What's Happening In Conflict Resolution

Extremely Sketchy & Incredibly Graphic

Brad Heckman- Graphic Facilitation is a variation of sketchnoting in which a facilitator uses imagery to capture and map out what's going on in a meeting -- often used in visioning, strategic planning, problem-solving, prioritizing, and addressing intragroup dynamics. As groups are chatting, brainstorming, or arguing, a graphic facilitator tracks the conversation with images that memorialize the conversation, allow participants to see things in a new light, and stimulate creative option generation.

Refusing to Do What our Clients Ask

ISCT by Dan Simon- If we believe in self-determination, shouldn't we honor our clients' requests for advice? I mean, they asked for it - they determined themselves that they wanted it? Read the whole article here.

T his Week in Conflict (blog)...

Rebecca Sargent

Europe: The former foreign secretary of the EU Jack Straw announced that the European Parliament should be abolished after failing to achieve its purpose of bridging the divide between the European people and EU. Straw argued that the body has a “major democratic deficit” as a poll shows 78% believe their voice doesn’t count in the EU. [MORE]

Middle East: China announced on Friday that it had yet to receive a formal invitation to a meeting of international powers in Tunis next week to discuss the crisis in Syria; [MORE]

Americas: President Caledron of Mexico reportedly unveiled a large advertising board near the American border calling on the US to stop the flow of weapons into the country on Friday. [MORE]

Asia: President Karzai of Afghanistan confronted the Pakistani leadership on Thursday during a visit to Islamabad, accusing Pakistani officials of harbouring the Taliban; [MORE]

AVOIDING INTERPERSONAL CONFLICT

Cinnie Noble- ...Examining when and why we avoid conflict is a helpful exercise in the quest for conflict mastery. Here are this week’s questions about this topic:

Under what circumstances do you avoid conflict?
What is it about these circumstances that results in your decision to avoid conflict?
What do you gain from avoiding conflict at these times that you haven’t yet mentioned?
What are the disadvantages for you when you avoid?
What are the upsides and downsides for the other person?

More News, Jobs, & Articles

Job Posting: Northeastern Illinois University Ombuds

Association for Conflict Resolution's 2012 Annual Conference

‘Co-mediation’ for public records lawsuits

Does Your Beard Make You A Better Mediator?

Have some fun with the collection of nonverbal communication research I gathered below. What are your thoughts on the differences between men and women? How does this apply (or not apply!) to the mediation profession? I think all of us, whether we are short men, men with beards or attractive women (and everyone else!), we can drawn on personal reflections that relate to each of these.

At the very least, enjoy!

If you enjoy the snippet below, please click the link at the bottom to read the whole article that has been published at www.PyschologyToday.com.

Women are Less Influential
A study showed women were less influential, especially with men. Further, the same study showed that women can be perceived as competent with men when they are also using immediacy and rapport building cues such as smiling and head nodding. For women, it seems competence without these immediacy cues did not equate to effectiveness in regards to being influential with men. (Carli, 2001)

Beards (for Men!) Equals Dominance!
Beards increase men's perceived head size and consequently increases dominance. (Mehrabian, 1976)

Hey Doc!

Women Physicians spend an average of 2 minutes longer talking to their patients compared to male physicians and engage in more rapport building/patient centeredness (Roter, Hall, & Aoki, 2002).

Short Men Need Not Apply

Tall men get hired more often; improves overall chances of success (Mehrabian, 1977); are perceived to be more attractive; have a greater chance for advancement within a corporation (Morris, 1977); have higherself-esteem, more likely to have a leadership position, and make more money (Jung & Cable, 2004).

Read the rest of this article [HERE]

Won't Leak in Flight!

Hire Me: I’m Really Good at Summarizing

What are the odds of me being hired if this was my big selling point as a professional mediator? Think about it, you really do want to be a good summarizer, right?

Of course this is absurd to think this would be a top selling point when promoting yourself but it came to mind when something else, equally or perhaps more absurd was presented to me.

As mediators, an important tool (and I mean literally here, not the “Mediator’s Toolbox” sense) is a pen. Based on informal conversations I had with other mediators, I am not the only one who puts lots of effort in their pen selection. Of course there are some that laughed while saying a pen is just a pen which got me to thinking if there mindset on pens is so flawed, what kind of mediation skills could they have??

