A fresh approach to resolving conflicts | Darya Shaikh

Summary

Summary of "A Fresh Approach to Resolving Conflicts | Darya Shaikh" | TED Talks Daily

Introduction

In the March 26, 2025 episode of TED Talks Daily, host Elise Hu introduces Darya Shaikh’s insightful presentation on transforming conflict into a conduit for positive change. Shaikh, a seasoned conflict resolution expert, challenges conventional perceptions of conflict by presenting innovative strategies that harness disagreements to foster innovation, creativity, and hope.

Darya Shaikh’s Background and Expertise

Darya Shaikh brings over two decades of experience in navigating and resolving conflicts across diverse settings. She has dedicated ten years to working alongside Palestinians and Israelis striving for a just and sustainable peace. Her expertise extends to corporate culture transformation and reimagining humanitarian aid ecosystems. Shaikh’s primary focus is creating environments conducive to meaningful conversations, constructive conflicts, and collaborative pathways.

Reframing Conflict: From Adversity to Opportunity

Shaikh opens her talk by posing a transformative question: “What if we could have better conflicts?” [03:15]. She suggests that conflicts, often perceived as destructive, can instead be catalysts for significant advancements when approached correctly. Shaikh emphasizes that the goal of conflict should shift from winning an argument to growing from the experience, thereby unlocking potential for positive change.

Introducing the Three Horizons Framework

Central to Shaikh’s approach is the Three Horizons framework, a strategic tool designed to navigate and reconcile differing perspectives within conflicts. Originally developed by futures practitioner Bill Sharp and the International Futures Forum, this framework has been applied to various complex issues, including carbon pricing, childhood obesity, and regenerative business strategies.

Understanding the Three Horizons

1. Horizon One (H1): Business as Usual

   • Definition: Represents the current state of affairs, the dominant patterns, and existing workflows.
   • Characteristics: Stability and consistency, but increasingly showing signs of strain as the environment evolves.
   • Shaikh’s Insight: “Horizon one is the pragmatic voice with a managerial mindset responsible for keeping the lights on.” [05:45]

2. Horizon Two (H2): The Bridge

   • Definition: The transitional phase where innovation and entrepreneurship occur.
   • Characteristics: A space for incremental and transformative changes, such as harnessing AI for climate issues or implementing participatory budgeting.
   • Shaikh’s Insight: “Horizon two, the voice of the entrepreneur, is a builder helping take ideas into action.” [07:20]

3. Horizon Three (H3): The Future Vision

   • Definition: Envisions the desired future state, where new patterns and systems have taken root.
   • Characteristics: Inspirational and idealistic, driving bold ideas and transformative change.
   • Shaikh’s Insight: “Horizon three is the voice of inspiration, maybe even courage.” [08:35]

Application of Three Horizons in Corporate Conflict

Shaikh shares a compelling case study from her corporate work with a global finance firm undergoing a complex merger. The team faced cultural tensions, power struggles, and resistance to change. Utilizing the Three Horizons framework, Shaikh facilitated a strategy session that:

• Introduced the Three Horizons: Helping the team recognize and articulate their shared values and collective agency.
• Future Mapping: Encouraged the team to envision their merged entity three years into the future, fostering a sense of pride and purpose.
• Identifying Barriers (H1): Highlighted existing hurdles that needed to be overcome to achieve the new vision.
• Leveraging Innovations (H2): Identified ongoing initiatives and momentum that could be harnessed for successful integration.

This structured approach transformed the team’s mindset from resistance to collaboration, instilling a sense of possibility and enthusiasm for the future.

Changing Perspectives on Conflict

Shaikh argues that conflicts often stem from divergent "voices" representing different horizons:

• Horizon 1 (Pragmatic Voice): Focused on maintaining stability.
• Horizon 3 (Dreamer’s Voice): Driven by idealism and visionary thinking.
• Horizon 2 (Entrepreneur’s Voice): Bridges the gap through innovation and practical implementation.

By valuing each horizon’s contribution, conflicts can be reframed as opportunities for collective growth rather than sources of division. Shaikh emphasizes that no single horizon should dominate; instead, a balanced integration fosters mutual understanding and effective resolution.

Conclusions and Insights

Darya Shaikh concludes by reiterating that conflicts are inherent in all facets of life, from personal relationships to global politics. However, the approach to managing these conflicts determines their impact. By adopting frameworks like Three Horizons, individuals and organizations can transform conflicts into mechanisms for positive change.

Notable Quotes

• “What if we could have better conflicts?” – Darya Shaikh [03:15]
• “Horizon one is the pragmatic voice with a managerial mindset responsible for keeping the lights on.” – Darya Shaikh [05:45]
• “Horizon two, the voice of the entrepreneur, is a builder helping take ideas into action.” – Darya Shaikh [07:20]
• “Horizon three is the voice of inspiration, maybe even courage.” – Darya Shaikh [08:35]
• “Three Horizons is a simple, powerful way to see ourselves as part of something bigger than any one of us.” – Darya Shaikh [10:10]

Final Thoughts

Darya Shaikh’s presentation offers a nuanced perspective on conflict resolution, advocating for a strategic and empathetic approach that leverages differences to build a more innovative and collaborative future. Her insights provide valuable tools for individuals and organizations seeking to navigate conflicts constructively and emerge stronger from them.

Transcript

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[Elise Hu]

You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Conflict. It's an unavoidable part of any relationship, from interpersonal to international relations. But what if the point of arguing isn't to win but to grow from the experience. In her 2024 talk patterns, Thinker Daria Shaikh asks us to imagine what might be possible if we see conflict as seed for positive change that if handled in the right way, conflict could lead us to a place of innovation, creativity, and maybe even hope that's coming up.

