During my teen years, there were uncountable ways my parents could embarrass me. Their clothes, the way they walked and talked, ate…pretty much everything. But nothing shocked me as much as my mom’s nightly routine of drinking white wine on a recumbent indoor bike in the basement. She called it a “no sweat workout” (she was actually ahead of her time; Zone 2 workouts are all the rage these days). I was horrified as a teen. Now, I completely admire it. Because she got on the bike.

When considering whether to work out (or most things we don’t want to do), there’s a common trap: “if I can’t work out hard at the gym for an hour, I might as well not go at all.” We assume that intensity is the most important part of a workout, when in fact small, consistent investments over time have compounding benefits. So working out daily for even 3 minutes is actually worth it. 3 is more than 0. The more we build consistent habits, even itty bitty ones, the more likely it is to grow them.

What’s Going On

There are some frameworks that are so sticky I see them everywhere. Atomic Habits’ habit loop by James Clear is like that for me (and I guess many others, since it’s been on the New York Times bestseller list for hundreds of weeks). The habit loop looks like this:

Our habits form when we follow these four laws of behavior change:

1. Cue (the trigger): Design the environment so the desired behavior is impossible to miss.

2. Craving (the motivation): Pair the habit with something genuinely enjoyable or link it to an identity or outcome the person already desires.

3. Response (the action): Reduce friction and preparation time so the habit requires the least possible effort or decision-making to start.

4. Reward (the feedback): Deliver an immediate, tangible signal of success right after the behavior so the brain registers it as worth repeating.
   

To build and encourage habits, we need to make it obvious, attractive, satisfying and easy:

All good things fit on a post-it

My mom having wine on the bike pairs the reward immediately with the workout. And when she thinks of having a glass of wine, she’ll associate it with working out, which she can do from her basement…the loop reinforces itself. So doing it once is more likely to put you on the path to doing it again, assuming all the laws are satisfied.

There’s another dimension underneath the four laws. James Clear found that habits stick better when they come with a shift in identity. Instead of rejecting a cigarette with “I’m trying to quit smoking,” saying “I’m not a smoker” is more effective because the new behavior can more easily follow our self identity. My mom created her own personal brand. And the Queen of the “no sweat workout” gets on the bike.

Build Peace Habits

When it comes to dealing with our conflicts, whether that’s in the situation room or the living room, my experience is that we don’t think about these kinds of behaviors as habits. What might peace habits look like that reinforce and sustain themselves over time?

For a fun thought exercise, let’s look at this on the geopolitical level.

1. Oftentimes, when a country starts a diplomatic process, it’s out of public view by design, behind closed doors, in formats that can’t be disclosed, with people who can’t be named. For peace to become obvious, the active work of peacemaking needs to be visible in ways that don’t destroy the conditions that make it possible.

2. Leaders who are associated with peace can be branded as naive or weak. For peace to become attractive, being a peacemaker needs to be perceived and celebrated as strong, brave, smart, and even sexy??

3. War-making infrastructure has been built and refined for centuries, with huge industries making immense profit over the latest warfighting technologies, whereas peacemaking has less than 1% of the same levels of resources. For peace to become easy, the infrastructure and capacities need to be built well in advance, not scrambled together under pressure.

4. While peace has its iconic heroes, there are as many stories of leaders pursuing peace quickly losing credibility, political influence, and tragically their own lives. The payoff can’t wait until an agreement is signed. For peace to become satisfying, it needs to generate a legible reward (yes, even money!) that shows up quickly and compounds to reinforce the choice and make it more likely to be repeated.

Ask most political leaders who they are and they usually say protector or defender, and very few will say peacemaker. It isn’t who they are…yet. Until that shifts, all four laws are swimming upstream. But if we can get this peace habit loop spinning, maybe peace really can become the coolest global trend to hit since Celine Dion.

Why not try?

For a day, try on the identity “I am a peacemaker.” Write it on a post-it at your desk to keep it top of mind. See what types of behavior you choose to do or not do when you wear that hat.

As a peacemaker, look for one habit you’d like to change in the way you personally handle conflict. Ask yourself the habit loop questions: what would make the new behavior obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying?

Let’s say the habit you want to build is talking about the hard thing instead of letting it stew for weeks or months. Here are a few ideas:

Obvious: schedule a weekly check-in and set an alarm on your calendar

Attractive: have the conversation in a cozy place under a blanket, even better with a negotiation cat like Tia on your lap

Easy: create a script card where you fill in the blank, like nonviolent communication (when you do ______, I feel ______, because I need ____.)

Satisfying: when you get off the couch, no matter the outcome, play a favorite song

Inspired by my mom, always look for a way to pair a delicious drink (alcoholic or otherwise) with the habit to make the loop all the sweeter.

Share

Subscribe now

I’m a sucker for old timey crafts, so I dragged my 6 and 3 year olds for a weekend in Oxford (we’re in London for the summer, so not *that* wild) so we could see a 45-minute puppet show on a barge, called Captain Sandy and the Sea Monster. And it was so worth it.

I was in awe as the puppeteers communicated through movement a range of emotions while the wooden faces never shifted. What I love about children’s stories is they capture so simply the challenges kids and adults alike face in our relationships and how we make sense of the world. Stories like this usually leave me chuckling that what I’m teaching my kids sounds so simple and is still hard for me.

The puppet show begins with Captain Sandy throwing trash in the ocean as she evilly cackles. Then we get the backstory. There was a shortage of fish, and the fishermen were bereft and worried about what to do. Captain Sandy surmised there must be fewer fish because the sea monster was eating them all. So, naturally, she needed to convince the sea monster to go vegetarian. Captain Sandy gets on her boat and goes out in the deep ocean, where she finds the sea monster, who informs her that *ahem* it’s the humans greedily eating all the fish. Captain Sandy doesn’t listen, so, naturally, the sea monster eats her boat. And, naturally, Captain Sandy rides a golden dolphin back to shore.

When she returns, the fishermen make fun of her for losing her boat and looking grimy. Captain Sandy is so hurt that she starts throwing trash in the ocean: “you poison my heart, I’ll poison your ocean.” And she does just that. The ocean gets so dirty that there are really no fish anymore. The fishermen don’t know what to do, so, naturally, they consult the golden dolphin. The fishermen contend that it’s definitely too late to apologize for the hurt they caused: “the past is in the past and there’s nothing to do about it.” The wise golden dolphin reminds them that *ahem* there’s no better time than right now to say sorry. In a (not so) miraculous shift, when they do, and also offer to lend her their boat, Captain Sandy softens, stops poisoning the sea, and they all share the fish with the sea monster.

