that a deep and meaningful level to get
what really matters the people no matter
how different they are from you that
proposition sounds a little absurd after
all human psychology is really complex
some people are abused as children
others are loved and supported the brain
of an 18 year old girl who sleeps with
her cell phone is different than an 80
year old man who can’t remember the
names of his children there’s no one way
to understand everyone no broad
operating principle that’s the
conventional wisdom it makes perfect
sense and yet it’s a myth a few years
ago I was watching TV scenes from
Afghanistan a group of teenage boys was
standing in the back of a dusty pick up
waving rifles and one boy wrapped in a
white cloth with dazzling blue-green
eyes was staring directly into the
camera
he looked intent menacing and that was
the point of the piece we should be
afraid because young men were passionate
about killing Americans let me tell you
about another boy my nephew Rory at the
time I saw this piece Rory was a
freshman in college at Harvard but
Rory’s not full of himself in a word
he’s sweet he’s not a hugger but he’ll
always hug me because he knows that I am
he bakes brownies with his young cousins
he wants to be a doctor one day I’m
proud of Rory and I can’t imagine a kid
more different than that one from
Afghanistan except at a fundamental
level these two boys are exactly the
same they’ve chosen their respective
paths join the Taliban go to Harvard for
the same internal reasons they both
would like respect everyone knows that
when you go to Harvard people look up to
you
for the rest of your life and when you
join the Taliban little kids look on and
on as you drive by in that dusty vehicle
they also want community belonging
Rory’s got close friends the men of
Harvard but no closer I bet than the men
of the Taliban and lastly and probably
most important to both they want to make
a difference in their worlds they want
to help those they love what’s amazing
and horrifying is that one will learn to
be a doctor and the other will learn to
kill it’s true that human behavior is
amazingly varied and complex but at the
level of motivation at the level of what
drives us to do all those different
things
we’re actually identical there’s a
formula for understanding why we do what
we do and once you get it you get it
there are 30 basic human motivations let
me give you a quick primer there’s the
obvious the physical we want to survive
we need air food and water there’s a
second category of relational needs that
help us understand how to balance our
self-interest and that of the community
we all want to receive care
understanding love but at the same time
we want to give our love to help others
in our lives then there’s a third
category of needs you’d call
aspirational or spiritual we want to
grow we all crave adventure and beauty
I’m not going to go through the whole
list because everything on the list
you’re already familiar with but don’t
then mistake this for that old high
school sociology lesson where the
teacher says human beings have needs if
they’re not fulfilled unhappiness and
war that’s all true but I’m not here to
make that macro sociological point I’m
here to help you understand the micro
the human individual in any given moment
what drives your mother you
spouse your boss human behavior no
matter how seemingly bizarre or mundane
is designed internally to fulfill one or
some of the common needs if you want to
understand what really matters to a
person at the level of deep motivation
ask which of the common needs
have they been pursuing here’s a story
for my personal life my wife Shelly
sometimes gets upset with me for not
cleaning the dishes to her exacting
standard I can see her there as I’m
cleaning over my left shoulder
pretending to read the mail watching me
now I could easily conclude that’s a
but these brilliant observations don’t
get me very far if I want to understand
my wife and I do I ask a basic question
what needs are driving her Shelly is a
busy woman
she teaches high school full time she
drives our kids everywhere she calls my
mom to say hi and I love you excuse me I
got a little motion yep she calls my mom
to say hi and I love you clean dishes
neatly stacked and put away the fill in
her the common needs for order and rest
finally some peace of mind
and there’s one more huge need
motivating her dishwash spine when I
leave stuff on the dishes like that big
piece of vermicelli hanging off the back
that’s so super obvious to her after she
said Larry do a good job this time this
time please do a good job she concludes
I don’t care about her if you want to
understand everyone including Shelly the
outside world matters to us only because
we’re trying to fulfill needs internally
she doesn’t really care about clean
dishes at depth she like everyone else
wants respect to be loved human behavior
is complex but human motivation is
actually simple we seek these common
needs and nothing else
now I didn’t myself discover that common
needs Drive human behavior the idea was
proposed around 50 years ago by the
psychologist Carl Rogers and then
further developed by the extraordinary
peacemaker Marshall Rosenberg I came
across their concepts around 15 years
ago and they made good sense to me so I
began to implement them in my personal
life to decode family and friends and I
was understanding people I was intrigued
but I was also skeptical
I asked Marshall Rosenberg why 30 needs
and not seven
fifty-five and he said oh it could be 30
or 755 they need to survive for example
could be further broken down into the
needs to not walk off a cliff or to not
be eaten by predators there is just a
useful level of aggregation I thought
okay that’s a good answer but what about
this Marshall what are needs from a
neurological perspective what’s
happening in the brain how do they
actually motivate us and here Marshall
said oh that’s simple needs our
lifeforce human life force and I thought
whoa that’s not science at all and so I
spent the next two years
meeting with neuropsychologists and
speaking with evolutionary biologists
and reading cognitive journals with
footnotes and I eventually concluded
this need stuff is grounded in solid
science and because research shows that
if you mentioned the word neuroscience
or brain in a big talk it’s a thousand
times more likely to go viral let me say
this is neuroscience brain science neuro
and brain neuro brain now I’m not a
scientist
I’m a lawyer a mediator and a writer but
being a layperson has allowed me to
unravel the science to translate it away
from chemicals like oxytocin and