As my favorite pen was beginning to go low on ink, I embarked on going to the local store to get a new one. See, I was planning ahead, when the current one runs out of ink, I will have the other one available right away. As I searched, the first two stores were sold out. This allowed my ego to become slightly larger as I now began to think that I am in good company and have good taste in pen selection as they are sold out in two places while the regular run of the mill pens were abundantly available. Think about it, who needs a discerning mind for wine selection when pen selection is much more important?

Anyway, on attempt number three, I found my pen. My joy was short-lived and was replaced with confusion as my ever-discerning mind reviewed the packaging to see what it had to say (perhaps insight as to why it is the best pen in the world) and I see the following as the main marketing reason, at least from Bic, as to why this pen is so good:

Yes, it won’t leak in flight.

Now I travel fairly often each year and all of my concerns (crashing into water, missing my connection, not being offered a drink with my meal, jockeying over the arm rest with a stranger, etc.) never once, not once did I ever (EVER!) think about my pen leaking mid-flight, early-flight, or as towards the completion of the flight. Does this constitute an epic marketing failure?

This brings me back to mediation and marketing. Take a brief moment to consider, even if your mediation business is a raging success (or not), is it despite your marketing or because of it?

Time's Role In Mediation, Negotiation & Conflict Resolution

Time often plays a crucial role in mediations, negotiations, conflict coaching, and other conflict related situations. Aside of the obvious billable rate per hour, there are various subtle yet important ways TIME factors into the work we do as professionals assisting those in the midst of a conflict or dispute.

Chronemics, the study of time, is a nonverbal communication element part of my PhD research (check out the Prezi) on mediators, and like many topics, is often best understood and explained through the use of metaphors.

Looking at time and the various metaphors that can be associated with it, for this post I will concentrate in the TIME IS A JOURNEY metaphor. I actually posted the following on twitter recently and it generated some great responses:

mediatorjeff Jeff Thompson

Negotiators, mediators & coaches- is conflict a journey? Does it get 'stuck'? Is 'moving forward' always good? #metaphor

and the responses:

tammycravit Jan 14, 9:50pm via Echofon

@mediatorjeff I've experienced situations where stuck-ness & backward movement are necessary to the ultimate resolution of a conflict.

Jenny_Radcliffe Jan 14, 1:51pm via Twitter for iPhone

@mediatorjeff - if only one side is moving it's not a#negotiation its a monologue! #conflict

jasondyk Jan 14, 2:15pm via UberSocial for BlackBerry

True! RT @Jenny_Radcliffe: @mediatorjeff - if only one side is moving it's not a #negotiation its a monologue!#conflict

clarkfreshmanJan 14, 4:47pm via Twitter for iPhone

@NonverbalPhD no forward is not good as metaphor for negotiation. Too often a rush to easy solutions, rather than optimal creative win win

KatriK Jan 14, 12:43pm via TweetDeck

@mediatorjeff Maybe sometimes it's good to get stuck. It might mean, that there should be a break, time to think, time to silence?

Jenny_Radcliffe Jan 14, 1:48pm via Twitter for iPhone

@NonverbalPhD depends on direction you're going-forward=negotiation backwards= litigation so says @Stuart_Diamond

This gets me thinking and to further reflect. How do I (and you) view time? Examples can include the following statements being made:

"time is be wasted..."

"We have not moved far in the past hour..."

"Look at how far we have gotten in the past two hours"

"Should we move onto another topic for the moment?"

Jenny Radcliffe brings up the point that some view moving forward as positive, while backwards is negative (and litigation, ha! that's a whole other topic!) while Katri (@KatriK) states time being "stuck" and going neither forward or backward could positive.

I often tend to use this approach to give a "reality check" and perhaps "stroke" the parties by saying something along the lines of "hey, let's stop for a second and look at where everyone was at the beginning of this, and where we have come at this point..."

Clark Freshman adds his wisdom by saying how often the TIME IS A JOURNEY and how too fast of a process can often be detrimental to the process of negotiations and mediations. I say there are stages for a reason!

Finally, Tammy reminds me that sometimes you might have to go a backwards to go forwards towards a resolution.

Hopefully this brief post will allow you to reflect on how TIME IS A JOURNEY metaphor plays an important role during your work and realize the parties might approach it differently. Also, it is also a subtle hat-tip and promotion of the value of twitter- using twitter is well worth time as it has helped me move forward on my path towards increasing my ability to help others involved in conflicts (wow, check out all those metaphors!).

Enjoy!

Btw, anyone else think about about how TIME IS MONEY is another important metaphor played out in conflict resolution?

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