The Anatomy of PEACE. RESOLVING THE HEART OF CONFLICT. The Arbinger Institute

vel of the pyramid is about building relationships with others who have influence with the person or group we are trying to help. You have the biggest influence in your children's lives, so if we want to be a positive influence with your children we better have strong rela¬tionships with you. The pyramid reminds parents of the same thing—that they must build relationships with those who have influence with their children, beginning with their spouse. Or former spouse, for that matter."
"How about with their friends?" Ria asked. "Are you saying we need to build relationships with them?"
"I hope that's not what you're saying," Pettis spoke up. "I don't want my daughter to have some of her relationships. That's been part of the problem. I want her to pull away from them."
"Has your detached denouncement of those friends invited your daughter to pull away?" Yusuf asked.
Pettis hesitated. "Not really, no."
"Then you might think about applying the pyramid to your situation," Yusuf said. "Let's take a look at the overall structure."
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Looking at Pettis, Yusuf continued. "I take it you've been trying to correct your daughter's choice of friends—maybe by talking her friends down, for example, or by limiting her ability to be with them."
Pettis nodded slightly.
"My guess is that although you've tried to talk with her about this, the communication hasn't gone very well."
"That's mostly true, yes," Pettis admitted.
"If so, the pyramid invites us to think deeper," Yusuf re¬sponded. "The next level deeper invites you to consider how well you have been listening to and learning from your daugh¬ter. Do you know what she likes in those friends, for example? Do you know what her interests are and why she has therefore chosen the friends she has? Do you know what struggles she is having? Do you know, for example, how your divorce has af¬fected her?"
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This revelation surprised Lou. He'd hardly even noted that Pettis was alone. He looked at the learning level of the pyramid. Maybe I don't care enough about others to be curious about them, he wondered. The thought weighed on him.
"Or going deeper still," Yusuf continued, "how strong is your relationship with your daughter? The healthier the rela¬tionship, the more likely she would be to consider your opinions about her friends. Have you been spending ample time with her to build the relationship?
"And then, finally, how about your relationships with others who have influence with her? With her mother, for example, and with her friends."
Lou looked at Pettis, who seemed to be struggling.
"You know," Yusuf continued, "I learned something inter¬esting with one of my own boys. He had a friend I didn't like either. Not one bit. I tried all the standard father strategies. I talked badly about the boy, kept my son from seeing him, and so on."
Pettis looked up from his troubles at Yusuf.
"That's why I could guess what you had tried as well," Yusuf smiled. "When I was complaining about it to Avi one day, he told me that I should begin practicing what I teach! With that nudge, I began to apply the pyramid to the situation. In my case, my son didn't begin losing interest in his friend until I started inviting the friend over to our house. And by then, I'd actually started to like the kid. I was almost sorry to see him go. Until I got out of the box toward my son, my efforts to separate him from his friends only made him want them all the more."
Yusuf looked at Pettis, who appeared deep in thought. "The old saying 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend,'" Yusuf began, "is the arithmetic of the box. Subtract the box from that equa¬tion and you and your daughter may discover new answers.
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"In fact," he continued, looking around at the rest, "we'll all discover new answers. If we apply it, the Peacemaking Pyramid will guide us in all our interactions—in our homes, in our work¬places, and in the world. It will suggest actions to take while keeping our minds and hearts clear. It will help us improve our influence for good in every context, even the most difficult ones.
"That is," he continued, "if we remember to apply the pyra¬mid's important lessons."
23 • Lessons
"Lessons?" Lou asked.
"Yes," Yusuf answered. "The pyramid illuminates three main lessons—axioms that guide its application in all situations. We've already mentioned the first."
At this, he wrote the following.
LESSON 1
Most time and effort should be spent at the lower levels of the pyramid.
"Remember: we want to spend most of our time in the lev¬els of the pyramid below correction, which is exactly the oppo¬site of what we normally do. We want to spend most of our time actively helping things go right rather than dealing with things that are going wrong. We want to get out of the box, build rela¬tionships, listen and learn, teach and communicate. Where cir¬cumstances are such that we choose to engage in correction of some kind—whether by putting a little child on time-out or by sending war planes into the skies above a country that has at¬tacked us—the lower levels of the pyramid become even more important. Correction is by nature provocational. So where we choose to correct, we need to increase our efforts at the lower levels of the pyramid all the more. If we believe military force is necessary, for example, then we would be wise to increase our communicating, learning, and relationship-building efforts even more.
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"When we actively live these lower levels of the pyramid, we normally discover that we need to spend less time on cor¬rection than we have in the past. We also discover that when we need to impose correction, it is more likely to have an impact than it did in the past because our correction will grow out of an ongoing effort and context. It will no longer seem capricious or arbitrary but will feel connected to our deeper efforts to help things go right. Whether at home, at work, or among nations in the world, lesson number one of the Peacemaking Pyramid is that most time and effort should be spent at the lower levels of the pyramid.
"Now for lesson two," he continued.
LESSON 2
The solution to a problem at one level of the pyramid is always below that level of the pyramid.
"This lesson also runs counter to our normal reflex. When our correction isn't working, we normally bear down harder and correct more. And when our teaching is going poorly, we often try to rescue it by talking more and insisting more. That is, we drone on in an attempt to correct the problems we have created by droning on!"
Lou thought of all his "teaching" sessions with Cory.
"If I am correcting and correcting but problems remain," Yusuf continued, "that is a clue that the solution to the problem I am facing will not be found in further correction. Likewise with teaching. And if I learn and learn, even going so far as to re¬vise my opinions, but problems persist, perhaps what I need to do is go out and engage with others personally. Maybe I need to increase my efforts to build relationships both with those I am dealing with and with others who deal with them.
