Accumulator: a structural term for anything that accumulates, e.g., water in a bathtub, savings in a bank account, current inventory. In the STELLA modeling software, an accumulator is used as a genetic symbol for anything that accumulates. Also referred to as a Stock or a Level.

Balancing Loop/Process with Delay: (a systems archetype). When a balancing process has a long delay, the usual response is to over-correct, leading to wild swings in behavior such as real estate cycles.

Balancing Loop/Process: along with reinforcing loops, it forms the two building blocks of dynamic systems. Balancing processes seek equilibrium — they try to bring things to a desired state and keep them there. They also limit and constrain. A balancing loop depicts a balancing process. Also called Negative Loop.

Behavior Over Time (BOT) Diagram: (one of the ten tools of systems thinking). BOT diagrams capture the history or future trend of one or more variables over time. By sketching the variables on the same graph, we can gain an explicit understanding of how they interact over time. Also called Reference Modes.

Causal Loop Diagram: (one of the ten tools of systems thinking). A closed loop of cause-and-effect linkages which captures how variables in a system are interrelated.

Eroding Goals: (a systems archetype). In an “Eroding Goals” scenario, a gradual downward slide in performance goals goes unnoticed, threatening the long-term future of the system or organization. Example: lengthening delivery delays.

Escalation: (a systems archetype). In this archetype, two parties compete for superiority in an arena. As one party’s actions put it ahead, the other party “retaliates” by increasing its actions. The result is a continual ratcheting up of activity on both sides. Examples: price wars, the U.S.-U.S.S.R. arms race.

Feedback: the return of information about the status of a process. For example, annual performance reviews are a way of returning information to an employee about the status of his/her work.

Fixes that Fail: (a systems archetype). In a “Fixes that Fail” situation, a fix is applied to a problem that has immediate positive results, but has unforeseen long-term consequences that eventually make the problem worse. Also known as Fixes that Backfire.

Flow: the amount of change something undergoes during a particular unit of time. For example, the amount of water that flows out of a tub each minute, or the amount of interest earned in a savings account each month. Also called a Rate.

Generic Structures-structures that can be generalized across many different settings because the underlying relationships are fundamentally the same or “generic.” Systems archetypes comprise a particular class of generic structures.

Graphical Function Diagram (GFD): (one of the ten tools of systems thinking). GFD’s show how one variable interacts with another (such as the effect of delivery delays on sales) by plotting the relationship between the two over the entire range of relevant values. The resulting diagram is a concise hypothesis of how the two variables interrelate. Also called Table Functions.

Growth and Under-investment: (a systems archetype). In this situation, resource investments in a growing area are not made due to short-term pressures. As growth begin to stall due to the lack of resources, there is less incentive for adding capacity, which further slows the growth.

Learning Laboratory: (one of the ten tools of systems thinking). A learning laboratory takes a management flight simulator and embeds it in a learning environment. There, groups of managers use a combination of systems thinking tools to explore the dynamics of a particular system and inquire into their own understanding of that system. Learning labs serve as a manager’s practice field.

Level: see Accumulator.

Leverage Point: an area where small change can yield large improvements in a system.

Limits to Success: (a systems archetype). In a “Limits to Success” scenario, a company or product line grows rapidly at first, but eventually begins to slow or even decline. The reason is that the system has hit some “limit” — capacity constraints, resource limits, market saturation, etc.—that is inhibiting further growth. Also called Limits to Growth.

Management Flight Simulator (MFS): (one of the ten tools of systems thinking). Similar to a pilot’s flight simulator, a MFS allows managers to test the outcome of different policies and decisions without “crashing and burning” real companies. It is based on a system dynamics computer model that has been changed into an interactive decision making simulator through the use of an interface.

Negative Feedback Loop: see Balancing Loop.

Policy Structure Diagram: (one of the ten tools of systems thinking). Policy Structure Diagrams are used to create a conceptual “map” of the decision-making process that is embedded in an organization. It highlights the factors which are weighed at each decision point.

Positive Feedback Loop: see Reinforcing Loop.

Rate: see Flow.

Reinforcing Loop/Process: along with balancing loops, it forms the two building blocks of dynamic systems. Reinforcing processes produce both growth and collapse — they compound change in one direction with even more change. A reinforcing loop depicts a reinforcing process. Also known as Vicious Cycles or Virtuous Cycles and Positive Feedback Loops.

Shifting the Burden: (a systems archetype). In a “Shifting the Burden” situation, a short-term solution is tried that successfully solves an ongoing problem. As the solution is used over and over again, it takes attention away from more fundamental solutions. Over time, the ability to apply a fundamental solution may decrease, resulting in a greater reliance on the symptomatic solution. Example: drug or alcohol dependency in response to stress.

Shifting the Burden to the Intervener: (a systems archetype). A special case of “Shifting the Burden” which occurs when an intervener is brought in to help solve an ongoing problem. Over time, as the intervener successfully handles the problem, the people within the system become less capable of dealing with the problem themselves, leading to further dependence on the intervener. Example: ongoing use of outside consultants.

Simulation Model: (one of the ten tools of systems thinking). A computer model that allows you to map the relationships that are important to a problem or an issue and then simulate the interaction of those variables over time.

Stock: see Accumulator.

Structural Diagram: Draws out the accumulators and flows in a system, giving an overview of the major structural elements that produce the system’s behavior. Also called Flow Diagrams or Accumulator/Flow Diagrams.

Structure-Behavior Pairs: (one of the ten tools of systems thinking). Structure-Behavior Pairs consist of a structural representation of a business issue (using accumulators and flows) and the corresponding Behavior Over Time (BOT) Diagram for the issue being studied.

Structure: the manner in which the elements of a system are organized or interrelated; the building blocks of a larger system. It includes not only the organizational chart, but incentive systems, information flows, and interpersonal interactions. The terms structure and system are sometimes used interchangeably.

Success to the Successful: (a systems archetype). In this situation, two activities compete for a common but limited resource. The more successful activity is consistently given more resources, allowing it to succeed even more, while the less successful one becomes starved for resources and eventually dies out.

System: a group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole. Almost always defined with respect to a specific purpose. The terms system and structure are sometimes used interchangeably.

Systems Archetypes: (one of the ten tools of systems thinking). Systems archetypes are the “classic storylines” in systems thinking—common patterns and structures that occur repeatedly in different settings.

System Dynamics: a field of study which includes a methodology for constructing computer simulation models to achieve better understanding and control of social and corporate systems. It draws on organizational studies, behavioral decision theory, and engineering to provide a theoretical and empirical base for structuring the relationships in complex systems.

Systems Thinking: a school of thought which focuses on recognizing the interconnections between the parts of a system and synthesizing them into a unified view of the whole.

Table Function: see Graphical Function Diagram.

Templates: a tool used for quickly identifying systems archetypes by “filling in the blanks” in causal loop diagrams.

Tragedy of the Commons: (a systems archetype). In a “Tragedy of the Commons” scenario, a shared resource becomes overburdened as each person uses more and more of it for individual gain. Eventually, the resource dwindles or is wiped out, resulting in lower gains for everyone involved. Example: the depletion of fish stock due to over-fishing.

The above glossary is a compilation of definitions from many sources, including Innovation Associates’ Systems Thinking: A Business Perspective course book, Gould-Kreutzer Associates’ Introduction to Systems Thinking course book, The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge, High Performance Systems’ Academic User’s Guide to STELLA, and The American Heritage and Random House Dictionaries.

The post The Vocabulary of Systems Thinking: A Pocket Guide appeared first on The Systems Thinker.

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s epic biography of Lincoln, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (Simon & Schuster, 2005), is no better place to explore the answers. By interweaving the biographies of members of Lincoln’s cabinet, Goodwin creates a systemic portrait of the administration that saved the Union. Through this meticulous examination of the interrelationships among this group, we learn about its leader with a richness that would be unlikely any other way. Remarkably, many of these men were political rivals. Yet in spite of the conflict among them as well as surrounding them, Lincoln forged a team that would prevail.

What struck me most while reading Team of Rivals was how the lynchpin of Lincoln’s prodigious emotional intellect was his empathy. Time and again, Lincoln’s insights into others deescalated conflict and cemented relationships, both personal as well as political. Building on Goodwin’s painstaking research into the people and events of Lincoln’s life, this article examines the relationship between Lincoln’s empathy and the following facets of his emotional intelligence: deescalation, storytelling, self-awareness, self-regulation, humor, and reflection.