What’s Going On Here

This story shows how conflict can get messy fast, escalating well past what anyone actually wanted. We can easily lose sight of what we’re actually fighting about, and thus what the remedy might be. While it’s critical to analyze the complexities of conflict dynamics, it’s equally important to remember the basics: the human being’s underlying experience and perspective, which in this case was deep pain. It would be easy to see this story as a conflict about how to stop the rubbish (yes, I’m English now) from polluting the ocean. But the real unlock was when the fishermen focused on Captain Sandy’s inner world and her experience of feeling humiliated and mocked. The fishermen’s apology worked because of two essential components1. First, acknowledge responsibility and say plainly you were wrong. Second, offer to repair the damage. The fishermen do both by owning their actions and offering their boat. As the axiom goes, respect is the cheapest concession you can give in a negotiation; it costs you nothing and means everything to the other side.

Subscribe now

What We Can Do

One of the perennial conundrums in almost every conflict is how we get someone to change. How can we get Captain Sandy to stop throwing trash in the ocean? How do we get someone to stop doing the things we hate? It won’t come by just asking them to. The key to changing someone else is to change ourselves.

History gives us examples of one side making a unilateral, bold move that shifts the whole arc of a conflict. When Egyptian President Anwar Sadat flew to Jerusalem in 1977 to deliver a speech in the Israeli Knesset calling for an end to war, he broke a political deadlock and a psychological barrier three decades in the making. This laid the ground for a historic peace deal between Egypt and Israel in 1979.

Esther Perel, the acclaimed relationship psychotherapist, explains how we are interconnected in our relational patterns, so that when one person shifts (in a sustained way, especially for our most entrenched patterns) the other person will eventually shift. Our response to them ultimately changes their response to us. We don’t change our response to make their lives better. We do it because our own life gets better (aka enlightened self-interest). The fishermen don’t just make things right just to make Captain Sandy feel better. Their lives get better when Captain Sandy stops throwing her pain into the ocean.

Our new response might be an apology or acknowledgement of our role in a dynamic, as my friend Aisha says: cleaning up our side of the street. Even the act of listening can be a simple yet powerful new response: “I want to hear how you see things”, and reflect back what you hear. It could be something that changes the physical dynamics, like putting on music or inviting someone on a walk or somewhere you never usually go together..

Let’s Try It

Think about a dynamic you’d like to shift, or someone whose behavior you want to change. What’s one thing you could do differently to break the typical pattern of your dance? If there’s something to own, own it plainly and offer to make it right. Consider what would make them feel seen and respected, and new ways you might enjoy each other’s company or learn something you didn’t know. As the golden dolphin says, it’s never too late.

Share

Subscribe now

P.S. for all my fellow parents who lost it on your kids recently, this video is for you. Hint: it’s an apology 🙂

One of my favorite things in the world is to dance. But I never do it. Sure, it shows up here and there in fleeting moments of listening to the radio in the car or trying to get my kids pumped up for house jobs. When the dance finds me, I’m transported more deeply into joy and my intuition.

That’s what I got to talk about with my dear friend Hanan, a magnificent dancer celebrated around the world. I mean, just watch her move:

Hanan is a dancer, choreographer and teacher specialized in dances from Egypt, Syria and Iraq based in Sweden. @hanandance on insta

We spoke about dance the morning after going out dancing until 3am. So we meandered into a lot of territory. What happens to us when we move. How dance is a way to drop into ourselves and connect with people we don’t even know. One thing that stuck with me: that people who can’t move their bodies, or only their pinky toe, can still dance. Because it’s about the feeling, and escaping our judgy selves and our fear of what others might think. When you watch someone dance who doesn’t give a hoot, moving to their own tune, it’s hard not to catch their joy. Truly, everyone can dance.

We talk a lot in conflict resolution about the pause as the place to begin. Dance is another door to try.

The Chit Chat

What We Said

Liza: Good morning from Richmond, London, where Hanan and I have just been out on the town, dancing until three a.m., which I haven’t done in probably 10 years. It felt incredible. And I thought, what better person to talk to about movement and the body, and what we can learn from them when we’re dealing with tricky situations? So Hanan, so good to see you. Thanks for being the first Creative Conflict Chit Chat.

Hanan: So honored.

Liza: Tell us a little bit about how you got into dance? What drew you to it?

Hanan: I always loved moving and music, so it was quite natural for me. I’ve always been dancing, more or less. Getting into it professionally came from the love of dance, from taking a lot of classes as a child, then dancing all through high school. I kind of just slipped into it. It’s always been a very important part of my life. One of the most important things in life for me.

Liza: And let’s just say, side note, Hanan is one of the most celebrated belly dancers in the world. This is not someone who does dance on the side. This is someone who has dedicated her life to it, teaches kids, runs groups and programs. So it’s really an honor to have you. What happens to you when you dance?

Hanan: It gives me that space of total presence, and everything else stops. It’s like a glass of water. It’s not heavy to hold, but if you put it aside for a few seconds, you can take it back and hold it for a long time. That’s what dance is for me. The moment I’m dancing, it’s that relief of letting go of whatever is going on around me, inside me. It’s just that moment of full, one hundred percent presence. Here and now.

Liza: We’ve been joking about this. I went to a Zumba class the other day, and I’m a pretty active person. I walk, I hike, I’m trying to lift weights. I’m getting into my 40s, so, weights. And I went to this Zumba class, and I didn’t realize how little I’d been really moving my body in different planes. Just rolling and shifting in totally different ways. I was like, wow, I have totally shut off this part of my body. That’s what belly dancing is. You’re moving in so many different planes.

Hanan: Yeah, it’s very different from moving as a workout, moving with music. They give different benefits. You still get the physical movement, but when you move with music, that adds another layer. It brings out a lot of joy, and other emotions too. But it’s always emotional relief. So it’s really interesting, that little thing of adding the music to the movement, doing them together. That’s something special.

Liza: Because I think about dance a lot as another way of communicating emotions.

Hanan: It is. As many people say, it’s one of the oldest languages we have. A global language. You can see it historically, it’s always been part of our lives. You see it in little babies. As soon as they can move and they hear a beat, at a very early stage, they start moving with it. Back in the day, when we maybe just had percussion, people were always moving and making sound. That’s a big part of many cultures. And today, at least in some parts of the world, we’ve lost that connection a little. In many parts of the world, dancing and music are a natural part of daily life. You cook, you dance, you gather with family, you have dinner, and dance is always present. But in my culture, where I’m from, dance has been very disconnected from daily life. It’s something you do at a club, or as a workout. And I’ve felt it so many times, what a relief it is emotionally to dance. The kick you get after. The joy, whatever you’re carrying around. It makes a huge difference.

Liza: And what difference does it make? What does it open up that wasn’t there before?

