Negotiating the Nonnegotiable | Dan Shapiro | Talks at Google

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MALE SPEAKER: Welcome, Google world. My name is [? Sunny Sani, ?] and I'm here to introduce Daniel Shapiro. Daniel Shapiro is one of the world's leading experts in negotiation and conflict resolution and is founder and director of the world renowned Harvard International Negotiation Program. He has appeared on dozens of radio and television shows and has contributed to the "New York Times," "O, the Oprah Magazine," and other popular publications. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the American Psychological Association's Early Career Award and the Cloke-Millen Peacemaker of the Year award. The World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader. And he is here today to talk about the tenets of his new book, "Negotiating the Nonnegotiable." And without further ado, Daniel Shapiro. DANIEL SHAPIRO: Thank you. Thank you, [? Sunny. ?] So thank you. It is great to be here with all of you today. So let me start with my association with Google. So I have a few, but let me tell you the one that's most prominent in my mind. It was probably close to 10 years back. I was in those mountains of Switzerland at Davos at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting. And the hippest, the coolest event of the whole time there, for their annual summit in January, was the Google party. And guess who did not get an invitation to the Google party? Loser here. So some of my friends, who were a little bit more in the circle, said, we'll sneak you in. And so somehow I get shuffled in a backdoor into the Google party. I'm there talking with Charlie Rose and a couple of other people. And we start getting into, so what do you do? And I knew Charlie Rose. I turned to the person beside me. So what do you do? And this person says, I work at Google. I said, oh, really? What do you do at Google? And he says, I founded it. It was Larry Page. Yeah. So I went, oh. So I'm sneaking into your party. He goes, yeah, pretty much. And anyway, the rest of our time there at Davos, literally, it was the most awkward situation. Somehow, I found myself sitting directly next to him again and again. And again, I could feel him going, who is this guy? But I enjoyed meeting your founder. I'm sure he does not remember me at all, although I very much member him. So let me start by asking all of you a question. And you know what? There are some of you over here. I'm going to be very annoying. Would you mind just coming over this way, just so we are one happy family here at Google. So just a show of hands-- how many of you in the past six months have-- feel free. Feel free just to walk in front of me. Yeah. How many of you in the past six months have experienced an emotionally-charged conflict? Raise your hands. Yes? Yes? OK. Your hand-- OK. Good. OK. So you are human beings. Good. Let me ask you one more question, which will seem like a total non sequitur, but I believe it is not. Anybody here know what a poplar tree is? A poplar tree? Yeah. So what's a poplar tree, sir? AUDIENCE: A tree that has fairly roundish flowers on it. DANIEL SHAPIRO: OK, so a tree with fairly roundish flowers on it. I'll have to trust you on that one. It's a deciduous tree. Few of us in this room would have much of any interest in what is a poplar tree if it weren't for the fact that there was a single poplar tree that sat right at that border between North and South Korea. And each year, this little poplar tree would blossom, and it would grow. And as it would grow, it would block the South Koreans' view of the Bridge of No Return, the conduit between North and South Korea. So each year, out would march a small team of South Korean soldiers, and they would go to trim this tree. It was a security concern, and this was fine. Year after year after year, until August 6th, 1976, when the usual team of South Korean soldiers, they go out. They're trimming the tree for about 10 minutes. Along comes a lieutenant from the North Korean side with a much larger team of North Korean soldiers. The lieutenant from the North walks up the lieutenant from the South. You try and trim this tree, we're going to shoot! And sorry. We're going to shoot! And they literally chase away the South Korean team. But this is a security concern. And it does not stop the South Koreans from trying to trim this tree. They come back about two weeks later, now with a much larger team of South Korean soldiers, US soldiers, and UN officials, and all there for the single purpose of what? Trying to trim this damn tree, you know? And they start trimming once again for about 10 minutes. Along comes that lieutenant from the North, this time with a much, much larger team of North Korean soldiers. You try and trim this tree, we are going to shoot. This did not stop the South Koreans from trying to trim this tree. And for those of you who might remember what happened next, this turned into a bloody, bloody mess. There were a number of South Koreans who were injured in the circumstance, two US Soldiers not just shot-- decapitated, caught on camera, broadcast around the world. I was presenting this case fairly recently in my home institution in Boston. And after I was presenting the case to some international military leaders, some lawyers, business people, and so on, I was walking out of the room. And this one gentleman comes chasing after me, face as red as you can imagine. Shapiro! That's me. Shapiro, I don't think you understand! I don't think you understand, he says. I was there. I was at West Point, the US military college, at that point in time. He says, I knew those boys. I knew their families. He said, we were not just feeling grief at the loss of our soldiers. He says, we were feeling utter, utter humiliation at the way our boys died. And surprise, surprise, this situation then reaches the highest of the high in the United States, the White House, where then-President Ford was faced with a very difficult decision. What do you do? What do you do? And he turns to his lead advisor. And his lead advisor basically says, well, you know what I think we should do, Mr. President? I think we should bomb the North Koreans. And the president thinks about it and decides that a more appropriate strategy would be to simply try to cut down this tree. So now back to the scene. On August 21st, 1976, some two weeks later, comes 813 human power, manpower as they sometimes call it, F-4 fighters, F-5 fighters. They had a 64-man