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 am enjoying reading my peer mediation student’s blog over at Better Than Misery.

The latest post, Newsflash: No money in mediation,  of course caught my attention.

I can relate to this:

I think it has to do with the general public learning what it means and why its beneficial. Lately I have been thinking about alternative kinds of manifestations of my conflict management degree, including online dispute resolution projects.

You might have read me wondering here if most careers are careers in conflict resolution, and if conflict is just too sexy for most people to care to resolve rather than fight to the win/lose bitter end.

It amazes me to read a mediation student in Israel writing thoughts and experiences so similar to my own in the U.S. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one exploring these questions right now.

When working for my undergrad, I felt like I was going at light-speed with the knowledge that I would reach the light at the end of the tunnel, my professional life would start and my work would pay off. Seems like sometimes we mediation students feel like we could just be spinning our wheels.

Partly because I’m not doing the professional work I expected with my undergrad,  I’m ok with not knowing where this mediation work will lead. I know I really enjoy it, I seem to have aptitude for it, I’m finding opportunities as I go, and I’m using these skills every day in both professional and personal settings.

Any other mediation students out there? Pros who’ve been there? What are your thoughts?

I had a great learning moment in my PON class last night.

We were role playing a fun case. After our joint session and one private session for each party, we started exploring what we were each seeing in our process. We looked at what we were struggling with, what had gone well.

Our student mediator shared that not being a judge, not being able to provide any legal advice or make any decisions about the case, he was uncertain where to go. As mediators, if we reveal this all to the parties, what would they think? What power would we have?

That’s when light bulbs blinked on over all of our heads. We could see it. The power of the mediator lies in the process.

It’s a different way of thinking. Most people are used to thinking about power over rather than power with people. It can take a very conscious effort to recognize, respect and constructively engage power with people.

When we do, we can facilitate a process that parties couldn’t or didn’t drive on their own. Which is what landed them in mediation. We can empower others to recognize their own and others’ needs, how to meet those needs, and how to find a mutually beneficial way out of their bind. (I realize many see empower as a very loaded word, and some are ambivalent to its use in the context of mediation. For now, it’s the best way I’ve found to communicate an idea about the power of the process.)

In that sense, mediators are very powerful. Depending on your point of view, perhaps even more powerful than the decision-makers to whom we’re used to deferring.

I’m developing a rhythm of posting upcoming Boston area mediation trainings and events in the middle of every month. I expect each post to focus on the upcoming six weeks.

For recent or more immediately upcoming events, please visit my posts under the Training and Events category.

To list your event in my roundups, please email me.

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March 1 - April 5
(March 1, 4, 11, 18, 25 and April 5, 2008: Saturdays 9-5 and Tuesdays 3-9)
Basic Mediation Training
Sponsored by The Mediation & Training Collaborative (TMTC)

Location: Northampton, MA
Fee: $575 - Registration deadline February l5
For more information, 413-774-7469 x16 or shackney@communityaction.us

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March 3, 10, 17, 24, 31 (Fridays, 9am to 4pm)
Intensive Mediation Workshop: Getting Others to Yes
Management Assistance Program in collaboration with Mediation Works, Inc.
Presenters: Charles P. Doran, Josh Hoch, Moshe Cohen, Diane Levin

“… help others to successfully resolve conflicts … effectively facilitate the mediation process … lectures, demonstrations, interactive exercises, supervised role-plays and group discussions. Previous completion of negotiation skills training is helpful … Participants are required to attend all five sessions.”

Location: JRI Health Center for Training and Professional Development
25 West Street, 3rd Flr, Boston, MA 02111
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Wednesday, March 5, 2008 5:30pm to 8:00pm
A Look at Non Violent Communication
Presenter: Scott Loring

Social time 5:30pm to 6:00pm
Intended Audience: MWI Court and Divorce Panel Members

Nonviolent Communication (NVC), developed by Marshall Rosenberg … examines the unmet needs behind what we say or do. The process transforms relationships with others and with one’s self … fosters respect, attentiveness and empathy, and engenders a mutual desire to give from the heart.

Location:
Fee:

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March 5, 2008 9am-4:30pm
Workplace Conflict Resolution Skills Training for Managers and HR Professionals
Presented by Agreement Resources, LLC: employment attorney Leslie Lockard and mediator Crystal Thorpe

Location: Norwood, MA
Fee: $495 by February 8, 2008, or $520 thereafter (includes lunch and materials)
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Thursday, March 6, 2008 9am - 4pm
Advanced Negotiation Skills for Dispute Resolution Professionals
Presenters: Moshe Cohen and Ericka Gray, OptionBridge

“… beyond “Getting to Yes” to a deeper exploration of the psychological factors that enter into negotiation, different styles of negotiation, and how to assist parties in understanding how their own negotiation styles are contributing to impasse.”

Location: TBA
Fee: $195 until 2/14, $220 after

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Thursday, March 6, 2008 2pm to 5:30pm
Assessing and Addressing Power Imbalances: Abusive Relationships and the Collaborative Process
Presented by: Mass Collaborative Law Council, Professor Margaret Drew, University of Cincinnati College of Law

Welcomed particiapnts: lawyers, mental health professionals, mediators, financial specialists and other professionals interested in collaborative practice.

