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Mediation Training Articles
August 2005
(7/21/08)
Nancy Hudgins  I’m seeing a disconnect between what’s being taught to current law students about mediation and what the best negotiation professors are advocating versus what’s actually taking place in front of me in many mediations. Current teaching. Last Spring, the ABA’s Dispute Resolution Committee held a mediation competition for law students. (Quinnipiac University School of Law’s team won, which I wrote about here.) The ABA’s scoring system gave the highest marks for demonstration of the following skills: 1. Encouraging clients to speak during the mediation 2. Establishing a problem-solving relationship with the other side, if possible 3. Recognizing the other side’s interests and trying to satisfy them when possible, given their client’s interests 4. Taking initiative to convert the other team into problem-solvers 5. Generating a range of legal and non-legal options to meet client’s interests, as well as interests of other side 6. Evaluating and selecting options based on interests as well as objective criteria 7. Actively encouraging development of creative ideas Current literature. The best negotiation professors also stress these skills: Collaboration Cooperation Positive attitudes See, Babcock & Laschever, Ask for It; Craver, Effective Legal Negotiation and Settlement; Craver, The Intelligent Negotiator; Fisher, Ury & Patton, Getting to Yes; Fisher & Shapiro, Beyond Reason; Goldberg, Sander, Rogers & Cole, Dispute Resolution; Lax & Sebenius, 3D Negotiation; Malhotra & Bazerman, Negotiation Genius; and, Ury, Getting Past No, to name a few. Current practice. There are lawyers and clients who use the approaches and skills outlined above. In my experience, however, there are an equal number of lawyers and clients who apparently believe that “hard” bargaining is the best way to negotiate. What the advocates of collaborative bargaining point out, however, is that even when hard bargaining is effective, often it leaves value on the table that could have been claimed by the negotiator using a hard bargaining approach. Bottom line: the client loses out. Creating and Claiming Value. As a lawyer, I want to claim as much value for my client as I can. The counter-intuitive part of collaborative bargaining is that while I am claiming more value for my client, I am offering more value to the other side. This is the win-win outcome that is a result. Let’s use the orange story as an example. (See original post here.) Two sisters are having a dispute over a single orange. Each wants the entire orange. If the lawyer for the older sister asked questions of the younger sister, he might have learned that the younger sister was interested in making orange juice. If the lawyer for the younger sister listened carefully in conversation with the older sister’s lawyer, she might have discerned that the older sister wanted to use the rind of the orange to flavor a cake. At that point, the lawyers could have settled the case without the assistance of a mediator. The settlement agreement would have been written up to give the older sister the rights to the orange rind and the younger sister the rights to the juice. This is a win-win example. Each sister gets 100% of what she wants. Neither has to “settle” for less. Impress your client. Be more collaborative throughout discovery. Talk more frequently with the other side. Keep your focus on what your client really wants. Be creative. Create and claim more value for your client and for the other side. End result: your client will be the winner and you will be their go-to lawyer.
(6/10/08)
Diane J. Levin Too many mediators, not enough mediations: is it fair to keep training neutrals with career prospects so grim?
 Last summer the Southern California Mediators Association posted to its blog an essay by mediator Christine von Wrangel provocatively titled, “Mediation: A Lucrative Career or a Ticket to the Poor House?“, a polemic directed against the many universities and training programs raising the career expectations of hundreds of mediator-hopefuls:
Almost every accredited or unaccredited university has jumped on the “mediation” bandwagon. Enrolling in these courses can cost students from $500 to well over $1,000 per course, depending on the provider. For universities, retired judges, conflict resolution institutions, government and private mediation providers, the business of offering mediation courses has become lucrative.
Marketing companies have now jumped on the band wagon, promising they can help mediators find a profitable niche in the market, provided of course they are willing to pay the thousands of dollars it takes to launch a marketing campaign.
Who are the winners in this mediation frenzy? Clearly, the providers of mediation training courses and related services.
Who are the losers? The students enrolling in these courses, because most have been lead to believe that they will be able to carve out a living as a mediator after “graduation.” And this is rarely the case.
Von Wrangel asked,
Is it ethical to continue to inundate the market with more mediation courses and classes, when most students who graduate face a superfluity of mediation providers, with little hope to start a successful mediation practice?
Wellington mediator Geoff Sharp points his readers to a study recently released that provides the statistical evidence for von Wrangel’s concerns. In a report titled, “Making Peace and Making Money: Economic Analysis of the Market for Mediators in Private Practice“, Urška Velikonja, a Teaching Fellow at Harvard University, presents data that the supply of mediators far outstrips their demand and paints a distressing picture of the realities of mediation practice for the hundreds of aspiring mediators who emerge each year from trainings and degree programs across the U.S.
