Fist Fights In Space.
Sometimes, people are forced together to solve one issue, then say goodbye. Then there are the people who fight, and live, work, or do business together afterwards. No matter what species the disagreement is, there is one universal rule in resolving it. Ad-libbing a solution from gut reaction in the moment, is a bad idea.
Oftentimes, our gut tells us that demands and offers are attacks and insults we can inflict, or we recoil from. If we listen to our gut, everything about the negotiation becomes personal.
In a recent mediation, after many rounds of demands and offers, $30,000 separated the parties. Then, the defendant listened to his gut and insulted the plaintiff. After that, the gulf between the parties exploded to $750,000.
The insult was a dumb tactic. Plaintiff’s emotional reaction to it was natural, and predictable. After the insult, both parties wanted to fight about the fight. It took an hour, and considerable diplomacy, to get discussion back to the facts and law. This is bad because it derails negotiation. We defend ourselves, and attack our attacker, and we squander, or we take away settlement opportunities.
Few conflicts go away with just our say so. Imposing our will is insulting. It’s not a solution. It kills solutions.
Solutions come from us, and our antagonist. Conflict resolution is a process of considering these tandem solutions, together. From that, comes the willingness to voluntarily embrace settlement.
I depend upon a few people to read what I write before it’s published. About this edition’s subject, one wondered, “There are fights on the International Space Station?”. Another was certain, without pointing to any proof, that, “punches have never been thrown in space”. In my search of the literature on the question, I found no account of a brawl in orbit. I did discover lots written about why astronauts don’t litigate inevitable quarrels in dangerous ways.
Astronauts clash. It’s how they clash; with self-knowledge, self-discipline, and empathy, and what happens afterwards, that’s interesting. Repurposing NASA’s “how to clash the right way” so that it’s useful to us, is the subject of this edition.
WHO DO WE PUT INTO SPACE?
NASA’s Artemis Program is assigned the audacious achievement of landing astronauts on the moon and testing the engineered systems, and humans’ capacity, to stay there.
Four years ago, on a stage in a Houston, Texas auditorium packed with cameras, dignitaries, families and the public, NASA introduced its training-program-graduating Artemis astronaut corps. In brief remarks, Senator Ted Cruz (Republican, TX) congratulated them all and singled out Navy Lieutenant Commander Jonny Kim, USN, M.D., for special mention as the exemplar of who we send to space.
Kim is a Harvard Medical School-trained emergency medicine physician and surgeon and former Navy Seal sniper, navigator and “point man”; a Silver Star recipient who completed more than one hundred special forces combat missions; some in the fight for the Iraqi city of Fallujah; widely credited as some of the bloodiest fighting in Operation Iraqi Freedom. About Kim, Cruz said, “Jonny, you’re a Navy Seal, with a degree from Harvard Medical School. That’s just ridiculous! I mean, he can kill you, and then bring you back to life. And do it all in space.”
Kim’s Artemis astronaut classmates are Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Army test pilots and combat veterans, Blackhawk helicopter pilots, Ph.D.’s in nuclear physics, aeronautical and electrical engineering, and physicians. Some, already have time in space aboard the International Space Station. NASA picked them all, from among 18,000 candidates.
Another fact: they were strangers to one another before they began NASA’s astronaut training program.
THE COMMON THREAD, AND TWO QUESTIONS.
Kim’s Artemis training class, like all NASA classes, was full of tested male and female leaders, with résumés of stunning personal and professional accomplishment in classrooms, laboratories, cockpits, and gun battles. Each routinely “came in first place” and was mostly “the person others listened to”.
Only one, from the class of “NASA’s best” will be the mission commander. How does NASA staff each non-commander mission role using this select “super leader” roster in a constructive way, so that NASA realizes its mission-critical objective of getting the very best from the crew? Equally important, how does NASA cultivate the interpersonal relationships among “born” leaders so that interpersonal friction among strangers, picked for this team by others, does not disrupt the initiative of returning to the moon and staying there?
THE CRUCIBLE.
