mediatorinthemaking.com

The following is a selective listing of Boston area mediation, conflict resolution and negotiation trainings and events for April and May 2008.

Find additional training listings at Mediation Works, Inc. (basic training or advanced) and the Harvard Program on Negotiation.

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April 9, 2008 2pm to 4pm
ADR Professions Colliding:
Addressing the Tension Between Mediation and Collaborative Practice
from Massachusetts Council on Family Mediation, Inc.
Presenters: Lynda J. Robbins, Esq., and Karen J. Levitt, Esq.

Location: Arnold Room, Wellesley Free Library, 530 Washington Street, Wellesley, MA

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April 13 - 16, 2008
International Ombudsman Association Annual Conference
3rd Annual Conference of IOA: “Making a Difference-The Ombudsman Impact”
The Boston Park Plaza Hotel, Boston, MA

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April 16, 2008 8:30 - 10am
(Continental Breakfast at 8am)
Dispute Resolution Forum
from Harvard Law School and the Program on Negotiation
Speaker: Rikk Larsen, mediator, trainer, conflict coach, Managing Partner at Howell Larsen Associates, founding partner of Elder Decisions

Location: John Chipman Gray Room, 2nd Floor, Pound Hall

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April 17, 2008 2pm - 5:30pm
Assessing and Addressing Power Imbalances:
Abusive Relationships and the Collaborative Process
from Massachusetts Collaborative Law Council
Presenter: Professor Margaret Drew, University of Cincinnati College of Law

Location: The Walker Center, 171 Grove Street, Newton, MA

Attendance is limited, so register early at Massachusetts Collaborative Law Council
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April 28, 2008 9am - 4pm
Managing Conflict in the Workplace
from Cape Mediation
$150.00($125 by 3/28)

Location: Willy’s World Wellness & Conference Center in North Eastham

“Workplace conflict is inevitable … Learn a proven problem-solving model
and practical skills to help deal with conflict between staff, management, and customers.”

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May 2-9, 2008
CDSC Basic Mediation Training
from Community Dispute Settlement Center

Location: CDSC, 60 Gore Street, East Cambridge, MA
Cost: $695 ($650 if registration recvd. by April 3)

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May 21, 2008 11:30am to 2pm
(Social Time 11:30am to 12pm)
Overcoming Impasse – Tools to Empower Parties to Reach Agreements
from Mediation Works, Inc.
Presenters: Chuck Doran and Josh Hoch

Intended Audience: MWI Court and Divorce Panel Members
“Participating in mediation can be difficult for parties. After time, impasse can seem too difficult to overcome. Join Chuck and Josh for some advanced mediation skill training as they share techniques and discuss strategies for empowering parties to be able to overcome impasse, stay focused, and reach agreement.”

I recently spoke with someone who was experiencing ongoing conflict with colleagues.

Quite a lot of emailing, memo sending, and such types of communication were described. Misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and mounting frustrations had come to define the relationships.

I listened. And then asked one question. “Have you tried speaking with them?”

A pause. And then, maybe with a little bit of wonder, “No, I haven’t tried that.”

No in-person conversations had happened between these folks. No relationship building, understanding seeking, principled negotiating to resolve conflicts before they came to define the relationship.

If you’ve gotten stuck in such relationships, I hope you’ll consider this simple suggestion. Spend more time and energy trying to understand and be understood than identifying how those other people are wrong or bad or not in right relationship with you.

It’s much harder to other that other person when you’re looking right at him or her. It’s much harder to build a relationship with, to have patience and understanding for that other person, if your relationship is all through email and memos: faceless but not voiceless things that can’t look you right in the eye.

We can approach our work from a place of partnership. We can consciously strive to recognize our shared missions. We can focus on the us, the interdependence, that is work. Especially in the standard office.

Now successfully having conversations that get us to this good place, especially with difficult people (or if you are a difficult person … we all can be sometimes), is not as simple as this post. But even trying and not exactly succeeding is better than stewing in stress.

I’m eager to have my next conversation with my frustrated friend and learn how things are going.

We can choose conflict. We can choose to try. We can choose to build partnerships. It’s always up to us.

I recently attempted to simultaneously play party and mediator in a workplace conflict, and felt the burn of my green tendencies.

With my new skills, I find myself entering into super-conflict-resolver mode whenever faced with a conflict. Hooray for seeking experience wherever one can find it. This is giving me, and folks around me, ample opportunity to experience my strengths and green tendencies to be improved.

During a basic mediation training role play, I co-mediated a heated dispute between a couple who had recently split after infidelity. The characters were drawn to be extremely emotional: yelling, swearing, overflowing with anger. Early in the session, I demonstrated compassion and empathy, without endangering my neutral status, which helped each party feel comfortable and valued. But … as their emotions, decibel levels, and the tension in the room increased, my warmth gave way to an almost robotic persona which frustrated the parties. My coach helped me identify a way out of this in the moment.

In the face of heightened emotion, as I enter super-conflict-resolver mode, I instinctively become flat. Very flat. My speech becomes slow and deliberate, almost monotone. I am aware of the shift, and yet …It’s almost as though I think the only way to diffuse powerful emotions and maintain focus on the path to resolution is to have no emotion myself. Consciously, I don’t believe this.

But alas, we humans do learn slowly and instincts are very difficult to force to evolve.

Recently, this automaton response lead to a quite visceral reaction from one of the three parties involved in a workplace conflict. This party was already on the defensive, as a coworker and I approached addressing an issue in what unfortunately came down to the old two-against-one game rather than teamwork.

She lashed out at me in a way that turned a minor issue into a major conflict, and provided quite a test for my newly developing skills in conflict resolution and relationship preservation.

While her lashing out shocked me, I realize where it came from. The compassionate me engenders trust and comfort. The automaton me builds rage and paints me as a patronizing jerk who talks without listening. As a mediator and as a human being, I would prefer to be the former at all times – or at least most times.

I will be constantly vigilant in avoiding this pitfall.