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Air Travel and the Subtle Art of Influence
Aug 12, 2022

A story about what a delayed flight can teach us about the art of influencing outcomes.


Air travel can be a real challenge.

It wreaks havoc on our universal and very human needs for certainty and autonomy.

It is not easy to surrender to the process.

It is not easy to relinquish the ability to influence certain outcomes - like whether your plane is delayed because of weather.

Recently, when our 5-hour flight landed a full hour late, well past bedtime, in the midst of a summer thunderstorm, and we heard the glorious ding of the seat belt sign turning off, the majority of the passengers remained seated to allow those with now almost impossibly tight connections to race to the front of the aircraft.

Here are the top factors that influenced hundreds of tired passengers to let others disembark ahead of them:

1) Acknowledgement

From initial boarding through landing, the pilot acknowledged not only what was happening but also the impact it was having on the passengers, and committed to doing everything he could to attempt to safely make up some of the lost time in the air.

2) Information

Early and often, the pilot and the flight attendants freely shared detailed information about the various causes of the delays, the new expected arrival time, and the updated gate information.

3) Personalization

The flight attendant asked anyone with a tight connection to raise their hand so that others could see exactly who was being impacted.

4) Request Rather Than Demand

There was a request to allow others to deplane first. A request allows others to freely choose their response.

Turns out the majority of the plane chose to fulfill their needs for relatedness and to be a contribution to others.


Where, in your life, could acknowledgement, information, personalization, or a request positively influence an outcome?

Managing Emotional Clients

By Colleen Byers • 06 Feb, 2024
Managing Emotional Clients Colleen L. Byers collaborated with fellow neuroscience geek and mediator, Chris Osborn, to deliver this month’s Expert Continuing Legal Education (CLE) Series sponsored by the North Carolina Bar Association. Colleen co-presented about the impact of trauma on clients in the legal system and shared some practical tools for managing difficult emotions within ourselves (as lawyers or as mediators) as well as with our clients. View the CLE, which includes 1 hour of Mental Health/Substance Abuse credit in North Carolina here .

How to Negotiate Around Impasse Through Brainstorming Options

By Colleen Byers • 31 Jan, 2024
You have been mediating and negotiating all day long. You are fully invested and can sometimes glimpse the fragile light at the end of the tunnel. Suddenly, all the momentum that has been slowly building all day seems to come to a screeching halt. How do you avoid crashing into an unbreakable impasse? First things first. Pause and take a deep breath. Then take another deep breath for good measure. Then get a sheet of paper and a pen. Along the left side of the paper, write the numbers 1 through 5. Now, with pen in hand, ask yourself these questions and write the responses next to numbers 1 through 5. What is the craziest idea I can think of to solve this problem? What is the second craziest idea I can think of to solve this problem? What is a variation of the other side’s idea that would work for me with an adjustment? What is another idea? What else might work? You have now generated five new possible ways to solve this problem that you can share with the other side to keep the negotiation moving forward and avoid running straight into an impasse. Let me give you a real-life example. My daughters were fighting over the most coveted seat on the couch. The older child asserted, “This is my spot. I always sit here.” The younger child claimed, “But I was here first today!” Unsurprisingly, their attempts to persuade the other to acquiesce were unsuccessful. They are not old enough to engage lawyers to determine who had the stronger legal claim to the coveted seat on the couch but they both came running to me pleading their respective cases in hopes that I would serve as the arbitrator. I declined to serve as an arbitrator but did put my mediator hat on. We all sat at the kitchen table with paper and pen to brainstorm possible solutions that would work for both of them. You may be wondering how I got my young children to do this. I told them that they could not watch any television until they found a solution to which they could both say yes. So down they sat with pen in hand. Using questions 1 through 5 above, as prompts, they generated the following ideas: Take turns – alternate days; Take turns – set a timer and then switch; Sit on top of each other; Build a fort on the couch for both of us. Then we went back through the list one by one, and I asked each child if they were a “yes” or a “no” for that particular idea. Here is what that looked like:
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