TRANSKRIPTIO 🔗
WEBVTT
00:00:00.018 --> 00:00:05.768
Look at differences like we talked about, as a source of creation,
00:00:05.768 --> 00:00:07.258
not a source of separation.
00:00:07.578 --> 00:00:11.508
It's so beautiful what you're saying. It's so true. You're talking about trust.
00:00:11.508 --> 00:00:16.167
So you're being a mirror for the stakeholders. They are the center of the story.
00:00:16.713 --> 00:00:21.878
And the pedagogy is supposed to do what the Latin word of education,
00:00:21.878 --> 00:00:24.416
educo, which means draw from within.
00:00:24.578 --> 00:00:29.762
Since you started, let's say till now, what is the differences in the,
00:00:30.064 --> 00:00:35.658
I don't know, tactics, values, all the combination of what you're teaching?
00:00:35.658 --> 00:00:37.498
Where are we in that landscape?
00:00:37.498 --> 00:00:43.259
Well, we'll need a week-long podcast then to go through the changes over the last 15 years. Welcome.
00:00:45.024 --> 00:00:49.304
I really, really, I'm happy to see you in person after so long.
00:00:50.284 --> 00:00:53.784
But you know, the funny part, when I was preparing for this interview,
00:00:54.284 --> 00:00:57.784
I went, of course, your digital print is all over the place.
00:00:57.784 --> 00:01:04.684
Very impressive achievements in your teachings, in the interdisciplinary approach
00:01:04.684 --> 00:01:09.758
that you have done amazingly in your PhD, started in your PhD.
00:01:10.118 --> 00:01:14.094
But then you kind of transformed all that into your classes.
00:01:14.640 --> 00:01:21.803
And when I read about WOW, it's one of the 1%, the highest WOW teaching,
00:01:23.644 --> 00:01:29.594
I can't even talk about it because I was so impressed that you have really integrated
00:01:29.594 --> 00:01:34.964
so much of your philosophy into your teachings, into your research, into all that.
00:01:34.964 --> 00:01:41.540
But what I found missing is, who is Bruno Verdini?
00:01:42.464 --> 00:01:48.644
I could see everything about what Bruno did or doing, but I didn't find so much
00:01:48.644 --> 00:01:54.182
about who is the being, who's the human being, who is Bruno?
00:01:54.571 --> 00:01:58.084
Well, what a great way to start, Leila. It's certainly good to keep mystery
00:01:58.084 --> 00:01:59.993
after more than a decade.
00:02:00.434 --> 00:02:06.364
With the blessing of this mission, which has been to create pedagogical spaces,
00:02:07.667 --> 00:02:13.344
from the undergraduates with which I began at MIT to now executives and decision
00:02:13.344 --> 00:02:18.093
makers at the cabinet level, head of government level in more than 80 countries,
00:02:18.824 --> 00:02:24.531
to situate negotiation and leadership as the mission of figure out what you stand for.
00:02:25.454 --> 00:02:31.549
How do you create full consistency between what you think,
00:02:33.215 --> 00:02:39.730
feel, say, and do. If you describe philosophy as an undercurrent of the work
00:02:39.730 --> 00:02:41.533
I do, that's at the heart.
00:02:41.696 --> 00:02:49.990
I want work that is living, where every single soul in the room is respected
00:02:49.990 --> 00:02:53.950
for the luminosity that they bring to the table, and where we take seriously
00:02:53.950 --> 00:02:56.206
that our world could be better,
00:02:57.048 --> 00:03:02.350
regardless of whether people lean left or right, and that we can be agents for
00:03:02.350 --> 00:03:07.462
that transformation by the choices that we make on a daily basis about how we think of our world
00:03:07.851 --> 00:03:13.528
and whether we've got the courage to move from a scarcity mindset into a prosperity mindset.
00:03:14.567 --> 00:03:20.850
Sounds amazing on paper, but in reality, you know, the minute you were talking
00:03:20.850 --> 00:03:23.182
about how the alignment of our
00:03:23.826 --> 00:03:27.466
thinking, being, and doing, and how we need to work on that,
00:03:27.855 --> 00:03:31.590
the first thing came to my mind was, how come it's not aligned?
00:03:31.590 --> 00:03:34.525
Why wouldn't it be aligned? Why wouldn't be?
00:03:35.703 --> 00:03:42.360
Why very, very few have that kind of authenticity that comes out
00:03:43.511 --> 00:03:47.180
through their work, through their behavior, through their communication,
00:03:47.476 --> 00:03:52.357
through their teachings, research, very few. Why do you think so?
00:03:53.965 --> 00:03:57.088
It's a beautiful question that you ask because I think it's a question that
00:03:57.604 --> 00:04:01.064
drives at the heart of a challenge in any society, which is,
00:04:03.334 --> 00:04:08.930
how do you channel your sensibility and relationship to the world to not
00:04:09.859 --> 00:04:17.640
find yourself despaired or believing that you've got to be someone else to move
00:04:17.640 --> 00:04:19.770
ahead, whatever people will define as move ahead.
00:04:19.770 --> 00:04:23.460
And so a lot of people will describe, for example, in our field of action,
00:04:23.460 --> 00:04:27.494
both at MIT and Harvard, not the faculty, but you'll see it on movies,
00:04:27.877 --> 00:04:32.570
negotiation as a domain of manipulation, of tactics,
00:04:33.514 --> 00:04:36.463
of figuring out how can you get one over the other side.
00:04:37.682 --> 00:04:41.995
Or the opposite, you'll hear a lot of people talk about negotiation as win-win,
00:04:41.995 --> 00:04:46.585
a kumbaya dynamic, when in practice, as you are describing, the world comes
00:04:46.585 --> 00:04:48.037
across as quite cutthroat.
00:04:48.542 --> 00:04:55.745
And so the question is, can you get past the very first negotiation,
00:04:56.285 --> 00:05:02.755
which is with yourself, about what is it that you consider success, in any domain.
00:05:02.755 --> 00:05:09.635
For example, if I consider success simply delivering on a mission for the organization
00:05:09.635 --> 00:05:12.778
I represent, I will have a certain set of behaviors.
00:05:13.498 --> 00:05:20.085
If I consider it, if
Load full transcript
winning for me also means securing the core interest that
00:05:20.085 --> 00:05:23.830
you, Laila, care about, that will lead to a certain set of behaviors.
00:05:23.976 --> 00:05:29.785
And if you and I consider that whatever you and I produce should also deliver
00:05:29.785 --> 00:05:34.279
a win for everybody around us, then that will lead to a different set of behaviors.
00:05:34.558 --> 00:05:38.775
And so naturally, in any domain of life, you're constantly negotiating with
00:05:38.775 --> 00:05:44.264
yourself about what is your perspective, about who do you have responsibility for.
00:05:44.815 --> 00:05:49.568
And the more you can expand your resonance box of ethics of love or virtue,
00:05:49.911 --> 00:05:53.481
the more courageous you can become to
00:05:54.578 --> 00:05:59.280
be authentic, because you'll feel much more, you'll see yourself represented
00:05:59.460 --> 00:06:03.995
in a much larger set of stakeholders and therefore responsible for the way in
00:06:03.995 --> 00:06:06.461
which you can impact them and they can impact you back.
00:06:06.629 --> 00:06:09.125
And that is a spiritual journey.
00:06:09.636 --> 00:06:15.455
I think that sounds wonderful, but I feel if you're talking about the self and
00:06:15.455 --> 00:06:21.075
how you really need to negotiate with yourself, I see it also in terms of the
00:06:21.075 --> 00:06:23.045
self within the context.
00:06:23.045 --> 00:06:28.165
So wherever you are now, for instance, you're here, you're at MIT,
00:06:28.165 --> 00:06:33.515
you're in Boston, and the context here is very different than if you move,
00:06:33.515 --> 00:06:36.438
let's say, to Portugal and that context.