Popular culture sometimes offers the two-dimensional image of Abraham Lincoln as a moral but depressed emancipator. Goodwin introduces us to his depth as a man who was “plain and complex, shrewd and transparent, tender and iron-willed” (p. xv). He displayed, “a fierce ambition, an exceptional political acumen, and a wide range of emotional strengths, forged in the crucible of personal hardship, that took his unsuspecting rivals by surprise” (p. xvi). Goodwin observes that “Lincoln’s political genius” allowed him “to repair injured feelings that, left untended, might have escalated into permanent hostility; to assume responsibility for the failures of subordinates; to share credit with ease; and to learn from mistakes… His success in dealing with the strong egos of the men in his cabinet suggests that in the hands of a truly great politician the qualities we generally associate with decency and morality — kindness, sensitivity, compassion, honesty, and empathy — can also be impressive political resources” (p. xvii).

Empathy and De-escalation

When I first wrote the outline for this article, I listed empathy and de-escalation as separate sections. It became readily apparent, however, that virtually every example of Lincoln’s empathy was an example of de-escalation; their relationship was causal (see “Conflict/Empathy Cycle”)

CONFLICT/EMPATHY CYCLE

One way to think about how Lincoln’s empathy affected his ability to manage conflict is with a balancing loop. As conflict increased, it caused his empathy for the other party to increase. As his empathy increased, it reduced the conflict. As the conflict then decreased, Lincoln could focus his attention elsewhere. As his empathy for the other party went down, sometimes the conflict would return. This cycle would then repeat.

Goodwin begins her exploration of Lincoln’s empathy with its relationship to his melancholy. Lincoln “possessed extraordinary empathy — the gift or curse of putting himself in the place of another, to experience what they were feeling, to understand their motives and desires… His sensibilities were not only acute, they were raw.” As a young man, Lincoln once “stopped and tracked back half a mile to rescue a pig caught in a mire – not because he loved the pig, recollected a friend,‘just to take a pain out of his own mind.’” Helen Nicolay, the daughter of Lincoln’s private secretary, concluded, “With his wealth of sympathy, his conscience, and his unflinching sense of justice, he was predestined to sorrow.”

Yet in the political arena, this same sensitivity would be Lincoln’s greatest asset. Nicolay astutely observed that, “His crowning gift of political diagnosis was due to his sympathy… which gave him the power to forecast with uncanny accuracy what his opponents were likely to do.” After listening to colleagues at Whig Party caucuses, Lincoln would extrapolate:, “From your talk, I gather the Democrats will do so and so… I should do so and so to checkmate them.” He would intuit “the moves for days ahead; making them all so plain that his listeners wondered why they had not seen it that way themselves” (pp. 103–104). In this way, Lincoln’s empathy did not prevent him from competing politically; to the contrary, it enabled him to do so successfully.

The duality of his empathy as both a blessing and a curse is a recurrent theme in his life. Lincoln’s trips to visit troops in the field exemplify this dynamic. His bodyguard, William Crook, observed how Lincoln “seemed to absorb the horrors of the war into himself.” Lincoln experienced “agony when the thunder of the cannon told him that men were being cut down like grass” and anguish at the “sight of the poor, torn bodies of the dead and dying on the field of Petersburg.” His “painful sympathy” was extended impartially not only to “the forlorn rebel prisoners” but also to “the devastation of a noble people in ruined Richmond” (pp. 723–724).

The Civil War would present innumerable opportunities for Lincoln’s empathy to de-escalate a potential conflict and transform it into a valued relationship. In one instance, three Confederate slaves being used to build a rebel battery escaped from their master. The Union general Benjamin Butler refused to return the slaves to their owner on the grounds that the slaves were being used to further the rebel cause. As Butler was a conservative Democrat, his action was unusual. Despite their political differences, Lincoln rewarded Butler by promoting him to brigadier general. In a letter to Lincoln, Butler wrote that he accepted the commission but wished to be frank that in the prior election he had done everything he could to oppose Lincoln. He reassured Lincoln that, “I shall do no political act, and loyally support your administration as long as I hold your commission; and when I find any act that I cannot support I shall bring the commission back at once, and return it to you.”

Lincoln replied with typical magnanimity: “That is frank, that is fair. But I want to add one thing: When you see me doing anything that for the good of the country ought not to be done, come and tell me so, and why you think so, and then perhaps you won’t have any chance to resign your commission” (pp 368–369). How many senior leaders are secure enough to order their subordinates to disagree with them? Lincoln recognized that surrounding yourself with those who are willing to disagree with you builds error-checking into your decision-making.

Lincoln’s empathy not only gave him insight into the suffering of others, it aided him in communicating these insights.

Nor was Lincoln beneath apologizing. Goodwin describes that when Lincoln found out “a hastily written note to General Franz Sigel had upset the general, he swiftly followed up with another.‘I was a little cross,’ he told Sigel,‘I ask pardon. If I do get up a little temper I have no sufficient time to keep it up.’ Such gestures on Lincoln’s part repaired injured feelings that might have escalated into lasting animosity” (pp. 511–512).
Lincoln’s friends were more likely to hold political grudges on his behalf than he was. When a congressional colleague celebrated the defeat of a political rival, Winter Davis, Lincoln remarked, “You have more of that feeling of personal resentment than I. A man has not time to spend half his life in quarrels. If any man ceases to attack me, I never remember the past against him” (p. 665).

Lincoln’s empathy not only gave him insight into the suffering of others, it aided him in communicating these insights. When Lincoln’s secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton, refused to grant a political appointment desired by two congressmen, Lincoln eloquently supported the decision. Lincoln described Stanton to the congressman as “the rock on the beach of our national ocean against which the breakers dash and roar, dash and roar without ceasing. He fights back the angry waters and prevents them from undermining and overwhelming the land.” Lincoln marveled at Stanton’s very survival in a position that was “one of the most difficult in the world,” and therefore saw that it was his “duty to submit” to his secretary’s decision. By so doing, he led the congressmen to do the same (p. 670).

Lincoln’s famous second inaugural address in 1865 (“With malice towards none; with charity for all”) was once again guided by his empathy – even for a war-time enemy. Goodwin observes, “If the spirited crowd expected a speech exalting recent Union victories, they were disappointed. In keeping with his lifelong tendency to consider all sides of a troubled situation, Lincoln urged a more sympathetic understanding of the nation’s alienated citizens in the South.” Lincoln represented the North and South as being more the same than different:, “Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes” (p. 698).

One cannot help sense that for Lincoln “the other” equaled “the self.” Nowhere was this clearer than in Lincoln’s orders regarding the re-assimilation of enemy soldiers after they surrendered. When General Sherman asked for guidance on how to handle the defeated rebels, Lincoln answered that “all he wanted of us was to defeat the opposing armies, and to get the men composing the Confederate armies back to their homes, at work on their farms and in their shops.” Lincoln wanted the citizens of the South to “have their horses to plow with, and, if you like, their guns to shoot crows with. I want no one punished; treat them liberally all round. We want those people to return to their allegiance to the Union and submit to the laws” (p. 713).

One the greatest sources of conflict within Lincoln’s cabinet was his secretary of the treasury, Salmon P. Chase. A former rival during the 1860 bid for the presidency, Chase never stopped campaigning, in some form, even while a member of Lincoln’s cabinet. When this conflict finally came to a head and Chase resigned, Lincoln still did not write him off. To the contrary, he nominated him to be chief justice of the Supreme Court. When Lincoln first announced this nomination to one of Chase’s friends, the colleague was dumbfounded:, “Mr. President, this is an exhibition of magnanimity and patriotism that could hardly be expected of any one. After what he has said against your administration, which has undoubtedly been reported to you, it was hardly to be expected that you would bestow the most important office within your gift on such a man.”

Lincoln’s reply was matter-of-fact: “To have done otherwise I should have been recreant to my convictions of duty to the Republican party and to the country. As to his talk about me, I do not mind that. Chase is, on the whole, a pretty good fellow and a very able man. The only trouble is that he has ‘the White House fever’ a little too bad, but I hope this may cure him and that he will be satisfied.”

Lincoln would later confess that he “would rather have swallowed his buckhorn chair than to have nominated Chase” (p. 680). He was still human; he clearly felt the sting of his former secretary’s insubordination. He simply did his best to rise above his own ego in service of a greater good.

Storytelling

Crafting a story that connects with an audience is ultimately an act of empathy. Lincoln was a seemingly bottomless treasure trove of anecdotes for all occasions. He learned this craft from his father, Thomas. But before he could learn how to tell stories, Lincoln first learned how to listen.