armed platoon trained in taekwondo. They had three B-52 bombers circling around overhead with the single purpose of what? Trying to cut down this tree. And do they do it? Yes. How long does it take? About one hour. Was there further incident? No. But as I was learning about this story, what struck me most is that this was literally almost World War III. Literally almost World War III. And over what? Over a tree? And obviously, it's over much, much more than just a tree. But it begs two fundamental questions that connect all of us together, two basic questions that we're going to focus on today. One, why-- there we go. One, why do we get stuck in emotionally-charged conflicts? And two, how do we get out? And, I mean, if you look at the situation, if this were the United States and Canada fighting over a tree, five minutes, it's done. There's something strange that happens when we get into emotionally-charged conflicts, whether at work or in the home life or in the international realm. So with that, the more specific purpose for today is twofold-- well, let me go back one. Twofold-- it's to present a framework based upon research that I've been conducting over the past 20 years. Just two modest goals for today connected to my new book-- one, how do you guard against the most fundamental mindset that traps us in conflict? What is that mindset? How do you guard against it? And second big purpose of today-- there tend to be these emotional forces that pull us toward adversarial relations, even when it doesn't make sense. What are those forces? And how might you try to deal with them? We're not going to go into the full depth. The book is there. But for sure, I'm going to give you some of the basic ideas so you have a good sense of what they are. So before jumping into our talk formally for the day, quickly, where do these ideas come from? The ideas I'll be talking about with you, they come from two different places. One, from laboratory research that myself and colleagues have done, fieldwork, global field work around conflict resolution. My own work has been with, really, a vast variety of different groups, everybody from civil society organizations, grassroots organizations, families in crisis, to working with heads of state and CEOs of major businesses. And by the way, I can promise you but one thing-- by the end of our time together, although I've had these various different kinds of experiences, my greatest learning has come from negotiating with three of the hardest bargainers that the world has ever seen. And you will have to believe me on this. It is these guys right here. And these are my children. Noah's the oldest, Zachary second, Liam is the third. And you will have to trust me-- day in and day out, they test every one of these skills. I truly believe that most things are negotiable except maybe with my children. So anyway, my purpose for showing you that slide, though, is to say that, yes, what we will be talking about today is relevant in the corporate context, in the business world. It's just as relevant whether you're trying to negotiate with mom or dad, brother, sister, whoever it might be at home, as well-- romantic partner. So with that, let's jump into the problem. The problem is this-- how should you resolve an emotionally-charged conflict? Now, these conflicts impose a tremendous cost on any organization. Most people don't even recognize the extent of the costs that conflict brings to your organization. When you look at the financial spreadsheets for most organizations, you see, often, one line which deals with conflict-- legal fees, litigation. And yet at the same time, there are all of these hidden costs of poorly dealing with conflict. You have all of the poor decision-making-- what's your first name? AUDIENCE: Elad. DANIEL SHAPIRO: I don't like you. What is it? AUDIENCE: Elad. DANIEL SHAPIRO: Elad? OK. I don't like you. OK. So-- no, I'm just kidding. But if Elad and I are working together, and I don't like Elad, and he doesn't like me for not liking him, all of a sudden, our decision-making-- and by the way, you seem like a nice enough guy. But all of a sudden, our decision-making starts to go way down. I don't consult you. I'm not sharing information with you. You're not loyal to me, and so on. You have the big problem that many organizations, even masterful organizations like Google, face. You start to lose an employee or two. A star player goes to one of the competition. And you go, ah what just happened? Conflict. Conflict If you don't deal with it well, a huge cost. You have all of the elements of a toxic corporate environment. And I know Google's a nice place. I got a sense of it today over lunch. There's a positive feeling, a positive vibe here. At the same time, every organization has conflict. If you don't deal with it well, it is tremendously costly. So why don't we deal with it well? In its simplest form, my sense is we approach conflict typically like this picture. We think, OK. I am right here right now. Let me rationally try and deal with this problem with Elad that I have. Lets talk about our problem. Let's just problem-solve it. We are two wonderful engineers here at Google doing our fancy algorithms. Lets apply the algorithm, and let's solve our problem. And Elad keep his arms crossed, glares at me like that, and we have a problem because this isn't reality. With conflict, that picture is not reality. My sense of the reality of the picture is more like this. In reality, there's this whole set of emotional forces that start to pull us toward adversarialisms. We're not listening, not working things out, even when rationally it makes perfect sense for the two of us to work together. We're on the same project team with the same goals. We both can be promoted. There's no competition. And yet we end up in this odd emotional space, sabotaging each other when it's in a sense sabotaging ourselves. What's going on? And what I'd like to do today is to introduce you to some of those forces. You already know them in a way. I'm just putting names to things that you know, so that the next time you experience them, you can go, uh-oh. We're about to go into this. Now you have power over that experience, rather than that thing having power over you. So let me start with the deadliest of all of these things. I call it the tribes effect. What do I mean by the tribes effect? I mean it's a divisive mindset. And it could happen in any situation. Elad and I might be best friends. But the moment we get into a conflict situation, that