00:06:36.542 --> 00:06:39.486
We seem to be in synergy, on the contrary. What I'm saying is,
00:06:40.757 --> 00:06:45.108
When you negotiate, you're communicating to others what you care about.
00:06:46.305 --> 00:06:50.931
That's a universal action, regardless of the language or culture where you find yourself.
00:06:51.210 --> 00:06:54.244
There will be different manifestations of that communication,
00:06:54.244 --> 00:07:01.884
but in the end, to negotiate, it's the art and science of figuring out what you stand for.
00:07:01.884 --> 00:07:11.314
And so wherever you go, you have a chance to engage with a set of virtues with
00:07:11.314 --> 00:07:14.514
that environment, regardless of the changes of that environment or not.
00:07:14.514 --> 00:07:20.904
And those virtues are determined, not doubt about it, by an array of experiences
00:07:20.904 --> 00:07:23.631
in your background, choices that you've made.
00:07:24.286 --> 00:07:31.364
And so the focus of the pedagogy that I've been very fortunate to develop in,
00:07:32.199 --> 00:07:35.252
the United States, certainly at MIT and at Harvard Law School, but,
00:07:36.931 --> 00:07:41.444
before that, as a human being born and raised in Mexico, a very different environment,
00:07:42.184 --> 00:07:43.459
than Boston, certainly,
00:07:44.231 --> 00:07:48.544
is one that made the case that the conversation starts with your assessment of your moral compass.
00:07:49.061 --> 00:07:53.937
And that is universal. That is a challenge that across religious traditions,
00:07:54.552 --> 00:07:56.526
across philosophical insights,
00:07:58.540 --> 00:08:03.620
you can engage with. So, what I found in my work around the world for the last decades is that...
00:08:06.627 --> 00:08:13.587
There are souls across all industries, across all political spectrums that are,
00:08:14.667 --> 00:08:20.287
when given an opportunity for, with pedagogy for them to rethink how they relate
00:08:20.287 --> 00:08:26.787
to the world and for them to say what in their own negotiation playbook can take the next step,
00:08:27.316 --> 00:08:33.318
that this occurs organically, that the souls that are willing to do so achieve it.
00:08:33.684 --> 00:08:36.697
And so to me, it's in synergy with what you say. It's just a matter of what
00:08:36.697 --> 00:08:38.821
people want to, they're open to.
00:08:39.477 --> 00:08:42.500
Yes, I like that. That's the whole thing, I think.
00:08:42.866 --> 00:08:46.517
And I like what you're saying about the values and all that,
00:08:46.517 --> 00:08:48.456
because I feel that's our anchor.
00:08:49.013 --> 00:08:54.387
And I think maybe in the book, Knowledge Mindfulness, I mentioned that we called
00:08:54.387 --> 00:09:01.157
it the spiritual DNA, because like you said, this is the essence that can be in me.
00:09:01.157 --> 00:09:07.473
And I'm on one part of the globe and the same essence is in you somewhere else.
00:09:07.932 --> 00:09:16.237
And it's just, again, maybe how do we take out the rust that kind of accumulated
00:09:16.237 --> 00:09:21.857
through our learnings, through the history, through our culture?
00:09:21.857 --> 00:09:26.027
And maybe that's where I was talking about the context, because sometimes our
00:09:26.027 --> 00:09:28.122
context brings a lot of rust.
00:09:28.592 --> 00:09:38.627
So how much can you really be conscious and aware of so much of what you don't
00:09:38.627 --> 00:09:40.508
need anymore, what's pulling you back?
00:09:40.949 --> 00:09:45.647
And that's, I think, what you were saying so much about knowing your blind spots,
00:09:45.647 --> 00:09:51.987
knowing your biases, your assumptions, why? Because at the end,
00:09:51.987 --> 00:09:55.297
if it's not feeding you in the right way, then
00:09:57.058 --> 00:09:59.670
It needs to, we need to weed it out,
00:09:59.926 --> 00:10:04.147
Right? Yes, yes, yes, you're absolutely right. And I know from enjoying your
00:10:04.147 --> 00:10:06.956
book when I read it a couple years ago…
00:10:09.568 --> 00:10:13.556
Mindfulness and knowledge, the two elements that you highlighted,
00:10:13.736 --> 00:10:15.489
they are lived experiences.
00:10:16.006 --> 00:10:21.457
And so we humans tend to, and the neuroscience confirms it, to respond to stories.
00:10:22.478 --> 00:10:27.537
That's how
we learn when we're young. And we're surrounded by stories all the
00:10:27.537 --> 00:10:29.084
time, but we have choice.
00:10:31.127 --> 00:10:36.254
And I work at MIT, so I'm surrounded by brilliant engineers behind the algorithms in many environments.
00:10:36.705 --> 00:10:43.932
We can choose to listen to stories that activate the best on us.
00:10:44.327 --> 00:10:50.767
I remember very luminously Nelson Mandela making the case, of course,
00:10:50.767 --> 00:10:54.306
he was fighting against apartheid,
00:10:56.088 --> 00:11:00.378
but as one great mentor in the field, Billy Ury used to say,
00:11:00.744 --> 00:11:05.197
he didn't write a book, Long Walk Away from Apartheid.
00:11:05.197 --> 00:11:08.249
He wrote a book called Long Walk to Freedom.
00:11:08.511 --> 00:11:14.414
That is to activate the virtue we're driving to, a virtue that any soul would want to relate to.
00:11:14.705 --> 00:11:20.817
And so we can look back at the past 10 years and in many domains where societies are debating,
00:11:21.688 --> 00:11:26.657
or grappling where should we go, there's movements against and in favor
00:11:26.657 --> 00:11:31.427
of and it tends to be more lasting to figure out what is it that we can be in
00:11:31.427 --> 00:11:34.851
favor of, that is unifying, that is a synergy.
00:11:39.658 --> 00:11:41.829
And it’s a constant battle, across human history, to navigate that.
00:11:42.096 --> 00:11:45.637
True. But I think your bestseller book too, Winning Together,
00:11:46.218 --> 00:11:49.516
I mean, I really, really was very excited to read it because,
00:11:49.516 --> 00:11:54.696
again, I felt it's so aligned with the philosophy of knowledge mindfulness,
00:11:54.696 --> 00:11:57.061
so much about togetherness.
00:11:57.444 --> 00:12:04.856
And maybe your method is negotiation or your field of focus is how do you get
00:12:04.856 --> 00:12:08.335
into the togetherness through negotiation.
00:12:08.712 --> 00:12:14.616
And where we get into the togetherness through our knowing system and how to
00:12:14.616 --> 00:12:19.086
figure it out and how to really evolve it as we go. What brought you?
00:12:19.086 --> 00:12:20.906
What is the story behind this?
00:12:22.284 --> 00:12:30.816
Well, having been born and raised in Mexico, my mom is from the Gulf Coast of
00:12:30.816 --> 00:12:32.917
Mexico, a state called Tabasco, and,
00:12:34.938 --> 00:12:40.056
she met my dad, who is French-Italian, when they were very young in a bookstore.
00:12:40.056 --> 00:12:45.346
And they got married a few months afterwards. And they’ve remained together for many decades.
00:12:45.346 --> 00:12:47.826
They met in a bookstore. Yes, in a bookstore. I like that.
00:12:49.781 --> 00:12:53.246
Quite a spark. Right. And it remains to these days. So I was very blessed.
00:12:54.303 --> 00:12:59.306
Humble backgrounds, but a family full of love, to be exposed from the get-go
00:12:59.306 --> 00:13:04.717
to different cultural, spiritual traditions, my dad being
Lutheran and my mom being Catholic.