As a young boy, Lincoln would sit “transfixed in the corner” listening to his father’s colorful anecdotes. He would then spend “no small part of the night walking up and down,” putting his father’s stories “in language plain enough, as I thought, for any boy I knew to comprehend.” Goodwin recounts that “The following day… he would climb onto the tree stump or log that served as an impromptu stage and mesmerize his own circle of young listeners” (p. 50).

As an adult, Lincoln’s stories became more than mere entertainment: “They frequently provided maxims or proverbs that usefully connected to the lives of his listeners. Lincoln possessed an extraordinary ability to convey practical wisdom in the form of humorous tales his listeners could remember and repeat” (p. 151). His mastery lay in the ability to distill complexity into terms that anyone could understand, thereby enabling others to propagate his considered insights.

Navigating the intense factions of slavery would provide perhaps the greatest test of these talents. Approaching the 1860 convention, one hotly contested national issue was whether slavery should be allowed to spread to the new western territories. Over several speeches, Lincoln refined the following metaphor to describe the decision facing the nation:, “If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, any man would say I might seize the nearest stick and kill it; but if I found that snake in bed with my children, that would be another question. I might hurt the children more than the snake, and it might bite them… But if there was a bed newly made up, to which the children were to be taken, and it was proposed to take a hatch of young snakes and put them there with them, I take it no man would say there was any question how I ought to decide… The new Territories are the newly made bed to which our children are to go, and it lies with the nation to say whether they shall have snakes mixed up with them or not.”

Goodwin insightfully contrasts this rhetorical approach of Lincoln’s with that of his future secretary of state, William H. Seward. Seward likened slavery to allowing “the Trojan Horse” to enter the territories. While such a classical allusion might have reached Seward’s peers, it lacked the “instant accessibility” to the average citizen of Lincoln’s “homely” story (pp. 233–234).

Lincoln’s rhetorical approach to slavery had grown out of his prior experience with another divisive issue: temperance. In each case, empathy with both sides enabled his insightful understanding of the issue. He advocated that temperance activists avoid “thundering tones of anathema and denunciation,” for such tactics would only be met with more of the same. Independent of the truth of one’s cause, whether it be temperance or slavery, condemning one’s opponent would only cause him to “retreat within himself, close all the avenues to his head and his heart.” The heart, alone, was “the great high road to his reason” and therefore must be reached first to win another over (pp. 167–168). Creating an effective path to do so could only be accomplished by first standing in the other’s shoes.

Goodwin observes that “as a child, Lincoln had honed his oratory skills by addressing his companions from a tree stump” (p. 140). As an adult, these skills would become Lincoln’s connection with people. Lincoln understood that the most important responsibility of his office was to educate:, “With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who molds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts or pronounces decisions” (p. 206). His molding of public sentiment was achieved through storytelling, and his storytelling was made effective through his empathy.

Self-Awareness and Self-Regulation

Lincoln was not merely aware of the emotions of others; he also possessed an acute awareness of his own emotional needs. In spite of a tendency towards melancholy, this awareness enabled him to self-regulate his moods more effectively than any other member of his team, providing a critical foundation of emotional stability in the midst of national instability (p. xvii).

The essence of self-regulation is first having the awareness of one’s emotional needs and then acting to meet them. Lincoln knew intuitively when he had to make “a deposit” in his personal “hope account,” as well as those of others. One activity that sustained not only him but also others was his strategically timed visits to the troops in the field. The sight of Lincoln in his stovepipe hat would elicit cheers from the troops. The act of the president visiting their camps in person – at no slight personal risk – gave the troops inspiration, and inspired troops inspired Lincoln. Seeing each other escalated hope. Attending plays at Grover’s or Ford’s theaters would become another favorite means for Lincoln to achieve emotional “respite and renewal” (p. 609).

Humor

The theater was also an arena in which Lincoln exercised another self-regulation mechanism: his prodigious sense of humor:, “His ‘laugh . . . stood by itself. The neigh of a wild horse on his native prairie is not more undisguised and hearty’” (p. 613).

Meanwhile, as with his empathy, his melancholy was the shadow side of his humor. Goodwin emphasizes a distinction between depression and melancholy, the latter containing “a generous amplitude of possibility, chances for productive behavior, even what may be identified as a sense of humor” (pp. 103, 723). His humor was a willful way out of this “cave of gloom.” Lincoln laughed, he explained, “so he did not weep… His stories were intended ‘to whistle off sadness’” – not only for others but for himself as well.

Lincoln’s humor wasn’t just for humor’s sake; he had an uncanny ability to meld humor into the gravest of circumstances, often providing resolution without offense. During peace talks with a Confederate envoy, the envoy offered King Charles I as an example of a figure who made numerous agreements “with his adversaries despite ongoing hostilities.” Lincoln responded, “I do not profess to be posted in history… All I distinctly recollect about the case of Charles I, is, that he lost his head in the end” (p. 693).

When the career of his recalcitrant secretary of the treasury, Salmon P. Chase, was on the line, Chase wrote Lincoln asking for an audience. It is hard to read Lincoln’s classic reply without yearning for an opportunity to use it:, “The difficulty does not, in the main part, lie within the range of a conversation between you and me” (p. 632).

Much to the consternation of many in the army – but not surprisingly – Lincoln was liberal with issuing military pardons. Such weighty decisions were yet another opportunity for Lincoln to deftly interweave empathy and humor. Lincoln wrote the following passage as part of a pardon to an army officer who was facing a court-martial for giving in to his temper during an altercation with a superior officer. Just as noteworthy is to whom this paternal wisdom is being imparted: the brother-in-law of none other than Stephen Douglas, Lincoln’s one-time political nemesis:

No man resolved to make the most of himself, can spare time for personal contention. Still less can he afford to take all the consequences, including the vitiating of his temper, and the loss of self-control. Yield larger things to which you can show no more than equal right; and yield lesser ones, though clearly your own. Better give your path to a dog, than be bitten by him in contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite (p. 570).

Lincoln could find humor in every nook and cranny of daily experience. During one of his visits to the front, he traveled on a naval flagship. Turning down the admiral’s own room, Lincoln insisted on taking a cramped room only “six feet long by four and a half feet wide” (p. 715). Lincoln joked the next morning that while he had slept well, “you can’t put a long blade into a short scabbard.” During the day, the Admiral arranged for carpenters to knock down the wall and enlarge both the room and the bed. The next morning, Lincoln “announced with delight that ‘a greater miracle than ever happened last night; I shrank six inches in length and about a foot sideways.’”

Pausing to Reflect

Lincoln rarely acted in anger. This was not because he was immune to anger but because his self-awareness guided him to pause to reflect before acting.

Writing was one act that was conducive to such a thoughtful dynamic, observed Lincoln’s secretary, John Nicolay. Lincoln frequently wrote using a process of cumulative refinement, coming back to a passage over days or weeks to hone it to his satisfaction. As a result of the well-crafted substance of his writings, Lincoln’s oratory has withstood the test of time.

Salmon P. Chase’s ambition for the presidency tested Lincoln’s composure more than once. The release of a pamphlet critical of Lincoln’s administration was the last straw. But by holding back from admonishing Chase when the circular became public, Lincoln gave his friends the opportunity to rally in support of him. In this way, Lincoln thwarted Chase without having to take direct action, thereby moderating the potential personal conflict between them.

The self-discipline of pausing to reflect allowed Lincoln’s empathy to return to the forefront of his decision-making and be the guiding force behind his actions, rather than his anger. When General George Meade failed to capture Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg, Lincoln was initially inconsolable and penned “a frank letter” to the general. While being grateful for his success at Gettysburg, Lincoln admonished him for “the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee’s escape.” As a result, “the war will be prolonged indefinitely.” Before sending the missive, however, Lincoln must have thought through the emotional consequences upon the reader. Years later, the letter would be discovered in an envelope labeled, “To Gen. Meade, never sent, or signed” (p. 536).

Lincoln’s Leadership Legacy

Lincoln created a systemic understanding of his time by reading hearts and minds through empathy. In popular culture, empathy is sometimes derided as a form of weakness. Lincoln’s life challenges this stereotype. We create the world around us through our own actions. Lincoln consistently forged function out of chaos with magnanimous gesture after magnanimous gesture. These gestures, in fact, helped Lincoln secure the 1860 Republican nomination, not because he had the greatest experience, but because he had the fewest enemies. Such circumstances were manifest by his empathy throughout his career.

Surely, the positive effect of his approach was magnified because of his office. Executive empathy wields more influence than subordinate empathy. Even so, during the turbulent days of the Civil War, the impact of Lincoln’s legacy had its limitations. While he was able to save the life of a nation, he was ultimately unable to save his own.

