Reflections on the 4th Annual Mediators Beyond Borders Congress, Part 2: Cross-Cultural Communication

I continue with my reflections on the 4th Annual Mediators Beyond Borders Congress and offer a few more take-aways from one of the workshops I attended, entitled “Essentials in Relating Across Cultures” by Ed Ladon and Alan Gross.

We began with the discussion of culture as an iceberg metaphor. Only about one-eighth of an iceberg is visible above the water. A larger section of an iceberg is concealed below the water. Similarly, we can observe some aspects of culture, but a big part of it remains almost imperceptible. It can only be suspected, guessed, or developed as understanding of the culture grows.

We shared examples of how cultures differ in their perceptions of time, intrinsic human nature, social relations, attitudes towards Nature, among other things.

My take-away is to approach cross-cultural work with an open mind as a learning experience. You need to do your reading and get a network of local informants who can help you navigate the more subtle aspects of the culture. Even still, you are likely to make mistakes and embarrass yourself occasionally. What helps here is a sense of humor and humility, and open communication. Setting expectations from the start that miscommunication may happen, things may get tough, and people may get angry, but it is all manageable if there is mutual respect and the desire to work together. As Ed Ladon put it, “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly, at least, at the beginning stages, i.e. to learn.”

When you are in the host country, it pays to observe, ask a lot of questions, and listen. Become a people-watcher. Flexible approaches help when you work on a cross-cultural project while assumptions hurt.

On a side note, I can’t help but think about the influence of cross-cultural experiences on the brain. Research shows that culture shapes the brain:

East Asians tend to process information in a global manner whereas Westerners tend to focus on individual objects. There are differences between East Asians and Westerners with respect to attention, categorization, and reasoning. For example, in one study, after viewing pictures of fish swimming, Japanese volunteers were more likely to remember contextual details of the image than were American volunteers. Experiments tracking participants’ eye movements revealed that Westerners spend more time looking at focal objects while Chinese volunteers look more at the background. In addition, our culture may play a role in the way we process facial information. Research has indicated that when viewing faces, East Asians focus on the central region of faces while Westerners look more broadly, focusing on both the eyes and mouth.

Here are some additional resources on culture and the brain:

“Cultural Neuroscience – Culture and the Brain” by Daniel Lende provides a good summary of the current research.

“Culture and the Brain” by Nalini Ambady and Jamshed Bharucha is the research review paper [PDF].

“Culture and Systems of Thought: Holistic Versus Analytic Cognition” by Richard E. Nisbett, et al is another paper on the topic, including cultural, historic, and business perspectives [PDF].

“Cultural Borders and Mental Barriers: The Relationship Between Living Abroad and Creativity” by William W. Maddux and Adam D. Galinsky is a paper on how living overseas boosts creative thinking [PDF].

“Culture and Attention: Comparing the Context Sensitivity between East Asians and Westerners” by Takahiko Masuda is a slideshow presentation with the summary of the current research.

Reflections on the 4th Annual Mediators Beyond Borders Congress, Part 3: Compassionate Listening

By Anastasia Pryanikova| 2011-03-20T21:58:24+00:00 March 9th, 2011|Communication, Conflict Management, Perception|0 Comments

Reflections on the 4th Annual Mediators Beyond Borders Congress, Part 1: Collaborative Informal Problem Solving

I am writing this post as I wait at the LAX airport for my flight back to New York, while the memories are still fresh. The 4th Annual Mediators Beyond Borders Congress is over. It’s been my pleasure and privilege to spend three days with so many wonderful people, doing great work all over the world. I learned a lot and got the opportunity to present a workshop with my friend, colleague and a masterful communication coach Nancy Kay. Our topic was “Rewiring Your Brain: Neuroscience and Leadership in Conflict.”

The Congress took place on the beautiful UCLA campus. The weather was perfect, sunny 70F, a welcome break from the harsh Connecticut winter this year.