00:13:06.987 --> 00:13:12.850
And I was in a home where access to the literature from different civilizations,
00:13:14.066 --> 00:13:19.776
from different beautiful religious traditions, was informing my awe for the world.
00:13:19.776 --> 00:13:23.986
So I was having the opportunity to learn from that. And so when I came to the
00:13:23.986 --> 00:13:30.654
United States and its incredible mix of hardworking,
00:13:32.028 --> 00:13:36.863
driven souls to make a better life for themselves coming from across different
00:13:36.863 --> 00:13:41.763
parts of the planet and to contribute to this great nation and eventually falling
00:13:41.763 --> 00:13:46.169
in love and marrying an American woman, I've always had this
00:13:47.156 --> 00:13:50.653
commitment to build bridges between two neighbors in this case Mexico and the
00:13:50.653 --> 00:13:55.873
United States, and I've been honored to be involved in that mission of trying
00:13:55.873 --> 00:13:58.488
to figure out and telling stories,
00:13:59.985 --> 00:14:07.433
of the souls that daily find ways to render the trade, the largest between the
00:14:07.433 --> 00:14:08.942
two nations in this case,
00:14:10.742 --> 00:14:14.673
fairer and more effective for the people who want to see more prosperity on
00:14:14.673 --> 00:14:15.973
both sides of the borders.
00:14:15.973 --> 00:14:23.673
And so the book tries, and achieved that goal of communicating flat out which are
00:14:23.673 --> 00:14:27.396
the tactics or strategies that people on the left and the right,
00:14:28.233 --> 00:14:32.004
find useful, Democrats and Republicans, to,
00:14:33.502 --> 00:14:38.503
reach deals that are implementable, sustainable, and resilient across different
00:14:38.503 --> 00:14:42.424
administrations because they actually do deliver benefits for the communities,
00:14:42.697 --> 00:14:45.791
whether they are in Utah and Arizona or New Mexico, California,
00:14:46.174 --> 00:14:48.316
Wyoming and so on, Colorado, Texas,
00:14:48.700 --> 00:14:51.443
and vice versa with the border states in Mexico.
00:14:51.443 --> 00:14:56.809
And so I became an ambassador of those ideas,
00:14:58.313 --> 00:15:03.409
originated in a couple nations. And then I've been blessed to be able to express
00:15:03.409 --> 00:15:08.593
them in 80 other countries because the ideas are not
00:15:09.516 --> 00:15:14.009
tethered to a specific moment in time, they're tethered to specific mindsets.
00:15:14.509 --> 00:15:19.889
And mindsets are something that we can trade around the world.
00:15:19.889 --> 00:15:21.376
There are no tariffs on mindsets.
00:15:21.707 --> 00:15:26.519
I mean, there's so many things I want to ask you about, but I think what caught
00:15:26.519 --> 00:15:33.461
my attention is creativity and mixed heritage.
00:15:34.308 --> 00:15:40.856
These differences, diversity that comes in a way to create something new.
00:15:41.529 --> 00:15:52.279
That newness is something missing
so much in today's world because of closing down
00:15:54.788 --> 00:16:03.399
on fields, people, nations, whatever it is, that you feel that flow that we
00:16:03.399 --> 00:16:06.288
need for newness to come, for creativity to come.
00:16:06.572 --> 00:16:12.424
And when I say creativity, creative ideas, because that's what life is all about.
00:16:12.598 --> 00:16:18.856
Evolvement, development, leveling up is all about newness, generation of knowledge.
00:16:19.303 --> 00:16:25.433
And I feel your mixed heritage, learnings, exposure, in a way,
00:16:26.255 --> 00:16:35.009
got you that broad perspective to see more than just that limited, narrow view.
00:16:36.257 --> 00:16:42.039
What can you comment? I would say that it's a shared experience for billions
00:16:42.039 --> 00:16:47.209
of souls here on Earth in the sense that when you are exposed to different narratives
00:16:47.209 --> 00:16:49.173
about your nation, your region,
00:16:50.717 --> 00:16:55.872
your community, your neighborhood, if you listen to just a story…
00:16:57.311 --> 00:17:01.280
it will leave spots out. Say I would put even in sports, right?
00:17:01.280 --> 00:17:04.340
Like when you're looking at the World Cup and you're rooting for three different
00:17:04.340 --> 00:17:05.740
teams and three different nations,
00:17:06.060 --> 00:17:08.590
you're hearing over the four years preparing for a World Cup,
00:17:08.782 --> 00:17:12.610
three different narratives about how the federation works, how the country thinks
00:17:12.610 --> 00:17:17.490
about the players, how they invest, how they think about preparing for a competition and so on.
00:17:17.762 --> 00:17:23.160
In such a small example, though it's the same activity with the same rules for
00:17:23.160 --> 00:17:27.049
all involved, unlike the much more complex political and economic world,
00:17:27.467 --> 00:17:31.664
you see that people make choices about what they think should be the hierarchy of priorities,
00:17:32.216 --> 00:17:36.970
what should be the process that leads to a specific outcome, how they conceive of themselves,
00:17:37.945 --> 00:17:40.099
the courage, the mission that they see, and so on.
00:17:40.505 --> 00:17:45.910
And so as many people in this planet, when you are exposed to different traditions
00:17:46.188 --> 00:17:51.099
and stories at home, and even if you are not, if you choose to explore them with curiosity,
00:17:51.767 --> 00:17:57.380
what you discover is we have much more agency than we believe in terms of what
00:17:57.380 --> 00:17:59.760
we choose to take from those stories.
00:18:00.201 --> 00:18:06.280
And so when I would look at stories about how Mexico, and it continues to this day
00:18:06.280 --> 00:18:13.112
to face many challenges of an uneven distribution of wealth and an uneven generation of that wealth,
00:18:14.969 --> 00:18:18.243
and I won't delve into the politics of it all, but there were choices about,
00:18:20.200 --> 00:18:24.104
then, what does it mean for you? And were these stories the same as the ones
00:18:24.104 --> 00:18:28.034
that I heard on my Italian heritage side? Or on the French heritage side?
00:18:28.034 --> 00:18:31.744
Or when I would learn from people how in the United States think about society and so on?
00:18:31.744 --> 00:18:37.554
And so I think that, and I'm lucky at MIT to be surrounded by students from
00:18:37.554 --> 00:18:40.191
around the world, but mostly students from the United States,
00:18:40.858 --> 00:18:47.337
whose heritage comes from across all states in the nation and well beyond,
00:18:47.871 --> 00:18:52.834
and whose interpretations about what success means will also vary.
00:18:52.834 --> 00:18:56.924
And so you're right to highlight that I was blessed to be exposed to that diversity
00:18:56.924 --> 00:19:02.145
of thought and I chose to pick in that diversity not to see our differences
00:19:02.348 --> 00:19:06.946
as roadblocks but our differences as richness.
00:19:08.724 --> 00:19:12.114
And that changes your perspective. It doesn't mean that there's not a whole
00:19:12.114 --> 00:19:18.411
host of economic or social dynamics that nations have to figure out to maintain
00:19:22.363 --> 00:19:29.213
peace with one another. But if we depart associating our differences as,
00:19:31.134 --> 00:19:37.258
you're wrong and I'm right, we run the risk of leaving outside of the umbrella
00:19:37.827 --> 00:19:43.092
a whole host of human beings who would be additive to our partnerships because we
00:19:43.092 --> 00:19:44.555
cast them as enemies when they're not.
00:19:45.014 --> 00:19:51.922
Yeah, and I do believe that expanding your context in terms of the diversity
00:19:51.922 --> 00:19:56.159
we were talking about to include what we call weak ties.
