In New York, we are on the ancestral land of the Lenape people.

• We believe in building community and nurturing personal growth.
• We believe effective communication is the cornerstone of healthy relationships and a just society.
• We believe helping people understand their emotions is the key to helping them successfully communicate through conflict.

On our journey together, we need to establish how we will work together – we need to establish the right expectations.

Our restorative and inter-cultural lessons taught us the beautiful term Ubuntu (Pronounced – oo-buun-too).

Ubuntu – is a Nguni Bantu term meaning “humanity” – sometimes translated as “I am because we are” and also “I am because you are.”

You can’t be humanity all by yourself

• Talking pieces serves as a visual reminder that only the person in possession of the talking piece has the floor.
• Talking pieces helps resolve the issue of one person dominating the discussion.
• They encourage active listening and provide a focus on the one point being made at that time.

You will be handed the talking piece as we go around the Circle.

Please share:

• Your name
• Why are you here
• Your Emotional Weather Report

Feel free to pass the talking piece if you do not wish to share.

• Defining Conflict
• Understanding How Emotions Are Made
• Understanding Needs and Personality (and Fears)
• Understanding the Anatomy of Difficult Conversations
• Understanding Effective Communication Techniques
• Understanding Effective Feedback Techniques
• Understanding De-escalation techniques

The Social Field is the natural, pre-given structure of relationships among individuals, groups, organizations and systems that give rise to collective behaviors and outcomes.

All human beings participate in co-creating the complex social contexts they live in and engage with.

Our emotional systems help us maintain balance.

Life is challenging when we interact with the emotional systems of others.

We have the ability to co-create a generative social field in which we facilitate deep conversations about big issues, and shape a safe and supportive climate where individuals in our teams/systems can feel emotionally safe, connected and respected.

There is always a social field, either generative or degenerative depending on how people are showing up.

~ Qualities of Generative Social Fields ~

Take in the words on these two hands to get a better sense of what Generative Social Fields are and what the word Generative means.

Do you ever feel like you’re jumping through hoops? Or that your life is on one big loop?

As we move through life, we usually begin to see the patterns in our thoughts and feelings. These patterns almost always come from things we need, like safety and security or a sense of belonging or they come from things we do not need like stress and conflict.

As we have more experiences we make more connections, and as we make those connections we see that our lives are a circle of Thinking, Feeling, and Being.

And what are we doing with these emotions, feelings, moods, temperaments, and personality traits? Where are we stuck? What do we wish to improve, change, or grow? 

Now let’s get you a bit more information about people.

• Substance.
• Who said what, who did what?
• Who intended what?
• What did you each contribute to the problem?

TRUTH → PERCEPTIONS
Your perceptions are valid but partial. Inquire into theirs.
Approach: Listen

BLAME → JOINT CONTRIBUTION
Take responsibility for your contribution, but not theirs.
Approach: Focus on contribution and improving the future, not blaming for the past

INTENT → IMPACT
Speak to impact on you. Inquire about your impact on them.
Approach: Distinguish between intent and impact. Focus only on what you know (impact
on you), not what you guess (their intent)

• My feelings.
• Their feelings.

Difficult conversations do not just involve feelings, they are at their very core about feelings. The
question is not whether strong feelings will arise, but how to handle them when they do. To what extent
should we try to get rid of them, rationalize them, or accept and share them? Understanding feelings,
talking about feelings, and managing feelings are among our greatest challenges.

When others express feelings:
➢ Listen and acknowledge before problem-solving
➢ Don’t try to “fix” their feelings: Give them space
➢ Look behind the significantly expressed emotions for deeper hidden emotions
➢ Re-translate: hear judgments and attributions as expressions of feeling.

• My self-image.
• Their self-image.

The Identity Conversation looks inward – at who we are and how we see ourselves. How does what happened to me affect my self-esteem, my self-image, my sense of who I am in the world? What self-doubts do I harbor? Am I competent? Am I a good person? Am I worthy of love?

When others are reacting strongly and you think they are struggling with an Identity issue:
➢ Acknowledge and respect the identity struggle
➢ Check-in with person to see if his struggle is something to put on the discussion table
➢ Create safety and space for the person experiencing the struggle

Once you know it, you cannot unknow it.

You might try to ignore it.

And it is still there.

There is no right or wrong.

There is only how I experienced the situation

And how you experienced the situation.

Consensus can only follow if we are working together to understand those experiences.

Choosing a Purpose – what action will you take, and what will you do?

Learning

Expression

Problem Solving

Listen first to understand, then to be understood. You almost never know everything you need to know about the situation. Seek out the pieces of the puzzle you don’t have.

You are an unparalleled expert on you. So, speak for yourself and how you are experiencing the problem. Consider sharing your perspective, interests, feelings, and requests.

You take the lead. Once you have listened to their views and expressed your own, then you should proceed to problem solving. Ask: “Can we find a way to move forward that works for both of us?”

Benefits of Receiving Feedback Well

Your relationships become richer.

You learn and get better at things.

Other people find it more enjoyable to work around you.

It is easier for you to work with others to solve problems.

By your example, you help others see the value in seeking feedback for themselves.

Appreciation

Coaching

Evaluation

You are giving thanks and encouraging yourself to keep doing what you are doing. For it to be effective, it needs to be specific, authentic, and in a form that you find satisfying.

Showing you a better way to do something to help you grow. Coaching can be related to improving your skills or fixing a perceived imbalance in a relationship. (Note: Grace uses the word coaching to mean the act of listening and asking questions to help a person discover the best way forward.)

Tells you where you stand compared to a standard or compared to others. Evaluation aligns expectations and clarifies consequences.

Truth Triggers

Relationship Triggers

Identity Triggers

Truth Triggers are set off by the substance of the feedback itself—it’s somehow off, unhelpful, or simply untrue.

In response, we feel indignant, wronged, and exasperated.

We resist feedback if we think the person giving it has questionable motives or lacks credibility. Also, how the person delivers the feedback may cause us to resist. Instead of hearing what the person is saying, we focus on our issues with the person.

We resist feedback when we perceive an attack on who we think we are. Our brain’s survival functions cause us to move toward pleasurable things and away from painful ones. The brain gets confused when it faces short-term pain necessary for long-term gain or short-term pleasures that produce long-term pain.

Put simply, we must look for strength to say – tell me more than the ease of simply saying what we are hearing is wrong.  The goal is to come to understand what is different about the data that we each have which we call different spotting.

The topic of “who” defeats the topic of “what,” and the original feedback is blocked. We call this dynamic Switchtracking.

Relationship triggers produce hurt, suspicion, and sometimes anger.

For Example:

You don’t like a particular food and your partner keeps surprising you with the meal for takeout.

You say, if you are going to keep getting takeout I need you to know that I really don’t like this food.

Your partner says, Okay, I understand but you should have thanked me first for getting the food.

Go to someone you have established trust with and ask them what one thing they feel you can work on.