Traditional approaches to conflict resolution rely on negotiations and changes in training, policies, and procedures. Trying to fix problems after they have already occurred is akin to the desire to improve quality, productivity, and performance in manufacturing and service applications with monitoring alone. If the controller itself is not properly configured, monitoring can do little good. The control system must be redesigned/reconfigured. In conflict resolution, the controller is the human being and redesigning means changes must come about from within. Once this is accomplished, any leftover defects can be identified with monitoring (meaning formal conflict resolution programs), impact factors traced, and problems fixed. This strategy has far better prospects of success. The efficacy of the proposed approach can be audited with proper experimentation. A recent column in USA Today dealt with the topic in reference to the police and the African American community. The second author has trained all police officers in Louisville in compassionate conflict management as part of the 21 St Century Policing initiative.
To deal with this and a myriad of other problems facing humanity, the first author has developed an auditable scientific framework for a better and more peaceful world. The framework consists of two components: (1) Excellence of the External and (2) Excellence of the Internal. Science of External Excellence seeks to achieve the best possible performance in all human endeavors and six sigma is the methodology for it. Science of Internal Excellence refers to the capacity to remain centered in the face of extenuating external conditions that are part of life. The First author’s work and the recent National Science Foundation-supported MIT research show that the level of internal excellence is scientifically measurable and meditation is the wherewithal for enhancing internal excellence. The first author has shown that in the absence of an adequate level of internal excellence, external excellence programs (quality initiatives) deliver sub-par performance and this explains why conflicts arise to begin with. A summary of the framework is posted in the interview on collective evolution here and it is detailed in the book, Pradeep B. Deshpande, PhD (Chemical Engineering) and James P. Kowall, MD (Neurology, Internal Medicine), PhD (Theoretical Physics), The Nature of Ultimate Reality and How It Can Transform Our World: Evidence from Modern Physics; Wisdom of YODA, SAC 2015 (available on amazon).
University of California San Francisco professors Blackburn and Epel have made important suggestions about the link of meditation and the dwindling of telomeres. The first author has shown that the scientific framework for external and internal excellence, of which meditation is a key component, is the pathway to a better and more peaceful world. He has presented talks and workshops on the topic in several countries including the Congress of one and included it in the six sigma course of the MBA program of the University of Kentucky in Athens, Greece that he has been teaching for ten years. Several universities are likely to introduce the ideas in their classes in the coming year.
Further Reading
First published by the King County Bar Association's Bar Bulletin in June, 2010. “Revolutionary shifts in the operational structures of our world seem to call for new definitions of who...
By John ShafferThe first entry in a series of occasional Dear Diary postings by New Zealand mediator, Geoff Sharp, designed to highlight those lonely mediator moments that all of us experience as...
By Geoff SharpBill Lincoln talks about his start in international mediation and how he wanted to end the contradiction of rapid social change and orderly social change.
By Bill Lincoln
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