Gratitude Post

Over the past three months I’ve had the privilege of working with some amazing groups of new mediators during my Online Basic Mediation Trainings. Each group has had it’s own personality and quirks, but all of them have been full of intelligent, curious, insightful, and dedicated professionals. Coming from a range of professional backgrounds, from attorneys, social workers, educators, activists, and more, they have made me laugh with their humor, challenged me with thoughtful questions, and inspired me with their enthusiasm and commitment.

A few individual shout outs of gratitude for some of my training partners: Sharon Matthie, President of the Westchester Black Bar Association; Ashley Foote, of CLUSTER; Simone Dornbach; Stuart Baker; Jess Bunshaft; and Skye Roper-Moses. Each of these individuals has contributed to and supported the Online Basic Mediation Training in tangible and innumerable ways.

I am so very grateful to do this work, and to have the opportunity to connect with this bright and beautiful community. Thank you to everyone who has joined me on this journey.

Does the End Justify the Means?

If we can achieve a desired outcome, does it matter the method that we use to get there? If we can get disputing parties to settle, does it matter what techniques we use? If we can get our children to behave, does it matter what parenting approach we use? If we can achieve a goal, does it matter how we do it? These are questions that I’ve been meditating on a lot lately, with the conviction of my answers growing stronger the more that I consider them.

In short, I say: Yes, yes, and yes. The process matters. Maybe even more than the outcome. In parenting, in life, and certainly in conflict resolution. It’s a matter of integrity - how well we align our values with our life.

When I lead a mediation training I spend a lot of energy helping my students understand the full implication of facilitating a process focused on empowering parties’ self-determination. What does it mean to focus on party agency and choice? One of the challenges to embracing this aspect of our work is the letting go of our attachment to a particular outcome. The idea that a successful mediation means that the parties reach a settlement, or agreement, on all tangible issues. The reality of conflict is that “successful” resolution can take an infinite number of forms. Sometimes there is no settlement, but the parties still get what they need from the process.

So the question often comes up of what to do if the parties are not finding a mutually agreeable resolution? What if there is no settlement? Is it then okay to exert pressure on the parties? Or to steer the conversation to our idea of a reasonable outcome? What’s the harm? One challenge in assessing the true impact of our intervention as mediators is the limited timeframe of our interaction. We provide a service to our clients, but don’t get to follow them over the long term to find out what happens. But it is possible to imagine some of the ways that our covert or overt pressure to settle may negatively impact clients.

At the very least, when a mediator pressures parties to settle, it undermines the durability of the settlement. Without the feeling of ownership that comes from a truly self-determined outcome, parties may be more likely to default on their agreement.

And there are potentially more serious negative consequences, but my brain won’t form any more coherent thoughts at the moment! I’m sure I’ll come back to meditate on this topic again, as it seems to be a major theme for me these days.

What do you think? How do you wrestle with this question of ends and means? I’d love to know.

Book Report: Ask For More

Ask For More

Alexandra Carter brings Interest Based Negotiation into the 21st Century

I’ve been reading a lot lately and it’s feels great. The combination of having more time at home and the fact that my kids are a little older means I have some more time and brain space for reading.

These days I’ve been alternating between the gripping narratives of sci-fi and fantasy by brilliant black authors, and equally gripping books related to my work in mediation and training. This book that I gobbled up recently is especially fun for me because I happen to know the author, and I know that she’s awesome.

Alexandra Carter (or Alex) is the Director of the Mediation Clinic at Columbia Law School. In her role at Columbia, Alex works with student mediators in the Civil and Small Claims Courts of Manhattan where volunteers from my old home base - the Manhattan Mediation Center - practice, as well. So our professional circles have overlapped for many years.

Well fast forward to 2020 and Alex’s book, Ask For More, has skyrocketed to the top of the Wall Street Journal Bestseller list. She has written a compelling and relatable guide to applying the theory of interest-based negotiation to every day life, and it is really resonating with people all over the world.

Even before I finished reading the book, I began recommending it to students. Now that I’ve read the whole thing (and plan on reading it again soon!) I am confident that it will remain on my list of recommended books for years to come.

As a mediation trainer in the facilitative style, a foundation of my work is the theory of interest-based negotiation. First framed and labeled in Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury in 1981, the idea behind this model of negotiation is that conflict is like an iceberg. What people show in the heat of conflict is usually just the tip of that iceberg, or what we might call their positions. But if we work to shift the conversation to what’s going on under the surface of the water, to what the interests or needs are, and get to the ‘why’ of the conflict, we expand the possibility for a mutually satisfying resolution.

Alex builds on this theory and brings it up to date with relatable analogies, and lots of real life examples of how she and others have applied this concept to conflicts or challenges they’ve faced. Alex goes further by outlining a concrete process - 10 questions - to help walk anyone through an interest-based negotiation in their own life. Super helpful for anyone and everyone.

For my purposes, as a mediation trainer introducing the theory of interest-based negotiation to new mediators, there are several golden nuggets in this book that I’ve been using in my work.

Alex’s emphasis on the importance of feelings in negotiation is great. She quotes another of our colleagues, and her mentor Carol Liebman, when she shares that ‘Feelings are facts.’ This assertion, along with Alex’s focus on tapping into feelings as a tool for negotiation, reinforces the importance of emotions in conflict and conflict resolution. I love it! This is something that I’m always stressing with the mediators that I train, and it’s really great to have Alex’s text to refer to as another source to support this understanding.

She also addresses the reality that inviting emotions into a conversation can be tricky, and she gives some great concrete suggestions for managing this challenge. I love how she speaks directly to the reservations and obstacles that present real challenges when putting these tools into practice.

Another fantastic golden nugget from Alex is her repeated encouragement to ‘Land the plane.’ There is a tendency during negotiation, or difficult conversations, to avoid silence. Or to second guess a question and begin to ramble, or edit the question, or offer multiple choice answers, or…instead of just leaving space for the other person to respond. Alex reminds us to have confidence in our questions (or at least fake it) by asking the question and letting it sit - Landing the plane.

There’s much more I could say about what I found valuable in Ask For More, but for now I’m just going to say that I recommend this book to everyone. If you are a mediator, I recommend this book to help expand and clarify your understanding of interest-based negotiation in action. And no matter whether you are a mediator or not, I recommend this book as a great tool for improving your own communication and negotiation.

I am so grateful to Alex for her huge contribution to our field with her awesome book, and am thrilled for her well-earned success. I’m so excited to see what she does next!