Location: The Walker Center, 171 Grove Street, Newton, Massachusetts
Limited space. Register at www.massclc.org

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March 12, 15, 16, 19, 26, 29, 30, 2008
Forty-Hour Mediation Training Program
Presented by: Mediation Works, Inc.
(weekend & weeknight program) seven sessions / 40-hours total

“… designed to prepare participants to effectively facilitate the mediation process … explores all aspects of the mediation process through lectures, demonstrations, interactive exercises, supervised role-plays and group discussions.”

Location: Suffolk University Law School,120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA
Fee: $775 ($725 if enrolled a month in advance)

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March 28, 29, 31, April 4
Divorce Mediation Training
Presented by: Community Dispute Settlement Center

“This 24 hour course … integrates substantive information with practice through interactive role playing experience. Prerequisite: Basic Mediation Training.”

Location: CDSC Offices, 60 Gore St., East Cambridge (near Lechmere T, Galleria, courthouses)
Fee: $695 ($675 early registration by Mar. 14) See website for additional discounts.

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Ongoing training.

Community Dispute Settlement Center
Mediation Practicum

Mediation Works, Inc.
MWI Mentor Program

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Select future events.

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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UPDATE 2/16/08

A couple of events have popped up. March 7-8 Harvard Negotiation Law Review (HNLR) 2008 Symposium: Dispute Systems Design Across Contexts and Continents and March 8-29 36-hr Training in Mediation and Conflict Resolution.

It’s a big day for the Mediator In the Making! Yesterday, I had my first glimpse into small claims mediation. I can’t wait to go back.

I’ve got pages and pages of notes I’d love to share with you all. Instead of publishing my first ebook, I’ll let it all simmer and explore one thing at a time. (No need to thank me. I realize you might have lives away from my blog.)

Perceptions. A heavily weighted word, and quite rightly so.

It seems to me that each mediator is constantly performing an amazing balancing act. We have our own perceptions of the process, the parties, our performance, our co-mediators. Within each of those, we’re building perceptions of appearances, body language, eye contact, tone of voice, and of course the words we’re hearing. We’re gauging - and maybe hearing - our parties’ perceptions of us, the process, and our co-mediator. And we’re hearing and gauging that of our co-mediator.

Just steps away from perceptions, we will find assumptions. Sometimes baby steps. So then we balance ourselves on the cusp of allowing our perceptions to give way to assumptions, which then would have us leading rather than facilitating or following the parties.

My, my, my! We would all make great circus acts, wouldn’t we? Balancing atop that tight rope, music playing, crowd gasping, and any number of additional distractions.

It was exciting to get to practice the process of recognizing and utilizing my perceptions, acknowledging and setting aside any assumptions which I might give way to in weak moments when I allow myself to not be fully present. To acknowledge and brush off, rather than suppress, any assumptions which could then give way to judgments, and allow myself to proceed with a clear mind and neutral perspective.

There’s another amazing characteristic of perceptions in the mediation room. Others’ perceptions might surprise me, or even directly conflict with my own. Yet there they are. And so I must acknowledge and respond to them. Management and customer service conventional wisdom tell us something similar, and useful here. It doesn’t matter if the customer’s perception seems to be reality from where we sit, or fits with what we mean to have them think. Because it is there, we must acknowledge and respond to it. Allow them to know that they have been heard (notice I do not say “feel heard”). In the mediation room, I guess this could be described as incorporating perceptions into the process.

Of course these are all my very early perceptions of this process. They are my foundational building blocks and I can’t wait to get back in there to continue my learning!

U.S. News & World Report’s annual listing of best careers is out. And … drum roll please … mediator is included for the first time. You’ll find it under the headers, Best Careers for a Changing Job Landscape and 31 Careers With Bright Futures.

One factor leading U.S. News to give mediator the nod this year is its resistance to offshoring. It makes sense. We can’t very well have all of our conflict resolution occurring across the vast oceans or continents.

Each career listed comes with a day-in-the-life feature, and an executive summary. Considering what I’ve learned thus far from experienced pros, I’d say these pieces are pretty on point.

The pros noted are that

• Mediators can provide a better alternative to hiring a lawyer when conflict is unresolved, as mediators “can often help resolve a dispute less expensively and with less conflict…”
• “Most mediators love their work, helping people beat their swords into plowshares.”

And the cons…

• Mediators outnumber mediation jobs.
• Low barriers to entering the field (just a 40 hour training) continue the overpopulation.
• Overpopulation of the field means “most mediators do not earn a middle-class income for one to five years.”

This matches well the message in Jeffrey Krivis’ and Naomi Lucks’ recently published, “How to Make Money as a Mediator (And Create Value for Everyone).” Chapter one can be summed up thusly: If you love mediation, if you live for it, if you work very hard every day to build up your skills and connections, you have a chance at putting food on the table doing something you love. Otherwise, pursue something that will better suit you.

So. Do you fit Krivis’ and Lucks’ profile of the top tier mediators?

• Do you love mediating? Are you good at it?
• Do you inspire trust? Are you likeable?
• Have you cultivated relationships with referral sources, or will you be able to?
• Are you ready to work hard? (Long days, late nights, and less time with family and friends.)

If you’ve answered yes to all of the above, you might have a good chance at what’s being reported as one of the top careers with a bright future in the U.S.

If not, I hope you won’t despair. I believe the skills trained mediators possess are vital to our local, national and global communities. The more I learn about conflict, the more I see how people trained in conflict resolution are desperately needed in our offices, stores, schools, government bodies, busy streets, families and friendships. Even if it’s not your bread and butter, you can take heart in knowing that you’re part of a movement.