by admin on June 30, 2010
As I wrote about last time, last week I had the pleasure of participating in a daylong Summer Institute program presented by the New England Chapter of the Association for Conflict Resolution (NE-ACR). We were treated to a rich day of skills building from StageCoach improv. Specifically, we were part of their Conflict Resolution Interactive Skills Program (CRISP), a customized “set of exercises and techniques employed by professional improvisational actors designed to enable professional mediators to optimally perform in the moment.”
The idea that much of our communication is done through tone of voice and body language, as opposed to mere words, is not new. Nor is the idea that miscommunication is a prime source of conflict. Professionals in conflict management (whether working early on, before the dispute has escalated, or late in the conflict when mediation is employed) frequently caution parties about the dangers of email, texts, and other written communications that don’t provide tone and body language.
The instructors from StageCoach improv cited a UCLA study by Psychology Professor Albert Mehrabian that drove this point home. Professor Mehrabian found that a paltry 7% of communication was conveyed by the words used themselves. Fully 38% of communication was contained in tone of voice and 55% in body language. As dispute resolution professionals, we were reminded that our own communication and the communication between the parties in a mediation are no different and that we ignore these facts at our peril!
by admin on June 29, 2010
Last week, I had the pleasure of participating in a daylong Summer Institute program presented by the New England Chapter of the Association for Conflict Resolution (NE-ACR). We were treated to a rich day of skills building from StageCoach improv. Specifically, we were part of their Conflict Resolution Interactive Skills Program (CRISP), a customized “set of exercises and techniques employed by professional improvisational actors designed to enable professional mediators to optimally perform in the moment.”
One exercise stood out as both funny and deeply insightful. As mediators, we are conscious of “the inner voice” that thinks what isn’t said. Often that voice is our own as mediators, as we are strategizing over how to help the parties in a mediation to move toward resolution. In this exercise, professional actors played the inner voices of two parties involved in conflict. As they discussed their dispute, but made little progress towards actual dispute resolution, we saw a realistic portrayal of what might be going through the parties’ minds. Afterward, we discussed how their thoughts were reflected (or even deflected) by their spoken words — and how to use this analysis in a mediation, as we helped parties move toward conflict resolution.
by admin on June 24, 2010
Kenneth Feinberg has been named as the independent administrator of the $20 billion fund BP has set up to compensate victims of the Gulf oil spill. After years in the thick of thorny, difficult issues, he was appointed as the special master of the federal September 11th Victim Compensation Fund and later worked as a monitor of executive pay at companies that received government bailouts.
Throughout these assignments, he is often referred to as a “mediator.” Yet he has been called upon in these settings to make “rulings” and this time around he is empowered to name his own three-judge appeals panel. These tasks sound more like those of an arbitrator, the one-in-a-million one who can name his own appellate court.
On the other hand, in the September 11 cases, he reportedly listened with great patience as victims and their survivors described their pain, often in ways exceeding what could be strictly “relevant” in an arbitration of the case. And he is expected, in the Gulf oil spill matters, to use his formidable powers as a listener and persuader to convince victims that it may be in their best interests to settle their claim rather than pursue litigation.
Mediator? Arbitrator? I’d say hybrid.