by Gerry Schmidt
© 2009 Real People Press

It was the summer of 1992, the last day of a residential NLP training in the Rocky Mountains in Winter Park, Colorado. A group of 75 people had bonded very strongly over the past 20 days, and one thing they did as part of their group process was to create a piece of visual artwork representing “our community” or “who we are.” The group started with a big sheet of plywood which they covered with a collaborative painting symbolizing their experience together. It was painted with red, white, black, and yellow to symbolize all the peoples of the earth, and it was filled with a collage of handprints, spirals, a yin-yang, and the individual contributions of every participant. The finished piece was very meaningful to everyone.

Now we were at the very end of a packed three weeks and the group was about to finish their time together and head home. Only one thing remained to be done. The question before the group was, “What are we going to do with this piece of art that is ‘us’?” The group discussion started, and since I was the closing trainer I was somewhat involved with helping facilitate this process. Soon it became clear that most of the group’s opinion was that it should be kept safe and given to somebody who would be the custodian. But the question remained, “How the heck are we going to do this?” We had people from all over the world, and it was not a small piece of plywood. Who was going to take it and how were they going to get it there?

Then one man spoke up.

“Well,” he said, “because this is so challenging, and because we’re spread out all over the planet—we’ve got people from Europe and Asia—my proposal is we destroy it. If we burn it, it will be like everybody has it.”

I could feel the tension in the room mount instantly. It was clear that the group was generally very opposed to the idea of destroying it. It was the end of 20 days, and everyone was tired and ready to leave. I could see in their faces that to most of them, burning the artwork would seem like a great offense to what it represented. The man who had offered the suggestion was thinking on a more abstract level, but most everyone else wanted to keep this piece of art that represented the close-knit community they had formed over the past weeks. They did not want it destroyed.

I was trying to facilitate the conversation and I was not particularly effective. After about 15 minutes we hadn’t made any progress toward a solution, and I had my eye on the clock because we were already going overtime and I needed to get everybody out of the room. It was obvious to me that this was not going to resolve quickly. Even on the “keep it” side there were many different opinions, but that side was becoming more and more polarized against this guy who was saying, “destroy it.” People were getting frustrated and upset, and the prospect of a satisfying group closing was unraveling by the second. At this point somebody in the group stood up and proposed to have a vote at least to get past the “keep it” or “destroy it” alternatives. But before I could respond, a Native American from the MicMac tribe in eastern Canada stood up and faced me directly.

“Gerry, can I take over?” He asked. “I have an approach, and if you give me ten minutes by the clock, I’ll have it solved.”

I had no idea what he had in mind, but I was more than glad to let him take this problem off my hands. I was tired and the discussion wasn’t going anywhere useful, so I told him to go ahead.

He came up to the front of the room and first he asked, “Everybody’s agreeing that we’re ready to get a resolution?” People nodded, so he continued. “I have the solution if you’re all willing to go along.”

Everyone said, “Yeah, yeah, go ahead.”

Then he turned to the man who wanted to destroy the artwork, and gesturing to him he spoke in a soft, deep voice that seemed utterly unconstrained by time.
“In my Native American tradition, when we have a group which is all on one side, and we have one person who is on another side, we would never have a vote to overrule him, because it’s obvious that the majority will win, making him isolated.

“We would never do that to someone.

“The solution is we’re going to turn over the responsibility for the decision to you—the one who’s the isolated person. We’re going to let you decide for all of us.”

There was no mistaking that the words of the Native American were wholeheartedly genuine and sincere. He was really completely giving over the decision to this man.

I could hear people’s jaws hitting the floor, and as I looked around the room I saw eyes wide with surprise. It was an amazing thing to watch the wave of shock move through the room. But then very quickly I began to see that certain people started to get the wisdom in what the Native American had done, and they relaxed a little.

The man who had been given responsibility to make the decision went through his own initial shock. Right at first there was a little bit of glint in his eye which I’m guessing was his self-interest side, but then I could see a change taking place inside of him as well. His face went through several emotional swings, though I couldn’t tell exactly what they meant. Pretty soon he stood up to speak.

“Well I think it’s obvious that we need to find a way that satisfies all of us,” he said.

I could feel the tension in the room disappear. Earlier it had been clear in the man’s argumentative tone that he had set himself against the rest of the group, but as soon as the responsibility was completely in his hands, his resistance simply melted away. It was wonderful. He immediately started moving in the other direction.

“My objection was that there wasn’t a place where we could put the artwork,” he said, “And I want to honor the spirit of what we all did together. Is there a place where we could put this piece of art where everybody would have access to it, and it would feel fair to all of us?”

Very quickly someone who had not been involved in the earlier discussion spoke up.

“I have a place,” she said. “It’s a big barn in the central US where I could hang it. I also have a truck here; we could cut the piece in half to transport it, and once it’s hanging up I can take a picture of it and send it to everybody, and anyone can drop by and visit it at any time.”

Immediately it was done. The shift was profound. The emotional ripple through the room was huge. You can tell the difference between people who are just agreeing because they want an argument to be over, and people who are deeply and fully satisfied. It was quite a wonderful moment. Everybody was really pleased, including the man who had originally objected. The whole group was suddenly aligned and there was a powerful sense of completion.

I think part of the reason it worked so well was because the guy who was given the responsibility had such a strong relationship with the group. The wisdom of the Native American in trusting so much responsibility with this one man made me imagine a culture in which that kind of approach was a common practice. That conception of community would create a profoundly different way of working together.

My MicMac friend looked at his watch and said, “Seven minutes.”

*This story will appear in a forthcoming book about peaceful conflict resolution edited by Mark Andreas.  © 2009 Real People Press.

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