Persuasion for Peace

Inflection, Reflection and Ethical Persuasion for Peace
By Tom Laughlin

At Ethical Leaders in Action we teach the process of Ethical Persuasion. I used this method for a different purpose and in a different way than we usually teach it. I used it to find a single point of agreement with a Russian living in Cyprus who believes that Ukraine provoked the war that began on February 24, 2022.

I live in Kherson Ukraine with my Ukrainian wife and her family. Everyone is aware of the invasion of Ukraine, but what you may not know is that Kherson was surrounded the first day of the war and very few people were able to evacuate. My wife and I went to Cyprus at the end January so we were there when the war broke out, but all of our Ukrainian family and many of our friends are currently in Russian occupied Kherson.

Helen is a very nice Russian woman who works in the apartment building where we rented an apartment in Cyprus. We spoke with her when we were here for a short trip in December and established a friendly relationship with her. When we returned to Cyprus the end of January she was still in Russia and today, March 9, we saw her for the first time since the war started. We talked about what a terrible thing the war is and then she said, “Well, they provoked it.” When I asked who “they” is she said, “the Ukrainians.” I grabbed Anna and we walked away with Hellen in the background apologizing for any offence.

This was, what we call, a Point of Inflection. A moment when one has to make a decision about what to do in a situation. A moment to clarify one’s objectives and options. I decided that I wanted to try to reestablish a connection with Hellen so I could persuade her to see the situation from our perspective. So, I told Helen on our way past her desk later that day that I needed to go to our apartment with Anna but I would return to discuss the situation with her. I also decided I would use our Ethical Persuasion technique to try to accomplish this.

The technique has the following steps.
• Examine your motivations
• Listen to the other person to find points of agreement
• Express those points of agreement to the other party
• Seek agreement to discuss points of disagreement
• Try to resolve points of disagreement

I have used this technique many times with great success, but as I listened to Helen I realized that I disagreed with absolutely everything she said. There were no points of agreement. She believed that the Ukrainian government was behaving like the Nazis who started World War 2 by perpetrating a genocide of ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine. She pointed out that the west had done nothing to prevent Ukraine from continuing these attacks and that the 8 years of the war perpetrated by Ukraine on the ethnic Russians was far worse than the 8 days of civilian losses in the Russian war against Ukraine. Also, that NATO was preparing to use Ukraine to attack Russia itself because of their hatred of Russia and its people.

I chose to deviate from our usual technique and take a different approach. I pointed out that neither of us had firsthand knowledge of the minds of the politicians making these accusations nor experience with the actual situation in Eastern Ukraine during the last 8 years. What I did have was an ethnic Russian Ukrainian family in an ethnic Russian city in Ukraine. What I knew for certain is that we experienced none of the things she talked about. In addition, I am American with an American family and no one I know there hates Russians. Then I said that it was ok if she believed something different than I believed but we had to agree that war is not the answer. She thought about it for a moment and said, yes, I can agree to that. She said, “I agree. The worst relationship is better than the best war.”

As I write this post I have a moment to engage in a moment of Reflection. This follows the moment of Inflection I pointed out earlier. It is an opportunity to reflect on the choice I made to learn from the experience.

I am perfectly happy with the outcome of my decision and my approach. I used a slightly different approach than we usually do for Ethical Persuasion. Here is my description of the steps I used.

• Examine your motivations
• Listen to the other person to fully understand their perspective
• Ask to express your own perspective and disagreement with theirs
• Express your own perspective
• Agree to disagree on those points
• Find a single point of agreement

I don’t know if this process is different enough to name it differently than Ethical Persuasion. It will take time for us to figure that out. What I do know is that it was my ability to use the technique of Ethical Persuasion, albeit modified, that allowed me to maintain a connection with Helen in the middle of a geopolitical firestorm.

At Ethical Leaders in Action we believe that most, if not all people, can develop themselves to play leadership roles in many different spheres both large and small. The foundation of this development process is a short but powerful list of virtues which can be developed and improved through conscious effort. For more information feel free to take the Virtues of Ethical Leadership Self Inventory (VELSI) which breaks these virtues down into features that can be individually developed. The results of the VELSI come with a quick reference guide to help you understand how the virtues and their individual features fit together. https://ethinact.com/velsi/

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