In the field of conflict resolution and peace building, I think he is one of the most innovative thinkers and practitioners... His stories are compelling and insightful..
Aldo Civico
International Negotiator, High Performance Strategist, Author and Keynote Speaker
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Aldo Civico
Biography
In the late summer of 2003, in a high-security prison of Colombia, Aldo Civico met with a top leader of the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla. That first conversation turned into a series of encounters that eventually brought Aldo to become a facilitator of ceasefire negotiations between the Colombia government and the guerrilla. Shuttling between Colombia, Cuba and Washington D.C., Aldo used a variety of sophisticated skills in order to perform under incredible stress, to build trust with extremely difficult people, and to understand the model of the world of his interlocutors.
A powerful storyteller, Aldo enchants audiences from beginning to end as he shares the inspiring experiences as a catalyst for change from Colombia to Mexico, from Syria to Haiti, from Italy to the United States. Drawing from his work in the field, Aldo inspires people to become outstanding leaders by building rapport and reframing conflict as an opportunity for personal and organizational growth. His message of "Stop arguing over who is right and instead explore each other's story," exemplifies his approach and the philosophy top mediators use to resolve the toughest problems.
Aldo summaries it like this, "In our complex and interdependent reality, leadership is a creative act. It is the ability to anticipate and to innovate. When you lead with your ears you tap into unexplored resources, you allow transformation to happen and you ascend to the next level of growth. In fact, you don't get the life you deserve, but the life you negotiate. Thus, modeling the principles and skills of high-end negotiators, you can achieve top levels of leadership performance and be a catalyst for change."
Aldo has 25 years of experience in conflict resolution. In the 1990s, he moved to Palermo, where he joined the anti-mafia social movement and worked as a senior advisor to anti-mafia fighter Leoluca Orlando, the mayor of Palermo, designing communication strategies to promote a culture of lawfulness.
Since 2001, he has been involved in peacemaking in Colombia, where in addition to facilitating peace talks, he helped former child soldiers and combatants in their demobilization and reintegration process; and he strengthened the leadership and conflict resolution capacity of communities and organizations. Aldo has been advising local and national officials, as well as celebrities like pop star Juanes and soccer-star James Rodriguez (Real Madrid), who both looked for Aldo's advice for their philanthropic works.
Aldo served as a director of the Center for International Conflict Resolution at Columbia University, where he continues to teach advanced courses in conflict resolution. In 2011, he founded the International Institute for Peace at Rutgers University, where he is a passionate and engaging anthropologist professor and an appreciated mentor to his students.
In recent years, Aldo has broadened his contribution globally by helping family offices, corporations, and governments to upgrade their organizational culture, to resolve their conflict, and to connect with their deepest purpose and build a lasting legacy.
He is often interviewed by mainstream media on conflict resolution topics and the U.S. Congress has invited him to share the insights he gained on the frontlines of conflict resolution. He is an author of four books; his most recent one is The Para-State: An Ethnography of Colombia's Death Squads (University of California Press) in which he shares the experiences and the lessons he learned from dealing with armed actors.
Because of his comprehensive and engaged approach to conflict resolution and negotiation, top mediator George Mitchell called Aldo "one of the most innovate leaders in the field of conflict resolution."
Aldo Civico received his Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University.
Aldo Civico
Featured Keynote Programs
THE ART OF NEGOTIATION FOR PEAK LEADERSHIP PERFORMANCE
In the complex and complicated reality, we live in, effective leadership is no more about having all the answers to all the problems. Rather, leadership today is the capacity to facilitate conversations and to create environments that facilitate the emergence of creative solutions. It’s about anticipation and innovation. This is why individuals in managerial positions can achieve high leadership performance by modeling the principles and strategies of top negotiators.
Aldo’s stories on how he effectively connected with terrorists are inspiring examples of how individuals can become authentic leaders by modeling the principles and skills used by high-end negotiators to hold tough conversations, talk with difficult people, master emotions when under stress, and solve the most intractable problems. “When you have tried it all; when you think a situation is lost; when you have exhausted all your resources... victory is near!,” Aldo says.
Through compelling storytelling, Aldo Civico shares the most common strategies negotiators use to get the desired outcomes. These include the knowledge of how to connect with the other person; knowledge of how to understand the needs and intention of the other party; knowledge of how to set concrete, measurable and achievable goals; knowledge of how to communicate effectively; and so on. Interwoven in his inspiring stories, Aldo provides to his audience concrete action steps, which can be easily and effectively implemented.
