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Episode Transcript
Lisa: So Kim, welcome to the Leadermorphosis podcast. Thank you for being a guest. Good to chat to you.
Kimberly: Thank you.
Lisa: I thought to start maybe we could talk about this topic of conflict, because I’ve been reflecting on why I’m so drawn to this topic. I’m a British person. I think I’m naturally quite conflict avoidant, but I think over the last 10 years or so, it’s a topic that I keep coming back to and your book Compassionate Conversations is a book that I return to again and again, because it has such lovely wisdom in it, so it feels like such a rich learning ground, and yet it’s also quite scary, and I think that’s true for many people. So I’m just curious what brought you to this topic of conflict, and what’s interesting to you about it?
Kimberly: Well, it’s a very rich question for me too. And I think if I reflect on how I was as a child, I was, well, I guess just really confronted, like personally, by what I was learning about that was happening in the world of conflict. I was really concerned about violence. I was really and sometimes really scared and terrified to seeing conflict as this, this thing, this experience, this way of confronting each other that could actually be really destructive and violent and harmful.
So I had concerns, let’s say, and then at the same time, in my own family home, I was really aware, and I was a pretty sensitive and emotional kid, and I didn’t socialize a lot. I didn’t have a lot of friends. Had a lot of time to think about things, a lot of time to feel my feelings. And it really struck me how some of my relationships, my personal like family relationships, could be the source of such suffering or worry. And I think at a certain point when I started adding this all up, at the same time, looking out at this world which could be so beautiful and incredible and unique, I just started to feel like there’s probably a better way for me, and it’s up to me to find that for myself.
And so maybe I was inspired to search for teachers or examples around the world. You know, there’s a lot of - might not - I don’t know how easy it is for folks to find the history of our social change, sometimes through incredible, multi-layered, non-violent approaches, is really rich and vast. And so I started to see the creativity of humankind alongside that destructive potential that I commented on, and that started to uplift me. And then over time, I found Diane Mushu Hamilton, the sort of the lead author on our book Compassionate Conversations. And thank you for that shout out. And she, you know, I sort of came across her in my 20s, and I had already found out about non-violent communication and things like that in previous years, and I had already trained as a lawyer, pretty much by that point, and the way that she was working with conflict, and the way that she was pointing to its gifts and its potential for us to grow and actually see as a vital part of our circumstance from which we grow. It was the sort of the new paradigm that I was craving.
Lisa: What was it in your master’s work and the international work that was so kind of rich, and what did you learn from that?
Kimberly: Well, given that I was interested in the international domain more at that time. I think what I most took away from that time was how important the topic of power is, to conflict and to social change and to global leadership and developing a more conscious use of power, and updating our systems ideally and our policies to reflect that as a huge ask for our time.
Lisa: Yeah, that’s power is such a big topic that we explore on this podcast often as well, because I think people listening to this conversation who are interested in reimagining our ways of working and being together, this topic of power comes up a lot and I think working without traditional management hierarchy somehow tends to make power imbalances more visible. I’m curious what you’ve learned in your work around power, and how do we sort of reconcile? It’s a bit like what you were saying before about conflict, that it has this destructive potential, and it also has this creative potential. I think it’s similar, too, with power. So what have you learned about power?
Kimberly: Yeah, well, I think when I was - so I’ll just like contrast a little bit from when I was younger and in my 20s, and I was very into human rights, and that’s what inspired me to do law. I had a sort of view of power as very intimately enmeshed with the potential abuses of power, or the just the application of power in a way that was more dominating, you know. And then as I developed through my own learning and then through Compassionate Conversations, I started to understand power as something more neutral, something just as more of a law of nature, and that we, yes, want to guard against the abuses of power and have a way of remedying things, a way of restoring things to create a fairer world. But we can’t - my understanding is you can’t really abolish power in the one-up, one-down altogether, but rather treat it as a flexible, fluid, dynamic and can be patterned one way or the another or another for the highest good of the whole.
Sounds like quite an abstract thing to say, so maybe just to say that the sources of power are, you know, multiple - it could be because of your role, your title, your status, that you get as a result of sort of having some role or a title, but it also could be the power of someone’s personality or the power of someone’s wits, or the power of someone’s ability to connect with others, or it could be having had a really stable home life so that your emotional maturity is just a little bit more developed. You’re a little bit easier to self-regulate. It could be the access to resources. It could be a situational kind of power. You know, it’s, I guess I just see it as more diverse now, and that if people are more fluid in their identities and their ability to pick up power and lead or to put down, you know, power, let’s say, in the power over sense and actually follow. And incredible things can really happen. People can advance in ways that are very creative and dynamic.