Velikonja singles out mediation trainers for some sharp criticism:
The failure by mediation trainers to provide accurate information about opportunities to make money in mediation contributes to excess entry in the market for mediation services….[I]naccurate information about the availability of mediation jobs as well as overoptimism lead aspirant mediators to spend money on mediation training and starting a mediation practice, and incur opportunity costs by foregoing other career opportunities. Not only may the failure of mediation trainers to fully disclose the pros and cons of mediation practice and correct trainee misapprehensions be unethical, it also leads to socially inefficient outcomes. To correct this misallocation of resources, mediation training programs should disclose information about “the known opportunities, limits, and obstacles in mediation in mediation employment and professional practice opportunities.”
She even anticipates the counterargument mediation trainers often trot out:
While it is true that mediation may be a useful skill in our work and familial lives, it is likely that fewer people would spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on mediation training without the expectation that training could lead to a career change.
I at least am one mediation trainer who is brutally honest when people contact me for advice on becoming a mediator. I cringe every time I hear someone tell me that they plan to leave a well-paying job to become a mediator as soon as they finish their basic mediation training. I routinely tell people not to quit their day jobs, although many of them seem determined to do so, buoyed up by an unreliable optimism. And I despair when I get the inevitable email from a recent university graduate, desperately looking for work as a mediator and frustrated because their college placement office could not help them find a job.
I don’t believe (yet, at any rate) that we should stop training people to be mediators. I still believe that the skills are useful in workplace, civic, and family settings. But Velikonja’s report should be required reading for anyone who is thinking about becoming a mediator. And I hope mediation trainers take the time to read it, too.
Listening (5/13/08)
Alan Sharland The purpose of listening in conflict resolution is not for the listener to get ‘the facts,’ but to support the speaker in understanding their own thoughts and feelings about the destructive conflict they are involved in.
(12/11/07)
Diane J. Levin  As a trainer of negotiation and conflict resolution skills, I love using optical illusions to demonstrate the fallibility of our perception. They alert us that our senses can be unreliable and susceptible to influence. And they remind us that it is always possible to see things differently. The ability to be alert to errors in thinking and judgment that any of us are prone to is of course essential to anyone who is negotiating or resolving a dispute. Here are two optical illusions I was recently introduced to that I've incorporated into my training. Both of us these can be found at Michael Bach's web site, 75 Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena. The first is Shepard's "Terror Subterra", a cool interactive illusion that demonstrates how perspective can bias us. The second is Shepard's "Turning the Tables", an interactive illusion with tables that appear to be of different dimensions but are in fact identical, with the ability to test the visual effect for yourself. It's extraordinary how knowing the truth doesn't necessarily prevent us from making mistakes in our thinking.
Mediation and National Security Personnel System (NSPS) Pay for Performance: Can The Pitfalls Be Avoided? (12/10/07)
Rick Voyles, Carol Rice The implementation of Paybanding – “Pay for Performance” is happening now. Congress has enacted the National Security Personnel System (NSPS) into law with total implementation by all government agencies and military components 2009. Based on the guidelines and expectations set out by the National Security Personnel System, managers and employees now have greater demands for accountability placed on them than at any other time in history. Will mediators be ready for the sharp increase in complaint cases that will be referred to them?
(10/01/07)
John Windmueller At a recent symposium I presented on the topic of defining, teaching, and assessing conflict resolution competencies. The symposium’s organizers videotaped the panel, and I’ll post the footage when it becomes available, but in the meantime, here’s the bibliography handout I compiled for the talk:
CR Competency, Learning Assessment, & Pedagogy Cites
Anderson, L., & Krathwohl, D. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Longman.
Association for Conflict Resolution and the Dispute Resolution Section of the American Bar Association. (2005). Mediation certification feasibility study.
Bain, K. (2004). What the best college teachers do. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bloom, B. (Ed.). (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. New York: McKay.
Bordone, R., Moffitt, M., & Sander, F. (2005). The next thirty years: Directions and challenges in dispute resolution. In M. Moffitt & R. Bordone (Eds.), The handbook of dispute resolution (pp. 507-519). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Botes, J. (2004). Graduate peace and conflict studies: Reconsidering their problems and prospects. Conflict Management in Higher Education, 5(1), 10.