[Darya Shaikh]

What if we could have better conflicts? What if instead of causing us to rage or numb or end relationships, our conflicts could spark innovation, creativity, even hope? I've worked across contested spaces for as long as I can remember. I spent a decade alongside Palestinians and Israelis who are fighting for a just and viable peace. Today, my work ranges from corporate culture change through to reimagining the ecosystem of humanitarian aid. My role is to create the conditions that allow people to have better conversations, better conflicts about the things that really matter and find new pathways for collaboration. 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. I want to give you an example from my corporate work. Now, I know people love to hate banking, but bear with me. A few years ago I was asked by the president of a global finance firm to do a closed door strategy session with his new team. They were undergoing a complex, messy merger and it was clear that while a lot of attention was being placed on the technical integration that the culture needed real work. There were tensions and power struggles, passive aggression and narratives of the other forming. Sound familiar? My job in that room was to build enough trust and provide a shared language so that this group of 15 more than a little skeptical individuals could consider why there might be more value in changing than staying as they are. To do that, we used a futures tool called Three Horizons to help them engage from a place of mutual respect to see their shared value. And instead of looking at the merger like something that was happening to them, to find their collective agency in shaping it. I was first introduced to Three Horizons by a very special futures practitioner named Bill Sharp and his colleagues at the International Futures Forum. It's been used on carbon pricing, tackling childhood obesity and building regenerative business strategies. So how does it work? It starts with two lines on a page. At the bottom we have time starting in the present, at the bottom left and going out into the future. On the vertical axis we have the dominant pattern. The way things work, the further up the line we go, the more commonplace or prevalent things are. This is Horizon one. It's the business as usual horizon. The way our world works. Today, we rely on this horizon to be stable and consistent. But as the world changes, Horizon 1 shows signs of strain and is no longer fit for purpose and falls away in its dominance. Then you have Horizon three, the future we're heading towards. When it comes to change, this is the pattern that will take over from the first horizon. But it isn't just out there in the future. There are pockets of the third horizon. In the present moment, think of self driving cars or robots on our factory floors. And in the middle you have the bridge of Horizon two, how we get from here to there. This liminal space is the zone of innovation and entrepreneurship. Some of it will lead to incremental change. Some will be transformative, harnessing AI to tackle climate issues, citizen assemblies or participatory budgeting. But in our attempt to shape a different world or respond to the way in which our current one is being disrupted, we often find these horizons at odds with one another. I like to think about them like voices in a conversation. Horizon 1 is the pragmatic voice with a managerial mindset responsible for keeping the lights on. Maybe it's a corporate CEO, or maybe it's a coal miner whose family's been doing work a certain way for generations to make ends meet. Horizon 3 is the voice of the dreamer. Maybe it's an artist or an activist, or the voice of a younger generation whose worldview is still being formed. You can just imagine a conversation between those two voices, often adversarial, rarely rooted in mutual understanding, speaking past each other, if they speak at all. Sometimes Horizon 2, the voice of the entrepreneur, gets brought in to broker between them. 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. What ends up happening are negative conflicts and effortful incremental change at best. At worst, we see blame loops, vilification, dehumanization. What three Horizons allows us to do is see our shared dilemmas and how each horizon has a value to contribute to resolving them. So instead of Horizon one being out of touch or immovable, we see it as a voice of heritage or an ally in scaling bold ideas that all too often get stuck in ideation. Horizon 3, instead of being idealistic or radical, we see it as a voice of inspiration, maybe even courage. Horizon 2, who can sometimes be seen as a sellout, is a builder helping take ideas into action. No one Horizon is going to be the hero of the story. We need all three to be working together. Back to my corporate example. We Use Three Horizons to help this group tell a different story about themselves in the merger. We started by introducing those three voices so that they could go from negative to positive mindsets. And then we created a map starting in the third horizon, three years into the future after the merger, where they could suspend disbelief enough about their own ambition. What would they be proud of? What would they stand for? They talked about being more purposeful, more trustworthy, adding more value to their customers and society than they were extracting. From there, we went back to Horizon 1 to tune into all the examples of stuckness, things that were holding them back that they would need to let go of in order to achieve that new shared vision. Then in Horizon 2, where were their examples of innovations already underway? Where do they already have momentum for change that they could leverage? They walked away with a sense of possibility, energy for their futures, and a sense of abundance. Conflicts are ubiquitous. They are all around us. Some, especially right now, causing unfathomable devastation. Others, seemingly less intense, like my corporate example, still cause pain and paralysis. Because at the end of the day, we all just want to know our contributions matter. We want to know that we have some agency in shaping the worlds around us. Three Horizons is a simple, powerful way to see ourselves as part of something bigger than any one of us, to bring equal parts conviction and curiosity to the things we deeply care about and find value in our differences. I am not suggesting we all just get along. There is far too much we need to be fighting for. But it's how we fight, how we have better conflicts, that just may tip the scales as we build a third horizon that we can genuinely be proud of. Thank you so much.

[Elise Hu]

That was Darya Shaikh speaking at TED Countdown's dilemma event in Brussels in 2024. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out [e-mail] curationguidelines and that's it for today's show. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Greene, Lucy Little, Alejandra Salazar and Tonsika Sarmarnivon. It was mixed by Christopher Faizy Bogan. Additional support from Emma Tobner and Daniela Balaurazo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening.

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