Lisa: That’s really helpful. I really like those distinctions you shared as well, of like different different versions of what power could mean based on, you know, our experiences.
I wonder like because I see that a lot of people, myself included, when trying to practice more kind of conscious, less hierarchical ways of working together. There can also be a bit of a swing too far in the other direction where we where we reject anything that resembles power, and we sort of, I think, blanket assume that that everything that is powerful is like power over rather than seeing power as, like you said, as being neutral. Do you have any tips for how to invite a mindset shift, I guess, or to sort of encourage people to be open and exploring their relationship to power, or what power means to them?
Kimberly: Yeah, I think that for me, I would look to the natural world. I would look at other beings, other systems of organization, just without as much judgment. You know, it’s a little bit easier when we’re looking at, you know, packs of wolves or ants, to sort of say, okay, that’s the way things are, you know. So having that broader perspective, maybe zooming out from ourselves as human beings, and looking at how other beings organize to achieve their ends and to achieve their survival, I think can be interesting and not see ourselves as so separate from that.
And certainly, we’ve all seen nature programs too, where we wince at the cruelty that species can inflict on their own kind or on others, you know. So I think that’s also true. I wouldn’t want to try and wash over that. But to me, the what I would deduce from those observations, and I think we talk about this in the book, is that there are natural hierarchies, and then there are Dominator hierarchies. And so in, you know, natural hierarchies, you know, the other day, I just happened to see a picture of there was a pack of wolves just sort of trekking through the through the snow, and at the front, you had a lot of the mothers and little ones. Or, like, no, no, the auntie wolves, or kind of, like keeping the little ones in the middle, and then you had the various others, but right at the back you had the, I guess it was the alpha male, the elder strong male, who was backing up the pack. And to me, it just seemed like, right? That’s just a natural order that they formed for themselves. So think of that as being more of a natural hierarchy. Or just another example is that, you know, an elephant that doesn’t have the awareness that is standing on an ant. You know, that’s sort of just a natural thing that happens in nature by virtue how things are born and how things how things die. And I would say that there’s, yeah, there’s something kind of natural about that you wouldn’t expect an elephant to become so self-conscious that it never stood on an ant again, you know.
And then there are Dominator hierarchies where, you know, it’s kind of easier to point at humankind, where power and resources amass in the hands of very few who make decisions that then impact many millions of lives who don’t, who aren’t even aware, perhaps, of those controlling decisions that are being made and that you know, and when, especially when people benefit disproportionately. Unfortunately, from those systems being the case, and I think that is what I would call dominator hierarchy, that there are certain kinds of benefits, and there are certain kinds of, you know, some cases, we can say exploitation of a lot of others for the benefit of some and those are the kinds of things that we want to look much more carefully at. So I hope that answers your question, some of the things I think about, I guess.
Lisa: Yeah, that’s helpful, and it’s sort of fun to see the parallels in, you know, our kind of adjacent fields that you’re talking about, difference between naturally occurring hierarchies and Dominator hierarchies, and that’s something that that we also talk about, I think, in the kind of self-organization field as well, that trying to eliminate hierarchy is like a fool’s game. You know, that there will always be hierarchies and there should be, in some ways, if someone has more experience in a particular domain or expertise, or, you know, wisdom or whatever, then it’s not about, you know, subverting that or repressing that, but, but sort of honoring that. But the trick is, I guess, to do it in a conscious way.
I want to come back to this topic of conflict, and I’m also thinking, you know, for people listening who haven’t read the book or, you know, haven’t trained with you, maybe we could spend some time exploring, you know, compassionate conversations. What does it mean to have a compassionate conversation?
Kimberly: That’s a great question. Well, I guess one of the things that I would point at, and so that’s, yeah, someone’s not so familiar with this would be in one of our chapters, we give some sort of brush strokes for group agreements or ground rules that we would recommend people use when they are engaging, particularly if they want to have the kinds of conversations that are a bit more challenging.
