'TIS THE SEASON - How to Manage Family Conflict

Introduction

With the Holidays fast approaching, festive dinners and family reunions are very much on our minds. The merry partying however is often accompanied by a degree of pressure, due in part, to the potentially volatile human dynamics and family interactions.

With the very different personalities and vastly different opinions and beliefs, we wonder with dread, whether Uncle Jack will opine about his strong political views or if Aunt Mavis might start to pontificate about her religious dogma. These sorts of differences and dynamics mean that family gatherings can quickly become the perfect storm for clashes, conflicts and flare-ups.

However, with the danger also comes great opportunity! An opportunity, to practice and refine our skills so as to manage these potentially volatile conversations and emotionally charged situations effectively, constructively, with grace and with poise, rather than to flee from them.

Below are some strategies to help guide you.

Show Them You Are Taking Them Seriously

Often, when we hear an opinion that we strongly disagree with, our reaction is to viciously attack the “culprit” and then continue to self-righteously defend our own opinion as though we are the sole arbiters of truth. This of course only fuels the conflagration.

Always remember, other people’s views, no matter how opinionated, will never define you, but how you react to those views will. So rather than to strongly and immediately react to their opinions, suspend your reaction and judgement and spend some time really listening to them. Furthermore, demonstrate that you are indeed listening by paraphrasing and reflecting back to them what you have heard.

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Trust, linkage, and cooperation can resolve the Ethiopia-Egypt-Sudan GERD dispute

A circumscribed arbitration process might be able to break the dispute-resolution deadlock.

Introduction

While world news has been centered on COVID-19, an international dispute has been raging in northeast Africa. The spat could have a lasting impact on the African riparian nations who depend on the Nile River for water consumption, agriculture, and navigation.

The dispute revolves around Ethiopia’s 2010 decision to build the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile about 20 kilometers upstream from Sudan. The dam, an approximately $5 billion hydropower project with an installed capacity of 5,150 megawatts, will double Ethiopia’s electricity production, contain about 74 billion cubic meters of water, and provide a significant economic boost for a still struggling country.

In addition to the practical benefits of the dam, it has also become a symbol of national pride and identity, with many Ethiopians having invested of their own money in purchasing bonds to fund the project.

However, the GERD, which has the capacity to hold 88 percent of the mean annual flow of the Nile River, poses a potential threat to the water security of downstream Sudan, and Egypt. It can potentially impact drinking water, household usage, agriculture, fishing, water transportation and tourism. Egypt relies on 90 percent of its water supply from the Nile and about 57 percent of that comes from the Blue Nile.

Although disputes over water rights between Nile riparians have been going on for decades, including after a 1959 agreement between Egypt and Sudan, the GERD has created a new disagreement with new issues that need to be resolved.

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LET'S NOT GET TOO COMFORTABLE WITH VIRTUAL COMMUNICATIONAn Argument for Restoring Face-to-Face Engagement When Life Gets Back to Normal

Introduction
I write this column both as a tribute and as a plea to millennials. Millennials, for whom technology is almost a first language, have been trailblazers in its research, development, application and use. They have taught my generation so much and continue to do so, for which I feel in awe and eternally grateful. However, as the guardians of this new and ever changing world, I appeal to them to never forsake or neglect the richness and depth that real face-to-face communication, interaction and connection generates. As we become comfortable with conducting our affairs on-line, I make a plea to the indigenously technological millennials in particular, to restore a society that conducts its business and affairs face-to-face whenever and wherever practically possible, once life gets back to normal.

How rapidly our world has changed! I still remember (with great nostalgia I might add) the olden days when we could meet our clients and friends face-to-face and have cordial conversation, meaningful connection, direct discourse and productive dialogue.

All that changed in mid-March 2020 when, not just as a community, not merely as a society or not even as a nationality, but as humanity at large we were put under stay-at-home orders and lock down laws so as to contain the further spread of Covid-19. Overnight, our work with clients was relegated to on-line communications only, and we all rushed to master Zoom and other teleconferencing platforms so as to mitigate any interruptions to our services. With a sigh of relief, we continue servicing our clients’ needs almost as effectively as before the lock down (or so we might think).

