Can we eliminate our blind spots?

“Globally, within the first 10 years of the end of a conflict, a third of all conflicts will have resumed.” This was the opening line of a powerful address I attended a couple of weeks ago, in the heart of London, at the Royal United Services Institute.

It was most apt that this talk, on the failure of war to win enduring peace, was held in the military establishment founded in 1831 by none other than the Duke of Wellington, the Anglo-Irish general and statesman, victor of the Battle of Waterloo and twice British Prime Minister.

The question being asked, in this modern age of conflict, is why peace negotiations so often fail to achieve a just and durable peace. According to the eminent speaker, it is because “all peace negotiations contain the seeds of future conflict”.

Lesley Abdela MBE, an internationally recognised post-conflict specialist, with boots-on-the ground experience in over 40 different war-zones such as Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Aceh, Indonesia and Nepal, has worked as advisor to Governments, International Organisations and Civil Society on Democracy and Post-Conflict Reconstruction.

Quick fixes

Abdela described how many a post-conflict administration, made up predominantly of the same military personnel that fought in the war, seek quick fixes to ease the immediate pains of conflict. Unfortunately, this strategy has seen repeatedly to have only a temporary effect before conflict resumes.

Lasting peace, as Abdela puts it, requires a complete new thinking, a paradigm shift, for which success is determined only by who sits at the table to set the agenda for peace.

The art of peace-building is often far more subtle than the practice of warfare, requiring almost the opposite set of characteristics: such as patience, creative dialogue, imagination, empathy, attention to critical detail, and the active avoidance of rivalries and competition.

Unfortunately, as Abdela explains, in many post-conflict situations, the people at the table setting future agendas are usually those with most access to political and economic power – such as diplomats, international organisations, senior military officers and Government Ministers – all armed with personal agendas and riding high on ‘victor’ or ‘warrior’ mentality. Sadly, under these circumstances, the chance for making a real and lasting shift in thinking, and therefore peace, is often shown to be quite remote.

How is it possible that globally, we keep making the same mistake over and over again? Since the official end of World War II, back in 1945, it is reported that the world has yet to experience a single day of peace, i.e. a day without a deadly conflict in some corner of the world.

Blind spots

To gain a better understanding of what is really going on, we must turn to psychology, and the concept of bias, or ‘blind spots,’ in our own awareness. This is where our brains routinely ‘fill in’ for missing information, as it makes sense of events going on around us. This ‘filling in’ process, whilst being automatic, is however far from being 100% accurate.

Think about how we automatically assume attractive people are also smarter, sociable, modest, strong and more outgoing. Marketing gurus have long recognised our many ‘blind spots’ and have used them very effectively to sell us everything from drinks to cars to televisions, making us ‘imagine’ that if we bought their item, we would be more popular, attractive, happier, smarter, etc.

The most well-known of blind spots, however, involves our tendency to see ourselves in a positive light, even when the evidence suggests otherwise. Have you ever wondered how people who clearly lack talent or ability, often tend not to see it themselves? They also tend to see their futures as overly rosy, to see their own qualities as overly positive, take too much credit for successful outcomes and to pretty much disregard any evidence that threatens their self-esteem.

Sadly, this is true for most of us: Our own blind spots make us believe that we are in fact much better than we really are, and that our judgements and beliefs as being more objective and accurate than that of others!

Going back to our post-conflict situation, it has been shown that where there is disagreement (or even imagined disagreement), we are mentally encouraged to believe that it is our opposition that is biased, or lacking in objectivity. These beliefs, in turn, make us much more likely to take conflict-increasing actions against our old rivals. This of course leads to a mirrored response from our opponent, and before too long, the spiral of violence resumes.

But as with our rear-view and side mirrors that work together to eliminate blind spots when we drive a motor vehicle, surely, once we know where they are, can we not do something about it?

Inclusion of women

Abdela, based on very practical and real evidence suggests that the inclusion of women in all stages of the peace-building process has a significant effect on the outcome of the peace effort. Women, whilst being at the forefront of those most affected by the brutalities of war, are also the most suited for the post conflict re-building process for enduring peace. Unfortunately, the reality is that, at a local and global level, women are often the first to be excluded from the peace negotiation table. The overwhelming majority of senior posts in international peace building processes and post conflict recovery are still staffed by men.

In 2000, an United Nations Security Council’s resolution (UNSC 1325), declared unanimously that as women play a significant role in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, they must be equally involved in the process of maintaining international peace and security. Sadly even by 2005, out of 50 Special Representatives of the Secretary-General on peace support operations, only two were women; an ongoing ‘blind spot’ in global and local thinking.

Barack Obama

Last week, we saw a six-day US State visit by President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, unfold across Europe. In each country, they were greeted like superstars, by both public and government dignitaries, with Obama receiving a standing ovation in Westminster, at a formal event attended by Royalty and several generations of British premiers.

It’s clear that in most quarters of the world, Barack Obama, with his highly developed style of communication, has gained a positive reputation, even as a global ‘peace maker’. What it is about Barack Obama’s communication style that has gained him such an overall reputation?

To explore this further, a small survey of adults aged 30 and over, was conducted by Oxford Psychometrics. Professionals ranging from CEO’s to Accountants to Scientists, from a range of countries that included Belgium, UK, Germany, France, Holland, Sweden and of course Sri Lanka, were asked to categorise Obama against two very distinctive communication styles.

The findings, as voted by over 75% of the sample, revealed that Obama, in his interactions and communications uses strategies that convey a message of: valuing people connections, preserving the relationship, promoting equality and symmetry, seeking common goals, a willingness to take instruction from others (if it is perceived as forming a connection), maintaining interactions and seeking greater connection and understanding.

In the above survey, the participants (70% male and 30% female) were unaware that they were being asked to measure Obama against two distinctive styles of communication – one that was typically associated with males and the other with females.

What is interesting is that Barack Obama, consciously and actively employs many aspects of a style of communication and negotiation that is typically, though not exclusively, used by women.

It seems that Barack Obama moves across the male/female boundaries of communication with relative ease, and in doing so accesses information, which might otherwise have fallen upon his blind spots. This finding supports a similar opinion recently expressed in the Washington Post.

We all know that inflexibility of thinking has dire consequences upon our problem solving abilities. Whilst we may not all have the mental agility and confidence of Obama to travel freely across cultural, racial, social or gender boundaries, what is clear is that to eliminate our many ‘blind spots’, we need to cross these boundaries.

It’s been shown repeatedly that companies with a diverse workforce, especially with women represented at all functional levels, has a much greater chance of success. This success is derived predominantly from the reduction of ‘blind spots’.

Whilst we would not consider backing a three-legged horse to win at the races, we routinely invest in companies without looking in to their strategic management style.

Ominous warning

Returning to London, Abdela concluded that as we continue to face significant challenges throughout the world where security issues remain high on the agenda, if we are to have any chance of success, we must draw upon the capacities and talents of the entire talent pool.

In the absence of women at most peace tables, Abdela cautioned, we will continue to fail, like the Greek God Sisyphus, in all our peacemaking and peace-building attempts. This ominous warning went out to a crowded and silent room of military and civil representatives in London: that post-conflict nations, such as Sri Lanka, must include many more women at all levels of the peace-building effort, if enduring peace is to be achieved.