Donald, J. (1997). Improving the environment for learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Fitzduff, M. (2006). Core competencies for graduate programs in coexistence and conflict work: Can we Agree? In Leadership Notes. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center.
Fuller, R. (1998). Building a mediation and conflict resolution studies curriculum based on competency. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Communication Association.
Goodhart, F., Verdi, P., & Kennedy, S. (1991). Assuring quality in health education. Paper presented at the Mid-Atlantic College Health Association.
Honeyman, C. Mediator certification, credentialing, and rosters. Retrieved September 2, 2007, from http://v4.crinfo.org/CK_Essays/ck_mediator_certification.jsp
Honeyman, C. (1988). Five elements of mediation. Negotiation Journal, 4(2l), 149-160.
Honeyman, C. (1990). On evaluating mediators. Negotiation Journal, 6(1), 23-36.
Nadler, J., Thompson, L., & Van Boven, L. (2003). Learning negotiation skills: Four models of knowledge creation and transfer. Management Science, 49, 529-540.
Schön, D. A. (1983). From technical rationality to reflection-in-action. In D. A. Schön (Ed.), The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action (pp. 21-69). New York: Basic Books.
Suskie, L. (2004). Assessing student learning: A common sense guide. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company.
Walvoord, B., & Anderson, V. J. (1998). Effective grading: A tool for learning and assessment. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Warters, W. (1999). Graduate studies in dispute resolution: A Delphi study of the field’s present and future. Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution, 2(2).
Wehr, P. (1986). Conflict resolution studies: What do we know? Paper presented at the NIDR Dispute Resolution Forum.
Zelizer, C., & Johnston, L. (2005). Skills, networks, and knowledge: Developing a career in international peace and conflict resolution. Arlington, VA.
(9/23/07)
Geoff Sharp  So this looks cool...
Skill-Pill is a short burst of bite sized skills delivered by video to your cell phone, blackberry, video iPod or smart phone just before the big event to get you in the zone.
Going into a big negotiation or mediation? Take a 2 minute skill-pill in the taxi on the way.
Demo here
Mediation and its Role in Adult Education (11/06/06)
David Silvera This article explores mediation as a tool, which can help any individual in his relationships with his fellow men, and also a philosophy of life, which can become a relevant and significant subject within Adult Education programs, and widen the horizons of those who participate in the life long process of learning.
The Experience of Training in Macau (China) (11/28/05)
Kin I (Deanne) Lam Recently I delivered several training courses to an adult training center in Macau S.A.R., China. The program was designed to explore the connectivity of the gaming industry and the society of Macau by understanding the theory and practice of conflict management: recognizing how conflicts originate and evolve in the working environment, and learning skills to resolve interpersonal conflicts creatively.
What To Look For In A Basic Mediation Training (3/07/05)
Diane J. Levin My purpose in writing this article is to raise public awareness of the importance of doing your homework when it comes to making decisions regarding choosing a mediation training. Taking a mediation training constitutes an investment in your professional development, representing an important commitment of both time and money. The last thing you want is to waste either one of those precious commodities.
The Kid’s Guide To Working Out Conflicts (Book Review) (1/10/05)
Jon Linden In Naomi Drew’s newest book she presents one of the very best exhortations and explanations ever written on Peer Mediation. Peer Mediation usually refers to the process of mediation between and with Children/Adolescents in school situations. Most books on the subject try to help schools develop “in school” programs to support a Peer Mediation Implementation. It has been definitively shown, that such a program provides an outlet, a forum to discuss and resolve conflicts that arise and such a forum significantly reduces school violence. The forum allows the release of frustration and retaliation in violent manners, especially by the abused.
Who Needs A Mediator? With Training You Can Resolve A Conflict On Your Own (4/26/04)
Jack Hamilton & Elisabeth Seaman This article focuses on an individual who participated in our workshop in May 2003, and who applied the six-step process to a conflict between her and a person who was renting space at a barn the individual was managing. One of the skills the individual had acquired in our workshop was the ability to teach or coach another person with whom she might be in conflict to follow the six-step method in reality-checking each other’s assumptions.
Mentoring and Evaluating New Mediators (2/01/04)
Evan Ash In spite of our best intentions, we all have to start somewhere! For an experienced professional who would like to become a mediator, classroom training may seem like the only beginning needed to become effective. However, wiser more seasoned heads have prevailed in the dispute resolution field. It is widely recognized that some degree of supervised practical or clinical training is needed.
