Foreword

It isn’t often one is asked to write a foreword to the second edition of a very popular book. Initially I didn’t understand why Stewart would ask me, since I don’t do conflict resolution or mediation of any sort. But I saw, in the subtitle, a word I like a lot: collaboration. So I sat down and read the book and then I understood my role.

You see, this book is about three things I value very highly. First, it is about a paradigm shift in resolving conflict. What Stewart is offering is a fundamentally new way to take a situation full of conflict, with the potential of “going to court,” and turning it around so that both sides win.

Think about that for a minute: a system of rules and regulations that you can apply to almost any conflict—organizational, professional, personal—and end up with no conflict. In fact, end up with the two parties working together to make the world better for both.

Stewart takes you out of the courtroom, away from the lawyers, and gives you directions on how to find common ground and an agreement “in principle” which then guides you to building a roadmap to your mutual solution.

When you read his examples, you get this funny feeling: “I could have done that …” and then you think of a big conflict in your life where one of you, and usually both, end up dramatically dissatisfied.

I went through a major lawsuit in the 1990s, and I can tell you with certainty that if we had used Stewart’s paradigm for conflict resolution it would have turned out very differently.

So, for just this one reason, Stewart’s book is invaluable!

There is a second reason, and it has to do with the very important topic of innovation in the twenty-first century. My research into innovation tells me that much of it is going to be driven by differences, the combination of differences.

I call these kinds of innovations “innovations at the verge.” A verge is the place where one thing and something very different meet. The verge provides a huge opportunity to combine ideas from vastly different industries and fields and cultures into powerful new innovations.

But—and this is a very big but—you will absolutely have to know how to collaborate at the highest order to be successful in this kind of innovation. Can you imagine taking an idea from a pharmaceutical company and adapting it with an idea from a concrete manufacturing company to create a verge innovation? Well, it will be combinations like that, and even stranger, that are going to drive the twenty-first century.

Stewart’s book is the blueprint for how to act to achieve that kind of collaboration! If you want to be innovative at the verge, you have to know how to deal with differences. Stewart shows you how to do that.

The third reason I delight in Stewart’s book is simple: it is a new vision for the world. I think visionary ideas are crucial to successful futures. Stewart is providing a vision, and a paradigm to support the vision, for how we can all get along a lot better.

Since I finished reading Stewart’s book, I find myself building partnerships in a new way. I’m sure you’ll find the same.

Joel Barker
Futurist, author, filmmaker