should be available close by or available by telephone or Skype for consultation as a negotiation unfolds.

Who will have to be present to make a settlement agreement binding? Settlement agreements made during mediation are not binding unless all of the parties have signed the settlement agreement. Therefore, you must take great care to make sure that you know who will have to be present to bind everyone to a deal.

What will be the role of the client during the negotiation? This one is overlooked all the time. Most of the time, you want your client to be an active participant in the negotiation. Sometimes your client will take the lead; sometimes you will take the lead. This should be discussed ahead of time so that there is no confusion over roles during negotiations.

Another related problem has to do with personal accountability. Very few people have the courage to take personal responsibility for their actions. Many times, people will come to lawyers, hoping to shift responsibility for their actions away from themselves. In negotiation, clients are often confronted with the need to take personal responsibility for their actions for the first time. This can be a difficult pill to swallow. A conversation about personal accountability well before negotiation begins is therefore a good idea.

Some clients can become very emotional, often with ample justification. I will give you more information about emotions in the context of decision-making later on. However, recognize that all human beings are 98% emotional and 2% rational. Conflict and stress tend to shut down the prefrontal cortex and activate the emotional centers of the brain. Be prepared to deal with your client’s emotions.

Remember, the best way to win the game is to call it yourself.

Better still, change the game completely.

Douglas E. Noll
Mediator, Author, and
California Lawyer 2012 Attorney of the Year
for Pro Bono Service
Creator of Negotiation Mastery for the Legal Pro
A new online course in cutting-edge legal negotiation
legalpronegotiator.com

 

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Evolutionary Law and the Collapse of Society

Segment 1: Navigating a High Failure Rate Environment.

On this edition of The Doug Noll Show we speak with Rebecca Costa, an American sociobiologist who offers a genetic explanation for current events, emerging trends and individual behavior. Rebecca’s first book, The Watchman’s Rattle: A Radical New Theory of Collapse, questions our ability to thrive in the complex world we have created. Her website is http://www.rebeccacosta.com/.

 

When Rebecca lived in Silicon Valley in the 1980’s, she observed the exponential rate at which the pace was moving and came to the conclusion that there was little chance we would be able to keep up with that pace. She says these days we’re all struggling with a high failure rate environment. It’s difficult to sort through all the information that bombards us each day and decide what’s relevant and what’s not. The odds are stacked against us to pick the right career, the right health care program, etc. There is too much information, and the number of wrong choices is exponentially greater than the number of right choices.

 

Evolution is lagging behind what is needed to succeed in society. Our brain is not designed to deal with the complexities and the great amount of information coming toward us each day. It exceeds our physiological and cognitive ability.

 

Segment 2: The History of Human Civilization.

Evolutionary Law says we need to adapt or die. However, we can only adapt at a certain rate. Rebecca sees a consistent pattern throughout history: First civilizations hit a cognitive threshold, where the problems are beyond their “pay grade” and they become gridlocked and unable to act. Next, there is mass confusion among leadership and individuals in the society between what is an empirical fact and an unproven belief. Public policy becomes highly irrational because it’s based on unproven beliefs instead of empirical evidence. Lastly, an event comes along that “does a society in” and the society collapses. This doesn’t mean that everyone dies; it just means that the society breaks into smaller units and then starts to ascend again. This is the history of human civilization.

 

Segment 3: Insight.

So what tools do we have to prevent an ultimate collapse? Rebecca sys for the first time in human history we can use science and medicine to watch what the brain is doing. For instance, scientists recently discovered a third form of problem solving: insight. Insight is the ability to connect two pieces of data in a novel way. Scientists can now predict that a person will have an insight about 300 milliseconds before they actually solve the problem. Our brains need to be consistently exercised and “warmed up” to deal with the complex problems of our day-to-day lives, thus stalling and perhaps preventing an ultimate collapse.

 

Segment 4:  

We are dealing with environmental changes that are beyond what we’re designed to do. We are not designed to respond to a long-term threat. The solution is to try to mitigate and train and catch up the brain. We can turn to neuroscience to help us adapt at a faster rate. We can train our brains and recognize that when we have a complex problem to solve, we need to invest in multiple solutions and expect a high threshold of waste.

  

To listen to the entire interview:

 

Segment 1

Segment 2

Segment 3

Segment 4

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