Hanan: It’s both mental and physical. On a physical level, you release a lot of tension. Moving, and especially moving with joy, means most people, even if there’s sadness, will at some point feel joy, or at least feel relief from that heaviness you carry. But on a mental level it’s even more rewarding. I think it has to do with giving yourself that little time where you’re just here and now. And it’s an amazing way of communicating. I’ve been clubbing for more than 20 years, and I realized I barely speak to people when I’m out. I have a lot of friends whose names I don’t even know, but I know their moves. We connect, and we can dance for hours without using words. That’s a very direct communication. And when you watch dance, you read a lot into it. It gives you space for your own imagination. You can connect in whatever way you wish, because it’s so direct. But it also gives you a lot of space.

Liza: Talk about the other person. There’s the dance with yourself, and then there’s the dance with someone you may or may not know, and how you get in sync.

Hanan: Yeah, that’s what’s so amazing. With some people you one hundred percent sync when you dance. But if you sat down to talk, maybe there’d be nothing to talk about. On a different level, you vibrate together. It’s a more straight communication, I think. I’ve been really amazed by what it’s given me. And I’m still surprised when I don’t move to music for two weeks. Of course I’m moving every day, but it gives me this heavy feeling. I get more tired, sleepy, a little bit of anxiety, and I don’t understand where it comes from. And then, oh, I didn’t dance for two weeks. And then I dance, and suddenly all of that is gone.

Liza: So it’s really a way to process something that’s stuck in the body.

Hanan: To process, and express, and connect. I’d say, yeah.

Liza: And what’s it like in your groups? How do you get a group in sync, working together?

Hanan: Since it’s so separated from daily life now, people search for it in other places. Where I am, the only option, if you’re not into clubbing, is to take a dance class. And I’ve seen with my students that they come back, and they’re really busy. Busy with kids, with work. But that hour of the week is their hour. Their holy hour. Everyone I speak to says it’s the most important activity of the week, because it gives them that space, and relief, and joy, and also the feeling of belonging. And when you move as a group, that’s a kick. To feel 20, 30 people moving like one body. That’s pretty amazing.

Liza: So a lot of times in negotiation or conflict, we talk about how to pause. If things get heated, you take a break. Maybe you go for a walk. Usually it’s just inviting people to go for a walk, which is a good thing.

Liza: But what would it look like to take it up a notch? Given what you’re saying about connecting with music, connecting with your body, being able to process and work through what’s going on.

Hanan: It definitely gives you the benefit of a break. You take one step back and reflect, because it gives you that space naturally. And in a conflict, that’s what you need. You take a step back and look at it, and try not to see it from just your own perspective. Whatever you use to step back and see the whole picture is helpful. And dancing is such an efficient way of getting to know each other, and feeling a personal connection, which makes everything easier. Building bridges. Resolving conflicts is a lot about building bridges. Understanding the other side, putting yourself in their situation. Whether it’s personal, or at a state level, whatever. To find a solution, you need to understand the other perspective. And for that, you need to connect. Dancing is such an efficient way to do it. If you did some team building, and spent a whole day doing exercises to bond, you could also just dance for half an hour, and everyone would go, oh, I know these people now. It’s a shortcut. A lot of people feel like, oh, I can’t dance, I don’t know how. But everyone knows how.

Liza: Why do we think we don’t know how to dance?

Hanan: I guess it’s because so much of the dancing we see today is the kind where you watch someone else do cool moves. It’s about how it looks, not about what you feel. For me, dancing is more of an expression. More of a state of mind than the actual movement. I can move my little toe and still feel that I’m dancing. It’s a mental space, and it really doesn’t matter how it looks. A lot of people need to get past that part, how do I look. It helps when you have a good crowd, or music you just feel, or someone to dance with who brings it out of you. You have to find your own way past that prestigious kind of dance movement, which is something completely different from dance itself. Because dance itself is about what you feel, not how it looks. If you’re thinking about how you look while you’re dancing, you’re already back in your head. The whole point is to be present, here and now, and not think about what you’re doing. Just feel it.

Liza: I love that. We get too far into our reptilian brains. What are ways to quiet that part, and turn on the parts that feel, and kind of know something?

Hanan: That’s also what gives you that nice feeling, where your whole mindset relaxes. It’s a break from whatever is going on. Everyone has so much going on, whether it’s personal or worldwide. Everyone needs that little break. And like you said, with conflict resolution, if you need to pause or step back, dancing gives you that time.

Liza: And if you’re moving with others, you might not even be conscious of it, but you’re reacting to the way they move, and the energy they bring.

Hanan: You communicate, but not on a theoretical level. It’s physical.

Hanan: And anyone who’s danced can recognize this. You can be so frustrated, so tired, and then you hear the song you love, or you’re with people you connect with, and it’s all gone. Out of nowhere, you get this energy, and your body’s moving.

Liza: Well, I know for you that song is not Abracadabra.

Hanan: For sure not. Oh my god. No. There’s also the opposite, of course. But you can dance for yourself, and I love doing that. Still, I really thrive on dancing with other people. In good company, it can be any kind of music. It can just be someone hitting their hand on a chair, and you get that kick. So it’s the context too. But it’s amazing when it all connects and you fly. That’s just amazing.

Liza: I love the idea of dancing with your pinky toe.

Hanan: Oh yeah.

Liza: The pinky toe dance. You can do it.

Hanan: With a full arm, just wiggling your toe.

Liza: Yeah. Maybe even inviting people to do just hand dancing. Like, maybe there’s too much pressure to make it your whole body. You just move some parts. Elbow dancing. Feel it.

Hanan: Yeah, you don’t need to move much. From the outside, maybe you can’t see any movement, but it’s still dancing. Even people who are restricted, who can’t move their body, they can still dance, because they can still feel it, and be in it. It doesn’t have to be a full-on workout to give you that kick.

Liza: Not a full-on Zumba. But that’ll do for many people.

Hanan: Everyone just has to find their way, whatever they have in their life. Maybe not everyone has the option, but everyone can put music on at home and just feel it. You just need to get past that obstacle of, how do I look?

Liza: Who’s going to judge me? Is this the right thing? How stupid do I look?

Hanan: And then you see people who don’t care, and it’s very hard not to feel their joy. Even if they look really funny, you think, okay, that person is really going for it. That’s pretty cool. Very inspiring. So in the end, who cares?

Liza: Any other advice for burgeoning belly dancers, Hanan? Hanan was my first dance teacher ever, when we met in Syria in 2010. And the moves she taught me, I whipped out last night. Figure eights. It was fun.

Hanan: It’s fun. You should just go for it. Whatever hits the spot, go for it.

Liza: Fun. Well, no better place to end than that. Thanks, Hanan. So good to talk to you. Bye.

Share

Subscribe now

I’m in London for the summer, and it’s been a hot one. Outside is somewhat uncomfortable, but inside is unbearably stuffy with no air conditioning and no airflow. So our home-away-from-home to retreat and relax is the exact opposite. So understandably my husband and I have been quite testy with one another. One evening I *needed* a break and decided to go to a yin yoga class, seduced by the promise of “long relaxing poses” and the studio aircon. A glorified nap in a cool, quiet room with no one bothering me? Yes, please.