00:19:56.577 --> 00:20:04.632
So weak ties, why is it, I think, rich in some ways? Because it feeds you with
00:20:04.632 --> 00:20:08.176
information that you are not so familiar with.
00:20:08.721 --> 00:20:11.990
You know, if you're in the same context, in the same community,
00:20:12.512 --> 00:20:17.487
whatever you think is diversity at that, but again, at one point in time,
00:20:17.766 --> 00:20:22.198
you're sharing kind of the same information flow in one way or another.
00:20:22.431 --> 00:20:28.002
And that's where I found that mixed heritage comes because that's the strength
00:20:28.002 --> 00:20:34.652
of weak ties, where it feeds the novelty that you need to create something new, which is.
00:20:34.652 --> 00:20:38.743
But that takes me again to negotiation.
00:20:38.893 --> 00:20:44.083
Since you started, let's say, till now, what is the differences in the,
00:20:44.379 --> 00:20:49.964
I don't know, tactics, values, all the combination of what you're teaching?
00:20:50.666 --> 00:20:55.172
I want to know what are the changes that you're feeling, because change is the
00:20:55.172 --> 00:20:56.750
name of the game. We know that.
00:20:57.115 --> 00:21:00.401
And we know by now the
complexity of the world we're in.
00:21:00.906 --> 00:21:08.940
So I just am assuming, again, that that would affect the strategies of negotiation,
00:21:09.358 --> 00:21:13.122
the way you kind of come to your goals,
00:21:14.025 --> 00:21:17.583
The togetherness you're looking for. Is it easier? Is it harder?
00:21:17.960 --> 00:21:19.832
Where are we in that landscape?
00:21:19.832 --> 00:21:24.072
Well, we'll need a week-long podcast then to go through the changes over the
00:21:24.072 --> 00:21:26.853
last 15 years. Let me pick a few of them.
00:21:26.975 --> 00:21:31.555
At first glance, what I say that has changed the most, perhaps,
00:21:31.706 --> 00:21:34.254
between my beginning and now...
00:21:36.176 --> 00:21:42.161
Is the speed with which people can put themselves in a position to strategize more…
00:21:44.541 --> 00:21:49.233
than just acquire information. By that I mean that with the advent of artificial
00:21:49.233 --> 00:21:50.706
intelligence you can have,
00:21:52.192 --> 00:21:56.488
thoughtfully, a team that in the past would have had to spend,
00:21:57.434 --> 00:22:03.153
many weeks to understand all the position papers of a specific diplomatic delegation
00:22:03.153 --> 00:22:06.823
that they would see in the future from another nation, or a specific corporation
00:22:06.823 --> 00:22:08.073
that they would be negotiating with,
00:22:08.073 --> 00:22:12.543
they would need to have a team study that and then define a strategy.
00:22:12.543 --> 00:22:20.043
Now you can have a well-defined tool that summarizes for you the core elements of that information.
00:22:20.414 --> 00:22:26.272
And then a much larger chunk of your time can be devoted to strategize. And now what do we do?
00:22:26.945 --> 00:22:32.100
And so that is a promising transformation because actually it levels the playing field.
00:22:32.355 --> 00:22:37.283
Let's say that a specific nation is looking forward to partner with another
00:22:37.283 --> 00:22:42.173
nation and that nation, let's call it Türkiye, and all the documents
00:22:42.173 --> 00:22:43.780
from the core stakeholders in government,
00:22:45.723 --> 00:22:47.628
and corporations will be in Turkish.
00:22:48.011 --> 00:22:52.324
And the delegation that is planning to meet with them does not speak Turkish.
00:22:53.097 --> 00:22:57.572
But now with AI, what they can do is get to the bottom of the core insights
00:22:57.787 --> 00:22:59.019
in the regional language.
00:22:59.842 --> 00:23:03.901
Without having to learn the language and then prepare to have the diplomatic
00:23:03.901 --> 00:23:07.141
conversation in whichever language this small island state, let's say in the
00:23:07.141 --> 00:23:09.066
Pacific, wanted to have the conversation.
00:23:09.472 --> 00:23:14.371
And then you can create connections that in the past would have been limited
00:23:14.371 --> 00:23:17.631
because this small island delegation would have said, if I'm going to be negotiating
00:23:17.631 --> 00:23:21.383
this at the UN, we need to focus on the US and other nations in Europe,
00:23:22.022 --> 00:23:24.791
not with Türkiye because we don't even have time to study.
00:23:25.098 --> 00:23:32.131
And so my sense is, what I'm trying to convey is, again, choose to see what is
00:23:32.131 --> 00:23:36.341
surrounding us that promises better opportunities to make connections that in
00:23:36.341 --> 00:23:37.515
the past couldn't have happened.
00:23:37.916 --> 00:23:42.519
But your example about using the AI also has another side.
00:23:43.187 --> 00:23:46.977
Because again, if I want to learn about a certain nation
00:23:47.691 --> 00:23:55.296
and make an effort, let's say, to go talk to the people themselves or the experience or my own
00:23:55.778 --> 00:24:00.729
filters that comes in, it's very different than just learning through AI,
00:24:01.043 --> 00:24:05.942
which could be also limiting in term of what it's giving me.
00:24:06.151 --> 00:24:06.641
Absolutely.
00:24:06.851 --> 00:24:10.211
Right? So again, are we paying attention to that? Because again,
00:24:10.211 --> 00:24:16.041
in your type of work with diplomacy and all that, I think that's very sensitive
00:24:16.041 --> 00:24:19.881
or to take care at least that this is covered.
00:24:19.881 --> 00:24:22.909
Because this would be the second sequence of what I'm presenting, that is,
00:24:23.269 --> 00:24:28.311
will you be able, through the tools, to prepare more thoughtfully for that conversation,
00:24:28.791 --> 00:24:30.884
right. It was, the example I shared is,
00:24:32.150 --> 00:24:36.759
what happens preceding that conversation, a conversation that wouldn't have
00:24:36.759 --> 00:24:40.382
existed before because you wouldn't have the bandwidth. Now you have the bandwidth.
00:24:40.723 --> 00:24:42.454
You have the bandwidth to arrive prepared.
00:24:42.808 --> 00:24:45.363
You have the bandwidth, as you highlight, to then, therefore,
00:24:45.821 --> 00:24:50.419
ask better questions, through the better questions to learn more,
00:24:50.894 --> 00:24:54.959
and through that process, offer also to the counterpart that now you get to
00:24:54.959 --> 00:25:00.619
meet, a different view into what you bring to the table.
00:25:00.619 --> 00:25:05.139
And therefore, if there are synergies on the merits, being able to create value,
00:25:05.139 --> 00:25:11.729
which that is the responsibility, can we create circumstances where our differences
00:25:11.729 --> 00:25:15.186
in interests and virtues allow us to expand
00:25:16.568 --> 00:25:23.865
zones of cooperation, where the prosperity that we produce is benefiting to all involved.
00:25:24.074 --> 00:25:29.008
And that is the only way to get past the level of conflicts that we see in different environments.
00:25:29.316 --> 00:25:32.189
So you think a two-day workshop can
00:25:33.008 --> 00:25:39.129
prepare two parties to sit together and have the same kind of intention,
00:25:39.129 --> 00:25:45.953
we want to
make this work, or a win-win kind of mindset, or is it a two-day?
00:25:46.179 --> 00:25:52.149
Sometimes I'm a bit skeptical about the fast-changing world we're living in,
00:25:52.149 --> 00:25:57.309
that it gives us that illusion also that we can build the knowledge,
00:25:57.309 --> 00:26:00.384
build the relationship in two days, in two seconds, in two this.