And those ground rules - first ground rule, golden rule is to be for each other. And I like to think of that as the like the Dalai Lama of the ground rules. It means I am for you. Imagine this person in front of me, and for your humanity. I am for the fulfillment of your wishes. I am for your learning. I am for fairness. You feel satisfied. You know it’s like I don’t, I’m not engaging to to beat you in a battle of rightness. I actually, I want us to have a good relationship, because I care about you. So that’s the first problem, and if and if that’s not present, then you know, we have a choice about how we want to engage based on that. If someone’s not for me, if they’re engaging with me because they want to beat me down and bully me into submission, then you know, I have choices about what conversation I really want to have. You don’t have to actually have those dialogs with everybody. Sometimes it’s better and better for our sanity and safety, not to you know. So that’s the first contour, I would say, of the compassionate conversations category.
And then, from there, we have another pair of agreements, which is to listen well and to talk straight, which another way of saying that is to talk congruently. And so listening well means really emptying out of my own agenda, objections, squeamishness, you know, all of my self-referencing points, so that when I’m listening to someone, I’m incredibly present and just open and receptive, and, you know, give them the respect of letting their truth hang in the air. And I look at it, and I listen to them with them. So doesn’t mean I agree.
And then the talking congruently that pairs with that is saying, you know, I have the courage to bring forward my truth too, and I like to say congruently, because, I mean, some people don’t really like the phrase talking straight, you know, because straight has these associations. But I think congruent to me means that my like, my values, my energy, my non-verbals, my speech, my body posture, all of that are congruent. It’s not like I’m saying one thing, and if you’re watching my face, you’re like, you know you’re just saying that. That’s clearly not what you’re feeling. Because when we do that, when we’re incongruent, it creates mistrust and we start to doubt that we can really take each other at our word, and having the courage to bring forward your truth, quote, unquote, your truth in a way that’s cleaned up from accusation, cleaned up from blame, because there is a way of doing that where we, you know, we say it’s about our truth, but actually we’re having like, these slight digs at the other person or whatever’s happening. So you kind of try to clean that up a little bit so that it makes it easier for people to hear, and then we have the courage to also receive what comes back, the courage to get the feedback from us saying what we really mean. Those are the first three.
And then I’ll just run through some others real quick. We support the liberal use of praise that just acknowledges we have a negativity bias, and sometimes really claiming and upholding what’s right about what’s happening is important. What else have we got? Appropriate confidentiality, keeping our agreements, we think that’s really important, and incrementally, can build great trust over time so that we, as in whatever relationship, we’re capable of taking on more together. We can take risks together. We can aim higher together. You know, because of that implemented trust from the keeping of our agreements, all that done there. Those are, that’s the kind of rough sketch of some of the ground rules that we have.
Lisa: Yeah, thank you for sharing those. I love this, this first one that you mentioned - be for each other. I’ve shared that with a lot of people, because it’s sort of, I always think these, these distinctions that use English that we wouldn’t maybe normally use, like, it’s at first, it’s like “be for each other.” That sounds kind of weird, but it’s so it’s so kind of unique, like it has this, this really powerful meaning like to be for someone. And I find, you know, as you said, that if, if I start from there, instead of, as you said, wanting to be right, then I can be really, you know, frank and clear with someone. I can, I can challenge them. I can be direct, but I’m coming from that. I’m for you, and I’m for this relationship, and I’m for us learning together. I’m not coming from that. I want to be right and I want you to get that I’m right and and get the wrong.
So, those are some ground rules, but compassionate conversation, I guess, what I find people say to me again and again. It seems like - I was reflecting about this today - most people, there are kind of two main reasons why they avoid, you know, quote unquote difficult conversations where there’s like, a conflict or a disagreement, or maybe you want to give someone some feedback, or you want to talk about something that’s not working. It seems to fall into, like, two main categories for me. I wonder what you make of this, but the first is that people don’t have the confidence to have that conversation. You know, I don’t know how to do that in a good way, or I’m worried that if I say that, I might hurt them or upset them, or, you know, they might react, and then I don’t know what I’m going to do with that, so kind of, you know, confidence and maybe even competence. And then the second one is, like, courage. You know that it’s, it takes some courage. I think just because the way our brains are wired to have a conversation that we we don’t know how the other person’s going to react, and it might be difficult, and there might be emotions. And, you know, I think especially in workplaces, we’re quite trained to to not go there. So kind of confidence and courage, I don’t know if that resonates with you and if so, you know what? What do you find helps, sort of encourage people or empower them to be to be brave and to try to practice?