tribal mindset starts to sink in. And all of a sudden-- think about your own conflicts in your own life. All of a sudden, it becomes me versus you, us versus that other department here at Google. That's the adversarial mindset. At the same time, I see my perspective is absolutely right and legitimate. And Elad, I see, was utterly wrong and crazy. And the third characteristic of this tribes effect is that I will defend to no ends my position, my perspective. And I'm going to close my ears to yours. That is the tribes effect. That same year that I met Larry Page, awkwardly, something else happened. I ran a little exercise there at Davos, in those mountains of Switzerland. And the exercise is called the tribes exercise. I've developed it over much time. Let me give you just a bare-bones sense. So we had a room that was not much difference in size to this room. No windows, though. Into the room streamed 45 of the usual participants of the World Economic Forum summit. We had a deputy head of state, leading CEOs of many different organizations. We had security experts, presidents of universities, and on and on and on and on-- major venture capitalists. They come into the room, and almost immediately, I have them do a little project. Divide them up randomly into six different groups and say, you now-- and you know this, Ben. Yes. Ben is a former student and also experienced this in his own I believe, yes. So we'll have to get your thoughts afterward. So anyway, we randomly divided these leaders into six separate tribes, what I call tribes. I said to them, you have 50 minutes. And in the next 50 minutes, at your own small group, you need to create your own tribes. And all of your-- what are the values of your tribe? What are the beliefs of your tribe? Dress up like your tribe. Gave them balloons. Gave them-- so literally, I have a picture of the deputy head of state with a balloon on his head. You know, it is the most wonderful blackmail. I will never use it. Anyway, they all do this for about 50 minutes. We come back into the room. And now you feel six distinct tribes with different energies to each group. And all of a sudden, the lights go completely black. And into the room burst this intergalactic alien who-- big eyes, bulging eyes, big head-- I am an intergalactic alien. I have come to destroy the Earth. I will give you one opportunity to save the world from complete destruction. You must choose one of these six tribes to be the tribe of everybody. You'll have three rounds of negotiation. And if you cannot come to a decision by the end of three rounds of negotiation, the world will be destroyed. Ha, ha, ha! And out floats this alien. And as ridiculous as this all sounds, the tension in the room emerges. Round one, they cannot come to agreement. Round two, the tension builds. Round three, time is ticking, ticking, ticking, ticking. Six members in the middle of the room, each negotiating on behalf of their own tribe. By chance, it happened to be five men, one woman. The moment they get to the center of this room, these men start yelling over one another. They start yelling over this woman. This woman gets so rightly enraged at the behavior of her colleagues, she literally stands on a bar stool-- which is what it was-- and she yells those lines I will never forget. She yells, this is just another example of male competitive behavior! You all come to my tribe! One tribe joins hers. The others refuse. And five, four, three, two, one, boom. Our world exploded at Davos. And not only did our world explode, but our room exploded. I have done this exercise dozens and dozens and dozens of times with MIT Sloan students, with Harvard students, with Chinese diplomats, with people from Australia, from people all across the Middle East, literally around the world. And but with the smallest of exceptions, the world has exploded again and again and again and again. And it's a metaphor to me. In the course of 50 minutes-- and I have no doubt it would have happened here today, as nice as you all are, yourself included. The world would have exploded. And how do I account for that? In 50 minutes, we can create an identity so very powerful, people are willing to die for that identity rather than move toward saving the world. You look at our world today, you see that in reality. But what happens that causes people to go there? The tribes effect. The moment it becomes an us-them mentality, it's a mindset. And a mindset is something that sticks over time, sometimes over generations. The moment you get there, the conflict is destined for explosion or close to it. And it starts to feel nonnegotiable. So the question, then, is what moves you toward the tribes effect? And what I found through the research have been-- let's skip that for the moment-- have been five emotional forces that tend to pull us toward that us-them thinking. And as I talk about these, think about your own life. Think about that emotionally-charged conflict in your own life. How might these relate to you? So the first of these five lures is what I call vertigo. Think about the last time you really got into a tough conflict, how you got totally consumed in that conflict situation. You know, you're here at work. Somebody makes a decision. They were supposed to consult you. They did not consult you. And all of a sudden, you can't stop thinking about anything other than that. That's vertigo. You go home at the end of the day. You go to see your friends or your family. And yes, they're all excited to see you, but you're still thinking about that person here at work who screwed you over. You are in that warped state of consciousness that I call vertigo. Let me give you an example. There's a former professor of mine from many years back. He told a story-- this was in my undergraduate, my first year of undergraduate school. There was this eccentric English professor. And he said one day, he was shopping with his wife for a bedspread. And he says his wife thought they absolutely needed the $500 bedspread. And he thought this was the most foolish financial decision they could ever make. He says, there we are in the mall. And we start to argue. She argues back. I argue more. And so on, he said, until we got into a really heated conflict in that mall. And then he says, but just for a moment, my eyes averted those of my wife. He said, I saw there was a circle of onlookers watching us fight. I had not seen it. And then he says, I looked down at my watch. 