Daily Podcast #7

Source 🎧

A fresh approach to resolving conflicts
- TED Talks Daily (TED Audio Collective)

Sentences ✍️

1. And in my 20 years of doing this work, I’ve come across a tool, which I’d like to share with all of you today, that served as a skeleton key to unlock trust and transformation. This material may be protected by copyright.
   • skeleton key: a key designed to fit many locks by having the interior of the bit hollowed.
   • New sentence: Learning to code became her skeleton key to a wide range of career opportunities.
2. One shows signs of strain and is no longer fit for purpose and falls away in its dominance.
   • strain: Pressure, stress, or tension that causes something to weaken or become less effective.
   • New sentence: The constant workload began to put a strain on my health.
3. Horizon One is the pragmatic voice with the managerial mindset, responsible for keeping the lights on.
   • pragmatic: dealing with things sensibly and realistically based on practical considerations, rather than theoretical ones.
   • New sentence: Instead of dreaming about ideal solutions, she offered a pragmatic plan that could be implemented right away.
4. But without a sense of shared purpose, without a shared direction of travel, all three voices dig their heels in and get stuck in their own rightness.
   • dig one's heels in: to refuse to change your opinion or plans, especially when others are trying to persuade you. It implies being stubborn or resistant to compromise.
   • New sentence: Despite all the evidence, he dug her heels in and refused to admit she was wrong.
5. At worst, we see blame loops, vilification, dehumanization.
   • vilification: the act of saying or writing unpleasant things about someone or something, in order to cause other people to have a bad opinion of them.
   • New sentence: He faced vilification after speaking out.

Summarization 👀

Conflict is a natural and unavoidable part of life, whether in personal relationships or global politics. In her 2024 TED Talk, Darya Shaikh suggests that instead of avoiding or “winning” conflicts, we should learn from them to spark growth, creativity, and even hope.

Drawing from her experience in peacebuilding and corporate strategy, she introduces a tool called Three Horizons, which helps navigate change. Horizon 1 represents the current system—stable but often outdated. Horizon 3 is the visionary future we strive toward. Horizon 2 bridges the two, where innovation and experimentation occur.

Each horizon reflects a different voice: Horizon 1 is the manager keeping things running, Horizon 3 is the dreamer pushing for bold change, and Horizon 2 is the entrepreneur trying to build new solutions. While these voices often clash, Shaikh emphasizes that all are necessary to move forward.

She shares an example from a company merger where she used this model to help leaders imagine a shared future and identify current obstacles. The result was a renewed sense of purpose and cooperation.

Shaikh concludes by saying that while we don’t need to agree on everything, how we engage in conflict matters. Better conflicts—rooted in respect and shared vision—can unlock transformation we never thought possible.