Key points of emphasis:
The power of listening.
When you listen you connect with the other party. Listening elicits the model of the world lived in by the other. It facilitates understanding the needs, fears, and desires of the other. It also helps you to get a different perspective about your own perception. It gets you out of your head and it opens up a space of possibilities. It’s the easiest concession we can make in a negotiation. Many people ask me how it’s possible for me to sit down with individuals who have perpetrated violence at massive scales. The response is simple: I sit down and I listen to their stories. “When I listen I’m like a treasure hunter, searching for that part of humanity to connect with and try to understand the positive intention that is behind behaviors that are destructive. Listening is an essential quality of leaders.”
Master your emotions.
Mastering your emotions is what helps you to own a situation. Step back and get the bigger picture. When you are in a reactive mode, you give your power up and you become a hostage of both the other person and the situation. Rather than reacting to a situation you to respond to it. Take a walk, go running, or just look at the tip of your shoes and that will get your mind off of the intense negative emotions. Negotiation is about influence, but we need to influence ourselves first.
Ask powerful questions.
Asking powerful questions, allows exploring possibilities to unlock potentials and to unstuck a situation. The map is not the territory, and by asking powerful questions we have the possibility to explore the map of the other, and also to get closer to the territory. Powerful questions open the space for a conversation.
HOW TO DEAL WITH YOUR “DOMESTIC TERRORIST”
YOUR TEENAGE CHILD
(For parents and teachers)
In this program, Aldo Civico teaches parents and teachers the hidden mechanisms of resolution and how to regain control over rebellious teenage kids.
Adolescence is a challenging time for both parents and children. Suddenly the lovely child you had around disappeared. You are mourning the moments you had in the past. You are worried about performance at school, about the friends your child hangs out with, and you are put off by his rebellious attitude. Some of your teenage child’s behavior might even worry you deeply. At times you feel out of control and you feel the need to regain control and assert your parental authority.
In sharing compelling and inspiring stories from his work in conflict resolution and dealing with terrorist, Aldo Civico shows parents how by using the skills of high-end negotiators they can bond with teenage kids, set rules that can be enforced, and regain control of their family. In this program, Aldo builds on his experience bonding with teenage soldiers, as he helped them to disarm and reintegrate into the society, and to redesign their life project.
Key Points of Emphasis:
Avoid reacting.
Distract yourself from negative emotions. When you are in the throes of rage, anxiety or frustration you are hostage of your own emotions. You are not in control of the situation. Instead, the situation controls you. You need to refrain from striking back, from giving in easily, or even breaking off from the relationship with your teenage child.
Become a student of your teenage kid.
Step into the world of your child and become a connoisseur. Stepping into adolescence, your child became a stranger. Teenagers suddenly change priorities, tastes, behaviors and habits. If you want to lead, you need first to pace by becoming curious about the interests of your kid.
Discover the positive intention behind your teenage kid’s behavior.
Even when a behavior is destructive, there is a positive intention to fulfill a personal need. Listen to what your teenage kids really want to communicate to you with their behavior, even when it’s destructive. Ask yourself, “What is my teenager’s behavior trying to provide, prevent or protect?”
Grant a ceasefire.
Identify trade-offs that will help you to get the overall desired result. In armed conflicts, a ceasefire is often introduced for humanitarian reasons and as a trust-building measure. Your teenage kid’s actions might give you plenty of reasons to make observations, demands, complaints, etc. But if those kind of remarks are all there is in your communication it turns into a communication that is felt as an harassment. Instead, choose moments in your family life when you are refraining from critiquing or complaining about your kid.
Create a menu of options.
Indemnify trade-offs that will help you to get the overall desired goal. If you have a menu of options your negotiation can be more effective. This allows you to have a flexibility rooted in the clarity of what is a must and where you can make concessions, about what behaviors you are not going to tolerate and which you are going to reward.
LIVING YOUR DREAM. CREATING YOUR LIFE
(For Universities and Colleges)
Dare to live for a great idea. Have the courage to dream big and to create your own life. Because in our complex and uncertain times, it is those who understand what the cultural tensions of our times are, and those who live for a great idea that transcends our reality, that are destined to live a successful and fulfilling time.
