around a backyard dinner party in
Washington DC there celebrating a
restaurant one of them had just opened
it was about 10:00 p.m. there’s a fellow
there named Michael he had his wife and
daughter and he was talking to his wife
when he noticed a hand in the barrel of
a gun come between them
a man of medium build in a clean sweat
suit stepped up and pointed the gun at
his daughter and then pointed the gun at
his wife and looked Michael in the face
and said give me your money or I’m gonna
start effing shooting and it was an odd
coincidence that no one that the party
had any money so they started casting
around trying to figure out what they
were gonna do to dissuade this man and
the first thing that they came on was
guilt what would your mother think of
you didn’t work I haven’t got anything
mother so now it’s tense and Michael’s
looking around and he’s saying someone’s
going to get hurt maybe everybody at
which point a woman named Christina
stepped up and tried a different tack
hey we’re all celebrating she said why
don’t you sit down and share a glass of
wine Michael said it was like a switch
flipped you could feel it the man took
the glass of wine damn that’s a good
glass of wine Michael offered him the
he put his gun in his pocket reached for
some cheese he said hey could I have a
hug Christina hugged him Mike’s wife
hugged him how about a group hug they
all huddled around him gave him a hug
and when they let him go he said I’m
sorry and walked out with this glass of
wine so what happened there
Michael says he knows what happens it
was a miracle and you can see why he
would think that but I want to propose
something different happened I want to
propose that was compassion done
powerfully and by compassion I don’t
mean the casual phrases that we throw
off I don’t mean I feel terrible for you
I can’t imagine how you feel or I know
just how you feel I don’t mean that I
mean finding and meeting fundamental
needs and by fundamental human needs I
don’t mean a glass of wine a chunk of
cheese and a stack of cash I mean those
universal things that we feel we’ve got
to have to survive as tribal animals so
I mean sure safety and security but also
affection connection being seen and
heard belonging so we don’t know what
the gunman needed that night we may
never know whatever it was Christina may
have stumbled on it by accident or by
instinct but he wanted it more than
money and it was strong enough to
deflect a bullet and maybe save a life
and maybe more so the question to us
becomes wouldn’t it be great if we could
marshal that and create those results in
critical situations and it wasn’t a
miracle wouldn’t it be great if we were
adept at handling human interactions so
that we could keep conflict from
escalating or so that we could sidestep
it all together and in my experience we
can and what that takes
is reimagining compassion not as kind of
simple warmth or kindness but instead a
set of concrete practices that you can
use when you don’t want to get into a
test of wills that you can use when
you’re afraid that force will fail or
escalate or backfire pretty simple set
of practices so listen for a call for
help share empathy and share options how
would that look well here’s an example
that comes from work that I’ve done in
healthcare comes up pretty often how do
you cope with a patient or a family
member who’s really upset this comes
from work that I did in a youth mental
health clinic in a really really
difficult part of town so there’s a
woman in the lobby and she’s a patient’s
mother and she’s screaming and yelling
and stomping she’s yelling at her kids
you better get the hell over here you
better sit your butt down you better
listen to your mother and she’s yelling
at the receptionist you better get me in
to see my damn doctor they send out a
security guard he says ma’am you can’t
talk that way she ignores them the
lobbies electric so put yourself in that
situation what are you gonna do if
you’re like most people you’re gonna try
to get her to calm down and that’s what
David tried he was the therapist who had
to go out and deal with her he said
you’re right you’re right didn’t work
failed utterly so what we want to get
clear on is why it failed and the reason
that it failed is that he was dealing at
the level of actions not at the level of
deep-seated needs that we’ve been
talking about so imagine a bull’s-eye
that has needs at its center and actions
at the periphery here’s the problem this
woman comes in and you can tell she’s
got some really deep-seated needs yes so
she tries to come up with an action plan
that will meet those needs and when she
comes up with one she gets attached to
it becomes if only if only I can carry
out these actions I’ll get these needs
met and so those actions stand in place
of those needs so when David walks up
and says you can’t do those actions he
becomes an enemy that’s coming between
her and what she needs and two things
happen
he becomes an enemy someone’s standing
between her and her needs and she
escalates so she won’t listen to him and
she escalates so what’s the alternative
the alternative is to go through that
process that we talked about listen for
a call for help and that means thinking
about that dynamic that we talked about
before and bypassing actions and going
to need so looking at that woman and
saying she is not an opponent that I
need to stop she is a person with needs
that she needs badly and she’s afraid
she’s going to fail and that flips a
switch in me and I begin to get more
open then I can exchange empathy with
her so essentially that means going to
this person that I used to see as an
opponent and saying what do you need and
you can use emotions as a guide so if
I’m getting my needs met I’m some kind
of happy if I’m not getting my needs met
I’m some kind of suffering I’m in pain
or I’m angry
so David steps up to this woman and says
you seem really upset that’s the emotion
do you need attention that’s the knee
she didn’t thank him right because
that’s the point she’s been trying to
get across for 30 minutes but if he can
keep that up if he can keep up
acknowledging her needs and
acknowledging her feelings
she’ll experience that as empathy a
switch will begin to flip in her and
she’ll begin to open up and what David
found out when that happened was that
there was a lot of fear behind this
woman’s anger her eldest son had just
been thrown out of his third daycare for
aggression essentially for bullying and
she didn’t see how she was going to get
him care and put food on the table so
she was near tears now that David
understands that he’s faced with a whole
different problem than he thought he was
so now he can begin to share options