How would Lincoln’s behaviors clash with our modern technologies? If one’s response to an angry letter is crafted with a fountain pen and delivered by horseback, pausing to reflect is built into the process. Modern wireless communications technologies discourage such reflection. What are the consequences? What are our choices?

Through his empathy, Lincoln saw everyone in terms of a potential relationship, a connection worth nurturing. With such an enlightened consciousness, is anyone a rival?

It is difficult to reflect on Lincoln and his time without reflecting on our own fragile, fractured world. Perhaps hope for informed action comes in the form of a simple question:, “What would Lincoln do?”

All excerpts copyright © 2005 Blithedale Productions, Inc.

Peter Pruyn lives and writes in Cambridge, MA and can be reached at pwp [at] airmail [dot] net. Special thanks to Rick Karash whose recommendation inspired him to read Team of Rivals. For more of the author’s work see http://peterpruyn.blogspot.com.

The post Executive Empathy: Lincoln’s Antidote to Escalation appeared first on The Systems Thinker.

One of the characteristics of a reinforcing loop is that, if left unchecked, it leads to powerful exponential growth. As any banker will gladly tell you, a dollar invested each week for 60 years will make you amazingly rich! But for situations that are less rosy, one of the problems is that escalation is very hard to stop once it gets going. A domestic squabble over a small thing can quickly grow to the point of destructive words and maybe even actions. Aware of the damage being wreaked, the partners may try to scale back their responses, but things can still spin out of control, as though the conflict has taken on a life of its own. When this same dynamic comes into play in the international arena between nations with nuclear weapons, it can have potentially catastrophic consequences.

Why is stopping escalation so hard? I think the problem is that small concessions aren’t enough; breaking the cycle takes big steps that go overboard in being generous to other side. Because of lack of trust or the desire to protect ourselves, we tend to tone down our rhetoric slightly—but not go too far. We seek to be conciliatory—but not to be seen as groveling. We make tentative moves toward finding a middle ground—but only as we define it.

Unfortunately, with the very real possibilities of miscommunication or misinterpretation, what one side considers to be a dramatic compromise may be viewed by the other as a hollow gesture. This kind of miscue can launch the reinforcing process all over again, often in a flash. Because people take away the impression that compromise isn’t possible, they aren’t as conciliatory in the future. Stress levels rise even further. These are reinforcing and amplifying elements. This is how wars that nobody wants can start and then gain their own momentum.

Big, Generous Actions

So how can we break free from this vicious cycle? As system dynamicist It is important to note that “generous actions” need not reflect a truly “generous spirit,” but can merely stem from the knowledge of the kind of response that is critical to averting disaster.

Embarking on this step requires trust, risk-taking, and courage. These are difficult requirements in a world with substantial complexity, time and perception delays, and communication problems. Further, if you don’t receive the desired response from the other side, then trust often decays, risk-taking becomes less aggressive, and courage turns to caution.

Real-World Examples

Having just returned from a peace delegation to Israel and Palestine, I have seen with my own eyes the damaging effects of decades of escalation. There have been a number of cycles of hurtful activity on both sides involving Palestinian protests and terrorism in response to repression, and Israeli repression and military action in response to Palestinian actions. This situation is clearly in a downward spiral, as exemplified by Israel’s recent construction of a “security fence”—as high as 8 meters in many places—that extends more than 700 kilometers within the West Bank. The sad irony is that, while this barrier and numerous security checkpoints may create the illusion of safety, by fueling anger and despair among the Palestinians, they may be boosting the escalation dynamic to a new, more deadly level— and increasing danger.

ESCALATION TEMPLATE

The basic causal loop structure of escalation has two balancing loops, as each party takes action to achieve its goal and move a bit ahead of its opponent. As the momentum swings back and forth between the two sides, the interaction of these balancing loops creates a figure-8 reinforcing loop.

“I would humbly suggest the Saudi king make four stops. His first stop should be to Al Aksa Mosque in East Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam. There, he, the custodian of Mecca and Medina, could reaffirm the Muslim claim to Arab East Jerusalem by praying at Al Aksa.

From there, he could travel to Ramallah and address the Palestinian parliament, making clear that the Abdullah initiative aims to give Palestinians the leverage to offer Israel peace with the whole Arab world in return for full withdrawal [from the occupied territories].

From there, King Abdullah could helicopter to Yad Vashem, the memorial to the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust. A visit there would seal the deal with Israelis and affirm that the Muslim world rejects the Holocaust denialism of Iran. Then he could go to the Israeli parliament and formally deliver his peace initiative.

Of course, I have no illusions about this. But is it any more illusory than thinking that the incrementalism of the last seven years is going to get anywhere? Now that’s a fantasy.”

This is perhaps an extreme example, but Freidman knows that something of this nature needs to happen. I am not a historian, but I suspect that examination of the underlying dynamics leading to the end of apartheid in South Africa or peace in Northern Ireland or the fall of the Berlin Wall, all of which occurred with surprising suddenness, would yield additional insight into the nature of big actions that reverse long-term escalation. It’s like washing the windows on a global scale!

Because the reinforcing process can so quickly transform a small, even unintentional gap between two parties into a wide chasm, understanding the dynamics can make us more sensitive to risks and more anxious to nip a situation in the bud when it is manageable. Likewise, when we are caught up in this powerful structure, knowing about the leverage in big, generous actions can make our perceptions more focused and deliberate and our responses more confident and effective. From the kitchen to the world of nations, such insight can be priceless in saving relationships and preventing wars.

David W. Packer is a founding member of the Systems Thinking Collaborative (www.stcollab.com). He holds a master’s degree from MIT, where he worked in the system dynamics group at the Sloan School, and is also a graduate of the Executive Program at the University of Virginia. David participated for many years in the growth of Digital Equipment Corporation and has served on the board of directors of the Home for Little Wanderers, Domestic Violence Services, Policy Council of the System Dynamics Society, and Pegasus Communications. His broad interest in bringing systems understanding to diverse issues is reflected in this article.

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On September 11, it sure felt like the violence came first. But the men who attacked the U. S. almost certainly saw their actions as retaliation for earlier violence. Osama bin Laden once offered a justification of his destructive methods: “The evidence overwhelmingly shows America and Israel killing the weaker men, women, and children in the Muslim world and elsewhere.” And why had we killed people in the Muslim world? Partly in response to earlier violence such as the bombings of the USS Cole and the U. S. embassies in Africa.

Now, with U. S. leaders offering rhetoric such as, “I say bomb the hell out of them. If there’s collateral damage, so be it” (Senator Zell Miller, New York Times, September 13, 2001), the United States appears ready to answer retaliation with retaliation.

So, blame them? Blame us? No on both counts. While those who attacked us must be held accountable, laying blame for the repeated cycles of violence will not prevent similar tragedies in the future.

Blame makes sense in a world of straight lines, where any event has a clear, single cause. But in a world of circles and cycles, where retaliation causes violence, which causes more retaliation, the idea of blame only distracts us from the real problem—all the players on both sides are deeply stuck in the trap called “escalation.”

We have seen this trap before and elsewhere. In the Middle East with Israelis and Palestinians. In Ireland with Protestants and Catholics. In the exponential growth of nuclear weapons during the Cold War.

What can we do to break out of the escalation trap? Drawing from the field of system dynamics, which has analyzed escalating systems from arms races to price wars, we offer three practical escape routes.

1. We can pay attention to the long-term trends. If we respond to this attack in isolation, we doom ourselves to being solely reactive. We should see this event as the culmination of a long trend of violence on both sides of the conflict, reaching back to the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, the Gulf War, various hijackings, and multiple military strikes. Looking beyond a tragedy as large as the catastrophes of September 11 is not easy, but we need to search for patterns and then for the root causes of those patterns.

2. We can ask ourselves how our actions have helped create the current situation. If we see the recent attacks as random events or caused by evil, insanity, or religious fervor, our only solution is to exterminate everyone with violent tendencies toward the U. S., build our defenses, and hope for no more bad luck.

But we have an alternative. We can explore our role in the escalation cycle. This does not mean giving in to terrorists, but it does mean asking uncomfortable questions and not settling for simple answers.

For example, we all live with the presence of injustice and inequity in the world. But is it possible that the way we live contributes to the despair and desperation of others? Do we ask or allow our government to take actions that push people to follow extremists like bin Laden? Even asking if our own children’s comfort is bought at such a price feels devastating.

Perhaps a careful look will convince us that we are unconnected to the conditions that bred the attacks on the U. S. But, caught as we are in the dynamic of escalation, our security now depends on whether we have the courage to examine these tough questions.