dopamine and into what I believe is a
useful narrative and so here’s what I
believe is going on in the human brain
with needs the human unconscious
evaluates the world telling us whether
it’s dangerous or friendly that’s its
job once it reaches its conclusion it’s
got to motivate the whole system
including the conscious mind to do
something about it how if it concludes
that the world’s dangerous we naturally
feel fear or anxiety we try to get less
of what caused it if it concludes the
world is friendly we naturally feel
happy or excited and we try to get more
but
and this is the key how does the
unconscious determine what’s dangerous
and what’s friendly it’s not just left
up to each of us individually rather the
criteria upon which we evaluate the
world is born into you and born into me
and born into all of us those are the
human needs those specific criteria were
honed through evolution because they
allow us to survive to relate to other
people and ultimately to make more
people am i being respected am i making
a contribution in the world does she
think I’m cute
if so pleasure get more of that if not
pain
change the world it took me several
years to unravel the science in a way
that made narrative sense to me
and yet in that time I actually stopped
caring so much about what was happening
in the brain I was using this and
understanding people in a way that I
didn’t think was possible I was seeing
their hearts it worked and really that’s
what counts
I’d like to tie this together with a
with a story as I said I’m a mediator
when people are at war they they come to
me and I help them work it out not too
long ago I was visited by a couple that
had already been divorced the ex-wife
Sofia said a precious object had gone
missing
what was it Sophia had never met her
father and her mother died when she was
a little girl she was raised by her
grandmother and in her grandmother’s
house hung this large painting painted
by Sophia’s grandmother of Sophia’s
mother Sophia used to look at this
painting when she was a little girl and
imagined herself holding her mom’s hand
and kissing her mom’s cheek Sophia’s
grandmother the painter died a few weeks
before the mediation and in her final
hours she signed the picture Sophia
described this with tears
and finally look to her ex-husband and
she said Frank took the picture
Frank when are you going to stop trying
to punish me for the affair I looked the
guy and his face was cold as stone and I
thought whoa people come to see me
because I can help solve their problems
but I’m kind of a one-trick pony
the thing is I have this excellent trick
I can help them understand each other’s
hidden motivations and I knew something
that Sophia didn’t Frank wasn’t trying
to punish her people often think revenge
is a human motive but hurting another
person is not a human need now how do I
know well here’s a trick I developed a
few years ago that I find very useful if
you ever think that somebody is
motivated by something that doesn’t
personally give you pleasure you
actually haven’t found their motivation
go deeper I don’t get pleasure from
hurting other people if it’s not in me
it’s not a common need and if it’s not a
common need it’s not a human motivation
go deeper revenge is pursued to fulfill
another need but what it varies but very
often it’s a need for understanding if I
hurt you you will understand at the
level of personal pain at the level of
intense personal suffering what you did
to me you’ll finally get it this wasn’t
the case for Frank my theory that he had
taken the picture in order to be
understood for the pain of the affair
was wrong I often guess wrong but that I
was guessing and without blame convinced
him to share something else
his eyes welled with tears and he looked
over at his ex-wife Sophia and he said
so she had become my grandmother too she
was all that I had you were all that I
had Frank was an orphan too just like
Sophia he took the paint
to fulfill a common human need of
connection hurting Sophia was never the
point
Sophia moved next to Frank on the couch
and she wrapped her arms around him and
they sobbed together for ten minutes and
I cried too ten minutes
what was I going to do Frank ultimately
returned the painting to Sophia and she
dug up a trove of old photos of Frank
with her grandmother so that he could
remember his family understand what
happened here we didn’t make the common
an easy mistake thinking that revenge is
a motive instead we went to the source
of all human motivation to the common
needs when Sophia understood that Frank
had simply needed connection human
connection and in particular to her
grandmother she got it she could feel it
and then the magic and then solutions
now many people including some of this
audience are wary of understanding
others and especially during conflict
the thought goes like this if I
understand the reasons you did what you
did I’m basically saying you were
justified understanding seems like
condoning and for this reason people
often say don’t go inside the mind of a
terrorist don’t get them to get a
terrorist is too legitimate terrorism
it’s the be an apologist and for this
reason it was suggested to me that I
dropped from my talk the piece about the
Taliban teenager because then people
might think I condone terrorism let me
make something perfectly clear
understanding reasons is different than
condoning I’ve learned through thousands
of mediations understanding is a power
to shape the world far greater than any
sword or gone understanding is exactly
how you create the world that you want I
began this talk asking is it possible to
understand every
a deep and meaningful level even those
that are different from you and the
asks you for that hair straightener and
just one week after you bought her that
hair crimper and she’s standing at the
top of the stairs with this crazy
crimped hair screaming you just don’t
understand this is how you understand
what is she needed she wants to be
accepted liked the desire to be accepted
to be liked is in you is in me is in
everyone in this audience and so you can
understand exactly what she feels and
that alone will transform your
relationship and then come the solutions
even if it’s only I see you my beautiful
little girl I get you there’s a formula
for understanding why we do what we do
and once you get it you get it human
behavior is complex but human motivation
is simple we seek the common needs and
nothing else we seek the common needs
and nothing else the common needs are
human motivation learn this language of
the unconscious this language of the
heart and you’ll improve every
you
[Music] [Applause]