Kimberly: I yeah, I feel you on that. I think those two are like huge reasons and common reasons, why, why people would shy away or feel avoidance. I imagine that, like in my own first person, like in my own memories, that growing up, I just didn’t feel like I had had a lot of good experiences of that.
When I saw people engaging in a way that was like, like they had the confidence. It seemed like they didn’t know where to stop, you know, like they would sometimes bully others. Maybe they were more - and she’s like, you know, I did some legal training in an earlier part of my career, so I saw folks who were just like they knew how to go for it, but they didn’t have the stop, you know, they didn’t have the brakes capacity. You will recognize when this was about being right rather than about evolving something together. But I had actually part of, part of where, where my path took me was through like a stint in philosophy. And I think that training for me helped to develop some of the skills that you were referring to that if I didn’t have, I might not have as much innate confidence. I think you’re right about that, that maybe, if people are interested in that, like finding in the for themselves, like what’s right about dialog, you know, maybe picking up a book, you know, some people, if they’re interested in sort of the more European tradition of like Plato or Socrates, and so, see how, see how that that mode, actually, sometimes is a is a really great way of unearthing the truth, and that if you can practice that with someone, and, you know, choose a topic that you don’t have as much of a high stakes investment in, something that you’re genuinely curious about, that you don’t already have an agenda in, and then just practice having, seeing who will engage with you in a back and forth to say, like, let’s just bounce ideas. Let’s see if we can get some kind of an enjoyable like a game of tennis. Like, let’s see if we can build on each other, and if that we can become more of an enjoyable and a playful experience that, you know, you’re not in as much of a like, if there is a competitive dynamic, it’s for the sake of advancing your game together, then maybe that can help foster this idea that conflict in itself can have this evolutionary or progressive path, like if we know how to fuel our funnel, our energy that way, then maybe that would, that would help stoke the - yeah, I want to say enjoyment. And then once we have developed that, that muscle a little bit, then when it comes to the things that are a bit more personal, it’s like, it’s not so scary, because at least, at least we know that we can do that dance with someone and maybe start to treat our more, you know, intimate or professional, the knots that we have with others in that more collaborative way.
Lisa: That’s interesting, because I think that was maybe a similar way that I became intrigued by conflict. I started reading books like Sitting in the Fire and Fierce Conversations and I started, you know, really enjoying these quotes. I think there was a quote that I found also in a Brené Brown book about the difference between like this language that we tend to use in in organizations of like conflict resolution. Like conflict is something to be resolved, you know.
And, and this quote was saying instead, like a framing that I really like is conflict transformation, that conflict is this sort of energy, this, this material, you know, it goes back to what you were saying at the beginning, that that that there are gifts in conflict, that on the other side of conflicts are deeper understanding, new perspectives, opportunities to, you know, to innovate, to to learn new things, to deepen trust and relationships. And I think, I think it can be so limiting when we see conflict as something that is bad that we should avoid.
You know that if things are going well, it means there are no conflicts. And I always think if there are no conflicts, that’s a bad sign. I think that’s because we’re human, like you were saying we’re animals. You know, we’re all so unique and different. Of course, we’re going to have conflicts. It’s inevitable. So I think there is, there is a real magic in finding another way of seeing conflict as inevitable, as an opportunity, as a gift. So I really like that philosophical aspect, you know, just starting to sort of loosen how we relate to it.
Kimberly: Yeah, absolutely. I’m a I’m a big fan of that lens of conflict transformation that really struck me, like in my studies, when I first came across that, and I, one of the the classes I had was in mediation class and transformative mediation is like a style and approach. I can’t remember might be the name of the author, but in that there’s a there’s a way of seeing conflict, of receiving conflict from your body position, instead of armoring up for a battle, you’re kind of disarming yourself, and you’re becoming humble, and you’re saying, What are you here to teach me? Like, what are you calling forward for me? Like, what’s the response? What’s the right response I can take, you know, in the face of this.