with her what looked at first like it
was a demand for her to get in to see
her doctor now shows up is something
that can be solved the whole variety of
ways we can call your daycare center and
explain to them what’s going on we can
get a referral to another agency we can
call your neighbors and see if we can
enlist them and there are other options
so there are a whole variety of options
and that’s important because what we’re
driving with with this form of
compassion is collaboration it’s not
domination it’s not intimidation it’s
not submission and it’s not compromise
this isn’t yell quieter this is a new
set of options that didn’t seem to be on
the table before we could talk to each
other and now model that I’ve just laid
out to you works really well one on one
and it works across domain so it works
all throughout healthcare but we’ve also
discovered that it works with parents
who want cooperation from their kids or
mothers who want a better experience of
life with her mother or an executive
who’s got a corporate initiative and is
trying to get cooperation from another
executive who doesn’t know it to them so
it transfers across domains but you
might ask yourself okay good
it works with friends and family it
works with colleagues works with
customers that’s nice
what about people who hate you what
about your enemies and it’s great that
it works one on one but we have systemic
issues
what about systems does it work on the
system-wide basis and Connie rice might
have been asking herself those kinds of
questions a few years ago Connie rice is
a civil rights attorney and activist in
LA and her lawsuits have brought in
better than 10 billion dollars in
damages as she’s tried to protect and
fight for communities like the Watts
neighborhood in LA you may be familiar
with the Watts neighborhood it’s got a
tough history that’s a place that people
described as a cross between a tenement
and a dilapidated army barracks in 1965
you might remember the riots ended up in
34 deaths and 40 million dollars in
property damage and when you’re talking
about property damage as a result of
riots in your neighborhood you’re
talking about rocks and bullets and
broken glass and fire riots again
following Rodney King’s arrest in 1991
this time 55 deaths and a billion
dollars in damages it’s a tough
neighborhood in the 80s and 90s there
were so many homicides in this
neighborhood that parents took to having
their kids sleep in the bathtub and the
police responded with paramilitary
campaigns you may remember
cops and riot gear campaigns that went
by names such as crash or operation
hammer and it was rape as a result of
those campaigns and the Rodney King
incident Connie rice went to war in her
words went to war with the LA Police
Department and began to launch lawsuit
after lawsuit after law
suit and was successful until she
stopped and you might wonder why she
stopped after 20 years and the reason
was she looked at that neighborhood and
said this will never be enough these
lawsuits will never end you cannot
legislate behavior change this community
I’m trying to protect is segregating and
in her words turning into a killing zone
so what do you do she said this problem
will be solved with empathy and
compassion over the course of 18 months
she interviewed nine hundred police
officers think of what an act of courage
that is to go into the heart of a group
that you’ve been fighting for 20 years
and ask what do you need and what she
heard was fear beneath her brutality
time and time again MS Rice I’m
terrified a black man MS Rice you know
those black men they come out of prison
they have that great Hulk strength I’m
afraid they’re going to kill me can you
teach me how not to be afraid of black
men how tough is that to hear from a
group of people who’ve pulled over your
neighbors pull them out of their cars
thrown them on the ground and search
them with no provocation and her
response to that was not labeling them
but saying to me and my community that
sounds like racism to you it doesn’t
it’s a true expression of fear and any
solution that we got that we’re gonna
come up with that’s gonna work has got
to work for my community and it’s got to
work for you as well so we need to work
together there’s a model of courage so
they came up with a new model of
policing they brought together the
community civil rights advocates
the police force and they came up with a
four pronged model of policing police
hanging out in the neighborhoods
tutoring kids setting up sports teams
and even setting up health screenings
and you got to ask yourself come on this
is a this is a gang torn neighborhood
this is a neighborhood with a
paramilitary presence in it and you’re
gonna form study groups and health
screenings how did that work in
Nickerson gardens where it was piloted
sixty-six percent drop in property crime
ninety percent drop in physical crime
that means people getting hurt the Watts
neighborhood is still torn by struggle
between police and the residents but
overall seventy percent drop in
homicides been very effective held up as
a model around the country and that
model that we talked about that model of
interacting of showing compassion and
empathy works system-wide in other areas
as well it works when for example you’re
trying to reduce recidivism among prison
inmates and it’s been shown to be
effective at fighting bullying in school
districts where zero-tolerance policies
fail so it generalizes what’s the take
away compassion is power compassion is
not what you fall back on when force
fails compassion if done deliberately
can turn enemies into allies and when
that happens you’re solving different
problems that you started with and
you’re facing solutions that weren’t on
the table and weren’t in your
imagination when you start it
compassion espouse so what does that
mean to you I don’t know what part of
the world you’re trying to change or
what change you may feel being
thrust upon you right now but wouldn’t
it be great to be powerful wouldn’t it
be great if you could create results
like that at critical times and it
wasn’t a miracle and you can you can win
and other people don’t have to lose you
can create change and you don’t have to
force people and the process can be
healing so how do you start next time
your toe to toe with somebody whether
that’s face to face or whether that’s
over twitter or over facebook or
whatever social media you have next time
you’re face to face with someone who
opposes you who threatens you who annoys
you who angers you whose you see as an
enemy consider that the four most
powerful words that you can use may not
be this will not stand it might be what
do you need thank you [Applause]