Gini Nelson's Engaging Conflicts

“As a young person who kind of grew up as an environmentalist/feminist/hippie I’ve become very bored and un-enthusiastic about the mediation field.” — Breyer Patterson

Engaging Conflicts Today interviews Breyer Patterson who is the lead InstantAssist Administrator, a new business offering of the same company that offers Mediate.com. She has been mediating since 1997, focusing on family, business, landlord-tenant, elder and family matters. Breyer received her masters degree in Conflict Resolution from the University of Oregon in 1999. She is also a mediation trainer with the University of Oregon law school, and a facilitator at Lane Community College.

If you would like a copy of her interview, and are not signed up for the newsletter (which you can do in the sidebar on the right!), email me this week at engagingconflicts@gmail.com with Breyer Patterson in the subject line and I’ll email it to you.

By the way, I offer Breyer’s interview because I’m interested in giving more voice here at Engaging Conflicts to students and practitioners who are “younger” in the field of ADR than I am, and who might not have the “credential” and additional professional license that I have as a practicing attorney. I think it’s harder for most mediators who are not attorneys to make a reasonable living, and I would like this to be more openly discussed– as Breyer says in her interview, “…the field is very difficult to make a living at and I sure wish someone had at least given me a head’s up on that.”

Please write me (EngagingConflicts@gmail.com) if you are interested in sharing your views on this possibly as a Guest Blogger at Engaging Conflicts.

“I think the conflict resolution field must grapple with the question of why “third party neutral” expertise is not more sought after in some of the most volatile, dangerous and pressing conflict in the world today.” — Ellen Waldman

Engaging Conflicts Today interviews Ellen Waldman, who holds a law degree from New York University and an LL.M. in mental health law from the University of Virginia. She directs the mediation program at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and has spearheaded a number of grant projects relating to health care and conflict resolution. She sits on the ethics rosters of both court and community mediation centers. In the negotiation arena, Professor Waldman writes and speaks on a variety of topics, including bioethics mediation, restorative justice, dispute resolution with high conflict personalities, and therapeutic jurisprudence.

If you would like a copy of her interview, and are not signed up for the newsletter (which you can do in the sidebar on the right!), email me this week at engagingconflicts@gmail.com with Ellen Waldman in the subject line and I’ll email it to you.

“There’s not a single day I don’t leap out of bed with excitement for the day ahead and that’s my personal measuring stick.” — Tammy Lenski

Engaging Conflicts Today interviews Dr. Tammy Lenski, who founded her private, full-time ADR business over a decade ago and was among the first mediators in the U.S. to focus solely on workplace mediation and conflict resolution coaching and consulting. Tammy’s served on state and regional ADR association boards, mediated for the New Hampshire Probate Court, and was among the first to mediate online disputes for eBay in 1999. She’s also served as a long-time core faculty member in Woodbury College’s graduate program in Mediation and Applied Conflict Studies and continues to serve as a mediation trainer there. The author of Making Mediation Your Day Job, Tammy blogs about ADR practice-building at MediatorTech.com and about conflict resolution at ConflictZen.com.

If you would like a copy of her interview, and are not signed up for the newsletter (which you can do in the sidebar on the right!), email me this week at engagingconflicts@gmail.com with Tammy Lenski in the subject line and I’ll email it to you.

“You see, ADR is inevitably a discretionary practice…So any practitioner will be investing personal values into any ADR action, and we have to be immensely self-aware about the values that we bring to the table (and, of course, deciding to shelve personal values is also an ethical decision).” — Kevin Gibson

Kevin Gibson is Associate Professor of Philosophy and management at Marquette University. He is the director of the Marquette Center for Ethics Studies. He studied with the Harvard Negotiation Project and CDR Associates of Boulder. Dr. Gibson has mediated commercial, environmental, divorce and child custody disputes as well as facilitating a number of settlement conferences. He has worked as a mediator and coach for CDR Associates and the University of Denver Law School. He has published a number of articles on dispute resolution in journals such as the Negotiation Journal, Mediation Quarterly and the Hastings Center Report. At present, he is a teaching associate with the Marquette Center for Dispute Resolution Education.

If you would like a copy of his interview, and are not signed up for the newsletter (which you can do in the sidebar on the right!), e-mail me this week at engagingconflicts@gmail.com with Kevin Gibson in the subject line and I’ll e-mail it to you.

I previously posted about Kevin’s articles in the Negotiator’s Fieldbook, Ethics and Morality in Negotiation, here.

“Being righteously right leaves absolutely no space for collaboration, for communication, for skillful conflict resolution, let alone for true relationship.” — Daniel Bowling

Engaging Conflicts Today interviews Daniel Bowling, ADR Program Staff Attorney for the US District Court for Northern California, and co-editor and co-author of Bringing Peace into the Room: The Personal Qualities of the Mediator and their Impact on Conflict Resolution (Jossey-Bass, 2003). He co-founded the first mediation organization in South Carolina, the LowCountry Mediation Network. As Executive Director of SPIDR, he managed the merger among SPIDR, AFM, and the Conflict Resolution Education Network, and served as the first CEO of ACR. He is working on a new book on Mindful Mediation.