3. We can focus on actions that de-escalate long-term conflict. Con- flicts carry a huge payload of momen- tum. Ramping down the tension feels like leaning your shoulder into the front of a slow-moving train—the momentum just brushes you aside. But the same mechanics that drive escalation—misunderstanding, aggression, blame—can be tipped in the opposite direction to deescalate tensions via understanding, engagement, and respect. We can begin the long, slow movement toward peace by demanding that those responsible for the recent attacks be brought to justice out of respect for the rule of law, not out of a reflexive demand for vengeance.

We must bring to justice the criminals who have killed innocent people in such staggering numbers. But we must do more than that. We must avoid accelerating the cycle of violence and ramp down the tensions that are the root-cause drivers of conflict. This will only be possible if large numbers of us are able to examine our impacts on the lives of people in the Arab world and explore our own impulse to retaliate.

If we can rise to this challenge, we might see a new riddle emerge which came first, the restraint or the peace?

Andrew Jones and Elizabeth Sawin are project managers at Sustainability Institute, a think-do tank founded by Donella Meadows that uses systems thinking and modeling to help create a more sustainable world.

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The Eye of the Beholder

In the U. S., the expression “keeping up with the Joneses” describes the rivalry that some homeowners fall into with their neighbors. So, if the Joneses buy a new car, the Smiths feel compelled to replace their old vehicle with the latest model. When the Joneses have their yard landscaped, the Smiths do the same. And on it goes.

In this case, escalation occurs when we equate acquiring material things with success. Once we become involved in a competition- whether it’s over which neighbor has a neater lawn or which airline is the lowest fares—we unconsciously raise the ante with each additional action that we take. For example, even though the Smiths believe they are merely “keeping up” when they buy their new car, they may choose one with bells and whistles that the Joneses’ car doesn’t have, triggering another round of escalating conspicuous consumption.

Because parity is in the eye of the be holder, escalation dynamics can erupt in any relationship that involves even the slightest hint of rivalry. On the playground, we have all seen how an accidental bump quickly escalates into a shoving match and then into an all-out fight. On a larger scale, we have lived through perhaps the largest escalation dynamic in human history—the nuclear arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States.

Innocuous Beginnings, Destructive Endings

Why does escalation often spin out of control? One reason is that delays contribute to distortions in the information flowing between the two sides. One delay occurs between the actions that each party takes and the results of those actions. The other is between the relative position of each participant vis-à-vis the other and the perceived threat that this positioning causes the parties to feel. Information gets distorted along every link in the system; however, the second delay may have the greatest effect, in that it leads each side to overestimate the impact of its rivals’ activities on their relative position.

THE STRUCTURE OF ESCALATION DYNAMICS

When BigCo increases its promotions (B1), it takes time for the effects to show up. Thus, LilCo does not feel threatened initially. When LilCo finally realizes that it has fallen behind, it tries to catch up (B2). BigCo feel threatened by these aggressive actions and over extrapolates the impact of LilCo’s promotions (R3). In turn, LilCo sees BigCo’s efforts as an even worse threat and again increases its own promotional activity (R4).

Thus, when BigCo increases its level of promotions, the results of these activities do not show up immediately in higher sales (B1 in “The Structure of Escalation Dynamics”). For this reason, BigCo may engage in more promotions than it originally intended; for instance, by prolonging a special offer. This delay contributes to the escalation dynamics, because LilCo then perceives BigCo as aggressively promoting its products. In the short-term, LilCo may respond by engaging in simple “Tit-for-Tat” behavior (see “Three Regions of Escalation”).

Eventually, the results of BigCo’s actions do become visible (B2). But, because of the delay between relative results and feelings of being threatened, LilCo remains complacent about its level of activity relative to BigCo. When LilCo finally realizes that it has fallen behind, the gap between BigCo’s sales and LilCo’s sales is wider than it might have been if LilCo had seen the relative impact of BigCo’s actions sooner. When LilCo takes action, it does so from a heightened state of threat and tries to catch up to BigCo as fast as it can. BigCo then interprets this increased level of activity as an attempt by LilCo to raise the stakes. So, BigCo now over-extrapolates LilCo’s catch-up activity as a threat to its own position and, in turn, increases its activities (R4). LilCo sees BigCo’s increased market- ing efforts as an even worse threat and again increases its own promotional activity (R3). Both sides are fast approaching the turbo-charged region of All-Out Escalation.

THREE REGIONS OF ESCALATION

In the early stage of “Escalation,” the parties engage in “Tit-for-Tat” behavior. As each company over-extrapolates the other’s activities, they “Raise the Stakes” with each action. When the rivals reach “All- Out Escalation,” they act with ever-increasing speed and volatility until something devastating happens.

In All-Out Escalation, time delays become compressed. Because the par- ties have previously been caught off- guard as a result of delays, neither side wants to wait for additional results to materialize before taking action. The problem is that those sub- sequent actions are based on each party’s extrapolations—usually inflated—of the other’s activities (R5). When escalation reaches this level, activity by one party begets more activity by the other with ever- increasing speed and volatility until something devastating happens.

In the case of BigCo and LilCo, it may appear that there is nothing wrong because sales continue to rise for both companies. However, pro- motional costs are rising faster than sales, so margins are shrinking even while sales are growing. Companies have engaged in these kinds of dynamics to the point where they sell their products at a loss because they are so focused on not being “outsold” by their competition!

Early Warning Systems

Escalation dynamics can occur in numerous business settings, such as price-cutting wars, promotional competitions, and product-feature battles. So, how can you keep from getting lured into these dynamics in the first place?

As with almost all conflicts, the best time to deal with escalation is early in the process, before the dynamics take on a life of their own. For the “Escalation” archetype, this means paying attention to the interplay between you and your rival while you are still in the relatively harmless Tit-for-Tat stage. Take the first rumblings of an escalation dynamic as your early warning to proceed with caution. Immediately assess the value proposition that you are offering your customers. For instance, when a competitor begins to target your customers by emphasizing a lower price, it is easy to respond by lowering your price as well. But perhaps your competitor picked price as the variable because that is the only thing that they can compete on.

The problem with responding in kind to this gambit is that you allow your competitor to set the ground rules. This proved to be a costly mis- take for Texas Instruments, when it allowed Commodore to choose price as the competing variable for the home computer. Instead of emphasizing the superiority of its product, Texas Instruments lowered its prices. Price cuts followed price cuts until TI ultimately admitted defeat, writing off the TI 99/4A computer, which cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars.

Instead of letting the competition dictate your strategy, refocus your business strategy. When FedEx was experiencing stiffer competition in the overnight delivery business and others began to lower their prices, FedEx could have joined he fray by cutting its own prices. However, it chose to emphasize a value proposition that was even more important to customers who used overnight delivery services than price: reliability. By doing so, the company reestablished its leadership role in the overnight delivery business and was able to maintain higher pricing than its competitors.

Ending the War Games

In the hit movie “War Games,” a Defense Department computer assumed control of all U. S. nuclear warheads. As the computer was in the process of cracking the security code that would allow it to launch the entire U. S. nuclear arsenal at the U. S. S. R, the programmer-hero engaged it in playing tic-tac-toe over and over again, hoping it would learn that trying to win the game was futile. In the end, the computer did learn that lesson and concluded that all thermonuclear war scenarios would lead to a no- win situation. Even though “War Games” was fictional, it accurately captured the potentially destructive quality of escalation. More individuals, companies, and countries embroiled in escalating struggles could learn a valuable lesson from understanding the pitfalls of this structure.

Daniel H. Kim, Ph. D., is publisher of The Systems Thinker and a member of the governing council of the Society for Organizational Learning.

Editorial support for this article was provided by Janice Molloy.

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In a way, all of these situations are not too unlike how schoolyard fights get started. This image of a schoolyard fight captures the essence of the “Escalation” archetype: One kid makes a pejorative comment that the other counters with a sharp rebuttal. The next round of remarks is even louder and more entrenched. Each side sticks his neck out farther and farther; sometimes the onlookers even seem to egg on the mounting hostilities. Pretty soon, both sides are so far out on a limb that you can almost imagine the playground chant: “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Once things have reached a fever pitch, it is hard to see how anyone will be able to climb down from their positions.

In an “Escalation” situation, one party takes actions to counter a perceived threat. These actions are perceived by the other party as creating an imbalance in the system that then makes them feel threatened. So the second party responds to close the gap, creating an imbalance from the first party’s perspective, and on it goes. The dynamic of the two parties, each trying to achieve a sense of “safety,” becomes an overall reinforcing process that escalates tension on both sides.