20 minutes had passed. I thought it was five. This is vertigo. Time and space warp when you are in vertigo. You get into that conflict with your romantic partner, and all of a sudden, three years ago on a Tuesday, you screwed me over. That's vertigo. The past becomes the present, and the feared future becomes the inevitable future. Just as true between couples as between Israelis and Palestinians or others. The big advice-- the next time you find yourself in a heated conflict, and you see that tornado of vertigo coming toward you, ask the question, do I want to go there? Do I want-- and sometimes you might. But sometimes, it might make more sense to say, no, I don't. That's vertigo. All still together? OK, good. So let us go now to the second of these lures. And before we do, just a little experiment. How many of you-- I'll tell you what. I'm going to ask all of you to partner up with one other person in this room, somebody you do not know. And if all of you could come over here, please, and join us, as well, find a partner. Sit next to that partner. And if you do not pair up with somebody, I promise you, I will humiliate you. So find a partner. OK? This exercise might feel a little uncomfortable. The goal is to learn. So what I ask you to do is the following-- listen carefully, OK? So we're going to do a little exercise. Now you've paired up with someone. So you're going to be sharing a few things with your partner. First two things you will be sharing from your own experience, from your own world-- one with the presidential elections at play right now with the campaigns. What's your political leaning? Are you a Democrat? Are you a Republican? An independent? And if you're not from the United States as a citizen, if you were, where would you vote? Which side? That's question one. You'll share that. Question number two-- what's your salary? Do we have any human resource people in here? OK, good. I'm already in trouble. OK. Let's pretend you're not here. And I want your honest salary. I don't want some pretend thing. So what's your salary here at Google? And I'm actually curious, too. Third-- so the first two, you share. The next two, it's your best guess, in a sense, your idea. So how attractive do you think this person sitting beside you is? OK? And we are going to go on a scale from one to 10. And just so there are no hurt feelings, a one is not, you're ugly. But a one is, eh. So, like, you're OK. And a 10 is like, you are, like, the hottie of the Google world. OK? It's like, hey, there. So that's a 10. Final question-- what do you think the age is of this other person? Precise age, specific numbers. So what do you think the age is? And the cool thing about this exercise is afterward, they can share their age. And you can find out if you were right or wrong. Good. So that's the exercise. Any questions before we get started? Any questions? AUDIENCE: We don't tell them how attractive we think they are? DANIEL SHAPIRO: No, no, no, no. You will tell them. So you will tell your partner, from one to 10-- you look like you're getting excited now. I love you! The first Google Talks marriage that happened. I don't know if you're married. But any other questions before-- yes? AUDIENCE: What if we don't want to? AUDIENCE: I don't think this is a good idea. DANIEL SHAPIRO: Whoa, whoa. Why not? AUDIENCE: Is this a good idea? I'll make it in the form of a question. DANIEL SHAPIRO: No, well, say why you think this might not be a good idea. AUDIENCE: Because the-- AUDIENCE: Because this is work. DANIEL SHAPIRO: Because this is work? AUDIENCE: Yes. DANIEL SHAPIRO: And you are at work. This is Google. This is where you work. I see. Ah, I get the idea of-- we don't really work here. No, yeah? AUDIENCE: I just-- we don't know anything about this person next to you. DANIEL SHAPIRO: Well, that's what makes this cool. AUDIENCE: --inapropriate to express in a brutally honest way with someone you have no idea. DANIEL SHAPIRO: So, but I mean, it's just honesty. I mean, there's nothing, is there-- what's your fear? AUDIENCE: Offending. Offending-- DANIEL SHAPIRO: OK. Your fear is off-- oh, your salary's only that. So there's a fear of offending somebody else in some sort of way. What were you saying, though? I think I misunderstood. AUDIENCE: Yeah. You did misunderstand. I said that it's because we're all kind of co-workers. And I don't think this kind of questions is appropriate at all. DANIEL SHAPIRO: Why? AUDIENCE: Because this is a work environment. DANIEL SHAPIRO: OK. So it's a work environment. And so you're saying there are certain kinds of questions-- AUDIENCE: You don't need to make the other person uncomfortable. You're going to be uncomfortable. DANIEL SHAPIRO: Which question is going to make them uncomfortable? AUDIENCE: Actually, the two, three, four. DANIEL SHAPIRO: Two, three, four. OK. AUDIENCE: I'm fine with all the questions. DANIEL SHAPIRO: You're fine with all-- OK. Fair enough. And others? What do you think? What's your feeling? Yeah? AUDIENCE: I actually want to see how you convince and negotiate we to start this conversation. DANIEL SHAPIRO: OK. OK. AUDIENCE: You see the pushback, and how do you negotiate over it? DANIEL SHAPIRO: Yes. And you see the emotions already. No, you did not catch my question. I don't like these questions. This is not appropriate for work. And Shapiro, I hate you. Fair enough. AUDIENCE: I didn't say any of that. DANIEL SHAPIRO: No. It was the look. AUDIENCE: I haven't even started. DANIEL SHAPIRO: No, no. Oh, dear. I will take a step back. But notice what you are feeling. And how are you feeling? Honestly how are you feeling? AUDIENCE: Uncomfortable. DANIEL SHAPIRO: Uncomfortable. Anything else? How about back there? And Glenn is like, I chose the wrong book-selling experience here. Ah! You know, I am not going to have you do this. I will not have you do this. AUDIENCE: I knew that. DANIEL SHAPIRO: Oh, yeah, right you knew that. No. But the purpose for sharing this with you is to have you experience what I call taboos. So taboos are social-- AUDIENCE: I have another question. DANIEL SHAPIRO: Yes? AUDIENCE: Do people do it? DANIEL SHAPIRO: Do people do it? You know-- AUDIENCE: Or is that your thing, that we'll say no. DANIEL SHAPIRO: Well, no, no, no. I'll tell you, I just, as I've been presenting this new book, there's this chapter on taboos. And I was like, how do you make this come to life? And literally two nights ago was the first time I ever did it. So I don't have a great database for this. And this was a group of very established lawyers and mediators. And they all