00:26:01.029 --> 00:26:05.829
And knowledge needs time to build. And when I think of negotiation,
00:26:05.829 --> 00:26:08.150
I think about it as building a relationship,
00:26:08.887 --> 00:26:14.219
building a relationship with quality, that I come with a good intention of knowing
00:26:14.219 --> 00:26:17.142
more about you, of, you know…
00:26:18.169 --> 00:26:23.841
I want certain things, certain interests, but I'm very also capable of giving
00:26:23.841 --> 00:26:27.306
you a space to express what you want on the table and so on.
00:26:27.701 --> 00:26:33.181
So I look at negotiation also as the quality of the relationship between the
00:26:33.181 --> 00:26:38.291
two and how this can contribute to the success of this negotiation.
00:26:38.291 --> 00:26:41.911
So I would differentiate that you're describing when the stakeholders are actually
00:26:42.251 --> 00:26:44.152
negotiating with one another. Yeah.
00:26:44.385 --> 00:26:48.451
Which is different from when you have either a,
00:26:49.271 --> 00:26:55.571
set of cabinet officials or an organization saying, I want to develop skills
00:26:55.931 --> 00:27:00.987
for my decision makers ahead of future negotiations that they will have.
00:27:01.144 --> 00:27:05.731
When an organization makes the decision to say, for two days,
00:27:05.731 --> 00:27:08.451
you're going to not be doing your job.
00:27:08.584 --> 00:27:11.870
You're just going to be upscaling insights.
00:27:12.654 --> 00:27:18.591
You want, you have to, those two days to make sure that it delivers for the
00:27:18.591 --> 00:27:20.084
bottom line of the organization.
00:27:21.013 --> 00:27:25.531
And it delivers for the bottom line of the person. So, any skills that you work
00:27:25.531 --> 00:27:28.745
on leadership or negotiation, they have to be such,
00:27:29.320 --> 00:27:34.921
that people are exposed to seeds that resonate with their heart and make them
00:27:34.921 --> 00:27:37.482
want to then go and express them in the world.
00:27:37.720 --> 00:27:41.241
That is the reference point. I'm very honored to say there's not been a single
00:27:41.241 --> 00:27:44.738
organization that I’ve ever work with in my life that hasn't brought me back.
00:27:45.655 --> 00:27:49.939
And I take that with a big honor. And for me, the message behind that is,
00:27:51.100 --> 00:27:59.099
I've always taken an interaction as you're being invited into a family gathering and you want to
00:28:01.137 --> 00:28:06.978
communicate very clearly that you accept the blessing and that you come here
00:28:06.978 --> 00:28:11.486
hoping to unlock, in everybody there,
00:28:13.338
--> 00:28:19.978
what they perhaps knew about themselves but were fearful to take on.
00:28:19.978 --> 00:28:22.103
And so you're trying to take out some cobwebs.
00:28:22.353 --> 00:28:27.508
You're trying to help them recognize this or that blind spot is easy to get
00:28:27.508 --> 00:28:28.831
rid of once you choose so.
00:28:29.139 --> 00:28:33.940
And so you're being a mirror for the stakeholders. They are the center of the story.
00:28:34.474 --> 00:28:39.638
And the pedagogy is supposed to do what the Latin word of education,
00:28:39.638 --> 00:28:42.058
educo, which means draw from within.
00:28:42.418 --> 00:28:48.068
I still remember to this day an amazing MIT student. And I'll choose, because
00:28:48.068 --> 00:28:49.358
of the confidentiality agreements,
00:28:49.561 --> 00:28:53.138
I won't pick many of the executives around the planet, given all the mergers
00:28:53.138 --> 00:28:57.888
and acquisitions they've been part of. But I'll choose an example to celebrate
00:28:57.888 --> 00:28:58.791
about the United States.
00:28:59.898 --> 00:29:04.808
An engineer student of mine at MIT once very lovingly sent me an email where
00:29:04.808 --> 00:29:10.088
she was sharing wonderful elements about an update on her personal life,
00:29:10.088 --> 00:29:11.809
who she was going to be marrying and so on.
00:29:12.877 --> 00:29:19.047
And as a side note, she was highlighting how grateful she felt for the $800
00:29:19.047 --> 00:29:24.447
million that she had saved for the American taxpayer as a member of the Department
00:29:24.447 --> 00:29:26.327
of Energy in a set of negotiations.
00:29:26.327 --> 00:29:31.384
And she was in her, she had not been even in her 30s when she achieved this.
00:29:32.121 --> 00:29:36.550
That's credit to her. It is credit to her and our pedagogy, our job,
00:29:36.736 --> 00:29:40.437
certainly at MIT, everywhere in the world is to make sure that this talent is
00:29:40.437 --> 00:29:46.737
empowered with the tools, when the moment comes, to deliver critically for a larger community.
00:29:46.737 --> 00:29:52.218
So for me, the joy is to be with souls and make sure that those get the talent and the tools to thrive.
00:29:52.485 --> 00:29:56.547
See, that care that you're talking about, I could feel it. I could feel that
00:29:56.547 --> 00:30:01.243
energy when you're talking with this. And I think this is what we need in the world, right?
00:30:01.702 --> 00:30:07.047
Because again, when you were talking about success and wellness and the life
00:30:07.047 --> 00:30:12.247
we're living in, I think, I don't know, we are in a phase, I feel,
00:30:12.247 --> 00:30:16.383
where we need to redefine so many things in our lives.
00:30:16.696 --> 00:30:20.556
And one of them is success and what success means.
00:30:20.835 --> 00:30:25.707
Because I feel when your face lit up and I could feel that energy,
00:30:25.707 --> 00:30:27.307
this is part of your success.
00:30:27.907 --> 00:30:32.327
You know what I'm saying? It doesn't have to always be a physical,
00:30:32.327 --> 00:30:37.304
visible kind of materialistic kind of reward or recognition.
00:30:37.925 --> 00:30:42.927
That kind of energy that you're feeling by itself is success, right?
00:30:42.927 --> 00:30:47.717
Well, absolutely. And it's a success credit to the energy that we can channel
00:30:47.717 --> 00:30:51.903
with one another because you, in education, you won't be present,
00:30:53.122 --> 00:30:58.491
… when people make decisions. So, the story is them, not you.
00:30:58.758 --> 00:31:03.377
The story is the ideas and how they take on the ideas and they carry them.
00:31:03.377 --> 00:31:06.647
So you're an ambassador for ideas, you're ambassador for multiple authors,
00:31:06.647 --> 00:31:11.737
you're ambassador for different fields, and you enjoy the learning process live
00:31:11.737 --> 00:31:15.557
and afterwards how they, each soul chooses to adapt what they do.
00:31:15.557 --> 00:31:19.807
And you'll notice that I speak about soul frequently, and there may be other
00:31:19.807 --> 00:31:22.947
people who wouldn’t use that word, but I think that it's at the heart,
00:31:22.947 --> 00:31:26.117
that if you're going to be negotiating and defining what you stand for,
00:31:26.117 --> 00:31:27.928
then your whole being needs to be part of it.
00:31:28.224 --> 00:31:32.637
And so the bare minimum is then to be fully authentic as you're in that journey
00:31:32.637 --> 00:31:36.477
and to help people across different layers.
00:31:36.477 --> 00:31:39.647
And I celebrate certainly when I've had the opportunity to work with CEOs and
00:31:39.647 --> 00:31:44.031
so on, it's not because I've been in more specific negotiations in the realm they're part of.
00:31:44.339 --> 00:31:49.151
So, if I'm being brought in to the table, it's because there's an opportunity to,
00:31:50.533 --> 00:31:55.554
present a mirror or present a situation that they'll be able to approach suddenly
00:31:55.769 --> 00:31:58.838
and recognize something in themselves that they had not seen before.