And that really resonated for me, because I had, I had previously discovered about Daoism growing up, and I always thought like, oh, right, there’s this thing called the way, like this greater movement of nature and of all of us, like a… Some traditions they call that, like spirit or Eros. That’s almost like, that’s what’s really driving this whole, this whole ship, and where, you know, just different parts of the greater whole. And so being able to become more humble in the face of conflict and more, you know, yeah, I was gonna say in Daoism, it’s like it’s so - it’s all about learning to flow with what’s happening, and so you learn to allow the conflict to unfold, and it’s less, of course, you are ultimately responsible for your your choices and the power that you do have, the influence that you do have, and how you speak and how you listen in all of it, and at the same time, you’re just part of a greater thing that’s unfolding. And so your receptivity, your willingness to listen, your willingness to receive the moves of the other and their questions, it just kind of put things into perspective in a way that, for me, feels a lot more like we’re all children and we’re doing our best and it’s not as heavy.
Lisa: Yeah, I like that. My colleagues and I at Tuff, we have this one of our kind of principles cornerstones for like a, we call it like a, an adult-to-adult coaching way of being, one of the cornerstones is being able to be with things as they are. It sounds better in Swedish, and I’m not going to try and pronounce it in Swedish, but, but it’s, but I really like it as an idea, which is like, similar to what you said about kind of being in in flow. It’s like being able to be with things as they are, with what comes up, without needing to add anything or change it or fix it.
So I think a lot of times in sort of tricky conversations, our natural human response is, like mine, for example, is I want to take care of someone, so if I can see that I’ve upset them, or they’re upset, then I want to kind of make it nice, and I try and say a lot of things to sort of take care of that. And I kind of go into this, like taking care of mode, and that’s mostly about also taking care of myself, of course, and and wanting to wanting them to like me, and wanting to make it okay again. And that’s not that’s not very respectful of the other person as a as a human being, as an adult, you know that naturally has feelings and emotions, and so for me, it’s been really challenging but really rewarding to practice being with and the more I do it, the more I realize it’s possible of like, okay, so this person’s really upset with me now, and I can, I can play that back to them, without taking it personally or making it a drama, it could just be like, Okay, there’s feelings, now, there’s reactions, now, let’s be with that a while. Let’s sit in the fire, right?
And and that’s a real shift, and it feels counterintuitive, because I think everything, everything in my body and everything in my brain at that point is like, put the fire out, put the fire out.
Kimberly: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that’s yeah. Thanks for sharing that. We all have our own patterns of things that we’re habituated towards. And I think that it’s really important for us to acknowledge the physical sensations that accompany our predicaments. You know that we get that get triggered up in us when things happen, because that’s a really good indicator of our tolerance for conflicts and our tolerance for discomfort, if we’re just not willing to feel discomfort or the gripping in the tummy, or the pressure in the head, or, you know, the hands getting hot or even slightly trembly, all of that. Well, that’s really important data for us, and that’s another thing that Diane really taught me early on, is that for most of us, our ability to be in conflict is going to be somewhat limited, or a threshold is going to lie with our ability to be with ourselves and be with our bodies, with the signals that it’s giving to us.
And so we really recommend practices that, you know, we are in the Zen Buddhist tradition. So for us that sitting meditation is like a real baseline practice, because in that you have to learn to be with yourself and close the feedback loop, as it were, to stop acting on those those sensations and sort of impulses and urges, and instead, just like, let it be, and then notice what happens when you allow it. Earlier, just being with it and, and then from that place, from that place, you have a lot more choices. And if someone’s not as ambitious and they, you know, don’t really care for that, then you know, more secular way of approaching is just mindfulness, just having more choice about what we’re putting our attention on.
Sometimes, when we have a higher intention, is a higher intention, or just any intention, to really serve the whole or serve humanity, or, you know, whatever it is, it’s going to bring about the greatest good that can be a much better guiding, guiding compass for us and simply just avoiding when it gets too uncomfortable, because we might be closing off conversations that really need to happen, or we might be rushing conversations that are happening because we just want to resolve it like, like you were saying.
Lisa: Yeah, that loops back to something you were saying before about, I think you were talking about in in your kind of law context of having, not having, early on in your career or life, maybe so many positive or good experiences of conflict, and seeing examples where people were not aware of how they were coming across, or how they were, you know, bullying or or kind of abusing power. And you know that that brought me to the the question of, how do we how do we cultivate self-awareness? You know, for for many people, they’re not aware of how they, how they come across in a kind of tricky conversation.