The energy of the MBB Congress was truly global, with participants from various countries, speaking many different languages, involved in projects all over the world. We heard about their work in Liberia, Sierra Leon, Colombia, Zimbabwe, and other places. Mediators Beyond Borders is a relatively young organization, which is growing rapidly and extensively. The MBB website says, “Mediators Beyond Borders – Partnering for Peace & Reconciliation is a non-profit, humanitarian organization of skilled volunteer conflict resolution professionals established to partner with communities in troubled locations worldwide to support them to build their conflict resolution capacity for preventing, managing, resolving and healing from conflict.”

MBB brings together mediators who volunteer their skills and expertise to work on various projects in the world, from supporting the re-entry of Liberian women ex-combatants into their communities to improving collaboration among professionals in Colombia, to exploring the post-genocide process of social healing and reconciliation in Rwanda through the documentary “Coexist.”

One of the take-aways from the MBB’s Congress was the realization that you don’t need to be a part of the government, or NGO or some other big entity to make a difference in the world. MBB educated its members on how to start, plan, and implement projects through published guides and the vast knowledge of its mediators who have years of experience in international work and who are willing to share their lessons.

Each day at the Congress began with a brief meditation to help us center through breathing and appreciate the importance of being kind and loving to ourselves before we are able to give to others. We had keynote addresses, break-out sessions, and panel discussions on various topics. It was an intense but very rewarding experience. I tried to take notes here and there and even tweet from the Congress under the hashtag #MBBCongress – it’s not an easy task to break complex ideas into 140-character soundbites. Here are some highlights of what I was able to capture, which is just a small portions of what was transpiring at the event.

Lawrence Susskind gave a keynote address entitled “Mediating Human Rights and Other Corporate Social Responsibility: Disputes on a Global Scale.” He spoke about adding collaborative informal problem solving as a step to formal proceedings to generate agreements. As Susskind observed, one of the challenges of treaty negotiations is that key negotiators arrive at the negotiation armed with what the truth needs to be, which precludes real explorations and discussions. Informal problem solving can engage participants while addressing potential sovereignty concerns. It doesn’t require rewriting of the formal rules of proceedings. Participants can be invited in their personal capacity, rather than as governmental officials. Finally, informal problem solving can be a step towards a proposal, rather than a decision.

Susskind addressed some common misconceptions about mediation, specifically, the notion that mediation requires the pre-existence of trust among parties and that it is about concessions and altruism. He pondered whether the language of collaborative informal problem solving could be a better choice to overcome those misconceptions. In his words, informal problem solving is about helping parties meet their needs most effectively – that’s all.

I will stop now as it’s time to catch my red-eye flight to New York…to be continued.

Reflections on the 4th Annual Mediators Beyond Borders Congress, Part 3: Compassionate Listening

By Anastasia Pryanikova| 2011-03-20T21:52:09+00:00 March 7th, 2011|Change, Communication, Conflict Management|0 Comments

Video Review Series, Part 4: Humor in Conflict Is No Laughing Matter

“The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.”
~ Mark Twain

When Nicole Eggert got harsh publicity from the media for gaining weight since her “Baywatch” days, she decided to use humor as her weapon against the tabloid attacks. She teamed up with “Funny or Die” to create a video mocking the societal preoccupation with the female body image.

Nicole Eggert is BACK IN BAYWATCH! from Nicole Eggert

We don’t often think about humor and conflict together. Conflict is no laughing matter…or is it?

The average adult laughs 17 times a day. Laughter is social. We laugh 30 or 40 times more with people and often at almost nothing than we do when we are alone. Research has shown that laughter increases heart rate, changes breathing, reduces muscle tension, and provides a boost to the immune system. When employed skillfully, humor bonds people by creating a shared experience, relieves tensions, and increases the sense of well-being.