00:31:59.291 --> 00:32:03.454
And so, therefore, I take that with a lot of humility because that is a little
00:32:03.454 --> 00:32:04.684
bit of a magical outcome.
00:32:04.899 --> 00:32:11.404
I think what you said about how the message is transmitted to your students,
00:32:11.404 --> 00:32:18.664
to your executives and all that, but again, part of that message is how do they illuminate that.
00:32:18.664 --> 00:32:24.574
And maybe this was the start of this conversation when I talked about is maybe
00:32:24.574 --> 00:32:31.474
we need to go now beyond fragmentation, beyond only self within self.
00:32:31.474 --> 00:32:35.468
Self is part of a web of life around.
00:32:35.932 --> 00:32:45.917
And maybe looking at ourselves as a tiny bit of this web of life can redefine how we live,
00:32:46.677 --> 00:32:55.034
how we come together, and how our souls can be that connection and not fragment,
00:32:56.294 -->
00:33:02.254
and look at differences like we talked about, as a source of creation,
00:33:02.254 --> 00:33:03.924
not a source of separation.
00:33:03.924 --> 00:33:11.359
It's so beautiful what you say, and it's so true. You're talking about trust, trust in others.
00:33:11.475 --> 00:33:20.874
Yes. So, you know, in pedagogy, you're not here to give people, here’s step A to D, and then from D to Z.
00:33:21.761 --> 00:33:27.206
Rather, you're trying to say, here are different avenues you could pursue.
00:33:27.897 --> 00:33:32.971
And you'll render them your own, with your own choices, and values, and insights.
00:33:33.528 --> 00:33:39.101
And I trust you to do so. And you have trusted me with your time,
00:33:40.453 --> 00:33:46.221
to create this exposure, and so I'm going to reciprocate trusting that the very
00:33:46.221 --> 00:33:54.528
best in you is going to take this, and run beyond what we thought, and so … it's the opposite of control,
00:33:57.390 --> 00:34:01.821
and that comes from trusting that we're part of a larger web that has a wisdom
00:34:01.821 --> 00:34:06.219
to it, if you just sit down, and listen or look for it.
00:34:06.707 --> 00:34:11.903
That wisdom is there, and it is deeply apparent the more science advances.
00:34:12.303 --> 00:34:14.869
But we have to make the choice to believe in it.
00:34:15.612 --> 00:34:20.372
It requires belief. And then combined with the trust, then you get to the beautiful
00:34:20.610 --> 00:34:21.661
message that you've expressed.
00:34:21.661 --> 00:34:28.940
And I think what you're saying even about trust is also about changing our way of thinking.
00:34:29.602 --> 00:34:36.341
And to change our way of thinking is to be exposed to the latest in science,
00:34:36.341 --> 00:34:38.106
let's say quantum physics.
00:34:38.402 --> 00:34:43.361
And that really came, you know, against kind of what we believed for so
00:34:43.361 --> 00:34:46.338
long, which is Newton's, right, physics.
00:34:46.738 --> 00:34:53.241
And when you combine even the science that proves that, with the philosophies,
00:34:53.581 --> 00:34:58.161
and again, art and science, philosophy and science, spirituality and science,
00:34:58.539 --> 00:34:59.798
they're not fragmented.
00:35:00.356 --> 00:35:04.709
And when you talk about mind, heart, soul, all that,
00:35:05.719 --> 00:35:11.315
again, it's not fragmented. We fragment to learn. And now we are in a world
00:35:11.548 --> 00:35:13.481
that is non-linear. We can see.
00:35:13.899 --> 00:35:19.912
We can see it in the poly-crisis we're having. So, if we keep thinking of climate
00:35:19.912 --> 00:35:28.342
change as a problem that we just target as climate change or any other challenge in
00:35:28.762 --> 00:35:32.469
the crazy world we're living in right now as a separate thing,
00:35:32.660 --> 00:35:37.732
a separate issue, a separate problem, and then we focus again very linearly on it.
00:35:37.732 --> 00:35:40.323
This is why we are where we are.
00:35:40.886 --> 00:35:46.442
We can't find a solution because the solution is not linear.
00:35:46.822 --> 00:35:49.852
Yes, solutions can't occur in isolation. Yes.
00:35:49.852 --> 00:35:55.342
The more we become aware of the complexity of the different interactions,
00:35:56.042 --> 00:36:01.352
the more respect and awe we should have about the impact we can have in those
00:36:01.352 --> 00:36:03.658
interactions by the way we frame them,
00:36:04.250 --> 00:36:08.842
by the way of the virtues that we choose to use, our standards of fairness that
00:36:08.842 --> 00:36:13.512
we use to discuss those situations, by the stakeholders that we invite as part
00:36:13.512 --> 00:36:15.912
of the discussion, the conversation,
00:36:16.301 --> 00:36:19.682
the insight to try to look at situations from different angles.
00:36:19.682 --> 00:36:24.772
And this is something that spiritual traditions have told us since we were forever.
00:36:24.772 --> 00:36:30.175
I remember being a teenager and being fascinated by very different Sufi masters,
00:36:30.721 --> 00:36:35.502
and being raised as a Catholic and loving my tradition and the blessings and
00:36:35.502 --> 00:36:39.486
the teachings of Jesus, that joy of the wisdom,
00:36:40.602 --> 00:36:45.412
in Sufism and the different sheikhs and masters that were across history through
00:36:45.412 --> 00:36:48.576
their poetry expressing a connection with the divine …
00:36:49.841 --> 00:36:53.352
years later when I've done work in Japan or when I work stakeholders and I've
00:36:53.352 --> 00:36:55.704
met with Buddhist masters and so on …
00:36:57.580 --> 00:37:04.303
The tenets, the colors, the traditions, the behaviors might be different.
00:37:04.303 --> 00:37:05.543
They are meant to be different.
00:37:06.520 --> 00:37:11.853
That's richness. Yeah. But there's a wisdom that resonates and that creates
00:37:11.853 --> 00:37:18.413
bridges that we can choose to walk on and appreciate, because not a single way
00:37:18.413 --> 00:37:21.490
to go about it has all the answers.
00:37:22.140 --> 00:37:27.193
And that will also make us much more robust in being proud of things that in
00:37:27.193 --> 00:37:32.136
our political or economic systems are right, it will allow us to defend that, protect that,
00:37:32.717 --> 00:37:38.083
and will give us the peace when we make a critique or an observation, to start
00:37:38.083 --> 00:37:42.123
with our own, and say, here's where we're falling short of our legacy or our
00:37:42.123 --> 00:37:43.636
heritage or our insights,
00:37:44.785 --> 00:37:46.196
and that's why we're having problems.
00:37:46.362 --> 00:37:53.944
And I feel also that we are used to always need to have answers.
00:37:54.448 --> 00:37:59.983
And sometimes that's not the case. It's not about having the answers all the time.
00:38:00.403 --> 00:38:07.243
It's like we say, having the right questions sometimes, and the answers will emerge somehow. Right?
00:38:07.243 --> 00:38:10.313
Laila, I have to stop you because you've never done a training on negotiation
00:38:10.313 --> 00:38:11.983
with me, but that is at the heart of it.
00:38:11.983 --> 00:38:17.253
That's the point. If you know what is the outcome of a negotiation before you've
00:38:17.253 --> 00:38:20.473
engaged with it, then it's not a negotiation, because it means that you just
00:38:20.473 --> 00:38:22.563
want to impose an outcome on somebody else.
00:38:22.943 --> 00:38:25.313
And if I can impose an outcome on somebody else...
00:38:26.580 --> 00:38:30.099
Then that's what it is, what the word says. I'm imposing an outcome because
00:38:30.099 --> 00:38:34.591
I have the political, economic, financial, whatever power. And negotiation is a co-created outcome.