And how do you know what you don’t know? And I guess that what you shared now about, you know, having some kind of mindfulness or meditation, practice is is perhaps one way of starting to reflect on yourself and be with yourself and notice, you know, paying attention to the sensations in your body, for example, to start to cultivate some of that awareness and and then act more from choice. Can you share anything else about practices or kind of way points for people who might want to to start themselves on a kind of reflective, mindful practice with regards to how they relate to conflict? For example?
Kimberly: Yeah, I believe that the ability to self-reflect and take a perspective on oneself is really, is really helpful. And if someone’s not used to doing that, I’d say, just get a journal and designate it as your conflict journal, and in it, make notes. Make notes about the patterns that you see yourself in acting. Make notes about feedback that you’re getting from the world, from others, especially when it feels like, oh, whoa. I didn’t even see that you know coming as a result of what happened. And just like, note it down so that don’t jump, jump to any conclusions, but just start becoming more observant about your behavior, your habits, your impacts, your intentions.
Having, having intentions is, is really, is really key. And so if you have the intention, if I want to learn more about who I am in conflict, then that will naturally start to bring little symbols, or, you know, bring data forward for you, and you’ll start to also notice what’s falling outside of your intention. So you’re the intention of like, I want to become a better listener. Say, you know, I’m in an organization. I’m in a role where the ability to really impact a team in working well together, want to be very open to the feedback that people are giving me, or even subtly, subtly trying to not give me, and the better of a listener I am, the more, you know, intuitively I can help this whole, this whole thing, you know, and so by having that intention, you might start to notice times where you start rushing, start ignoring signs, or you’re looking around you and you’re wondering why people don’t want to make eye contact. And all of that can help to refine how you are with your listening capacity. So so that those are, those are some things, some reflective tools, like a journal, maybe listening to resources like you mentioned, Arnie Mindell and Brené Brown.
Some people are, and this is a great one for especially like starting out with personal, more home life relationships in which our patterns are even more pronounced sometimes because of just how we are. You know, raised in like family circumstances and cultures and we all the time, just unconsciously impose that on the loved ones as we grow up.
So, yeah, the resource I was going to share was non-violent communication, where you start to really take responsibility for your own reactions, your own emotions. You start putting that on others. You start thinking like, oh, because you did that. Now I’m like this, you know, you learn to really own all of those reactions, and then from that place, find a way of sharing it with others in a non-judgmental way, and then asking for what you would prefer giving people the opportunity to actually say, “Yeah, sure, I can look at that. Let’s try that.” Or “No, I don’t want to.” And then you have a more honest conversation about what that is for you folks. So I say opening yourself up to that learning and there’s, there’s a lot of good books out there. So yeah, those are some things.
But I would just finish that answer with saying that I do think learning to meditate is, is really, really valuable, and at some point, I would recommend that for everybody if they want to get to a certain point with it, learning to sit still, learning how to really sink into the body, find find refuge even in the body, become more intimate with our impulses, our sensations, our stories, our mental quirks that we just take for granted. When we start to see all of that for what it is, we can then really become a lot more more whole. Let’s say, instead of having subconscious or dis-identified or even disowned parts of us in shadow that could be driving us from behind, which are often felt by others but hard to see for ourselves. So yeah, I think meditation is really key. And having a community, having a Sangha and having a good teacher are are just wonderful. Really, really wonderful in that, in that regard.
Lisa: I love the idea of a of a conflict journal. I think one thing that I that I would love for people listening to this, to to take away from this conversation is that oftentimes, when I’m talking to people in organizations that are wanting to be, you know, learning organizations and conscious organizations, kind of conflict and how we, how we, how we deal with conflict, can often be something that people it’s like, bottom of the list, and it’s like, “Oh, we’ll get to that when we come to it,” which I always think is such a shame, because a) when, when that happens, when you do find yourself in a conflict, then you really wish that you’d done some proactive things to think about. Ah, how do we want to handle this? And you know, we don’t have any agreements together about how we want to support each other through this.
And b) because, for all the reasons we’ve talked about, there’s so much learning and richness, I think, in conflict. So I love these, these self-reflective practices that you’ve talked about. And it also occurred to me, listening to you now, I wonder what you what ideas you might have if I, if I with some peers in my team or in the organization, want to get a little group together, or even like a buddy that I can learn with around conflict, and maybe kind of explore together. Do you have any ideas or how we could do that, you know, in relationship or in groups?