Aldo Civico has been teaching and mentoring for more than a decade undergraduate and graduate students. With his experience he has inspired students to aim high. Through inspiring storytelling, he urges young audiences to make a dent in the universe by creating a life of meaningful contribution.
In this program, Aldo shares his personal experience and tells the story of how at 22 he decided to leave his parents’ home to join the anti-mafia movement in Sicily. He recounts what witnessing the killing of anti-mafia prosecutors meant for his life, and how after the experience he moved to the United States and began his career in conflict resolution. Aldo’s inspiring storytelling about his encounters with members of death squads, terrorists, and victims of human rights violations motivate young audiences to wonder about their own purpose in life and the contribution they can make in life beyond themselves.
Key points of emphasis:
It is in the moments of decision that we create our destiny.
We can be spectators of our life, and make life happen to us, or we can be the creators of our own life, and decide to make a meaningful contribution during our lifetime. This is the lesson that Aldo learned in a marginal neighborhood of Palermo, in Sicily, when he met with a teenage boy who was linked to the Mafia. It was an encounter that put Aldo’s life on a different path.
Enlarge your model of the world.
In an increasingly interdependent world, the game is won by those who navigate reality with flexibility and agility. This requires us to enlarge our own map of the world, so that we can put ourselves in the others’ shoes. Aldo shares how he learned this lesson by interacting with members of death-squads and armed insurgent groups while doing fieldwork and conflict resolution work in Colombia and other places around the world.
Be open to serendipity.
Life is an artful dance between having a clear vision of one’s own life, and being equally open to what life suggests through its events and encounters. When Aldo found himself in the midst of a jungle to facilitate a workshop among a community who had survived a massacre and discovered that what it had planned was in no way useful, he discovered how not knowing what to do can open a space of possibility and creativity.
The power of building rapport.
In a world that is complex and increasingly interdependent, success rests on our ability to build connections and to open dialogue. Aldo shares how he was able to build rapport and contribute to peace talks by opening a space for unlikely friendships and conversations. In particular, he shares the story of how he met and bonded with a major terrorist leader in Colombia and how he supported him when he transitioned from a life of violence and rebellion, to one committed to peace.
TRANSFORMING CONFLICT INTO OPPORTUNITY
A PATHWAY FOR FAMILY OFFICES
(For family businesses)
The transfer of wealth from one generation to the other is one of the major concerns and source of conflict within family businesses. It often strains relationships and is the cause of huge financial losses. The challenge can be mitigated and even resolved if priority is given to the quality of relations; if decisions are made together as a result of open dialogue; and if parental concerns are taking into account.
In this enlightening and inspiring talk, Aldo Civico shares the secrets of effective communication, rapport building and conflict resolution that high-end negotiators use to turn around tough problems and to resolve seemingly intractable conflicts. He shares his own experiences on how he honed advanced negotiation skills working in extremely stressful environments, and communicating with very difficult people like members of terrorist organizations. Aldo Civico shows how, by applying the same principles and strategies, everyone can take control of a difficult situation, find a path to resolution and transform relations.
In this particular program Aldo builds on the insights and experience he gained working with members of family offices around the world.
Key points of emphasis:
Conflict is opportunity.
When asked, we often associate feelings of stress, anxiety, fear or uncertainty from our experiences with conflict. This is because we give a negative connotation to conflict and conflict situations. Reframing conflict as an opportunity for growth and for needed change, unlocks the potential for resolution.
Start with the end in mind.
Clarity of purpose and of mission is key to obtaining the desired outcome. Family offices can prevent or resolve conflicts by building a shared vision that cuts across generations. Agreements that emerge from open and authentic conversations encourage the wellbeing of family members and their business.
Effective Communication. Communication is not only stating in a clear way one’s own wants. Effective communication rests on the ability to understand the needs and the story of the other. It’s about cultivating an attitude of acknowledgement, appreciation and gratefulness. It is the capacity for active and authentic listening, and for building meaningful rapport. Mastery of communication is the cornerstone on which high-end negotiators build their success.
Mastery of Emotions.
Mastering your emotions is what helps you to own a situation. Step back and get the bigger picture. When you are in a reactive mode, you give up your power, you become an hostage of the other or of the situation. Rather than reacting to a situation you ought to respond to it. Take a walk, go running, or just look at the tip of your shoes and that will get your mind off the intense negative emotions. Negotiation is about influence, but we need to influence ourselves first.
Aldo Civico
Featured Review
Aldo Civico
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