Conflict Management Training for Health Care Professionals (11/24/03)
Debra Gerardi Regardless of the role of the professional; physician, nurse, administrator, manager, social worker or technician, as a group, health care professionals face more conflict and greater complexity than any other profession. Despite the challenges of balancing competing interests, philosophies, training backgrounds, the endless quest for adequate resources, and the emotional quality of the work that they do, very few health care professionals have had the opportunity to learn the skills and processes necessary for negotiating their environments.
A Step-By-Step Approach To Designing An Online ADR Course (10/06/03)
Jacqueline Reese There are many valid reasons for applauding online programs, but one traditional element missing in online instruction is the face-to-face interactions with the instructor and other learners. This is a cause for concern for ADR educators since the field of conflict management and dispute resolution traditionally use simulations and group interactions as core elements for instructional critique and training.
Preparing for Peace (Book Review) (6/02/03)
Bonita Para John Paul Lederach’s Preparing for Peace, presents a case for considering how we approach conflict resolution training across cultures. His approach in this book is to draw the reader into considering the objectives and mechanics used to achieving the goals we set forth for training and to also to be open minded in our consideration of conflict; peoples’ cultural resources; and conflict transformation. This is not a “how-to” book on training, but one that encourages leaving the imagination open to endless methodologies of training approaches.
Mediation and the Art of Motorcycle Riding (11/12/02)
Evan Ash I recently completed a motorcycle rider course at a local community college. My experience gave me some added benefits. It allowed me to have a powerful opportunity to live what my mediation students encounter in their training. This article shares those lessons with other mediation coaches, mentors, teachers, and supervisors. My hope is that through this learning, we can "raise the bar" on the quality and proficiency of the members of our profession placed in our tutelage.
Conflict Management Systems: A Methodology for Addressing the Cost of Conflict in the Workplace (9/02/02)
Rian Thomas It is evident that there are tremendous advantages to preemptively dealing with conflict in the workplace before it escalates to unknown proportions. A well-designed Conflict Management System can make a tremendous positive difference to the bottom-line. Perhaps the most importantly, an effective CMS can meaningfully impact the lives of those in your organization. After all, as the adage goes: "Happier employees are more productive employees."
Ten Challenges Facing College Mediation Programs (10/29/01)
Nathan Makdad College Mediation programs face a variety of difficulties in delivering their services to students. Interviews with college programs focused on the areas of intakes going to mediation, training, publicity, and referral sources. Ten major challenges were identified and are discussed.
Conflict Management Through Coaching (10/17/01)
Cinnie Noble Conflict management coaching combines ADR and the burgeoning field of coaching. This application of dispute resolution skills is aimed at helping individuals improve the way they deal with conflict in general. Conflict coaching may also be used to prepare a party for a specific negotiation or mediation. In all cases, conflict coaching requires practitioners to use many of the skills DR professionals apply as mediators, but in a different context and on a one-to-one basis.
The Training of Conflict Resolution Skills in the Workplace (8/01/01)
John Ford An ideal approach to conflict management in the workplace is an integrated one. Very few, if any, organizations can boast of this achievement. Rather, integration represents a vision for the future. That said, there are many options for organizations both small and large who are traveling in this direction.
Factors Predictive Of Divorce Mediator Style (7/16/01)
Sarah Childs Grebe, DSW The specific hypothesis tested in the study was: family mediator style is associated with and can be predicted by several factors: profession-of-origin; various aspects of interpersonal behavior, (interpersonal style, personal conflict style and leadership style); and socialization. By demonstrating the association between profession-of-origin and mediation style, the study has helped to clarify the theory base of family mediation, with implications for the training of mediators and for the delivery of mediation services.
Conflict Resolution and the Arts (7/02/01)
Marianne Klink & Donna Crawford The arts are a natural forum for teaching, modeling, and using conflict
resolution processes. CR skills can provide tools for creating more
peaceable environments within arts programs and within families, schools,
and communities.
Training Orientation and Conflict Theory: Transforming Our Understanding of Conflict (6/12/01)
Kristine Paranica, J.D., & Thomas Fuchs, M.Ed Based on “The Promise of Mediation” by Folger and Bush, and “Preparing For Peace” by Ledarach, this brief article will explore the symbiotic relationship between training and conflict management theory. In other words, the way you train can affect the learning outcomes of the participants. If training conflict theory requires adoption of a new set of beliefs and the giving up of current beliefs, is it realistic to believe that adult learners have the capacity or desire to do so? Training and education for adults should respect their need to make choices about the integration of new information with their own life experiences.
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I’m seeing a disconnect between what’s being taught to current law students about mediation and what the best negotiation professors are advocating versus what’s actually taking place in front of me in many mediations.
