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]