Kimberly: Sure, but I just to say, first, I super encourage that. I think that having, like, a little community of practice, or having a relationship where it’s like, you know, that we’re going to be doing this kind of thing together, that can be excellent. How do you excellent. How do you because it’s having a container where you are going to be learners together and allow yourselves to make mistakes. Sometimes the fear of making mistakes in the in the real world or when it really matters, can prevent us from learning. Having a psychologically safe environment is so good for our creativity. So, so just big, yes, if, if folks in a in a group, want to start that.
I think that it can be nice to create a little bit of a like a little fence around the field, so saying, Okay, for the next eight weeks, we’re going to do a little deep dive into this particular area and and get together once a week and reflect on the things that have come up, and maybe ask each other questions and find a way of, yeah, like processing together, like, what’s the content of our lives? Where we really get to practice that, and maybe others have suggestions, and, you know, because sometimes it’s easier for others to see, like, oh, well, maybe this is another way of handling that. Or I wonder if asking this kind of question, like, bring out something else, you know, things like that, like having a container.
And if there are inter-group dynamics that are going to become the subject of, you know, the content of the practice, I think having a skillful facilitator, the some or all of that can be a really good idea, a facilitator who can max and flow with the needs, like what people are wanting to learn, but also quite responsive to the real life dynamics, knowing how to sometimes put a little pause on something, to ask people to take a breath and feel their bodies if there’s something that’s heated and being unearthed in the space that actually, you know is going to be triggering something more for folks.
Sometimes we use Compassionate Conversations as, like a curriculum. We kind of break it into, like a series of six classes, or some point we did groups, groups online, so it was like 80 or 100 people. It’s kind of amazing. It’s kind of amazing come from. And they would, we’d all, you know, get together once a week on Zoom, we’d have, like, facilitated practice calls for people who want to practice certain skills and just share more and build their community. So there’s kinds of learning opportunities more structured by others are out there, if that appeals to people, so you just want to guide it a little bit more.
Lisa: Yeah, that’s that’s really helpful. I guess, in starting to wrap up, our conversation is there - I’m always thinking like circling back to what you shared at the very beginning about, you know, your early years and and kind of seeing the destructive power that conflict has, and then this discovery you’ve been on of also seeing the kind of creative side, what, what is your hope for the future? You know, if they, if there were to be a paradigm shift, you know, in the world at large, like what? What do you think the possibility could be?
Kimberly: That’s - when I take a look at the big picture, and I see the bigger dilemmas of our time, climate change and the devastation of so many species and ecosystems around the world with great inequities resources and territory and people who have and don’t have over racial relationships that manifest around the world and so on, and education and so on.
I would really hope that by working on ourselves and by evolving how we speak and how we process and how we deal with like some of the heart of things. I hope that it makes us better equipped to respond to those bigger dilemmas and what’s coming to me now, you know, some at some point, especially in my UN days, I might have had a lot more, I don’t know. Maybe sometimes I was like, We can do this. We can do this together. We just need to x, y, z. You know, nowadays I might be just a kind of stage in life, and my state of mind, having taken a little time away from that space, I have become more forgiving, I guess, about our predicament or our human condition, like rather than seeing this as something wrong with us, the social justice warrior, kind of like, we just need to, like, get better at this, and we’re doing a disservice. And this is also unfair, like I’m and I’m commenting on my stuff already, trying to make judgments of others, but that’s more where I was at in my 20s and my early 30s, and now I I’m a little bit more. It’s more about our humanity, and it’s more about our integrity to one another.
And Joanna Macy has this quote which haven’t really thought of in a while, but being with you today just comes up, which is, it might be too late. We might not be able to save the world as we know it, let’s say, but at least we’ll go down looking into each other’s eyes. And that just speaks to me about our humanity and about our ability to be real with one another about some of the great challenges that we face, and at the end of the day, I think I can be more confident in our ability to be that to one another, at least on the more intimate circle realm, because the people who we work with and the people who we take care of at home, the people who feed us, the people who we feed those are the intimate relationships that we are, I think, best able to transform. And if we all have that sense of fairness and realness and courageousness, you know, in the conversations that we’re having every day, then that’s that’s really our domain of care and our domain of love.