became very uncomfortable. And then when I said, don't worry. We're not going to do it, they decided not to do it. We're then afterwards at a cocktail reception, you know, just immediately afterwards. And someone comes up to me and says, with a French accent, somebody came up and said, (FRENCH ACCENT) I just have to let you know, we are all doing the exercise now. And then he had trauma, though. This particular gentleman had trauma because he said, I did not know what to do, though. I was sitting beside a woman. I sort of thought she was more like a one, but I didn't know whether to call her a 10 or to call her an eight because she might think I'm lying with a 10. He was traumatized. So I would dare not have you do it, although afterwards, if you want to do it, it's not my responsibility. It's yours. OK. No. But this is taboos. And you're right. This feels inappropriate to talk about these issues. And the challenge is what happens when you are in a conflict situation, and the issues that are the core issues at play feel taboo to talk about? How do you talk about those issues? And every organization has them. Don't criticize the boss. Or at home, don't talk about Mom's drinking. Well, if it's driving the dysfunction and you don't talk about it, you are moving toward that tribes effect. There's a division happening, and it's becoming more and more. And yet, if you do talk about it, as you put it, it's uncomfortable. It's scary. It can feel dangerous. And you ultimately can get punished for talking about the issues. This is taboos. And so in a sense, there are certain issues that you should be talking about in an organization that you might not be. And then there are others that you probably shouldn't be talking about that sometimes people do talk about. Suddenly, I start criticizing, oh, your child. Oy, oy, oy, you have a difficult child. And you say, excuse me? Might be taboo to talk about that. But that's taboos. The idea here is become aware of these underlying forces that create a wall between you and the other side. And what do you do then? In the book, I talk more explicitly about this. But you have a whole range of choices for what you can do. I'll give you a quick example. The details are there in the book. But a number of years back, in Charm el-Cheikh, Egypt, I had organized a program with Israelis and Palestinian leadership, others from the region. And Tony Blair was there and others, when he was the head of the Quartet. How do you deal with taboos that are just dead center at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and yet everybody's scared to death to talk about them? What do you do in that situation, when the essence of what you need to talk about, by talking about it will result in substantial punishment, not even by the other side, but by your own side? You're disloyal to my side. You are a traitor to my side by even talking to the other side. It's taboo. But how in the world can you ever resolve a conflict if it's taboo to even talk to the other side? That's taboos. Let's move on to the third of these five lures of the tribal mind. This is what Sigmund Freud initially coined as the repetition compulsion. And this is the notion that we all tend to repeat the same dysfunctional patterns of behavior again and again and again and again in some of our relationships. And this is part of the reason why someone can go and take a great course on negotiation or read a useful self-help book. And they say, I am a transformed person. You come back to Google. And for a week and a half, you are transformed. But then two weeks later, three weeks later, all of a sudden, you're back to your same old patterns. That is be repetition compulsion. And the trick with the repetition-- the goal is to try to break out of it. If you do something dysfunctional-- you're constantly confrontational with somebody when you shouldn't be, you constantly avoid a conversation when you probably shouldn't. The challenge to breaking out of this repetition compulsion is that it feels utterly unnatural to do it. It feels not like part of who you are. Let me give you an example. I have a very close friend who for more than 25 years has been living in and suffering through an emotionally abusive relationship. And finally, a month ago-- literally a month ago-- she broke out of this relationship. She goes to Washington, DC and lives with some friends of mine. And she's there. And what happens every single day? Now, she's safe now. She's moving forward. She has a new relationship that's emerging. And yet what do you think she does every single day? She obsesses. Should I go back? Should I go back? Should I go back? And you know that this is not healthy. It's not good for her well-being. And yet every single day-- and I regret to inform you that about a week ago, she went back. This is the repetition compulsion. Now, did she learn and grow through that process? Absolutely. But it's extremely difficult to break out of that repetition compulsion. It's possible. But it is another reason why our conflicts often feel so nonnegotiable. Let's move on to the fourth of the-- and I'll skip this next part here. Let's move on to the fourth of these five lures. This is what I call an assault on the sacred. We all have things that are personally, deeply meaningful to us. And if you feel that I have offended something that is deeply meaningful to you, it can feel like an attack, an assault on who you are and what you stand for. And the moment that I attack that part of you, whether elements of your gender, your race, your ethnicity, your family, the fact that you are Google-- and I go, Google. Whatever. And I will give you a real-life example that happened just yesterday. So I was at Microsoft yesterday in Seattle. And it's about a third of the way through the talk. And I accidentally called the people at Microsoft Google. And I was like a third of the way through. I said the Goo-- and I went, no you didn't. And yes I did. And half the group went, no, you didn't. And I went, yes, I did. This was an assault on the sacred. Now, some came up to me afterward and said, I didn't really care at all. I just felt empathic for you. Faux pas. And I went, yeah. But for some in the group, this was an assault on the sacred. Your identity starts to get connected, whether it's here at Google or there at Microsoft. And the moment I say, oh, you're a great group here at Microsoft, you say, we're not Microsoft. We're Google. That's an attack. So in other words, the sacred can be something religious, but