00:38:35.113 --> 00:38:38.769
But if it's to be co-created, I cannot know what the co-creation is going to
00:38:38.769 --> 00:38:41.975
be before I engage with it. And as you said, it takes time.
00:38:42.259 --> 00:38:46.479
And then through that interaction, I may be transformed, probably,
00:38:46.479 --> 00:38:50.469
certainly, because by the exchange of information, I will see my situation,
00:38:50.469 --> 00:38:51.539
their situation differently.
00:38:51.539 --> 00:38:56.479
And new solutions could emerge, solutions that meet what I want even before,
00:38:57.153 --> 00:38:58.232
even better than I thought.
00:38:58.749 --> 00:39:03.449
But if I'm so certain that I'm the one who's right, then I cannot produce this
00:39:03.449 --> 00:39:05.756
outcome. So, it's a mindset dynamic. So, you're right.
00:39:05.999 --> 00:39:08.919
And this is funny because when you said I have never, you know,
00:39:08.919 --> 00:39:11.566
came into negotiation, but I'm a parent.
00:39:12.083 --> 00:39:18.979
And that's a big, big learning space, training space because again it's a parenting style
00:39:19.455 --> 00:39:25.639
of command control or, no, we can negotiate this, we can create that space where
00:39:25.639 --> 00:39:30.891
I can hear you, you can hear me, I respect you, you respect me, no matter how old are you,
00:39:31.321 --> 00:39:35.338
you know, and creating that space would allow them even
00:39:36.278 --> 00:39:40.774
to develop in different ways. And it's funny when we talk about leadership,
00:39:40.774 --> 00:39:47.044
negotiations, we always think of nations and so, and if you bring them back
00:39:47.044 --> 00:39:50.180
to the simplest one-to-one,
00:39:50.844 --> 00:39:56.624
human-to-human, parent-to-child, spouse with their partner, I see all these
00:39:56.624 --> 00:40:01.116
dynamics as useful in our daily lives, you know.
00:40:01.424 --> 00:40:09.052
And I think it goes back, again, to that knowing system that we create for ourselves.
00:40:09.458 --> 00:40:16.334
And I say knowing system because really, really, I believe it's time to look
00:40:16.334 --> 00:40:22.995
at information, knowledge, wisdom as a system and a living system.
00:40:23.274 --> 00:40:27.843
So that's the difference. When you look at, not information, not that it's a thing.
00:40:28.191 --> 00:40:29.961
Knowledge is not a certificate.
00:40:30.722 --> 00:40:34.402
Wisdom is not something that comes with age and only ancient.
00:40:34.826 --> 00:40:43.213
If you can train people to become wiser, but we never think of wise as, again, fragmented.
00:40:43.753 --> 00:40:45.930
It is intelligently wise.
00:40:46.946 --> 00:40:51.148
Because if you're wise with no intelligence or you're intelligence with no wisdom,
00:40:51.328 --> 00:40:56.494
you can see the results all over, right, so it's about building that knowledge,
00:40:56.494 --> 00:41:00.239
knowing system ,that manifests into your being and doing,
00:41:00.930 --> 00:41:02.393
wow then bingo!
00:41:02.515 --> 00:41:06.374
Right? And you're right saying that it starts … for those who are fortunate
00:41:06.374 --> 00:41:11.524
to be able to start that journey of learning at home, by the tenets that
00:41:11.524 --> 00:41:15.326
are established in that environment, then by the tenets that we establish
00:41:16.476 --> 00:41:20.484
at school, across paths, I was blessed to be educated as a
00:41:20.804 --> 00:41:23.134
young child in a Montessori system.
00:41:23.134 --> 00:41:26.257
And so I, to experience that …
00:41:27.865 --> 00:41:31.429
freedom of relationship with knowledge, where you move at a pace with that knowledge,
00:41:31.783 --> 00:41:35.298
that each person in the room moves at their own pace.
00:41:35.298 --> 00:41:39.810
That's respect. And that's respect to the choice of the themes you want to explore,
00:41:40.019 --> 00:41:41.858
and the sequence in which we want to explore.
00:41:41.858 --> 00:41:46.798
And that respect then, I've then manifested it in the work I do around the world.
00:41:46.798 --> 00:41:52.489
And so, and it begins with the examples that you subconsciously experience very young. Yes.
00:41:52.872 --> 00:41:56.146
And so we can change in any domain,
00:41:57.411 --> 00:42:02.863
our future, by also how we approach those relationships at home reminding us,
00:42:02.863 --> 00:42:07.393
ourselves, that yes and I'm not yet blessed but God willing one day with my wife
00:42:07.393 --> 00:42:08.818
we'll have our family of our own.
00:42:09.039 --> 00:42:10.463
And you'll do the negotiation
00:42:10.463 --> 00:42:14.643
part! And I know, I know from seeing wonderful young children that they're fantastic
00:42:14.643 --> 00:42:19.743
negotiators because they're always asking you why, yeah, they'll say no and authentically
00:42:19.743 --> 00:42:24.173
convey no, and they'll need to be persuaded on the merits, yeah, and so we don't have to …
00:42:24.933 --> 00:42:29.893
we’ve got to maintain that innocence, and that curiosity, and that confidence that
00:42:30.413 --> 00:42:36.618
persuasion ought to be earned and be anchored on something that is compelling.
00:42:37.065 --> 00:42:40.907
I really need to thank my parents because since I was a child,
00:42:41.184 --> 00:42:44.580
I was always that kid to say why, convince me.
00:42:44.882 --> 00:42:48.083
And my mom always remembered that, you know, the word convince me.
00:42:48.083 --> 00:42:49.474
Why are you telling me to do this?
00:42:49.735 --> 00:42:54.363
So it's nice to have that, like you said, and see the ripple effect that it
00:42:54.363 --> 00:42:56.811
has in your life in so, so many ways.
00:42:57.787 --> 00:43:03.250
I would like to end this conversation with a scenario. Let's imagine something.
00:43:03.639 --> 00:43:11.064
If you are now responsible for negotiating an AI deal around the world,
00:43:11.411 --> 00:43:15.579
I know winning together was about natural resource, water.
00:43:16.398 --> 00:43:27.288
But now, if we think about negotiating how we need to hold on AI's superintelligence,
00:43:27.717 --> 00:43:31.303
and I'm saying that I know the good side of AI.
00:43:31.303 --> 00:43:38.171
I know all the benefits, but also as you've heard with the other side of AI and especially
00:43:38.914 --> 00:43:45.973
the unknown and what can emerge out of something like a black box that everyone
00:43:45.973 --> 00:43:49.984
thinks is under control, but we don't know what's going to happen.
00:43:50.379 --> 00:43:58.070
So, if you were the head of a negotiation team that would bring different parties to the
00:44:00.328 --> 00:44:05.495
What would your strategy be? What would your method be?
00:44:05.866 --> 00:44:09.838
And I know I'm giving you such... But again, it's something to think about.
00:44:09.838 --> 00:44:15.288
It's a fantastic way to end, Laila. I'll say, first of all, like they do it on the movies,
00:44:16.002 --> 00:44:21.408
that I can neither confirm nor deny that the scenario that you describe may
00:44:21.408 --> 00:44:27.018
be actually very realistic, and may actually, I might not be able to describe,
00:44:27.018 --> 00:44:29.748
given confidentiality agreements,
00:44:31.318 --> 00:44:34.358
the top organizations I’m working with in that specific dynamic.
00:44:34.358 --> 00:44:35.116
Okay.
00:44:35.894 --> 00:44:42.088
So let me see what I could share. And what I see is there's stakeholders in
00:44:42.088 --> 00:44:45.327
the corporate sector at the C-Suite level,
00:44:47.185 --> 00:44:54.749
who've brought to their organizations incredibly talented young minds to think about the pedagogy,
00:44:56.345 --> 00:45:05.813
that the corporate decision makers, and the government stakeholders, and the civil society brokers,
00:45:06.806 --> 00:45:13.621
need to practice to navigate one word that you presented here, which is the unknown.