Escalating Airfare Wars

This is the typical story of price wars among rival airlines. Cosmic Air wants to fill more of the empty seats on their flights, so they cut their fares. As passengers respond to the bargain fares, Universal Air finds their bookings declining and counters with an even more attractive discount offer. Cosmic, in turn, creates another special promotion, offering a “two for the price of one” deal to customers. In the short run, travelers benefit from the low prices, but in the long term, everyone could lose—and lose big. Depressed prices mean that the profitability of both airlines involved in the price war suffers. As a result, they have less funds to invest in equipment, maintenance, staff, and training—a dangerous situation for them and their customers.

“Escalation” dynamics thrive in a competitive environment, so—not surprisingly—they are pervasive in business. The usual logic that drives “Escalation” goes something like this: Whenever your competitor gains, you lose, and vice versa. That logic leads to all kinds of “wars”—price wars, advertising contests, rebate and promotion slug-fests, salary and benefits wars, labor versus management conflicts, marketing versus manufacturing department battles, and so on. And in the end, everyone loses. Yet the dynamic can also work in a positive direction, when the parties induce each other to compete to improve a situation. The challenge in any “Escalation” situation is to find a way to turn it around, so that it leads to good things for all the parties involved, rather than a downward spiral of destruction.

Diminishing the Threat

As an old saying goes, it takes two to have an argument (or a price war), but only one to stop it. This is good news for those who genuinely want to halt this dynamic, because unilateral action can break “Escalation” and rob it of its legitimacy. If one side stops arguing or lowering prices, the source of the threat diminishes, giving the other party less reason to keep arguing or lowering prices. Such unilateral “disarmament” can actually cause the structure to run in reverse. If one party changes its mental model of a situation, the other may follow suit, and the entire scenario can transform into a positive development.

This article was adapted with the assistance of Janice Molloy from Systems Archetype Basics: From Story to Structure by Daniel H. Kim and Virginia Anderson (Pegasus Communications, 1998). Virginia (Prinny) Anderson is the founder and principal consultant at Design for Learning.

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The first question seemed important because it appeared that both sides had been moving toward a peaceful settlement since 1993, when they signed the Oslo Accords. Certain parts of the West Bank had been returned to full Palestinian control on an agreed-upon path to Palestinian statehood, and the newly formed Palestinian Authority had publicly announced its acceptance of Israel’s right to exist. Just two months before we moved to Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Barak had made the strongest Israeli offer yet for completing negotiations and paving the way for a Palestinian state comprising most of the West Bank and Gaza—although, much to the surprise of most Israelis, the offer was rejected.

The second question seems almost inevitable in human relations when things do not go the way people want them to. Instead of considering our responsibility for creating certain situations, we quickly seek to blame others. Moreover, in this case, there were plenty of likely candidates: Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader who turned down Barak’s breakthrough offer; Ariel Sharon, the Israeli right-wing leader whose visit to the Al Aqsa mosque complex sparked the Palestinian riots; Barak, for appearing to force the Palestinian leadership into a corner and refusing to meet with Arafat face-to-face at Camp David; and President Clinton, for appearing to side with Israel against the Palestinians during these same negotiations.

As unavoidable as these two questions are, I believe they are the wrong ones. As a systems thinker trained to look for the non-obvious interdependencies producing chronic problems, I found it pointless to ask “Why now?” about a conflict that has been going on for anywhere from 30-50 years at a minimum to nearly 4,000 years at the extreme. Similarly, it made little sense to blame anyone when the conflict has extended well beyond the political if not physical lifetimes of most of the leaders mentioned above and other participants in the current crisis.

Instead, I began to ask a different set of questions:

• Why does this problem persist despite people’s extensive efforts to solve it?
• Why do Israelis invest so much to increase their sense of security, yet feel so insecure?
• Why do Palestinians, despite enduring the loss of lives and extreme economic hardship, gain so little of the respect and sovereignty they try so hard to achieve?
• Why is it difficult for those people on both sides who want a workable compromise to gain sufficient support for solutions they perceive as possible?
• Where is the leverage in the conflict, that is, what can people do to produce a sustainable systemwide solution?

The field of systems thinking is especially effective for enabling people to understand why they have been unsuccessful in solving chronic problems despite their best efforts. While a systems view can’t fully answer these questions, it can illuminate how people think—and the consequences of their thoughts and actions on the results they achieve—in ways that can help them see and achieve sustainable new solutions. By understanding the exact nature of the vicious circles we have been trapped in, we can create new patterns of relationships that serve us better. I set about to apply systems thinking to the Middle East crisis to see if I could shed light on possible ways out of the ongoing tragedy.

A Four-Stage Cycle

My view is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict proceeds through a pattern of four stages: 1. Both sides fight for the right to exist. 2. The tension escalates. 3. Pressure leads to negotiations. 4. Peace efforts break down.

When peace efforts break down, the two sides cycle back to the first stage and intensify their fight for the right to exist (see “A Cycle of Violence”). From a systemic perspective, this pattern of behavior indicates that the “solutions” that the two parties are employing are unintentionally making the problem worse, or at least perpetuating it.

1. Both Sides Fight for the Right to Exist. What makes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so intractable is that both sides see themselves battling to establish their basic right to exist. Israelis and Palestinians have become ardent enemies because each claims the same land. While some voices on each side acknowledge the right of the other to exist and are willing to exchange land for peace, others— often the more dominant voices— deny this right and refuse to negotiate. As a result, many ask, “How can coexistence be an option when the other side challenges our right to exist?”

Israel’s fears about its existence are justified by past events. The country came into being in 1948, shortly after one-third of the world’s Jews were exterminated in World War II. Immediately after it was founded, Israel was threatened by five surrounding Arab states, which vowed to “drive the Jews into the sea.” The Arabs felt that the partition proposed by the British and agreed on by the U. N. took land away from Arabs who had lived there for generations. Border raids by Egypt and Syria led to additional wars in 1956, 1967, and 1973. To protect its northern border, Israel occupied southern Lebanon from 1982 to 2000.

Israelis interpret many Palestinian actions as proof that the Palestinians do not recognize their right to exist. For example, the current Intifada, the Palestinians’ demand for the full right of return of its refugees to their homeland in what is now Israel, and continued anti-Semitic incidents abroad remind them of their vulnerability and the need for a Jewish state.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian people have never controlled their own destiny. The Ottoman Empire controlled their land for 400 years. The British took over in 1917 and ruled Palestine until 1948. In the Israeli War of Independence, an estimated 600,000 Palestinian refugees fled parts of Palestine that were later absorbed by Israel. Their numbers, including descendants, have now swelled into the millions. Jordan took over rule of the Palestinian West Bank from the British and held it until 1967, when Israel won that territory during the Six-Day War. Since then, Israel has established, expanded, and consistently defended settlements in the West Bank—often land lived on for centuries by Palestinians. Palestinians have frequently received a hostile reception through-out the Arab world. Since 1970, their attempts to resettle first in Jordan and then in Egypt and Syria were largely denied. Palestinians who have established themselves in Lebanon cannot practice professions. The only country that currently recognizes Palestinians as citizens is Jordan. Many suffer in refugee camps throughout the region, hoping to return to the lands they were forced to flee.

In their efforts to assert their right to exist, most Palestinians and Israelis will only consider two options: One is to negotiate an agreement of peaceful coexistence that divides the land of Palestine into two viable states; the other is to try to maintain or wrest control of all of the land at the expense of the other party. For a long time, many on both sides seemed to favor the first alternative, despite the powerful influence of extremists acting to achieve the second. But the profound mistrust the Israelis and Palestinians have developed for each other has caused more people on both sides to be drawn to the second alternative, despite the costs involved.

Two powerful factors entice both sides to fight for control of all the land: threat and desire. For most Israelis, the primary threat is to their security. Since 1967, the country’s policies have also been fueled by the desire of a powerful minority of religious Jews to retain control over the historical Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria, which constitute much of the West Bank. Israel’s response to threats to its security, as well as to pressures from the religious right, has been to control Palestinian movements through-out the territory through blockades, check points, and permits—actions that might be consider edmilitarily defensible but that are often implemented in ways that feel humiliating to the Palestinians. Israel has conducted targeted assassinations, bombed strategic Palestinian infrastructure, appropriated additional land to protect the settlers, defended the violent acts of some settlers, and killed civilians when under attack.

