It is such a great honor for me to receive this award today – even more of an honor than being cast in not one but TWO feature films in the Fletcher Follies! I feel like Sally Soprano, being given the star treatment on opening night! Thank you all so much – it is an honor to be acknowledged for excellence by those of you who are the greatest treasure of Fletcher, our students.
As a teacher here, I learn from YOU every day. When you ask me that question in class that I can’t answer – yes, I admit it! – it sends me back to the literature to dig further, or more likely it reorients my thinking entirely, and I see things in a new way. When you come to my office and share your personal stories – the families you come from, the work you have done in the world before Fletcher and in your summer internships, the cultural histories you embody – for just a moment I feel a tiny bit of what it is like to be from a traditional family in Japan, to have led outdoor survival trips in Colorado, to have fought with the mujahadeen in Afghanistan, to be a Bosnian refugee. And it opens up realities for me that I never could have experienced on my own. I am so grateful for that, as it helps me to grow as a teacher, and as a person.
We on the faculty and staff all marvel at the diverse, multi-cultural community YOU create here every year, in which you teach each other and learn from each other in innumerable ways. I have watched you grapple in a very personal way with some of the deepest conflicts in the world as you engage with each other – Tamil and Sinhalese, Turk and Armenian, Japanese and Korean, Jew and Arab, Indian and Pakistani, secular and religious – and emerge with new understanding and insight. I am inspired by the courage you exhibit in these struggles. I’ve seen you learn how to talk, listen, and mediate in these difficult conversations, forget those skills in the heat of the moment, and then re-learn them as your peers patiently remind you and bring you back to what you know.
We are therefore ALL both teachers and learners – and my greatest wish for you as you move into the next phase of your lives is that you embrace BOTH the teacher and learner roles with consciousness and compassion. As managers, military officers, government officials, consultants, colleagues of all stripes, you WILL be teaching – explicitly or implicitly. People will look to you for advice, guidance, and wisdom. The poet Alexander Pope said, "Let such teach others who themselves excel." As Fletcher students, you have excelled, and therefore share your learning with others. However, in that role, please beware the “do as I say, not as I do” mentality, for it leads to resentment and ultimately to hostility and failure. One needs only to look at how the US government is perceived in most of the world at present to realize that “do as I say, not as I do” is seen as hypocrisy – and with that attitude, anything you may have to teach will be dismissed and worse, resented.
Instead, WALK THE TALK, as we say in the conflict resolution world. Embody the wisdom and experience you have gained here and elsewhere. Here you have learned not only the substance of international diplomacy, law, and economics, but also about tolerance, putting yourself in the others’ shoes, looking for win-win outcomes. However, your words to others about those concepts will ring hollow if you do not lead by example. Because you are leaders, people will be watching you to see if you are a hypocrite; make sure you demonstrate by your words AND deeds that you are not.
How can you do this? By cultivating self-awareness, practicing self-reflection, and displaying confidence leavened with humility. This, in turn, requires that you continue to LEARN. In Shakespeare’s words,
"Learning is but an adjunct to ourself, And where we are our learning likewise is."
Make that true for you, wherever your life now takes you. In addition to sharing all that you know and are, be open to continuing to learn from the experience of others. As I’m sure was so apparent to you in your years here at Fletcher, there is a lot you don’t yet know (which is of course true for all of us). Therefore, LISTEN MORE THAN YOU SPEAK. And listen to UNDERSTAND, not just to be polite. This means asking questions – questions of CURIOSITY. In my conflict resolution work, one of the most important things I’ve had to learn is how to ask the right questions -- questions that elicit people’s knowledge and beliefs; questions that make people feel that you value them, that you are truly interested in what they have to say; questions that show you are open to learning. Learning another’s point of view does not necessarily mean agreeing with them; however, it DOES mean being willing to enter another reality and see how the world looks through someone else’s eyes. Most significant conflicts, at all levels of human interaction (including within organizations, as well as within and across states), result from people feeling unheard and disrespected. Being open to learning from others goes a long way in preventing antagonism and creating the basis for successful personal and professional relationships.
Finally, seek to build LEARNING ORGANIZATIONS, wherever you may be employed. Encourage your colleagues, your staff, your superiors, to cultivate the kind of curiosity I’ve just described, and to see it as a strength. I’ve just returned from Rwanda, where I re-visited the amazing work that Oxfam GB is doing there. In 2000, their regional office in Nairobi, along with their office in Kigali, took a hard look at their programs in Rwanda and could see that they were not succeeding. Amazingly, they decided that what they needed to do was go to the people in the villages there to learn what was really needed to alleviate poverty. For six months, they suspended their programming while they learned, and using that new knowledge, they completely redesigned their approach there, shifting from an emphasis on building wells to a focus on teaching and encouraging conflict management, consensus-building, and joint decision-making skills. 7 years later, it is a wildly successful effort, beyond even their most optimistic projections when I was last there in 2001. Their sincere efforts to learn made all the difference.
So, my dear students, remember that you are both teachers and learners. They are two sides of the same coin, one that you must continue to treasure throughout your life. Your time here at Fletcher has prepared you well to do both. I know I will continue to learn from you as I hear of your adventures and accomplishments in the future, and I look forward to our continuing work together as part of the Fletcher family.