Humor is a jolt for the brain because it violates our routine expectations and patterns. Humor creates an element of surprise that captivates the brain. According to the incongruity theory, humor involves the perception of incongruity or paradox in a joke. The punch-line violates our expectations of what should follow. The brain then tries to reconcile the incongruity. If we get the joke, we laugh. Humor involves the brain’s reward system, which mainly uses dopamine as its neurotransmitter. That’s why humor elevates our mood, and positive mood has been found to enhance creative problem solving and flexible yet careful thinking. Researchers at Northwestern University discovered that people were more likely to solve word puzzles with sudden insight when they were amused, having just seen a short comedy routine.

Cartoonist Robert Mankoff talks to Big Think about the science behind laughter and its importance to both humans and other animals:

Nowadays, we see humor more and more often used in social media campaigns by both brands and detractors. For example, parody has been effective in social media attacks against BP, following the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico as the UCBComedy videos below demonstrate.

BP Spills Coffee

BP: Rich Fish

Taco Bell offers a recent example of using humor in social media defense. After an Alabama law firm filed a class action suit alleging that Taco Bell’s taco meat is less than 35% beef, Taco Bell President Greg Creed appeared in a YouTube video entitled “Of Course we Use Real Beef.”

In an effort to dispel consumer concerns over the ingredients in its seasoned beef, Taco Bell responded with full-page newspaper ads headlined, “Thank you for suing us,” as well as swift Twitter and Facebook campaigns, including links to Stephen Colbert’s parody of the claim on his Comedy Central show, “The Colbert Report.”

What do you make of these videos? How can humor be effectively used in conflict management?

Video Review Series, Part 2: The Effective Video Apology “DOs” and “DON’Ts”

Video Review Series, Part 3: Leveraging Social Media for Crisis Communication

BP Spills Coffee

By Anastasia Pryanikova| 2011-02-26T00:00:28+00:00 February 25th, 2011|Communication, Conflict Management|0 Comments

7 Barriers to Active Listening

“The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention.“
~Thich Nhat Hanh

Effective influencers master the art of listening, and they understand that people want to be heard. In our fast-paced world, active and empathetic listening is a rarity, and it’s not as simple as it sounds. Even if we know how to listen, we often don’t do it for a number of reasons.

Next time you talk to someone, watch for the following seven common listening barriers that block a good conversation flow and may cause misunderstandings:

1. We join the conversation with predetermined attitude and assumptions about the other person or the subject matter to be discussed. Good conversations have the power to create new shared meaning and understanding, but it is only possible if we are open enough to consider those new possibilities. So many people use conversations just to reiterate their own positions on issues. Little is gained with such approach. Instead, join a conversation with an open mind and desire to learn something new. Listen with curiosity and without bias.

2. We are so preoccupied with our own thoughts that we are unable to listen attentively. Maybe, we are distracted by something unrelated to the topic of the conversation, or we are busy developing our own response and miss what’s being said. It’s not easy to pay focused attention to the other person’s words. Our prefrontal cortex, the brain region implicated in planning complex cognitive tasks, decision making, and moderating correct social behavior, is easily overwhelmed. We can process just about seven pieces of information in our conscious mind at any given moment. It makes it impossible to attend to several things simultaneously that require our concentration. We have to train and discipline our mind to listen actively and push any other distracting thoughts aside.

3. We are completing the other person’s thoughts and jumping to conclusions. How often do we hear something and say to ourselves: “Oh, I know where she is going with it.” We attribute ideas, motivation, and intentions to others that they may not have. This leads to misunderstandings. This is especially true if we have known the conversation participants for a long time. We feel like we know what they will say. Patience pays off in conversations. Let the others finish their thoughts and don’t assume you already know what they are going to say.

4. We engage in selective listening. It occurs when we listen only to what we want to hear. We like to be right, and our minds like consistency. We don’t feel comfortable when something upsets our belief system. It’s easier to ignore that information. The downside is that we can’t learn from others or collaborate effectively. To overcome the habit of selective listening, paraphrase or mirror back what you hear to ensure you understand other points of view. Engage in conversations with people who you know will disagree with you and learn to discuss your disagreements respectfully. Encourage different opinions with the intention of considering them thoroughly and learning from them.

