For a long time, I’ve been enamoured of a book by Bill Ury called The Third Side: Why We Fight and How We Can Stop. So much so, I wrote a whole summary of the book(available here).   The book details Ury’s experiences visiting and studying peace cultures. One of the Big Ideas has to do with how peace-oriented communities view conflict between two or more people within their community.   Surprising to most of us – when two people are in conflict, the

“The quality of our lives depends not on whether or not we have conflicts, but on how we respond to them.” … Thomas Crum, The Magic of Conflict   One theme I come across time and again in my work as a leadership coach and conflict consultant is: people avoid conflict.   This phenomenon isn’t unique to you, or to me, or to any one group or organization. It’s everywhere. It’s natural, sometimes necessary, and even laudatory at times.   We avoid difficult conversations

“There are no facts, only interpretations.” … Friedrich Nietzsche Fake news has been plaguing us as long as we’ve had language. We used to call it propaganda. No matter what you call it, these days we each exist in a vortex of information that confirms our own perspective. We live in echo-chambers of validation. Some lament the end of truth as we know it. Others celebrate that their own perspective has finally been privileged over fake news. I’d like to offer a third way

I was recently watching a video snippet of someone talking about being let go from a contract. They said they hadn’t seen it coming, were deeply impacted, and had a shaky voice in the telling. From time to time, life presents these kinds of moments – unexpected events with real-world consequences: A job is lost. A friend pulls away. Someone judges or misinterprets our intentions. These experiences activate primal feelings of fear and threat. Our brains shift into self-protection mode. We close down. Our