For 75 minutes, we surrounded ourselves in bolsters and blankets and more blankets to take the most fabulously gentle stretches on the floor. We even got eye masks. I thought it was a blissful series of cat naps. When I left the studio, I noticed I didn’t have the same groggy feeling I often have when I take 20-minute naps at home or nod off on a bus/train/plane. I actually felt great. Calm. Balanced. Steady. Ready. What happened in that studio? It wasn’t a nap. I guess there really is something to this widely popular ancient practice.

Turns out it wasn’t just a relaxing moment. My nervous system actually shifted gears.

What’s Happening

That shift from groggy to grounded is exactly what happens when our nervous system becomes more regulated.

Quick refresher on the nervous system: it’s the command center of our body, that’s responsible for our thoughts, movements, and automatic processes, and, importantly, our experience of emotion. The window of tolerance, a model developed by psychiatrist Dan Siegel, is the optimal zone for our nervous system. The size of the window is different for each person depending on their personal history of trauma and stress and also, how hangry they are.

We can handle conflict without becoming overwhelmed if we are able to stay in our window of tolerance. We can feel stress or pressure in this window, but it doesn’t bother us too much. When we feel threatened (not just physically but our identity and dignity and other psychological pain, too), our fight-flight-freeze response can get activated automatically, as if we are being chased by a lion in the wild, without us even consciously choosing to do so. Our limbic system takes over and starts driving the bus (likely off the road).

This is what so often happens to us in conflict because it pokes what’s most important to us and can feel threatening to our understanding of ourselves and our relationships with others and our world. When that happens, we’re less able to do the basics to find agreement: staying calm, listening, and exploring what’s possible.

Why Not Try?

I was working with a team in Jerusalem who wanted to think better together and draw on their collective intelligence instead of just pooling individual opinions. They called this work “the brain.” The question became: how do we connect our different capacities and senses to think in ways none of us could alone?

At the start of our workshops we would do exercises to stimulate our left-right brain connection and bring ourselves into a window of tolerance. This was completely unusual and totally uncomfortable for the group. It brought a lot of awkward stares and reluctant deferral to the crazy American. We would do exercises that crossed the midline, like tapping our opposite arms with our opposite hands, bringing opposite elbows to opposite knees, and doing some funny (and very tricky) finger moves akin to rubbing your tummy and tapping your head.1

And at the end of the exercises, to everyone’s chagrin, we felt different. Not shockingly so, but just enough to deepen our quality of listening, our openness, and our ability to stay present in the moment. Even a slight shift in these dimensions can make a difference in the quality of how we solve challenges together.

Designing for a Regulated Negotiation

You don’t need a crazy American facilitator to try this yourself in the moments when you notice you might be out of your window of tolerance:

1. Long Exhale. Inhale slowly through your nose for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, and exhale through your mouth for 6 to 8 seconds. A longer exhale helps signal safety to your brain.

2. Hum. Our voice box is directly connected to the vagus nerve. Humming or taking a deep breath and letting out a long “vooo” sound helps the body decompress.

3. Ground. Take in your five senses by playing the 5-4-3-2-1 game (I make it a game when I do this with my 6-yr old). Find 5 things you see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste

4. Body Scan. Pause and firmly plant your feet on the ground. Pay close attention to the physical sensation of the floor beneath you. Notice where you’re clenching and release.

5. Pause. Ask for a break (five minutes, bio break, glass of water) to check-in with yourself and reset.

Even better when we can do these exercises with others in co-regulation. The people in our lives we feel safe with are one of our greatest resources to reduce stress and rediscover connection.

Beyond individual techniques, what if we designed conflict spaces to support regulation for everyone at the table? Imagine if these kinds of techniques were embedded in high stakes negotiations.

• Move together regularly throughout the negotiation, like going on walks in nature or doing a yoga session (preferably with many, many blankets).

• Doodle it out. Give everyone markers and let them draw on the tablecloth, kid-restaurant style.

• Build a playlist. Everyone adds a song, and it plays in the background during breaks (and hopefully inspires impromptu dance parties).

• Name the feeling. Put an emotion wheel on the wall so people have language for what they are feeling.

• Take a journaling break. A few quiet minutes to write or draw whatever is coming up.

• Cool down. Keep cold packs on hand for when things get heated (literally).

• Stock a sensory box. Weighted blankets, fidget toys, stress balls, and let people pick what their body needs.

If none of the above works, there’s always the fail proof antidote:

Maybe it’s time to bring a therapy cat to your next negotiation?

Meet Tia. She has no stake in your negotiation and no opinion on the terms. She will be cute at all the wrong moments. She has every intention of sitting on whichever document matters most. She could be just what everyone needs to find their window again.

Share

In the US, scientists get a bad rap. Only 61% of Americans say science has had a mostly positive effect on society. Things are so polarized that we can barely agree on basic facts vital to our health. And while almost everyone thinks scientists are smart, most everyone also thinks scientists are terrible communicators and that scientists think themselves better than everyone else.

Ouch.

Scientists aren’t taking this news sitting down. They’re doing improv.

Scientists are lining up out the door for an improv program at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook. It’s led by professional actors helping scientists reach their audience, make the science matter, and earn trust instead of lecturing at people. Improv helps them listen carefully, be spontaneous when things go sideways, keep building when there’s tension, and ultimately create empathic relationships. And, critically, they get to be absurd and make people laugh.

Should we all be doing improv?

How it Works

Imagine you have a tough conversation coming up tomorrow. You prepare your script and the exact sequence of how you think things should go. You get to the meeting and present your crisp speech with your beautifully articulated positions.

Then, inevitably, it doesn’t go your way. Perhaps they respond in a weird way, maybe someone else shows up, there’s new information presented, or coffee spills all over your crisp white shirt. When this happens, our human instinct is to stop listening and fight reality to force our script to work. Improv helps us show up in reality as it is right now, not as we wish.

I did some improv in college, but as I’ve dug into it I’ve been jazzed about how much it zeros in on the exact skills and mindsets we need when dealing with difficult conflicts.

Improv breaks the ‘no’ reflex. Instead of critiquing what the other side says, you ask: if this is true, what does it make possible? You’re forced to listen for understanding, not to reply, since the scene collapses the second you stop tracking your partner’s last word. An unexpected roadblock stops being a threat and starts being new material to play with.

This is exactly how Pixar deals with creative friction. Before, when designers’ ideas were critiqued, they would feel defensive, and it would shut down creative energy. (I’m confident they aren’t the only ones who would feel this way). So they instituted “Plussing” based on the improv “yes, and…” principle. The way it works is you can’t slam someone else’s idea unless you also offer a constructive additive component. For example, instead of “I don’t like the color of that room,” you have to accept the current state and say: “I love how dark the room is, and what if we add a single lamp over the desk to draw the eye to the letter?” It’s a way to keep the conversation moving even when there’s disagreement. The most generative dialogues I’ve been part of spend less time arguing over the facts and more time nurturing one idea seedling over the course of the conversation. Plussing doesn’t mean agreeing to bad ideas. It’s a collaborative critique that shifts the dynamic from ‘my perspective vs. your perspective’ to ‘our perspectives vs. the problem.’

