Michael: I remember you quoting some interesting statistics in one of the trainings I did with you last year in New Zealand about the reduction in the violent “winning” of conflict.

Richard: Exactly. Yeah, see, that’s one of the things that I really liked about some of the [...]]]>

And here’s part 10 of the transforming communication interview:

Michael: I remember you quoting some interesting statistics in one of the trainings I did with you last year in New Zealand about the reduction in the violent “winning” of conflict.

Richard: Exactly. Yeah, see, that’s one of the things that I really liked about some of the things that Michael Moore was doing in his films. He pointed out that in fact although our media is obsessed with violence, and that’s what has in the past sold newspapers and sold television news, the fact is that violence has actually in many ways around the world been dropping.

And the number of conflicts within countries as well as between countries that are resolved by one side winning and the other side loosing, essentially by violence, by war, by genocide and so on, that number has been steadily dropping for the last fifty years.

That’s a very interesting thing that you wouldn’t get out of the newspapers. And it’s not just some government that is saying that, it’s not just the United Nations that is saying that, that’s monitors from peace organisations around the world who are pretty serious about making sure that this works.

Now, there’s another interesting piece to that because when we check, what we find is that there’re actually, if anything, more conflicts within countries that are raised for mediation. And there are less of them that end up in fighting. You see, if there were no conflicts, no fighting conflicts, and no conflicts at all, I’d be worried, I’d be suspicious. I’d think: how are these being suppressed? Who’s got control of things?

I look back at Yugoslavia before the breakup there and I see, sure there were no fighting conflicts because no one was allowed to conflict. They were eliminated. And so, that’s not the world I want either.
Now, what’s been happening in the last twenty years especially is that the number of mediated conflicts has been increasing. And that’s exciting, it means that people, individually and collectively, begin to feel: it’s going to be possible for us to sort this out.

We can raise this issue and we can find another solution. I think that’s happening in the corporate world as well. That’s what I see happening there. And when I talk to the people from government organisations in New Zealand anyway, I hear the same story.

***
Find out more in part 11 of the Transforming Communication interview…

Technorati Tags: assertive communication, communication skills, conflict resolution, listening skills, rapport, transforming communication