it doesn't have to be. It can be anything that we hold deeply, personally meaningful. You spend five months putting together a major new product or a part of an algorithm, whatever it might be. And you dedicated your heart and your soul to this thing. Day and night, you are here. You are sleeping on the little couches over there. You're eating the wonderful free food you have here. But you are doing this. You're investing your soul. And then five months later, your boss comes along and says, oh, so sorry to inform you, but we decided we're not going to move forward with that after all. That can feel like an assault on the sacred. And all of a sudden, even the most beautiful boss in the world, the most kind, generous boss, it can start to feel like the tribes effect. It is me versus you. We're not on the same page. That's that. And you know what? Let's think about this in a real-life example. So part of the work I do is in working with hostage negotiators, working with crisis negotiators. And I thought we might think about an example based upon a real-life situation. I did not negotiate in the real-life situation. I learned about this situation through a training program with the New York Police Department hostage negotiation team. But I thought we'd think about this together. So the basic situation-- first, how many of you have been to New York City? Almost all of you. How many of you have been to the subway system in New York City? OK. This situation happened there a number of years back. There was a gentleman, about 26 years old. He was clearly suffering from mental illness-- schizophrenia, delusions of grandeur. He had a tendency toward violence. Most people who suffer from mental illness, even more extreme forms of mental illness, they're not violent. We see it in the media, but that's a fiction, to some degree. It doesn't account for the real statistics of how much violence occurs, which is very minimal, with those who are suffering from mental illness. Anyway, this gentleman's there. He's sort of wandering around the subway platform, just wandering around. And as he's wandering around, he sees a woman, sees a woman about 20 years old carrying a baby in her arms. And he sees this woman. He runs up to the woman. He grabs the baby out of her arms. He pushes the woman into the train track, runs off into the janitor's closet, locks the door behind him. And about five minutes later, the New York Police Department hostage negotiation team, they get there. And they hear behind the door, if this child is an angel, I love this child! It's a demon, you know what I need to do! If this child is an angel, I love him! This child's a demon, you know what I need to do! And bang, bang, bang. We're banging on the door. Open up, open up, open up. And does our approach work? What do you think? Does our-- yes or no? Yes or no? AUDIENCE: No. DANIEL SHAPIRO: Come on! Yes or no? AUDIENCE: No! DANIEL SHAPIRO: Of course not! It completely fails to work. And why? What are we failing to do in this situation? We are absolutely failing to appreciate what this gentleman sees as sacred in this situation. We do not know what he considers as sacred, in fact. And the situation escalates. If this child is an angel, I love him! This child's a demon, you know what we have to do! If this child is an angel, love him! This child's a demon, you know-- and what are you gonna say now? What are you gonna say? What are you gonna say? I'm gonna kill this child in three seconds if you don't say something. AUDIENCE: Child's an angel. DANIEL SHAPIRO: What are you gonna say? And say it again? AUDIENCE: The child's an angel. DANIEL SHAPIRO: And say it louder so everybody can hear. AUDIENCE: This child's an angel! DANIEL SHAPIRO: This child is an angel! This child is an angel. We said those precise words on this other side of the door. The child is an angel! And did it work? What do you think? Yes or no? AUDIENCE: Yes. DANIEL SHAPIRO: Of course! Of course! Of course-- not, unfortunately. It does not work because all of a sudden, this gentleman on the other side of the door, he suddenly says, angel! Angel, angel! How do you know? How do you know? How do you know this child? How do you know this child is an angel? You said there were three people on the other side of the door. How many people are really on the other side of the door? And all of a sudden, we had now made precisely the opposite error that we had made but three minutes ago in this room and undoubtedly hours in the real-life situation. And it all has to do with this basic concept of appreciation. Because in a sense, when we're first banging on the door-- open up, open up, open up-- how much appreciation is going on then? AUDIENCE: None. DANIEL SHAPIRO: Nada. Nothing. Zero. We are approaching this situation like interrogators. You tell me what I need to know! That approach doesn't work very well in interrogation, and it certainly doesn't work well in hostage negotiation. But then, three minutes later in this room right now, we are way on this other side of appreciation, in a sense over-appreciating, assuming we know more about what is going on in the mind of this hostage-taker than he knows. And that is a dangerous place to be. And, I mean, just to make this real, let's say I come home on a Friday night. And there, my beautiful wife is at the door waiting for me. And I say, hi, how you doing? And she says, I have had the most frustrating day of my life with your three boys. Now, if my response to my wife is, oh, honey. I know exactly how frustrated you are, I'm in trouble. In a sense, I am over-appreciating. I am assuming I know more about what is going on in her mind, her heart than she knows. And you'll have to trust me, that is a dangerous place to be. So here we were. We were stuck in this negotiation. Life in the real situation was on the line. What do you do? And the best advice I can give you is the simplest and most difficult advice in the world, two things-- listen, and ask good, open-ended questions. Talk to us. What do you want? How can we help you? And once we started asking those questions, we started to learn. We started to learn this gentleman was not crazy, at least from his perspective. He was trying to save the world. Save the world from the demons, bring in the good guys. And once we understood that, it completely changed our approach to the negotiation because now we could say, you know what? I'm NYPD. I don't see the angels you see. I don't see the demons you see. But I hear you saying you're trying to