Lee Jay Berman's EYE ON CONFLICT

The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a resolution on March 5 publicly acknowledging and condemning Turkey’s Ottoman army for their role in the Armenian Genocide almost 100 years ago.  According to New York Times reporters Sebnem Arsu and Brian Knowlton, “Turkey reacted sharply, recalling its ambassador to Washington, Namik Tan, in a display of annoyance.  Turkey is a critical United States ally in NATO, but the question of Armenian genocide taps deep veins of national pride.”  Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told the reporters, “Each interference by a third party will make this normalization impossible.”  See “Turkey Criticizes Committee Vote on Armenian Killings.”

With all due respect to Minister Davutoglu because I know he means well, the U.S. government acknowledging the Armenian Genocide will not harm Turkey-Armenian relations and it should not add strain to Turkey’s relationship with the United States.

Minister Davutoglu doesn’t understand what mediators know to be true:  There are different levels of defining peace.  While many people, Americans mostly, define peace as a state of bliss where everything around us is good and everyone around us gets along, others, notably people in war torn countries, consider peace to be an absence of active war.

Mediators define peace (we call it “success”) differently, too.   One way is compromise that avoids expensive litigation through settlement, but doesn’t necessarily resolve the conflict.  The parties may still walk away believing their opponents are the enemies who intentionally injured them.  If the relationship continues, as it often must, the unaddressed, underlying conflicts resurface and manifest in a new dispute.  Take neighbors, for example, who dispute property lines or encroaching tree limbs.  Once the survey is done and the tree is trimmed, that immediate dispute is settled.  But unless the animosity and bad feelings between them are addressed, and the underlying conflict resolved for good, new disputes will likely erupt in a few months over parked cars, fertilized lawns, noise, lights or any other lever disgruntled neighbors can find to fight about.  That’s how unresolved, underlying conflict continues.

Turkey and Armenia are neighbors who will never have true peace until the travesties of the past are acknowledged, discussed and artfully apologized for.  My “Talk It Over” co-host Louise “Weezy” Palanker puts it this way:  Don’t just say “I’m sorry,” (or worse, “I’m sorry you feel that way”), you have to also say, “can you ever forgive me?” and “what can I do to make it up to you?”  The transgressor who asks these questions is taking responsibility for his or her actions and attempting to make things right.

Minister Davutoglu seems to believe that silence and a lack of unrest indicate that all is well when it fact, Armenians are merely tolerating the current situation while still holding a vey deep grudge, resulting in an unresolved underlying conflict.  Real peace between Turkey and Armenia will be achieved once Minister Davutoglu or another high-ranking Turkish leader delivers a public acknowledgement, complete with a responsible apology, and asks the “what can we do to make things right?” question.  Then, and only then, can discussions about forgiveness and peace begin.  And perhaps then, the world will have one fewer ticking time bomb ready to explode in that part of the world.  Permanently.

Tags: apology, Armenian Genocide, Brian Knowlton, conflict, defining success, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, forgiveness, Lee Jay Berman, Mediation, Mediator, neighbors, New York Times, peace, Sebnem Arsu, Turkey, U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, underlying conflict
Posted in Current Events, Politics & World Events | 19 Comments »

As a mediator, I have a hard time watching how our country is operating right now, both internationally and domestically.  I see this every day in the micro context of my mediation cases and in the macro context of our headlines.  And yet people just keep trying to get ahead by attempting to suppress each other without recognizing that they are actually working against their own best interests.

For example, in “Obama Offers to Use Some G.O.P. Healthcare Proposals,” New York Times reporter David Herszenhorn writes, “Mr. Obama announced his plans to work on the Republican suggestions in a letter to Congressional leaders of both parties.  But his main point was one Republicans did not welcome:  that Democrats would press ahead with comprehensive legislation over the minority party’s objections.”

The reason we have so much litigation in America (especially in California) is that defendants so rarely understand that their actions often guarantee a lawsuit.  When one party suppresses another to the point of pain or powerlessness, the injured party feels he or she has little choice but to retaliate.  Plaintiffs choose litigation because it may be the only legal way to inflict suffering – loss of control, unfavorable publicity, monetary awards, punitive damages, etc. – of the caliber the defendant will understand and respond to.