5. We feel too tired, anxious, or angry to listen actively. Our brains run on glucose. The glucose levels drop when we are tired, so we no longer have the energy to think clearly. When we experience strong negative emotions, as when we are angry or under stress, the glucose goes from the prefrontal cortex to the amygdala in the limbic system of the brain, responsible for the emotional control and memory of our emotional reactions. The amygdala triggers the “fight or flight” mode. As a result, our mind “freezes,” and we either launch verbal attacks or withdraw from the dialogue. Strong feelings and emotions affect our listening, reasoning and judgment. If the parties feel overwhelmed, a better strategy is to take a break from the conversation.

6. We don’t pay enough attention to body language and supersegmentals, such as intonation, rate of speech, emphasis, or tone. We can focus not only on what’s being said, but also on what’s not being said. The supersegmentals and body language give away clues about people’s emotions, feelings, stress levels that provide additional information that may not be expressed in words. To be an active listener, you have to be a good observer too.

7. We are in a hurry. We don’t have time to listen and can’t wait for the other people to finish their thoughts so that we could get on with our business. People will sense that you don’t really want to listen to them. If you find yourself always trying to control the pace of conversations, talk too fast, or urge others to get to the point, try to consciously slow yourself down. Find a better time to talk. A conversation is not a race to the finish line.

By Anastasia Pryanikova| 2011-01-30T02:43:32+00:00 January 30th, 2011|Attention, Communication|0 Comments

Social media death spiral: U.S. Figure Skating deletes comments and disables fans’ updates on its Facebook page as 2011 U.S. Figure Skating Championships approach

It is not every day that a social media enthusiast gets to live the drama of a social media crisis. Yesterday, apparently, I took part in one after posting this comment to the U.S. Figure Skating Facebook fan page:

I was surprised to discover a few hours later that my post was deleted, as were many other similar comments. They were not rude or inflammatory, so this reaction raised many eyebrows among figure skating fans.

You can see more fans’ posts that were deleted from the U.S. Figure Skating Facebook page here.

Here’s how it all began…

U.S. Figure Skating is the national governing body for the sport of figure skating in the United States. U.S. Figure Skating is a member of the International Skating Union (ISU), the international federation for figure skating, and is a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC). As 2011 U.S. Figure Skating Championships are about to take place in Greensboro, North Carolina, at the end of January, the controversy is brewing over the Smucker’s Skating Spectacular, the gala exhibition that concludes the National Championships on January 30, 2011.

The U.S. Figure Skating rules ban skaters who are not competing this season at Nationals from skating in the exhibition. This year, U.S. Figure Skating made an exception for Evan Lysacek who is scheduled to skate in the Spectacular even though he is not competing. No exception, however, was made for the winner of the 2010 Readers’ Choice Award / Michelle Kwan Trophy, Johnny Weir, who is expected to be presented with the award at the Championships. He is the only skater other than Michelle Kwan herself to ever receive the Readers’ Choice Award more than once. Understandably, Johnny Weir’s fans want to see him skate in the exhibition as well, so they began sending their suggestions to U.S. Figure Skating via Twitter and Facebook.

At the time of this writing, any updates on the U.S. Figure Skating Facebook page are disabled, which suggests that U.S. Figure Skating is not ready to engage in a dialogue with its fans or even simply respond. The bitter irony is that these comments were made by people who support and care about the sport and try to raise its popularity in the U.S., a mission presumably shared by U.S. Figure Skating.

01/25/2011 UPDATE – US Figure Skating changed its Facebook fan page settings back to enable the “US Figure Skating + Others” tab where fans can post their updates. At least, US Figure Skating no longer feels the need to hide our opinions, perhaps, because at this stage, when the Championships are under way, it is too late to change anything anyways. It’s just talk, isn’t it?

US Figure Skating changed its Facebook fan page settings back to enable the “US Figure Skating + Others” tab where fa

By Anastasia Pryanikova| 2011-01-25T14:45:51+00:00 January 22nd, 2011|Communication, Conflict Management|5 Comments