save the world. And you know what? In our own small way, here at NYPD, we're trying to save the world, too. Why don't you open up that door and see if we can try and save this world together? And literally three minutes later that little door squeaks open, out walks that gentleman with baby in arms. But it is a challenge, and a real challenge-- how do you appreciate? And how do you appreciate when your values, your beliefs feel on the line? The tendency, if I attack you, the tendency is you're going to defend. No, Shapiro, it's your fault. It's not mine. The most powerful tool you have at your disposal here at work, at home, any situation, is the power to appreciate the other side's perspective. The moment they feel truly understood, heard, and valued for their perspective, that's the moment that the nonnegotiable starts to become more negotiable, whether it's these big international conflicts, hostage situation, or that annoying colleague here at work who you just cannot get along with. Assault on the sacred. The final and fifth of these, really quickly, so we have time for questions is what I call identity politics. What do I mean by identity politics? It is the shaping of identity for some political purpose. And you do it every single day. You may not know you are doing it, but you're doing it. The moment you buddy up to one of your senior authority figures or leaders and say, hey, that was really fun at the party last night. You build the relationship. And then an hour later, you say, and I need an extra week's vacation. You know? That's identity politics. The danger in a conflict is that we tend to create an identity that's what I and some other researchers call a negative identity. I define myself as against you. Just watch the political debates with the presidential candidates that have been ongoing. Each one of them says, I am not this person. I am not that person. I am not this person. I am not that person. Well, who are you, then? What is your positive-- what defines who you are, not who you are not? Yes, you're not Microsoft. Yes, you're not that. But who is Google? And what are the basic values, beliefs, rituals that define who you are? And you absolutely have them here. As I walked into Google, you can feel, there's a vibe, a special vibe that's in this place. That's a positive identity. And when you get into a conflict with your best friend, don't just go, you know, I don't want to be like you. That's not helpful. Here's who I am. Help me understand who you are and how can we, then, work together to deal with our differences? So you put all this together, you have a little model. And the basic idea is that this is trying to capture the underlying emotional dynamics that bring us into that negative realm in a conflict situation. They turn what seems so rationally easy to resolve into an emotional mess. But you can deal with each one of these five lures. It's not easy. It's not a quick fix. But its true power. So with that, big points are there. Big points to overcome an emotionally-charged conflict-- it's not enough to simply try to look beneath each side's positions to the underlying interests or things like that. That's important. That's essential. But if you do not deal with these underlying forces, they will suck you down, and you're going to end up in that tribes effect, when that's not to your benefit. So with that, let me just say a huge thank you. I'd love to open it up to questions, to hear where your minds are at right now. Questions? Thoughts? Criticisms? AUDIENCE: The tribes effect can play in one-on-one conflict, right? It's who you think you are versus who you think they are. DANIEL SHAPIRO: Yes. So the tribes effect-- exactly. It can be either me versus you or us versus them. It's a divisive mindset. And the big advice on how to get out of it-- like what can you do in your next conflict? The simplest advice-- turn that other person from an adversary into a partner. Simple things you can do-- if you and I are in the midst of a conflict situation, again, the typical approach is attack, counterattack. Simple tool you can do, ask advice. Look, we've been struggling through this conflict for the past three months here at work. I don't think it's helping us. I don't think you think it's helping us. You have any thoughts on what we could do? And you see what's happening now. All of a sudden, we've been battling back and forth. Now, it's me and you sitting side by side. You're not the problem. I'm not the problem. The problem is here between us. How are we going to deal with it. That's the way out of the tribes effect, in a way, transforming it. It's not me versus you. It's the two of us facing this shared problem. AUDIENCE: Also about the tribe effect, I'm quite interested in the first example you gave. You do the experiment with setting up six tribes and never get resolved. No one reached an agreement. Did you do any control experiment? Like if you do not set up a tribe beforehand, did they reach through an agreement? Or if after it you do anything to help them to converge to an agreement? It DANIEL SHAPIRO: Well, let me start by saying I don't see it as an experiment. I see it as a very emotionally-compelling, sensitive classroom exercise because you really can get emotions there. And it takes effort to corral the emotions in a productive direction, ultimately. The world has been saved sometimes. The world exploded at MIT? AUDIENCE: I don't remember. DANIEL SHAPIRO: I think it did. Yeah, good. I don't remember. But no, when the world hasn't exploded, it's been striking, as well. So, for example, at one point-- and I talk about this in the book-- a colleague and myself were running an executive education program at Harvard. And we had about 60 or so mid-career executives, from their 40s to mid-60s or so. And starting in round one, this one executive immediately took leadership control. He just got up, brought out the flip-chart paper, got a pen, and said, OK. What are your beliefs? What are your values? What are your beliefs? And just taking total control. And by the middle of round three, he turns to us, and he says, we've chosen a tribe. I said, really? And I remember whispering to my-- and all the other groups nod. And they said, yeah, yeah, yeah. We've all agreed. And I remember whispering then to my colleague, who I was co-facilitating with, and saying, boy. This is going to be a very boring debrief. Because I like when the world explodes. It creates internal tension that you can learn from and so on. I was totally