For Palestinians, the threat to their existence involves not just the lack of a homeland but the lack of respect they perceive from others. They feel ignored for the losses they have incurred and demeaned by both the actions and broken promises of the Israelis. Their anger at their history of mistreatment by foreign rulers, fanned by an Israeli occupation of the West Bank that the U. N. considers illegal (U. N. Resolution 242 defines the West Bank as “occupied territory”), leads them to demand respect as well as sovereignty. Furthermore, although Palestinian moderates would accept a viable state that has contiguous borders within the West Bank, comprises almost all of the West Bank and Gaza, and includes East Jerusalem as its capital, many Palestinians dream of reclaiming all of the land of their forebears—a reclamation that would result in the elimination of Israel.

Because their military position is weak relative to Israel’s, Palestinians fight through sniper attacks, verbal incitement, and suicide bombings against civilians. They justify their reliance on violence by observing that, in the past, Israel has not kept its promises unless it was physically provoked. For example, many view Israel’s decision to remove all of its soldiers from southern Lebanon in the spring of 2000 as a response to the violent resistance of Hezbollah fighters. Palestinian leaders also maintain strict controls over the information available to their own people—for example, by denying Israel’s existence in student textbooks and maps—and incite refugees to believe that they will one day reclaim all of their land.

A CYCLE OF VIOLENCE

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict proceeds through a pattern of four stages: Both sides fight for the right to exist; the tension escalates; pressure leads to negotiations; and peace efforts break down (R1). When peace efforts break down, the two sides cycle back to the first stage. This pattern of behavior indicates that the “solutions” that the two parties are employing are unintentionally making the problem worse, or at least perpetuating it.

2. The Tension Escalates. Over time, both sides have grown increasingly dependent on the strategy of retaliation (see “Dependence on Retaliation”). As one side gains a temporary advantage in its battle for legitimacy, the other acts to regain its own advantage. This pattern of escalation manifests in several ways:

• Israel uses military force and constraints on Palestinians’ movement to retaliate for Palestinian actions.
• Palestinians perpetrate violence against Israeli citizens and encourage their people to deny Israel’s right to exist.
• Each side perceives itself as a victim of the other’s aggression instead of seeing how its own actions contribute to the escalating conflict.

In the short term, each group’s strategies to claim its right to exist succeed. Through their containment policies, Israelis reaffirm, “They cannot force us to leave.” Through violent resistance, Palestinians reaffirm, “They will have to take us seriously.” In the long term, however, both sides fail to see the unintended consequences of their actions: They only increase the feelings of threat experienced by the other side, motivating them to act to reduce these attacks and regain their own sense of legitimacy—even as the loss of life and other costs increase.

For example, Israeli actions have increased economic hardship for Palestinians, deepened their feelings of humiliation and indignation, and led to significant losses of life. (According to U. N. estimates, as of December 2001,15 months after the Al Aqsa Intifada began, approximately 800 Palestinians had been killed, and the Palestinian economy was losing $11 million per day. The death toll has climbed with the recent escalation in violence on both sides.) In response, the Palestinians have become more unified and motivated to take even bolder actions; suicide bombings now occur several times a week. In the words of Jibril Rajoub, head of preventive security for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, many Palestinians feel that “We have nothing left to lose.” In turn, greater resistance has only served to increase Israel’s determination to defend all of the land. An editorial in the Jerusalem Post states, “What must be defeated is the Hezbollah model—the idea that if you kill a few Israelis for long enough, they will get tired and leave.”

DEPENDENCE ON RETALIATION

Both sides have grown increasingly dependent on retaliation in response to threats to their right to exist (B2). In the long term, this strategy only increases the feelings of threat experienced by the other side (R4) and undermines the fundamental solution—negotiations for peaceful coexistence (R5). Third parties contribute to the conflict when they take sides (R6).

This cycle of retaliation is further compounded by the fact that both parties perceive themselves as victims of forces beyond their control. Palestinians claim they are victims of Israeli aggression; Israelis feel besieged by the entire Arab world. Each side emphasizes how the other’s actions hurt it while ignoring how its own actions hurt the other party. Because the self-perception of powerlessness is so deeply ingrained in the psyches of both peoples, it is very difficult for them to perceive that they have now become aggressors as well as victims. Each fails to see their own responsibility for increasing the levels of threat they experience—and fails to consider actions they might take to reduce these threats.

3. Pressure Leads to Negotiations. Only when the loss of life and resources incurred by both sides reaches a critical point do people begin to question the viability of resolving the conflict by force. In tandem with changes in the larger geopolitical forces affecting the region, this questioning eventually prompts a renewal of peace negotiations. We have seen this cycle occur several times, for example, when the failure of the first Intifada and the fall of the Soviet Union led to meetings in Madrid in 1991 and the Oslo Accords in 1993, and when, after the assassination of staunch peace advocate Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 and the extremism of the hardline government of Benyamin Netanyahu, Israelis elected the more liberal Barak in 1999.

Many on both sides believed they had reached a potential breakthrough in negotiations when, at Camp David in the summer of 2000, Barak offered the Palestinians most of the West Bank and East Jerusalem—an offer that Arafat rejected. Even after the Camp David meeting dissolved and the Al Aqsa Intifada began, parties on both sides continued to meet. At Taba in January 2001, they came very close to an agreement that many on both sides believe will eventually be the basis for a negotiated settlement.

4. Peace Efforts Break Down. Despite signs of a significant breakthrough on the most difficult issues, all peace efforts have inevitably broken down. Long-term dependence on destructive ways of resolving the conflict have led to profound mistrust and hatred. This hostility undermines the peace process in two fundamental ways. First, it decreases commitment by both sides to pursuing peaceful coexistence and strengthens people’s dreams of recovering all of the land. Second, it weakens the trust-building process by leading to a series of conditions, mixed messages, and broken promises.

Because of the build-up of mistrust and hatred, many people believe that a peace agreement can only be reached with the aid of international brokers—both at the negotiating table and on the ground thereafter. However, using brokers is problematic because each group tries to get the third parties to take sides—something the international community is not immune to doing. The United States has historically sided with Israel, and the European Community has generally sided with the Palestinian cause. As a result, both Israelis and Palestinians succeed in deflecting responsibility for the conflict and perpetuating the cycles of blame and victimization, rather than being accountable for their own destructive actions.

Extremist Actions

Remarkably, despite all of these barriers, at times the peace process appears to move forward. After the Oslo Accords, Israel ceded parts of the West Bank to Palestinian control, and the Palestinian leadership arrested Palestinian extremists. Informal dialogues as well as more formal negotiations on common issues such as water management grew, and people on both sides believed that peace could be achieved. Even after the Al Aqsa Intifada had raged for nearly a year, the worldwide coalition developed after September 11 to fight global terrorism gave both Israelis and Palestinians hope that the international community would finally succeed in getting them to agree to a sensible and honorable peace.

But no matter how intelligently and well designed a peace agreement may be, some people will perceive themselves as losers. Effective compromise is likely to mean that Israel will surrender most of the West Bank and all of Gaza and accept some symbolic right of return for Palestinians. In exchange, the Palestinians would recognize that Israel has the right to retain control over the remainder of the territory. In this scenario, Israeli settlers and right wingers would have to give up their homes and their dream of control over the promised lands of Judea and Samaria. Palestinian losers would include radical groups and refugees who have survived in terrible conditions in camps and who still dream of reclaiming all of the former Palestine.

To extremist groups on both sides, a compromise is unacceptable. When peace appears too near, they strike the ultimate blow to its realization. For example, the murder of nearly 30 Palestinians in a mosque by Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein is one of several Israeli actions that disrupted progress on the Oslo Accords. Bombs set off by the radical Palestinian group Hamas in 1996 are partly to blame for the failure of Israeli Labor Party leader Shimon Peres to get elected and fulfill Rabin’s promise of peace.

Extremist violence does not need to be directed against the other side in order to be effective. A Jewish settler assassinated Rabin, perhaps Israel’s most effective advocate for peaceful coexistence. Palestinian extremists have also murdered fellow Palestinians who pursue coexistence as a legitimate option. Nor do extremists need to act violently to be effective; they can also make unreasonable demands. For example, many believe that Arafat’s insistence on a full right of return for Palestinian refugees to Israeli territory was the breaking point in the July 2000 Camp David talks. Others view Sharon’s insistence on a total cessation of Palestinian violence in order for peace talks to resume as an impossible standard intended specifically to stall further negotiations.

Whatever the method used, the actions of an extreme few seem to successfully undermine compromises that would benefit the majority of both peoples. Such events set off additional rounds of blocking, incitement, and fighting that only serve to build further mistrust and hatred and undermine negotiations.