Aboard the International Space Station (“ISS”), twelve American, Russian, Japanese, Canadian, European, and Chinese astronauts, cosmonauts and taikonauts work 16-hour days and live together, for six months or more, in a volume roughly equal to a five-bedroom house. The orbiting vehicle is famously short on creature comforts, and privacy. Personal space is smaller than a phone booth, behind a curtain. All day, crew members are “always on”; accountable to each other and to Mission Control, in Houston. Astronauts spend their days off, when they come, in the same pod they work and live in.
Four inches of Kevlar, woven with other technical fabric, and stretched and fastened to an aluminum frame, separates astronauts from the vacuum of space. Hyper-velocity micrometeoroids, and space junk capable of piercing the station’s hull, are a constant peril. The aluminum pressure envelope that holds the space station’s life-giving atmosphere and makes the station habitable, is about two-and-a-half millimeters thick. Imagine for a moment spending most of a year in such a place. Imagine too, what it asks of its inhabitants.
NASA KNOWS ENOUGH ABOUT PEOPLE TO KNOW IT HAS TO KNOW MORE.
NASA devotes two years of intensive training to teaching space station crew, who don’t natively speak each other’s languages and hail from distinctly different cultures, the emotional and interpersonal skills and tools essential to thriving together in space. Before they orbit, NASA crews spend time together in challenging earth environments like remote arctic cabins and underwater biodomes, to hone their emotional intelligence. Five benchmarks are paramount:
Self-awareness: recognizing and understanding [your] emotions, and how they affect others.
Self-regulation: Controlling your impulses and moods, especially to pause and think before acting.
Internal motivation: Being driven by something other than external rewards like money.
Empathy: Understanding how other people feel.
Social skills: Knowing how to build and manage good relationships.
NASA’s system validates the person and insists on mutual respect. NASA’s curriculum is the “secret sauce” that transforms “alpha” leaders into dependable, empathetic teammates.
VALIDATION AND MUTUAL RESPECT ARE CRITICALLY IMPORTANT TO DISPUTE RESOLUTION.
If you are validated, you stop seeing disagreements as attacks at you. Instead, you have the stamina to pay attention to the dispute, and you look for ways to solve it. Mutual respect means relationships are built on good faith, and trust. In this climate, disputants listen to each other, they don’t inflict insults, or throw punches.
CONSTANT VIGILANCE.
This program isn’t once-and-done. Throughout manned space missions, NASA-trained psychologists counsel ISS crew and help them practice their five benchmarks.
NASA's TRAINING AND ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION.
Human nature builds and destroys. At its best it invents, teaches, and saves lives. At its worst, it murders millions. NASA respects the variability of human nature so much they screen for it and devote two years of astronaut training to teaching crew candidates about it.
NASA understands that human nature and conflict, like mechanical failure, or machine design mistakes, can doom a mission; it’s that potent. Crew candidates understand and practice the five benchmarks. After that, interpersonal dealings are constructive, not destructive.
Durable, mutually agreeable settlements of $1 billion mega cases and neighborhood disputes come from the same five benchmarks NASA trains into its astronauts; the marriage of subject matter mastery, rational expectations, self-knowledge, self-discipline, and empathy. All of this is the opposite of gut reaction in the moment.
Imposing our will is insulting. It’s not a solution. It kills solutions. To paraphrase the poet Robert Frost, “The only way out [of conflict], is through [it].” “Through it”, means validating your opponent even though you disagree with them. “Through it” means mutual respect; relationships that are built on good faith, and trust. In this climate, disputants listen to each other, they don’t inflict insults, or throw punches. They have the stamina to look for solutions.
NASA knows ad-libbing an interpersonal solution from gut reaction in the moment, is a bad idea. NASA’s five benchmarks build empathetic, high-functioning astronaut crews who will return to the moon and learn to stay there. NASA's benchmark tool is equally capable in the hands of people who are forced together to solve one issue, then say goodbye, and people who fight, and live, work, or do business together afterwards.
3Chairs CAN HELP YOU.
Every year, tens and tens of millions of us start our fights in court and ninety-five out of one hundred of us, voluntarily take the mutually agreeable settlement off ramp, long before our trial lawyer picks our jury.
Mediation works, and almost all of us choose it.
We look forward to answering your questions and helping you with your full or half-day mediation.
Contact us:
3Chairs Mediation Group, Inc.
(855) 3Chairs I (855) 324-2477
info@3chairsmediation.com