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"Mei Li shared with us one of the key ways we build rela¬tionships here at Camp Moriah: in all that we do with others, we try to 'take off our shoes' with them. We join them in the limitations they face and hold ourselves to the same require¬ments. For example, the lunchtime assignment we gave you yesterday—to see everyone during that time as a person—was an assignment Avi and I took upon ourselves as well. And we pondered the conflicts and boxes in our own lives last night, just as we asked you to do. And just as you have had impressions dur¬ing our time together of things you need to do for someone, we too have had the same impressions and will leave today with the same commitment that you will have: to do what we're feeling we should do to help things go right.
"If I find I have trouble building relationships despite my efforts to do so, this second lesson suggests that a solution, if there is to be one, will not be found simply by spending more time with others. I might have a problem at the lowest level of the pyramid — in my way of being.
"Which brings us," Yusuf said, "to the pyramid's lowest level, and to its third lesson."
LESSON 3
Ultimately, my effectiveness at each level of the pyramid depends on the deepest level of the pyramid— my way of being.
"I can put all the effort I want into trying to build my rela¬tionships," Yusuf said, "but if I'm in the box while I'm doing it, it won't help much. If I'm in the box while I'm trying to learn, I'll only end up hearing what I want to hear. And if I'm in the box while I'm trying to teach, I'll invite resistance in all who listen."
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Yusuf looked around at the group. "My effectiveness in everything above the lowest level of the pyramid depends on the lowest level. My question for you is why?"
Everyone looked at the pyramid.
"You might try looking at the way-of-being diagram from yesterday," Yusuf said.
"I get it," Lou said after a moment.
"What?" Yusuf asked. "What are you seeing?"
"Well, the way-of-being diagram tells us that almost any out¬ward behavior can be done in either of two ways—with a heart that's at war or a heart that's at peace."
"Yes," Yusuf agreed. "And what does that have to do with the Peacemaking Pyramid?"
"Everything above the lowest level of the pyramid is a be¬havior," Lou answered.
"Exactly," Yusuf said. "So anything I do to build relation¬ships, to learn, to teach, or to correct can be done either in the box or out. And as we learned yesterday from the collusion dia¬gram, when I act from within the box, I invite resistance. Al¬though there are two ways to invade Jerusalem, only one of those ways invites cooperation. The other sows the seeds of its own failure. So while the pyramid tells us where to look and what kinds of things to do in order to invite change in others, this last lesson reminds us that it cannot be faked. The pyramid keeps helping me to remember that I might be the problem and giving me hints of how I might begin to become part of a solution. A culture of change can never be created by behav¬ioral strategy alone. Peace—whether at home, work, or be¬tween peoples—is invited only when an intelligent outward strategy is married to a peaceful inward one.
"This is why we have spent most of our time together work¬ing to improve ourselves at this deepest level. If we don't get our
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hearts right, our strategies won't much matter. Once we get our hearts right, however, outward strategies matter a lot. The virtue of the pyramid is that it reminds us of the essential foundation — change in ourselves—while also revealing a behavioral strategy for inviting change in others. It reminds us to get out of the box ourselves at the same time that it tells us how to invite others to get out as well."
As Lou listened, he saw how the pyramid could help him at Zagrum. First of all, he needed Kate back. He hadn't known where to begin, but now he knew that he needed to talk with her—teach her about what he had discovered about himself and tell her about the changes he was committed to making. And he knew as well that he had to ask her to help him see where he was still blind. He needed to learn from her, and he was finally willing to. As for the relationship, he wasn't sure he could repair it, given how he'd acted. But he suddenly knew where he had to begin. He had removed a ladder she was using as a prop for her team because he thought it was a stupid idea. His taking the ladder was symbolic of much that was wrong about his style with people, just as Kate had said. As silly as it sounded, he knew he needed to take her a ladder. He resolved that he would take it to her home in Litchfield, Connecticut, as soon as he and Carol returned home.
Which brought him to Carol. He knew that he tended to¬ward better-than and I-deserve boxes and that others often faded away into the scenery as a result. He was afraid of that happen¬ing again, especially toward Carol. It occurred to him that the pyramid could help with this. If he could keep reminding him¬self to work the lower levels of the pyramid, he would remem¬ber to stay in the middle of learning from Carol—to wonder about her day, for example, and her feelings. It would also help him to remember to keep working to build their relationship —
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to spend time together doing what she enjoys, for example. And at the bottom level of the pyramid, he knew it would help if he could find ways to keep remembering how Carol was the one who had held their family together, often despite him. If he could keep remembering that, it would be much harder to start thinking that he was somehow superior or more important.
Lou looked at the pyramid again. He finally had some hope. But he was still worried. "I'm worried that I'm going to blow it," he confided aloud.
"Of course you will!" Yusuf laughed. "Of course you're going to blow it. We all will. You're a person, after all, not an automaton. If the possibility of failure paralyzes you, you might wonder what box is demanding that you be perfect."
"You're saying I have a need to be perfect?"
"It might be worth considering. Must-be-seen-as boxes can wield paralyzing impact."
Lou chuckled.
"What's so funny?" Yusuf asked.
"I keep telling myself I don't really have any must-be-seen- as issues, but they keep popping up."
"Most of us justify ourselves in all of the basic ways to one degree or another," Yusuf said. "At least I know I do."
At that, Yusuf looked around at everyone—at Lou, Carol, Elizabeth, Gwyn, Pettis, Miguel, Ria, Teri, and Carl. "Regret¬fully, at least for me," he added with a smile, "our time together is about finished. I appreciate the time and effort you have de¬voted to this. You have been pondering your lives in bold ways. I hope you will be both