“The park means a lot to me, in that it’s something that will never be finished. Something that I can keep developing, keep plussing and adding to — it’s alive. It will be a live, breathing thing that will need changes.” — Walt Disney

Disney was notorious for improving experiences in his theme parks that were already considered impeccable. What if we took this same plussing mindset to our settlements and agreements, especially the ones that fail? Adding to them doesn’t mean they are necessarily bad or incomplete, but there may be another layer to make it more meaningful.

Subscribe now

Why Not Try?

When dealing with conflict, the stakes are often so high that failure feels unacceptable. In improv, mistakes are usually the funniest parts. It normalizes trying something, even if it doesn’t work, and moving on. In the improv program for scientists, when they mess up, they raise their arms and say “Ta Da!” Ready to dip your toes in?1

Pick a scenario and act it out, but every line has to be a question. It forces you to respond to what was actually said instead of the line you’d already planned. The moment someone can’t think of one, they’re out. Last person standing wins.

Example:
Person 1: Are you going to eat your lunch?
Person 2: What happens if I don’t eat my lunch?
Person 1: Do you think something bad happens if you skip lunch?
Person 2: Why are you so worried about my lunch?

Tell a story as a group, but each person only gets to add one word before passing it along, so nobody can argue for their own direction, only build on the word they were just handed.

Example:
“Once... upon... a... dragon... who... was... terrified... of... fire.”

Act out a scene. At random moments, someone calls out a new emotion, and the players have to absorb it and shift instantly without breaking the scene, rather than freezing or fighting the change.

Example:
Scene: returning a library book.
[Excited] “I can’t believe I actually found this thing!”
[Suspicious] “...why does it smell like it’s been to the beach?”
[Heartbroken] “I just really loved this book, okay?”

Split into two pairs: one writes a complaint letter to a company picked by the audience, the other writes back as the company. Each pair alternates one word per person, building a coherent argument out of nothing but the word they were just handed, until the letter is finished. Then they swap roles.

Example:
Complainers: “Dear... Sirs,... your... burger... tasted... like... sadness.”
Company: “Dear... Customer,... sadness... is... a... limited-time... flavor.”

Two or more players hype something up together, each one escalating what the last person said. No undercutting allowed, only adding, it’s “yes, and” turned all the way up.

Example:
“This coffee is good.”
“This coffee is the best coffee in this building.”
“This coffee could end wars.”
“Nations would sign treaties just to get a sip of this.”

For extra inspo, watch Key & Peele as valets and the ultimate hype squad for Liam Neeson.

What if…

What if improv became how we started our approach to serious strategic challenges? Imagine government leaders from different parties doing some of these exercises together as a way to warm up, in the same way athletes do specific drills to warm up before a race. I suspect it could open up non-obvious pathways that can only be derived from precise listening, group cohesion against the problem, utter silliness, and continuous generative idea design. And then, as it goes, they will fumble and mess up…and then they can put their arms in the air and declare: Ta Da!

Share

Tiv is Waiting

Got a tricky situation, yours or someone else's, that could use some creative juice? Drop it here, two sentences is plenty. Future Ask Tiv volumes get built from questions just like yours. (Curious what that looks like? Free Timmy was the first one.)

Meet Tiv, our sweet martian friend

.

This is the start of the ‘Ask Tiv’ occasional series to answer your burning questions. And if you have a situation – personal or oceanic – that you’re curious about, I’d love to break it down with you.

Subscribe now

What Happened

Here’s what we know about Timmy, a humpback whale that found its name after getting stuck on a sandbank near a beach town called Timmendorfer Strand, just off the German Coast. Humpback whales don’t usually end up in the Baltic Sea, where the low salinity impairs their buoyancy and can hurt their skin. On March 3, Timmy got caught in a fishing net and, over the coming weeks, would end up stuck multiple times in the bay. There were numerous rescue attempts to try to guide the whale back to its home: firefighters, coastal police officers, veterinarians and nonprofit groups that work in animal rescue. Every time Timmy was dislodged, he would get stuck again in the shallows.

Timmy’s story gained national attention in Germany, and a livestream was set-up so everyone could watch him “fight”, with his fins flapping and his deep, loud cries. The deep empathy and compassion for Timmy’s plight soon turned into fury. Experts brought in by the government to save the whale faced accusations of animal cruelty and even death threats. Some believed government budget cuts were to blame for not trying hard enough to rescue the whale. Some Timmy fans were convinced that the local museum only wanted the skeleton so it could be displayed to attract more visitors and make more money. On April 1, The government called off rescue operations and shifted to a marine hospice, saying it was clear the whale would die. Appalled, two private millionaires stepped in to fund a highly criticized €1.5 million rescue operation: “if it’s possible to fly to the moon, it must be possible to save a whale.”

The private rescue team struggled, with one veterinarian calling it a “dumpster fire.” In the end, the team managed to pull Timmy into a water-filled transport barge and released him off the coast of Denmark, close to shipping lanes. Seven days later, on May 14th, Timmy died, his body washed up on a small Danish Island of Anholt. Days later on the beach, there was a camera livestreaming Timmy’s carcass as gulls feasted.

What I Noticed

Timmy’s story is unfortunately not unique. It reminded me of Keiko (the orca from the hit movie Free Willy and the global campaign to save him from a cramped tank in Mexico City) and Toa (a stranded orca calf in New Zealand). They both died despite us humans deploying all the resources, expertise, and passionate desire to save them. What’s striking is that these situations don’t lack creativity. For Timmy, there were an amazing range of ideas for how to rescue him:

• Police boats, inflatable boats, and firefighter drones were used to generate waves to help the whale return to deeper water.

• A large excavator dug a channel about 50 meters long, six meters wide and 1.2 meters deep to create a path to deeper water.

• A privately funded operation involving mobile cranes, large floating pontoons, inflatable cushions and pipes arrived by convoy. The plan was to drape the whale across two air cushions and a tarpaulin stretched between pontoons, then tow it to open water.

• An inventor from Austria suggested building a swimming pool around the whale.

• A self-confessed whale ambassador has composed a song of ritual healing called HeJaWa, claiming it would give energy to the whale and help to free it.

What wasn’t designed: how everyone would work together, generate trust, and build a shared understanding of what they were really there to do. Because as much as everyone believed what they were doing was for Timmy, I was struck by how many other dynamics were at play: personal feelings of powerlessness, dissatisfaction with government, distrust of experts, how we disagree, what a dignified death means, and and and…we lost sight of what Timmy needed. He deserved that from us, given how our industrialization of the ocean contributed to his demise. As a veterinarian from Hawaii observed, Timmy was a fighter. It’s painful to watch his agony so intimately. How we understand, acknowledge, and work with the emotional intensity in moments like these was a critical element that seemed to be missed.