As a negotiation and dispute resolution specialist trying to adapt to an entirely new mode of communicating, in complex, and at times, difficult conversations, I felt almost like a graduate student faced with a sudden realization that he needs to go back to school to relearn what he thought he already knew! For me perhaps the greatest revelation was that my initial premise that online communication is just a minor variation of face to face communication as I knew it, and barely a deviation therefrom – was an absolutely and entirely wrong premise! Online communication involves a completely new and different set of processes, methods, skills and techniques. Once I internalized this notion, I was ready to begin learning and to embrace online communication.

Yet even after acquiring a modicum of proficiency, and as many of my colleagues proclaim on-line negotiation and mediation to be the new normal even after life as we once knew it returns, I have nagging questions at the back of my mind:

Could President Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev have achieved the end of the Cold War without any face-to-face meetings and only communicating via teleconference each from their respective desks, and ensconced in their respective palaces of power?

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DISPUTE RESOLUTIONMore than Meets the Eye

Introduction
As business leaders, diplomats, professionals or family men and women, we often find ourselves in the middle of disputes and called upon to mediate a resolution. Having a road-map to navigate these delicate situations will add enormous value to your compendium of competencies!

In dispute resolution there is always the excitement of realizing the non-obvious, and the adventure of discovering the unknown!

Parties entering into mediation will typically assert their dispute in terms of their initial presenting positions and perceptions. It may take the form of: “They brazenly breached the contract” or “As a trustee, she exploited her fiduciary responsibilities and stole from the family trust” or “He deliberately misled me with wrong information to get me to sign the contract”

In these particular examples, three characteristics stand out. Firstly, there is the attribution of negative intent as in: “brazenly”; “exploited”; and “deliberately”. Secondly there is the declaration of judgement as in: “breached”; “stole” and “misled”. Thirdly, they have portrayed their counterparts as despicable villains. These are typical in initial presenting positions and perceptions in any mediation.

The excitement of realizing the non-obvious and the adventure of discovering the unknown lies in the mediator’s capacity to dig below the initial presenting positions, and to uncover the true and authentic issues that are really at the core of the dispute.

In this column I will share some tools and techniques towards that end.

Don't Fall into the Assertion Trap
When presented with assertions, it is easy to be persuaded and influenced by them. The danger is that these beliefs then shape our approach to the mediation and our potentially negative reaction to one or more parties to the dispute. We lose our objectivity and neutrality, and in turn lose trust of the parties in us as the mediator, as well as in the process.

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DE-ESCALATING THE ESCALATED CONFLICT - While We Waited for the Iranian Shoe of Retaliation to Drop

Introduction
Recent news of the assassination of a top-level Iranian leader by U.S forces sent shock waves throughout the Middle-East and beyond. If Iran chose not to retaliate, she risked looking weak; being perceived as not avenging the blood of her leaders and martyrs; being seen as allowing herself to be intimidated and bullied; and potentially setting a terrible precedent of not defending her sovereignty and citizens, thereby exposing her flanks to further attacks. For these reasons, retaliation was inevitable.

As Iran and the U.S descended into a potential cycle of attacks and retaliations, a pressing question on the minds of many was: How can we de-escalate an already severely escalated conflict so that we might avoid global destabilization and avert a cataclysmic war?

This question is not only pertinent to international relations, but personal, business and professional relations also: How do we de-escalate an already escalated conflict?

Regulate Emotions Through a "Cooling-off" Period
In the heat of conflict, parties experience abject anger. They feel grossly disrespected and deeply violated. They believe their honor, dignity and pride has been viciously attacked. At this highly emotional and volatile stage of conflict, actions and reactions are likely to be destructively impulsive and often irrational.

Before conflict can be resolved it first needs to be contained and managed so as to mitigate hasty decisions and hazardous behavior. For conflict to be managed and for rational thinking to take its rightful place, it is imperative to establish an initial “cooling-off” period. During this stage, parties are encouraged to exercise restraint and suspend all impulsive actions of attack or retaliation that could further exacerbate the situation.

To successfully implement an effective “cooling-off” period, a mutually trusted and respected neutral mediator who yields a degree of influence, should persuade all parties to suspend any further acts of aggression while tensions are eased to a more manageable level.

In the current U.S. - Iran crisis for example, perhaps someone like President Putin, who possesses power of influence over Iran, might have served as that neutral and encouraged them to withhold any immediate reckless retaliation. (It turned out to be Switzerland. See Wall Street Journal report).

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