Translator: Leonardo Silva Reviewer: Denise RQ
I've gotten into my fair share of arguments.
I think we all have.
And I know that conflict is inevitable,
but I've always felt like there was some way that it could be more constructive.
And I really started thinking about this in Art class,
in my freshman year of high school.
I didn't have any friends in that class, so while I was working on my project,
I was eavesdropping on a couple of girls at the table next to me,
and they were talking about someone who they were in a fight with,
but part of their conversation really stuck out to me.
"Oh, my God. She doesn't even like to fight.
She'll just back down. I can't believe it."
And when I heard that, I remember thinking,
"Wow. I wish I could do that.
I wish I knew how to let go sometimes,
and remove myself from the more aggressive parts of conflict."
So, this conversation stayed with me,
and it's ultimately what led me to begin my education to become a mediator.
And the role of a mediator, for those who don't know,
is a neutral third party that helps people in conflict come to a solution.
And they're unique in the way that they don't tell you what to do,
like a judge would.
All they really do is guide conversations between people in conflict,
so they can come to their own agreements.
So, while I was in one of my first trainings,
essentially learning how to communicate in the midst of conflict,
I kept thinking about those girls' conversations,
and other fights that I would get into with my friends or my family
in my daily life.
And it became very clear
that you cannot schedule a mediation for every argument you get into.
It's too much.
But there are mediation skills that work in a wide variety of scenarios
and I find myself using in my every day.
One I use a lot is called "the golden questions."
And the golden questions are three questions that mediators ask:
"What is your greatest concern?",
"What do you most want to see happen?",
"What do you most want the other person to understand?"
Now, traditionally, these are asked by mediators to the disputants
during the mediation session,
but in my life after I took these trainings,
I found that I was asking myself these questions when I was in an argument.
And my answers would give me an easy and direct way
to verbalize my concerns and my feelings,
and to start a conversation.
And that's what's so great about the golden questions:
it's that you don't need a mediator to use them,
and you don't need to be a mediator.
It's a tool that you can have in your back pocket
and bust it out whenever you need it, kind of like a cell phone.
(Laughter)
When my family first got our cell phones,
it was made very clear to me by my parents
that my phone was a device for communication
and I was expected to answer it.
And that seemed reasonable.
So, while I did my best to uphold that end of the deal,
whenever I tried to call my parents, they would never answer.
(Laughter)
And they were new to phones too, but it really got to me.
So, I asked myself,
"What do I most want to see happen?"
What I most wanted to see happen was fairness.
So, I cornered my parents and I talked to them about it,
about how phones were a two-way device.
(Laughter)
And if I'm expected to answer my phone, they should be expected to answer theirs.
That's the only way that this can work.
And now, several years later,
we all know how to use our phones a little bit better,
and we do have fairness,
because none of us answer our phones. Now we just text each other.
(Laughter)
Sometimes, though, you don't have time to sit down with people
and have a discussion with them like that.
Sometimes, it's a little bit more complicated,
especially when something that is not a really big deal to you
is a really big deal to someone else.
The other day, I was helping my mom fix a doorknob in our house.
So, I went to the basement and I got her some pliers and a screwdriver.
She fixed the doorknob, and then offered to take the tools back downstairs.
So, I didn't have to.
And, of course, I liked that idea, but my dad didn't.
And he really didn't like it, and he said,
"If Madeline got the tools from the basement,
she needs to take them back. She has to."
And my mom and I were confused about that
because she had offered to take them downstairs.
We didn't see what the problem was.
But my dad was adamant, and we were confused.
And in this one moment of baffled silence,
my father asked himself a golden question,
and he told us his greatest concern:
"Since Madeline got the tools from the basement,
she knows exactly where to put them back.
If somebody else takes them downstairs, they might put them in the wrong spot,
and the next person to use them might have trouble finding them."
And then, it totally made sense to my mom and I,
because if you know my dad, you know that he loves "mise en place,"
a culinary term that means "everything in its place,"
and he works very hard to maintain that in his life.
And whether or not him asking that question was intentional,
it's what bridged that communication gap between me, and my mom, and him.
I want to talk a little bit more about my dad for just a second.
My father and I have very similar personalities.
We both like things to go efficiently, smoothly.
We are, dare I say, perfectionists.
But there are some differences in our similarities,
which is where we often clash.
If something goes wrong on my dad's watch,
he will focus on it and improve upon it, until it can be made right.
If I do something wrong,
in my mind I no longer have control over it,
so I forget about it and move on to the next thing that I can do perfectly.
(Laughter)
I am a lazy perfectionist.
(Laughter)
And I find myself asking golden questions in these times
when our modes of being differ.
Once, as I often do, I forgot to wash a dish.
My dad did not forget about that dish,
and was wasting no time in reminding me about how I hadn't washed it:
"Madeline, you need to wash your dish. Why didn't you wash the dish?
You should always wash your dishes immediately after you use them",
all of which are valid points, I will say.
But, of course, my lazy perfectionist self does not like being reminded
when I do things wrong,
and I felt like this conversation was starting to go nowhere
because I was shutting down.
So, I asked myself,
"What do I most want him to understand?"
"Dad, I most want you to understand that we're in the car right now,
on the other side of town."
(Laughter)
"It's physically impossible for me to do anything about the dish in this moment,
and I feel stuck. I don't know what to do."
(Laughter)
"Instead of reminding me about how I messed up,
let's talk about how I can make it right
now and in future times that I forget to wash my dishes."
The golden questions in that moment allowed me
to have a conversation about something, even if it was a small thing,
that might have been hard for me to talk about.
What I'm getting at with all of this
is that everybody has a "dad" in this sense,
whether you call them sibling, or neighbor, or coworker, or Mom.
Everybody has a person
with which communication is a little bit more difficult,
and everybody's conflicts with their respective "dads" look different,
but with each of them comes an opportunity to ask a golden question.
Because while you can't schedule a mediation
for every conflict that you get into,
you can access your own critical thinking skills,
and you can take a step back, and you can ask yourself,
"What is your greatest concern?
What do you most want to see happen?
What do you most want the other person to understand?"
And that is a great moment to turn conflict into conversation.
Thank you.
(Cheers) (Applause)