As a result, defendants are often responsible for creating the emotional monster on the other side of the table. When plaintiffs believe every other door has been slammed in their faces, they become enraged enough to flex their muscles in the only remaining venue where they stand a chance of having a level playing field.  Of course, the same is true in the other direction, with plaintiffs sometimes overreaching, leaving the defense with no choice but to go to trial, and fight back with a vengeance.

What makes mediation work is the introduction of a neutral third party.  Having an unbiased person at the table can bring big picture perspective into the room when all others are mired in the fog of their power games and can’t or won’t see another approach.  Perspective is a mediator’s greatest qualification.

That’s why President Obama can’t be the mediator of all the controversial congressional reforms:  healthcare, job creation and financial system accountability, to name a few.  He has a dog in the fight and he’s one party’s (read: extreme’s) leader.  If he were serious about leading, he’d appoint a neutral person who could bring with them reason and perspective.  A real neutral, who wouldn’t be a politician campaigning for re-election, would turn off the cameras, close the door, and encourage everyone to disclose his or her needs, pressures and underlying interests in the privacy and confidentiality of the mediation process.

Tags: accountability, David Herszenhorn, G.O.P. Healthcare Proposals, Healthcare, job creation, litigation, Mediator, Neutral, New York Times, NY Times, Obama, Obama administration, President
Posted in Current Events, Politics & World Events | 15 Comments »

Late last month, New York Times writer Steven Greenhouse reported that the Obama Administration will seek to “prod” companies to improve wages and benefits by altering how the federal government awards contracts.  Companies in violation of labor and environmental laws will be disqualified while those that offer “better” pay, pensions, health plans and other benefits will receive more favorable consideration.  The goal is “to lift more families into the middle class.”  See “Plan to Seek Use of U.S. Contracts as a Wage Lever.”

Isn’t that a pendulum swinging too far to the left in response to having swung too far right during the previous administration?

Any group who feels suppressed will eventually attempt to dominate its suppressors. Employees who felt their rights were neglected under Bush now will secure their immediate future by making business owners experience the same pain and frustration that workers did, ensuring that leadership rallies and flexes their muscles as soon as they regain power.  Today, the majority of our politicians perpetuate this “us vs. them” mentality through extreme rhetoric to ensure their own re-election, and what passes for the news media these days assists them because the conflict drives readership.

If management didn’t view laborers as nameless, faceless commodities, and if labor didn’t view management as greedy fat cats trying to amass wealth at the expense of the laborer’s health, security and dignity, then capitalism could actually thrive.  But when management exploits labor, causing — and I mean causing — labor to organize and elect a politician who is almost socialist-leaning whose followers believe that a CEO’s salary should be determined by a multiple of the average worker’s pay, then it’s no wonder we end up with lawmakers who believe restraints on commerce are good ideas if they can force business to conform to the latest political thought (and I use that term loosely).  It’s no surprise that management outsources work to third-world countries!

The problem is our leaders are trying to resolve conflict through power struggles, rather than collaboration (or even cooperation), using polarizing positions instead of reasonableness, and a process of trying to win over “them”, rather than trying to win them over.  This short-sighted self interest in taking back the hill just lost only ensures another battle over the same hill with renewed insurgency from the defeated.  But do our politicians recognize how entrenched they are?  No, they just know they need to take the hill, whether that hill is healthcare or taxes or a village in Iraq.

Operating this way without seeing the big picture guarantees that the pendulum will continue to swing wildly between extremes and that career politicians will continue to be extremists rather than leaders.  What we need is a leader who leads with reason, rather than one who simply turns the power of the position the opposite direction from his or her predecessor.  Perhaps then we will have less conflict (too often intentional) and more actual leadership.

Tags: CEO Salary, conflict, extremist, federal contracts, leadership, Lee Jay Berman, Mediation, middle class, New York Times, Obama administration, politics, power struggles, Stven Greenhouse, U.S. Contracts, wage lever
Posted in Current Events, Politics & World Events | 3 Comments »