What To Try

Here are some ideas that could have helped put Timmy’s welfare at the center and support the rescuers, government, and wider community to not devolve into accusations and violent threats.

1. Embrace the Grief

Empathy for Timmy was profound. His plight brought politicians to tears and hundreds of people every day to demand the government do everything in its power to save him. They likely were doing what they could, but the public didn’t believe it. To temper these calls to do more, well-intentioned experts and officials shared facts, statistics, and complex marine ethics. It only backfired. Things took a negative, destructive turn not because community members were malicious, but they felt their core worldview was being attacked. It created ripe ground for conspiracy theories to grow.

When there is such a high-profile tragedy like this, our brain struggles to accept that it was random. A villain and enemy (like the government, scientists, and marine rescue experts) is often more comforting than total chaos. And when we are so powerless to do anything, we seek hidden truths (“they are too lazy to save Timmy”) to feel a sense of control. And we seek out communities where we share (and feed) our theories.

No one defeats a conspiracy theory with a debate. It begins with validation of the underlying feeling that’s motivating them: “I completely understand why you think there isn’t enough being done for Timmy – it’s heartbreaking to see him in such distress.” Instead of treating the public grief as an obstacle or impediment, acknowledge those feelings, make them feel heard, and give them space to come out in ways that enhance openness to consider other narratives.

This could happen in interviews, something like: “we are so appreciative of how the public so tirelessly keeps us focused on what’s best for Timmy and ensures we are putting all our resources to saving this beloved whale.” Grief can be embraced in physical ways, too.

Take a look at this photo from a “protest.” There are fences, a strong police presence, and so many people packed in to show their support for Timmy. Instead of referring to it as a protest, what if it were reframed as a community vigil or support group to make everyone feel included in the rescue. The fence sends a message of “keep out” and “you’re not wanted.” What if instead of a fence, there was a rope where people could tie ribbons and write messages for Timmy and the rescue teams. It might look something like this.

2. Put Yourself in Timmy’s Fins

My 6-year-old son recently asked me if I would rather understand animals but not speak with them, or speak with them but not understand what they say. Definitely the former. I would absolutely love to know what animals want to communicate with us. I suspect we generally misread what animals really want, despite our best efforts and intentions.

In similar cases of whale strandings, when assessing proper course of action, the public tends to undervalue animal welfare and overvalue animal survival. Experts tend to focus on physiological and behavioral indicators of wellbeing to assess the inner state of the animal, while the public tends to focus on rescue effort and visibility. The underlying assumption is that doing more is doing better. But every intervention carries inherent risk. In Timmy’s case, the repeated strandings, declining condition, and cumulative stress –all while in water that wasn’t his home and being gawked at by humans – likely made his last weeks and days on earth miserable. How might the wider public bring more focus to Timmy’s welfare, not just his survival?

Two ideas come to mind. First, is to create accessible education for how to understand Timmy’s behavior. Show photos and videos of healthy humpbacks and compare them to Timmy. It’s easy for non-experts to misread the cues. I once saw a video explaining that when dogs open their mouth and lick their lips they are actually stressed out. I had no idea. Maybe there was something so obvious to experts that was easy for the public to miss.

Put posters at viewing points or create memes so people are continually reminded of how Timmy is experiencing this moment. Taking this even further, there could be a theater-type facilitated community exercise where people experience the world from his perspective: what does it feel like to be tied up in a fishing net? with skin lesions? and compressed organs? This would help people focus first and foremost on what’s best for Timmy, not what would help to relieve our own feelings of sadness, guilt, anger, and powerlessness.

3. Give People a Job

Watching Timmy suffer made people feel helpless. The direct rescue efforts were (rightfully) led by experts. All that was left for the public to do was watch. What if the constant groups of onlookers could actually be put to good use, so they felt invested in the story, not just observing from the outside (and more likely to rage).

It could be something as simple as citizens holding each other accountable for how to treat the whale with respect. In the same way you have a designated adult watch the pool when kids are swimming, there could be a sign up sheet for volunteers to make sure no one got in the water or made loud noises. They could wear cool pins or hats, with “Timmy’s Crew” on it. If appropriate, there could be other roles to support the rescue that don’t require expertise, like bringing food to the rescue team or cleaning supplies on the beach.

The livestream was an opportunity to engage the community more actively. Without context, the livestream fuels misinformation and conspiracies. What if it was accompanied by commentary that paired marine experts with at least one highly relatable and trusted local figures for raw, unedited content. The public would submit questions in a less combative environment.

Given the situation was described as “uncharted territory,” the obsessive livestream attention could also be used to recruit Citizen Scientists. The public could contribute observations, tag behaviors, or even assess welfare indicators. It could be gamified with leaderboards for numbers of verified contributions. Spectators become contributors.

4. Build a Legacy

After Timmy died, I didn’t see any mention of public mourning rituals to help people both feel the loss and do something with their hands to process the grief. What if there were initiatives that honored Timmy and his fight for life. There could be a yearly gathering of “Timmy’s Beach” to clean up local beaches. There could be a “Timmy’s Net” project to remove ghost fishing gear from the Baltic, like the rope that tangled around Timmy’s body early in his story. Ghost gear removal is underfunded, its removal can help prevent other whales from facing the same fate.

There could also be open calls for art exhibits for people to express what Timmy’s story meant to them. What if kids were invited to create images and stories of what Timmy’s ocean should look like: “what would Timmy’s world look like if we got it right?”

What if these rituals and initiatives don’t wait until the end, but already show up in small doses throughout the process?

5. Collabor-act.

Timmy’s story attracted an amazing range of resources: creativity, money, expertise, passion. But there was almost no investment in the infrastructure to connect any of it. Organizational psychologists call this coordination neglect when groups naturally pour energy into effort and ideas while chronically underinvesting in the structures that make those things work together. This isn’t sexy, but critical to actually get the most out of each of these assets.

We usually only realize that we need this infrastructure when it’s too late, or it comes together by accident and not by design. From the start, a public advisory group, including marine biologists but also ethicists, grief counselors, and even a designated “public advocate,” could help surface and navigate these tensions and communicate hard calls. Otherwise, everyone is reactive rather than taking a proactive stance based on a co-generated set of values and operating principles. All the worker bees need a hive to come home to.

Creative energy and emotional intensity need structure to become productive rather than destructive. Water needs banks to give rivers direction and force, so the water doesn’t just spread out and become a swamp.

RIP Timmy.