00:45:14.277 --> 00:45:20.628
So with the advent of AI and the pace of evolution that experts suggest we will
00:45:20.628 --> 00:45:24.726
see from RSI, Recursive Self-Improvement …
00:45:29.741 --> 00:45:33.780
the speed at which opportunities and crises might come,
00:45:36.323 --> 00:45:42.424
might indeed surpass the current structures of decision-making,
00:45:44.938 --> 00:45:51.857
let alone on regulatory dynamics, but on even just emergency management that we could have.
00:45:53.070 --> 00:46:07.188
And so what we can do, is create tabletops, create training scenarios where people can openly, practice,
00:46:09.009 --> 00:46:14.439
what or how large is the gulf between what they think they should do, and when
00:46:14.439 --> 00:46:16.488
they actually are confronted with the challenge,
00:46:17.016 --> 00:46:18.899
how do they resolve it or try to attack it …
00:46:18.899 --> 00:46:24.339
And then measure, once you come up with a solution, what are the unintended
00:46:24.339 --> 00:46:26.821
consequences. So, my sense is that,
00:46:29.746 --> 00:46:36.269
there's a lot of brilliant minds who want to channel these technologies in such
00:46:36.269 --> 00:46:41.610
a way that they produce the prosperity,
00:46:44.548 --> 00:46:53.917
that they seek, and that there's efforts for that pedagogy to be a touchstone of discovery,
00:46:54.677 --> 00:47:02.224
to render the management, and the policies, and the structures that generate policy
00:47:02.433 --> 00:47:05.568
between the public and the private sector, more robust.
00:47:05.904 --> 00:47:12.669
And what I can say is, my sense is that the decision makers that I've been exposed
00:47:12.669 --> 00:47:16.893
to, which is not all the organizations, but many that make important decisions,
00:47:18.252 --> 00:47:22.240
is not constrained to thinking about just a specific nation.
00:47:22.535 --> 00:47:24.469
They're thinking globally.
00:47:25.043 --> 00:47:31.809
In this quite interesting challenge between competition and collaboration with
00:47:31.809 --> 00:47:37.394
competing interests politically and economically and competing different systems. And so...
00:47:40.291 --> 00:47:45.221
it's TBD in the sense that human beings will need to make choices when confronted
00:47:45.221 --> 00:47:46.583
with these transformations.
00:47:47.187 --> 00:47:52.561
And all we can choose, rather, one thing we can choose to do or contribute to from this
00:47:52.561 --> 00:47:54.171
sphere in which I have expertise,
00:47:56.702 --> 00:48:03.296
is trust the decision makers and certainly trust the people that they've hired,
00:48:04.051 --> 00:48:08.480
who have the wisdom of the technologies to develop the skills,
00:48:09.368 --> 00:48:12.433
to get to solutions that they may not know now,
00:48:13.757 --> 00:48:17.951
but they could produce in the future through the practice of anticipating what
00:48:17.951 --> 00:48:18.871
might be coming their way.
00:48:19.202 --> 00:48:26.191
What you said through the last hour was the composition or the decomposition
00:48:26.191 --> 00:48:29.041
that you have inside you of
00:48:29.812 --> 00:48:35.101
openness, of willing to change, of win-win,
00:48:35.661 --> 00:48:37.208
not zero-sum.
00:48:37.562 --> 00:48:42.844
So there's so many pieces that I see here that,
00:48:43.668 --> 00:48:50.008
and this is
kind of my perspective about all this, is if you target these pieces,
00:48:50.821 --> 00:48:55.381
which we were talking about, the values, you know, looking at the big picture,
00:48:55.381 --> 00:48:59.504
it's the globe, we're all in this together, you know, all that,
00:48:59.760 --> 00:49:02.181
then collaboration may emerge
00:49:02.610 --> 00:49:06.321
organically because you have targeted all these different pieces.
00:49:06.321 --> 00:49:08.781
Yes, I mean, we can’t control...
00:49:10.348 --> 00:49:11.160
the unknown.
00:49:11.160 --> 00:49:11.695
Yes.
00:49:11.858 --> 00:49:16.910
Even if we may have been behind the creation of that unknown and aware that
00:49:16.910 --> 00:49:18.284
that unknown is coming our way,
00:49:19.172 --> 00:49:23.949
but we have an opportunity to prepare ourselves to relate with that unknown,
00:49:24.402 --> 00:49:29.810
proactively with the knowns that we have now to create structures of discussion,
00:49:29.810 --> 00:49:31.889
collaboration, insight, research,
00:49:32.493 --> 00:49:39.280
execution, investment, that make it more likely that when we're confronted with
00:49:39.280 --> 00:49:43.550
the challenges, we have the right people in the room, the right insights in
00:49:43.550 --> 00:49:45.570
the room, and the right virtues in the room.
00:49:45.890 --> 00:49:51.127
And that is what I feel when I see the great souls that I work with.
00:49:51.406 --> 00:49:53.461
That's their commitment. That's their mission.
00:49:53.902 --> 00:49:57.640
And I'll choose that, than despair.
00:49:57.797 --> 00:50:03.000
And I like that because I think also what you're saying is we don't want people
00:50:03.000 --> 00:50:04.583
who are ignorant in the room.
00:50:05.930 --> 00:50:14.422
We want people who are capable, who have the wise intelligence in the room to
00:50:15.183 --> 00:50:17.557
take the right decisions when things happen.
00:50:17.714 --> 00:50:22.720
Yes, and why your work and your research and your life mission in these most
00:50:22.720 --> 00:50:29.323
recent years embodies is believing that any person is amenable to achieve that
00:50:29.717 --> 00:50:32.173
if exposed to the right pastures,
00:50:32.930 --> 00:50:35.100
if given the right opportunities.
00:50:35.100 --> 00:50:41.786
And so it's our capacity to produce those synergies that makes it more likely
00:50:42.175 --> 00:50:43.522
that we will go in the right direction.
00:50:43.707 --> 00:50:49.849
We know there will always be human beings who make choices in a confrontational dynamic.
00:50:51.277 --> 00:50:56.343
The best way to defeat those choices is to have a larger group of souls that
00:50:56.343 --> 00:51:01.473
have the intelligence, the power, the resources, and the capacity to produce
00:51:01.473 --> 00:51:04.853
that prosperity in a way that uplifts rather than destroys.
00:51:04.853 --> 00:51:10.803
Exactly. Exactly. Any other question you want to ask? I'll leave that floor to you now.
00:51:10.803 --> 00:51:16.513
I've just been delighted by the time we shared together a wide-ranging conversation,
00:51:16.513 --> 00:51:21.533
organic as it's meant to be, honored by the opportunity to learn from the work
00:51:21.533 --> 00:51:25.379
that you do from the very first time that I was able to read your book.
00:51:25.867 --> 00:51:30.516
I'm very happy, looking forward to being able to be in different environments with you again.
00:51:30.742 --> 00:51:37.483
Thank you so much. I think what really kind of made me think is how aligned
00:51:37.483 --> 00:51:40.603
we could be when it's crazy.
00:51:40.603 --> 00:51:43.753
We come from different disciplines, different parts of the world,
00:51:43.753 --> 00:51:49.155
but still that alignment that can really kind of click is just amazing.
00:51:49.376 --> 00:51:53.983
And that's what we're looking for in connecting with other people around the world.
00:51:53.983 --> 00:51:56.833
Absolutely. Credit to the Lord. Inshallah.
00:51:56.833 --> 00:51:59.587
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.