wrong. I get up in front of the group, and I ask the very open-ended question, how you feeling? And there was one gentleman in the back, raises his hand. And I say, yes, you sir. He stands up, points at the gentleman who'd been taking charge of the entire negotiation, and he says, I would rather die than be in a tribe with that man! And then somebody else then goes, yeah! Who gave you the right to be leader? Yeah! And who gave you the right to have the microphone? And why'd you bring the flip-chart paper up? And voom, you had a tribes effect in our room. You know? And just, the room split into half like Moses with that sea, half for him, half against him. And it was rough, emotionally, I mean, to the extent that after this exercise, this gentleman-- after everybody else left, this gentleman was still in the room. Now, this guy was probably, I'd say, in his early 60s, a very successful executive. He came up to my colleague and myself literally in tears. And he said all he was trying to do was save the world. And I remember my colleague had this striking response. My colleague held a very high-level political position previously and made some controversial political decisions. He turns to him, and he says the very wise response-- it's true. Sometimes a leader needs to make very difficult decisions that you know are right but that may meet with negative ramifications. So it's challenging. There's not really a win in that exercise. The only other times that the world has really been saved has when people haven't ultimately engaged in the exercise. They're not taking on that new identity. In the Middle East, for example, once, as I was doing the exercise, it just so turned out that three of the four people negotiating in the middle of the room were all from the military. And no matter how much I would say, keep your tribal identity, tribal identity, tribal identity, tribal identity, they said, no, no, no, no. That guy ranks superior to me. So, I mean, there are certain tribal identities that are emotionally more weighty than any that you can construct in a room. But I look at our world right now, and yes, there are some beautiful things about our world. But our world also has some messy things about it. And concepts like Google, in a sense-- amazing what you are able to do in our world, allowing the information to move back and forth. And yet at the same time, there's also the danger that you see these tribes forming in the real world, some positive-- the various different sub-cliques and groups on the internet. And then you have the ISISes and the others who also forming tribes. But this is our world right now. And that's why I think this book is so timely, in a sense, because how do you deal with these conflicts? They're not rational. And yet our whole world right now, whether it's climate change or something else, is depending upon all of us, this generation, to negotiate these, in a sense, seemingly nonnegotiable issues. Other questions? Yes? AUDIENCE: You talked about how difficult it is to address the taboos that are within an organization or between groups. Do you have strategies for how to get to that issue and how to discuss taboos productively? DANIEL SHAPIRO: Yes. So in the book, I talk about what I call the ACT framework, A-C-T. And this is not rocket science. It's just a way of trying to organize one's thinking around taboos. The basic idea is first to just think through, either alone or, as I did in Charm el-Cheikh, with a small group of people and a private-- thank you. I don't know why we all have to pause, but thank you! OK. Awkward to leave now. OK. It is now very taboo to walk out of this room. No. But in the book, I talk about the ACT framework, A-C-T. So the first thing you want to do is to think through, what are taboos that are impeding productivity within our organization, within your family? And it's sensitive. One might say, oh, in our organization, we deal effectively and effortfully with gender discrimination or racial discrimination. It's often the case. And yet, at the end of the day, you see people going at the coffee houses afterward and saying, you know what? Things aren't as good as they could be. But it feels taboo to actually really talk about it in the organization. So you can get a group together of trusted people, differing views and act. Do we want to accept that taboo? Two, do we want to chisel it away? Subtly think, what are some small ways we can try and change this taboo? Or three, do we want to just tear it down? Do we want to be Nelson Mandela going, we will not live in a segregated society more! We are going to tear down this economic, this political, this apartheid wall. That's chiselling it down, and that is precisely the set of questions that we asked in Charm el-Cheikh, Egypt. What are the pros? What are the cons? Last point-- taboos aren't necessarily all bad. There are some taboos that actually are quite good. It might be good not to share salaries. That's a useful question to think through. You look at the issue of violence in our world. And I have young kids. And every day, I swear, I get scared to death when I say goodbye to them. Is there going to be a school shooting? And the taboo line in terms of violence has just gone much too far in the wrong direction. What can we as a global community do to shift that taboo back in a different direction, to get students involved, the alienated students? Other students to say, you know what? This is unacceptable. How can we all work together? Not tribes effect, me versus you. But how can we all work together to try and shift that taboo line? So taboos, they're complicated. But if you don't deal with them, they can cause that crazy dynamic. So with that, let me just say it is a huge, huge honor to be here at Google. And it's a privilege to talk with all of you. Please, keep in touch. Tell me-- if you do have the book, tell me what you like about it. Tell me what you don't. That will be the next book. So honestly, it's an honor to be here. Thank you all so much. Thank you. [APPLAUSE]
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Channel: Talks at Google
Views: 76,403
Rating: 4.7349825 out of 5
Keywords: talks at google, ted talks, inspirational talks, educational talks, Negotiating the Nonnegotiable, Dan Shapiro, dan shapiro best moments, ben shapiro, shapiro, news
Id: xBu9aSR3q7A
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Length: 54min 42sec (3282 seconds)
Published: Tue May 17 2016
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