Love,

Tiv

Share

Subscribe now

Inspiration

Almost 14 million babies around the world are born premature, before 37 weeks. Of these babies, almost 1 million die; it’s the leading cause of death for children under 5. And almost all of these deaths are preventable. Enter: the incubator.

These tiny babies have so little fat (my own daughter was born at 4.5lbs – they are seriously teensy weensy) that they can’t regulate their own body temperature. Hospital incubators offer consistent, life-saving heat in those critical early days and weeks. The catch? They cost as much as $20,000. Each.

If you were tasked with getting more incubators into more hospitals to save more premature babies, what would you do? Probably you’d find ways to reduce the cost of existing incubator designs by eliminating parts and using cheaper materials. Obvious, right?

That’s what a team at Stanford thought before traveling to Nepal to see firsthand the needs and challenges up close.1 What they saw shocked them: donated incubators lying empty around the hospital. How could there be unused incubators when there are so many babies in need? Turns out, the babies that need the incubator are often born in the mother’s home, often 30+ miles away from the hospital. Even if a new mother felt able to travel, she was unlikely to leave her newborn in the hospital for more than a few days, even if they needed to stay in an incubator for weeks.

If the team wanted to design an incubator that would actually be used, they would have to learn about their users. This was not just a technical cost-reduction challenge: how might we create a baby-warming device that helps parents in remote villages give their dying infants a chance to survive? The person they were designing for wasn’t the hospital budgeters or the doctors, but the mothers.

With this new question in mind, the team went through countless iterations of the product, which transformed from a typical incubator to a tiny, portable sleeping bag. They created quick prototypes (imperfect versions of the desired product) and tested it directly with mothers to understand the factors that would lead them to accept or reject the device.

The team learned things they could have never known if they just designed from their office in Silicon Valley. For example, during a trip to a village in Maharashtra state in India, the team asked a group of moms to warm the pouch to 37 degrees Celcius, as noted on the built-in temperature indicator, to regulate the baby’s temperature. One of the moms explained that in their community they believe Western medicine is too powerful. If a doctor prescribes one teaspoon of medicine for her baby, then: “I give him just half a teaspoon. Just to be safe. So if you ask me to heat it to 37, just to be safe I would heat it only to thirty or so.” The team didn’t treat this feedback as “user error” or fringe case, but as a critical constraint and input for their design. So now, when the pouch reaches the correct temperature, the indicator says “OK” instead of a numeric value for parents to question. Designing directly with the end user —not just once, but over and over and over again— led to discoveries and improvements that saved lives.

Why it Works

We can only come up with more innovative ideas when we better understand the needs and context of the people we are creating solutions for. When the Stanford Team started, they focused on the end-user as the hospital clinicians. They could have stuck with that, making a more cost effective incubator, but they wouldn’t have tackled the underlying condition they wanted to change: premature babies dying preventable deaths. That was only going to change when they actually designed for the person who would use it.

In conflict, we often focus most on one user: ourselves. This is critically important: we need to know what we want, our limits, and our alternatives. (There’s so much more here, for another post soon). While this is essential, it’s only half the job: the other side is also a critical “user.” We don’t tend to design for them, and that’s understandable. You may see them as out of line, delulu, crazy, evil, etc. etc. … And yet, a sustainable solution often requires the other side to choose to agree. So our task is to help the other side say yes: How might we design an offer they can’t refuse?

We often forget that on the other side of the negotiation “table” is not a country, or institution, or ideology, or caricature, but a human being, with vivid dreams and tummy aches. When we don’t spend time getting to know the person, we tend to assume we want different things and usually dismiss their ideas. We don’t have to connect with them emotionally —and actually, that’s less effective than focusing on what the other side thinks and values. Adam Galinsky’s research shows that perspective-takers more consistently find hidden agreements and create win-win value than emotional empathizers, who more often get worse deals because they were swept up in the other side’s distress or pressure. When we do our homework on the other side, our user, we can figure out how to make it as easy as possible, not harder, for them to do what we want.

That’s exactly what happened to get a brutal leader to step down from power in Haiti.

Inspiration x2

As President of Haiti from 1988 to 1990, General Prosper Avril came to power in a bloodless coup and ruled in a state of siege, mass arrests, and country-wide strikes that paralyzed the country. Amnesty International described his rule as “marred by serious human rights violations,” and he once ordered human feces to be dumped outside offices of several opposition organizations. Many tried to use typical leverage to get him out of power, like threatening to cut off economic aid. Avril dug in.

When US Ambassador Alvin Adams arrived in Haiti, he took a different approach. Instead of backing him into a corner and issuing ultimatums, he connected to Avril personally, as a human being. In a 2:00am “heart-to-heart”, Adams appealed to Avril’s sense of history and framed stepping down not as a cowardly defeat, but as a patriotic act necessary to save the country. Adams spoke about how his own wife, who was Vietnamese, had lost her homeland to war and urged Avril to prevent Haiti from the same fate.

After consulting with his wife, Avril agreed to go, but he needed a graceful transition. He was turning 53 that Saturday. Adams understood it was meaningful for him to have this weekend to gather his family, pack their belongings, and say goodbye without the chaos of an immediate forced flight. On Monday, March 12, 1990, Avril and his family were driven to the airport on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince and flown safely into exile in Miami.

Adams didn’t just understand Avril, he designed a product (the dignified exit) that Avril could actually say yes to. As much as we might disagree, even despise, the person we’re negotiating with, we have to find a way to connect with them – not to agree with or condone their behavior, but to recognize that they are the ones we want to say yes. It’s the mothers who use the life-saving pouch. It’s Avril who chooses to step down.

Why not try?

In every crime-fighting show I’ve ever watched —and I’ve watched plenty— there is always a thick dossier on every person involved. That’s standard protocol: they think about criminals as people, not just obstacles.

Your first job is to meet them where they are —not where you wish they were, or where you think they should be. Bring fresh eyes to your understanding of who they are, no matter how well you think you know them. We tell ourselves plenty of stories about people, but we usually don’t actually know the full picture of what’s going on for anyone else. Challenge yourself to ask open questions and actually listen to the answers. Don’t worry, you can go back to believing they are insanely ridiculous afterwards.

We have to know a mind to change a mind. Here’s how. As the other side, from their world, consider what their answer might be (or better yet, if you can, ask them!):

When you answer these questions, pay attention to what surprises you or leads you to want to learn more. Allow yourself to make connections between seemingly unrelated insights. Something small —a personal connection, a new frame, or unexpected detail— can give you a different perspective on how to help them do what you want. When you have a stronger grasp on who they are, ask yourself: what would it take for this specific person to say yes? Once you answer that, then help them get there.

Remember, this can be fun. And even more fun when you have others to do it with. Find a friend and role play being that person. You might be surprised by what you discover.

