Values drive practice

(I first wrote about mediation’s values 12 years ago at the tail end of a Masters in Conflict Resolution and Mediation Studies.(1) Two years of study had convinced me that it is our values, rather than the techniques we learn, that tell us what to do and say when when mediating. The intervening years haven’t…

Students demonstrating cooperation

Morton Deutsch, the great social psychologist of common sense, explained the difference between competition and cooperation thus: “if you’re positively linked with another, then you sink or swim together; with negative linkage, if the other sinks, you swim, and if the other swims, you sink.”[1]Cooperation and Competition. In M. Deutsch, P. T. Coleman, & E….

I (Bill) remember doing my first commercial mediation. I was 29, and in the presence of the four parties and their advisers I felt even younger. It was not lost on me that (as Suzanne Rab recently noted in Do You Need Grey Hairs to Mediate?) people expected someone older to walk into the room….

Despite some scepticism about the value of “roleplay” most mediation training involves asking people to run a pretend mediation session. I’ve tried various euphemisms to ease trainees’ anxiety – “skills practice”, “simulation”, “sitting with conflict” – but none seems to make it any less daunting. You can read about this activity, watch others do it,…

“You cannot direct a living system; you can only disturb it”1 When mediators join a conflict, they enter a living system. Realise it or not, that system is instantly changed by their arrival. Change may be for the better, and we hope our influence is benign, but nothing is the same again. It therefore makes…

Within this blog, we would like to familiarise you with the procedure of drafting and creating a complex mediation curriculum both from the inside and outside. Martin Svatos is one of the founders of this curriculum at the Charles University in Prague, and Sabine Walsh has accepted the invitation to give the final speech within…

It’s funny how one thing leads to another. Regular Kluwer blogger Ian Macduff posted a great blog earlier this week on the importance of asking questions. That reminded me that I had intended to get hold of a book by Edgar Schein entitled “Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling”. So, I…

Another new mediation venture in Scotland: last week saw the launch of University of Strathclyde Mediation Clinic (http://www.strath.ac.uk/humanities/lawschool/mediationclinic/ ). While by no means a new idea, it’s the first in this jurisdiction. The response took us by surprise. We were graced with the presence of the University’s Principal, a judge, lawyers, sponsors, advice agencies, academics…

Interesting ripples on the interweb about mediator ‘styles’ – (see the LinkedIn group ‘ADR, Conflict Resolution and Mediation Exchange’). One discussion thread was prompted by a nice ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ question: can a mediator have any style or does the style vary from situation to situation? The discussion has ranged from styles to models, with…

After a recent conversation in Singapore with Joel Lee, one of our colleagues from our Blog I had a chance to meet there, I find interesting to briefly mention what is the famous “Fiutak Mediation Circle” that we use as model in our mediation training at Groupement Pro-Mediation (“GPM”) in the French speaking-part of Switzerland…