Systemic Solutions

What does this analysis suggest in terms of systemic solutions to resolve the conflict? I believe that both the protagonists and third parties must:

• Accept that their current solutions are a dead end and hurt themselves—not just the other party.
• Think systemically before taking new action.
• Reduce threats to the other side—and be willing to take risks for peace.
• Reaffirm the goal of peaceful coexistence, reiterating that both sides have rights to live in viable states in former Palestine—and that both grieve the dream of recovering all of the land.
• Expect the international community to hold both sides responsible for their actions—and give up favoring either one.

POSSIBLE LEVERAGE POINTS FOR CHANGE

Successful interventions often involve breaking a link between variables or changing variables. Before beginning to intervene in this long-standing cycle of violence, Palestinians, Israelis, and the international community need to think systemically and accept that current approaches are a dead end.

Accept That Current Solutions Are a Dead End. While some observers do recognize the vicious cycle in which both sides are caught up, most Palestinians and Israelis are unable to see how their own actions hurt their cause. Currently, each side tends to hear the solutions offered by third parties as actions that the other side should take but won’t; thus, current solutions have reached a dead end. By taking a systemic perspective on the ongoing conflict, perhaps each group will be able to see actions it can take in its own best interests. To that end, both Israelis and Palestinians must become aware that:

• They are weakening their own positions through actions that gain them temporary advantage only to leave them more threatened and frustrated in the long term.
• Neither side can succeed in claiming its own right to exist without also having to acknowledge this right for the other.
• Any actions that don’t acknowledge each other’s rights will lead only to greater threats to Israeli security and Palestinian sovereignty—and to greater losses of life and material resources on both sides.
• Because each side is an aggressor as well as a victim, it can do more than it believes, individually and in cooperation with the other party, to change the situation.

Whatever past injustices have led Israelis and Palestinians to this point, in the present they are both responsible for their actions. Both have the opportunity to act in wise ways that ensure a more creative and satisfying future for all. To the extent that each group understands how its actions unwittingly undermine its own cause, they can then initiate and implement more sustainable proposals for peace.

Think Systemically Before Taking New Action. Thinking systemically involves:

1. Testing the underlying mental models that drive so much of people’s behavior.
2. Shifting from the question “Who is to blame?” to “Where is the leverage in the dynamic between the two sides?” Letting go of blame does not necessarily mean letting go of anger, though it does mean finding solutions that create less pain and anger in the future.
3. Asking, “What can we do to break the spiral of retaliation and revenge?” While the vicious cycle is now painfully obvious to both sides, what is less clear is that it can only be broken if each side takes its own initiative to act differently.
4. Considering the unintended consequences of proposed solutions.

Reduce Threats to Both Sides. Instead of being so concerned about whether or not the other side will change (a source of repeated failures to deescalate the conflict), each side needs to focus on what it can do to initiate change. Additionally, before taking any action, each should consider the following questions:

• What are the benefits of our actions in the short term?
• What are the likely consequences of these actions in the long term?
• How will the other side likely react to our actions?
• What will we do when they react?
• Will our actions and their likely reactions produce the outcome we want?

These questions indicate that the first step each party can take in its own best interest is to reduce threats to the other side. In other words, each side must make more efforts to reduce threats on the ground and not limit its actions to discussions at the negotiating table.

Israel can act in ways that demonstrate respect for the Palestinian people without losing sight of its own security needs. This means freezing investment in settlements and reclamation of land where Palestinians live, eliminating acts of harassment and humiliation that do little to bolster security, and allowing Palestinians to move freely as the violence subsides. Palestinians can reduce both violence and incitement while continuing to claim their right to a state with viable borders. They can engage in nonviolent resistance while validating Israel’s right to exist.

Reducing threats not only minimizes defensive reactions, but it softens the mistrust and hatred that have prolonged the conflict. Doing so will likely make both sides feel more comfortable returning to the negotiating table. Once the two sides reach agreement, they then need to keep the promises they make instead of finding loopholes that only lead to further escalation.

At the same time, each side must be prepared to take risks to achieve peace. Israel must not only insist on creating secure borders, but also be willing to risk that it has both the military strength and moral high ground to thoroughly defend Israeli lives and territory within pre-1967 borders. Palestinians must not only insist on a viable state with contiguous borders within the West Bank and Gaza, but also be willing to risk that they can develop their own state effectively and efficiently. While these risks feel very real to both sides, the risks to safety and sovereignty they currently face are untenable.

Reaffirm the Goal of Peaceful Coexistence. Ultimately, any compromise requires that both sides give up their respective dreams of controlling all of Palestine. Making this choice means preparing people on both sides to accept that they will achieve less than what they really want. It means grieving the loss of the dream and claiming the best that this situation has to offer. It means containing the extremists on both sides and not allowing their actions to deter the compromise that benefits the majority of people on both sides. For Israelis, it means preparing to welcome back the settlers who have risked their lives to populate all of “the promised land.” For Palestinians, it means accepting the Jews’ historical claims to this part of the world and setting realistic expectations for Palestinians’ right of return to what is now Israel.

Both sides need to replace the dream of recovering all of the land with a dream of peaceful coexistence. Palestinians can focus on channeling the determination and education of their relatively young population—as well as support from the international community—into peaceful lives, economic well-being, and global respect. Israelis can focus on directing their enormous creativity and energy toward producing environmental, social, and economic advancements that benefit all of its population.

Expect the International Community to Hold Both Sides Responsible. Third parties drawn into the conflict will only be effective when, rather than taking sides, they hold both sides responsible for the conflict and condition their engagement on actions taken by both to resolve it. Third parties can take four additional actions to support peacemaking:

• Validate the pain and anger experienced by both sides without feeding a cycle of blame and revenge. Empathizing with statements such as “This terrible thing happened to me” can lead to true healing, while buying into accusations such as “They did this to me” only supports further helplessness and reactivity.
• Validate people’s belief that any new peace process within the existing framework is likely to fail. The process will fail as long as each side believes it can take the same actions and get a different result or waits for signs that the other side is changing. However, it can succeed if both sides change their own behavior and trust that the other party will do the same.
• Anticipate and explicitly address the pitfalls of entering the peace process. Acknowledge that, historically, negotiations have been weakened by conditions, mixed messages, and broken promises, and that extremists take actions to undermine agreements when peace appears near. Encourage both sides to address these negotiation issues before they become a problem, contain their extremists, and educate their people to refrain from revenge if the extremists strike.
• Be prepared to provide on-the-ground support. Until now, the international community has been reluctant to commit on-the-ground support to help each side keep the agreements. Given current levels of mistrust and hatred, third-party brokers might need to establish a physical presence as well as provide financial aid to achieve the required changes.

Balance of Power?

Some Israeli and Palestinian reviewers of this work have challenged one particular aspect of the analysis—it assumes that both sides have equal power in and responsibility for the current situation. Clearly, Israel has more power militarily and economically, and Palestinians have suffered more in terms of human casualties and economic hardship. I believe, however, that balance exists precisely because neither side has succeeded in eliminating the claims of the other to the land they inhabit. The ongoing impasse suggests that Palestinians’ strengths in terms of determination, armed resistance, and incitement have compensated for what they lack in other resources. Palestinians also have veto power at the negotiating table, which they used pointedly at Camp David.

Both sides also have external supporters and detractors that appear to balance out their respective power. Israel is strongly supported by the U. S., while it’s criticized internationally for not honoring U. N. Resolution 242 recognizing the West Bank as occupied territory. Its neighbors in the Middle East accept its existence only reluctantly, if at all, while some threaten to destroy it. Moreover, global anti-Semitism still exists, as exemplified by a recent U. N. conference on racism that turned into an almost singular attack on Zionism. Palestinians, on the other hand, receive strong verbal encouragement from their Arab neighbors to fight for statehood—even though these same neighbors treat Palestinians poorly in their own countries and often fail to follow through on financial promises. Most of the official money that sustains Palestinians comes from Europe (and ironically from Israel, when it permits Palestinians to work there). Other Arab leaders fear that if Palestinians were to achieve statehood, it might stimulate popular uprisings in their countries—something that these nations do everything to repress.

A systemic viewpoint of the Israeli-Palestinian situation inevitably points to the interdependent and unintentionally self-destructive nature of both sides’ actions. Each party has a role in creating and perpetuating the conflict, and each must take responsibility for doing what it can to resolve it. Becoming aware of how their own actions unwittingly undermine their effectiveness and accepting the limits of what they can create are essential ingredients for both the Palestinians and the Israelis to achieve the security, respect, and sovereignty that each deserve.

David Peter Stroh (davidpstroh@earthlink.net) is a cofounder of Innovation Associates and a charter member of the Society for Organizational Learning.

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