Share

Jim Valvano was a beloved college basketball player and coach in the US, who notably took a long-shot team at NC State to win the national championships in 1983. Even better, they won by defeating the heavily favored Houston Cougars by 2 points with a last second dunk, capping one of the best upsets in basketball history. The team was known as the “cardiac pack” for surviving and advancing through nine consecutive elimination games.

I love these kinds of unlikely stories of teams doing extraordinary things beyond what anyone could have imagined. In retrospect, you can see clearly why they won the championship, but at the beginning few if any could see it. Except the coach.

Four years later, Jimmy V, as he was known, was giving a speech to a group of business people about how to reach the top of a competitive field. In basketball, cutting down the nets means reaching the top. At the start of the year, there are 290 teams, and only one cuts the nets. When the odds are stacked against us, we tend to set our sights low. In his first game, after eight years of diligent preparation, his team lost by 72 points. Past failures clearly don’t signal future success, and yet so many of us stop believing we can reach our goals when we hit bumps. This happens so often in long-running conflicts, when failures stack upon failures and the narrative goes: peace isn’t possible.

How do you get motivated to dream after facing so many setbacks? In this speech (at 39:39) Jimmy V attributes his team’s ability to do the seemingly impossible in part to one practice each year where there were no balls and no drills. All they do is practice cutting down the net. He describes the scene: they have golden scissors, they lift each other up, they twirl around the net over their head in jubilation. As they watch the tape of themselves cutting down the nets, they see themselves experiencing the joy and possibility of getting what they most want.

The gift Jimmy V gave his team: he believed. Then his team did, too.

Why it Works

I live in Colorado surrounded by mountains. Whenever I go for a hike and stand at the bottom of a mountain and look up I think: wow, how in the world am I going to get up there? The first steps feel the hardest, wondering if I’m going the best way and if I have what it takes. Alternatively, if I mentally put myself on top of the mountain as if I’ve already hiked up and looked down, the way backwards is much clearer.

That’s what Jimmy V did with his team. They put themselves “on the mountain top” when they cut down the nets, embodying the imagined desired future. From that place, it’s much easier to see how we can get from there to here. Even more, it clarifies what we’re really after – what we really want. In the midst of conflict, we so often lose track of what we really want. The exercise helps focus and create tangible definition for our deepest desires. Even if it’s unlikely, it’s possible.

The power of imagination is grounded in science. Our brain activates the same motor pathways whether you’re physically performing an action or vividly imagining it.1 It’s a common practice in sports to visualize the outcome you want and dedicate as much to mental preparation as physical. In the years leading up to his historic Beijing Olympics, every morning and night Michael Phelps would “put in the videotape” and watch the perfect race in vivid detail, and keep doing it through unideal scenarios like goggles filling up with water. Psychologist Peter Gollwitzer shows that people who mentally simulate how they will achieve a goal, specifying when, where, and how they will act, dramatically outperform those who will simply intend to achieve it.2 He calls it ‘implementation intentions.’ We can essentially trick our brain; it can’t fully distinguish between vividly imagining doing something and actually doing it.

I saw this work first-hand when working with a team to find ways to avert nuclear war between the US and North Korea during the 2016-17 tensions when President Trump and Chairman Kim were playing a game of nuclear chicken: who was going to back down first? Some estimated the chances of nuclear war at that time were 50-50. That risk was so unacceptably high given the immense damage and death a nuclear war would wreak across the globe. And yet we found few people who could actually imagine a different scenario in which both President Trump and Chairman Kim could claim victory, could claim strength, could get what they most wanted without going to war.

If we had a transformed partnership between the US and North Korea, what would we see? We created the images we would want to see in the history books that would reflect the dreams of these two leaders. We photoshopped (pre-AI, so it was cuter and charmingly imperfect) an image of President Trump, the global peacemaker (as he saw himself), at the DMZ (the symbol of continual war) bringing Chairman Kim and President Moon of South Korea together in agreement.

Not reality. A Photoshop we created in 2016 at the height of nuclear chicken.

Would an image this playful be taken seriously in the halls of power? I wasn’t so sure initially. We brought this photoshop to top government officials, and it never failed to get a small, sometimes even a chuckle.It’s shocking to the system to see an image of such an unlikely, even if mutually desired, future. It brought people into a totally different headspace, from being a skeptical analyst to a grounded dreamer of what’s possible. This Photoshop became a sort of Rorschach inkblot test, surfacing their unexplored assumptions and beliefs. It opened a new strand of thinking about what would need to be true for such an image to end up in the history books. It wasn’t about predicting the exact perfect scenario, but unlocking more creativity and bold thinking that sometimes doesn’t have space to play in such high-stakes conflict.

The game of nuclear chicken that could have ended in nuclear war, turned into a love story.

Off the cutting room floor: one of my favorite images we created of President Trump and Chairman Kim playing golf at Trump’s resort in New Jersey. A little silly? Yes. Likely? Probably not. Mind expanding? Yes.

Subscribe now

Mashup: Cutting Down the Nets in the Strait of Hormuz

A few weeks ago, in Islamabad, mediated by Pakistan, in-person negotiations began between US and Iranian delegations led by Vice President JD Vance and Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. Both sides are under enormous pressure not to appear weak and there’s a very narrow space for potential agreement. How could they practice cutting down the nets?

What if…before any negotiations began, the two sides did a dry run of success?

They made a (fake) text to their respective leaders that “we did it!”, signed a (blank) piece of paper, shook hands, brought in the photographers. And then: what if that image was printed and hung on the wall of the negotiating room? A small, slightly absurd reminder of what they came there to do.

Maybe it would look something like this:

In case it’s not obvious, this is a collage I made on Photoshop. It’s not real.

Might that change the tenor of the conversation? Their understanding of the purpose? Their personal belief in what was possible? If Jimmy V taught us anything, it’s that it’s worth trying.

Why not try?

Next time you’re stuck in a tricky conflict, when you’re not sure what to do next, find your version of cutting the nets. What would be a physical embodiment of success? Let your brain rehearse what your body hasn’t done yet. Stand in that future you want, however unlikely it feels, and look back at how you got there. What’s your image of success? How can you live it?

Share

Subscribe now

Conflict can touch on our most tender places as humans. It can fuel violence, harm, and trauma that cycle over generations. The seriousness of these challenges can make us believe we need buttoned-up seriousness to solve it. Given the state of violence today, I suspect that strategy isn’t working so well. We’re craving new ways of handling our differences. I’m struck by Einstein’s notion that we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

What I keep coming back to: what if we meet serious conflict with serious play?

Subscribe now

Play unlocks a deep layer of intelligence we rarely access as adults. When we do, something shifts in us: aliveness, joy, excitement, humor, creativity, and new ways to see our disagreements. Conflict is critical energy for change, and we can harness that energy when we have fun with what’s hard.

This space is for all of us (me included!) who want to get unstuck and use the power of play to navigate our most challenging conflicts creatively, from the kitchen to the situation room. Whatever happens, let’s try it together and have some fun.