If you would like a copy of his interview, and are not signed up for the newsletter (which you can do in the sidebar on the right!), e-mail me this week at engagingconflicts@gmail.com with Daniel Bowling in the subject line and I’ll e-mail it to you.

“[It’s key] to get professional conflict managers/mediators into key government elected positions and put them in charge of foreign relations and domestic security.” — Rey Carr

Engaging Conflicts Today interviews Rey Carr, Chief Executive Officer of Peer Resources, whose mission is to provide high quality training, superior educational resources, and practical consultation to persons who wish to establish or strengthen peer helping, peer support, peer mediation, peer referral, peer education, peer coaching, and mentor programs in schools, universities, communities, and corporations. He has a Ph.D. in metaphysics from the American Institute of Holistic Theology, a Master of Arts Degree in Clinical-School Psychology, and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology.

Rey’s interview is part of the Taking Peacemaking Public series at Engaging Conflicts Today. If you would like a copy of his interview, and are not signed up for the newsletter (which you can do in the sidebar on the right!), email me this week at engagingconflicts@gmail.com with Rey Carr in the subject line and I’ll email it to you.

“Most people in our line of work won’t be in “the field” of professional conflict resolution or conflict transformation at all. They will have other jobs and be in other professions where they mainstream our practices into their work, and this is a good thing.” — Jayne Docherty

Jayne is professor of conflict studies at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University. She is author of Learning Lessons from Waco: When the Parties Bring Their Gods to the Negotiation Table, and The Little Book of Strategic Negotiation: Negotiating During Turbulent Times. Her particular interests include the challenges communities and organizations face experiencing sudden changes demanding rapid adaptation. If you would like a copy of her interview, and are not signed up for the newsletter (which you can do in the sidebar on the right!), email me this week at engagingconflicts@gmail.com with Jayne Docherty in the subject line and I’ll email it to you.

I previously posted about one of Jayne’s articles in the Negotiator’s Fieldbook, The Unstated Models In Our Minds, here. I’ll post about her three other chapters shortly.

“Institutionalization is difficult and presents the challenge of how to tailor principles and processes to fit the institutions and still maintain the integrity of the institutions and conflict management processes. This is really hard work.” — John Lande

John is interviewed in today’s issue of Engaging Conflicts Today. John Lande is Director of the LL.M. Program in Dispute Resolution and Associate Professor at MU. He began mediating in 1982 in California. He teaches courses on Mediation and Non-Binding Methods of Dispute Resolution. His scholarship focuses on institutionalization of mediation in the legal system and how lawyering and mediation practices affect each other. If you would like a copy of his interview, and are not signed up for the newsletter (which you can do in the sidebar on the right!), email me this week at engagingconflicts@gmail.com with John Lande in the subject line and I’ll email it to you.

I’ve previously posted about John and some of his articles, here, here and here.

“Academia enjoys putting disciplines into boxes, and I enjoy thinking out of the box. I now embrace the interdisciplinary nature of my scholarship, and believe that we need more of this kind of thinking to bring the tools of conflict resolution to bear on the tough challenges facing the world in the 21st century.” — Daniel Shapiro

Daniel is Associate Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, and is on the faculty at Harvard Law School and in the psychiatry department at Harvard Medical School/McLean Hospital. He specializes in the psychology of negotiation. He co-authored with Roger Fisher the book Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate.

I posted about his articles in The Negotiator’s Fieldbook yesterday.

I’m reviewing The Negotiator’s Fieldbook: The Desk Reference for the Experienced Negotiator, Christopher Honeyman & Andrea Kupfer Schneider, Editors (ABA 2006), through the rest of 2007 and into 2008 (it has 80 chapters, more than 700 pages of substantive text, and something for everyone, from novice to expert!). I’m reviewing the book because it’s hot, hot, hot. More about the book and its editors here.

This week I’m reviewing two chapters both written by Dan Shapiro — his bio is at the end of the reviews of the articles.

Identity: More than Meets the “I”
Daniel L. Shapiro. Here’s the annotation from the book’s Table of Contents:

How can you expect to get good results in a negotiation if you give little thought to who you really are, and to who your counterpart is? Shapiro analyzes the research on identity, showing how you can predict the likely reactions of your counterpart to some kinds of proposals — as well as your own propensity to avoid some kinds of proposals that might be to your advantage. This chapter should be read in close conjunction with the chapters on internal conflict, psychology and perceptions.

Dan introduces us to identity-based negotiation, which recognizes an individual’s 3 levels of identity: (1) intergroup identity, focusing on your group affiliations, beliefs, and shared values; (2) intrapersonal identify, the story you tell yourself about yourself; and interpersonal identity, also known as “relational identity,” the way you conceive of yourself in relation to someone else with whom you are interacting. Read more »