“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.

Carolyn Elefant’s was one of the first blogs I read, back in 2002 when she started MyShingle.com. She is offering a free download of a compiled collection of her blog posts called “The Lawyer You Always Wanted to Be: Inspiration for New Grads and Practicing Lawyers.” I think the points are also applicable for mediators and other conflict specialists, as they relate to the dreams and disappointments of establishing a business and being a helping professional.

As she says:

As you probably expect or already realize, practicing law can be stressful. Long hours, nasty supervisors, difficult clients and worries about making the student loan payments can put a damper on even the best of jobs. The day to day stress scarcely leaves time to evaluate where you’re going or how far you’ve come or whether you’re doing what matters to you. This collection of posts is intended to remind, encourage and inspire you to remember what matters and to become the lawyer you always wanted to be.

The article’s format makes clear it’s going to be published as a Change This manifesto (I have posted about other Change This manifestos before, e.g., here, on creativity; here on time management; here, titled Drawings That Will Change Your Life; and here, one of my favorites, on literacy). You have a chance to get Carolyn’s article now, pre-Change This release — just click below to download it. But if you go to her site here to download it by May 15, she’ll put you in a drawing for a copy of her newly published book Solo by Choice: How to Be the Lawyer You Always Wanted to Be.

inspired-solo-”The Lawyer You Always Wanted to Be”.pdf

As Tammy Lenski at Mediator_Tech says:

Success leaves clues: the mediator interview series

Tammy Lenski interviewed me earlier this week. Indeed, she and I exchanged interviews– here’s the link announcing her interview in Engaging Conflicts Today.As she says in introducing my interview:

Success Leaves Clues is my occasional series of interviews with interesting ADR professionals who have effectively navigated the intersection of technology use and ADR practice-building.

Gini Nelson and I re-connected a few weeks ago and agreed to exchange interviews, and I’m delighted she’s agreed to be profiled for this series. I first met Gini in person a few years ago at the Minneapolis ACR, when I attended a terrific workshop she lead on the neuroscience of conflict. I’d been teaching a grad course for years that integrated that topic into the course and was curious what Gini might add to my thinking about it. She was a dynamic presenter with good content and I’ve followed her blog and newsletters ever since.

Gini’s an active user of the web, as you’ll see in her interview below.

For the rest of the interview, here’s the link.

A friend and colleague recently forwarded to me a September 2004 article Malcolm Gladwell did for The New Yorker on the MBTI and other personality tests that employers may use (Personality Plus: Employers Love Personality Tests. But What Do They Really Reveal?). I respect and use the MBTI as a tool in my law and mediation practices. Indeed, I am a “qualified administrator” of the instrument, which is a “controlled instrument” whose access and use is regulated as further defined by its publisher:

Certain assessments published by CPP are available only to users who have appropriate training and credentials, and who adhere to the principals of proper use, including knowledge of assessments and their applications.

The classifications are based on The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (published by APA, AERA, and NCME and available here). The Standards is written for the professional and for the educated layperson and addresses professional and technical issues of instrument development and use in education, psychology, and employment.

I believe understanding and using concepts and tools relating to the MBTI benefits attorneys, mediators and other conflict specialists. I posted here about a workshop I gave last year for the New Mexico Mediation Association on using the principles in communication. Other uses include helping clients get through misunderstandings based on type differences, identifying blind spots in the problem-solving process based on type, using type concepts to bridge cultural and gender differences by focusing on type similarities, and understanding one’s own type to better identify the kind of practice one wants.

Use of this psychological type analysis is better studied in the legal field than in the mediation practice context. The most notable law-related works are University of Florida Law Professor Don Peters’ article, Forever Jung: Psychological Type Theory, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Learning Negotiation, 42 DRAKE LAW REVIEW 1 (1993); and Florida Coastal School of Law Professor Susan Swaim Daicoff’s book, Lawyer, Know Theyself: A Psychological Analysis of Personality Strengths and Weaknesses, American Psychological Association (2004). Direct works are slowly showing up in the mediation practice context, such as with Sondra S. VanSant’s Wired For Conflict: The Role of Personality in Resolving Differences, Center for Application of Psychological Type, Inc. (2003).

Gladwell, whose work I generally very much enjoy, makes good points, and I agree with much that he says. I’ll discuss his points as I continue this series exploring MBTI applications. At the same time as I appreciate his points I would reframe this discussion somewhat differently. Hence, this series. My thoughts, which I will expand on over the upcoming weeks, include:


1. No one field can explain human behavior to the exclusion of other considerations. I started out focused on sociological explanations (my BA and MA studies). Later, I got interested in psychology. Later, I got interested in the neurosciences. It’s no one of them. It’s all of them (and more, most likely).
2. Each field that has a role, it’s explanations are also affected by the other fields — it’s not additive, it’s complex, and synergistic.
3. Most people don’t want to deal with complexity, or don’t have the education or time to deal with complexity, and end up (over)simplifying, especially for explanations of how and why humans act as they do.
4. Every tool (whether sociological, psychological, or a theory about neuroscience) can be used by people who are not the most skilled or wise about its use, and can be misused.
5. Any explanation, or explainer, that/who doesn’t recognize the above, is suspect.

My thoughts also include, about MBTI:


1. Gladwell doesn’t discuss scientific principles of validity and reliability, as applied to the various instruments. I know the MBTI purports to be statistically valid and reliable, and I know it is characterized as a “controlled instrument” by the American Psychology Association, I think it is. You have to be “qualified” (includes some training in statistics) in order to administer the instrument.
   
2. I believe many who administer and/or give the workshops on the instrument have not done the more in depth study and followed the evolving theory about MBTI. Maybe they got qualified 10 years ago and just got into ruts. I had the inclination to study it in some of its more complex forms, because they made the most sense to me. At the same time, most people don’t want the complexity, don’t hear or remember the complexity, and can (rightly for them) conclude the instrument is not valuable, or is of limited value. It’s a tool — you have to practice it and then get not only good, but wise, in using it.
   
3. I also believe many who administer and/or give the workshops are wrong and/or are not understood by the participants on some practical points about the MBTI. Many friends have told me they’ve been given it by their employers, and they were not told some of the points I emphasize. I would disagree with some of Gladwell’s characterizations about what the MBTI is supposed to mean. (I also would put some different light on the mother-daughter development of the instrument. It is, to me, a much more interesting story than he reports, with broader implications — it could also be told in a way that makes his telling of it sexist and overly-dismissive of at home, independent researchers, especially women in the first half of the twentieth century.)

And, final thoughts include:


1. So, explaining or predicting human behavior is complex, a protean mix (hard wired, affected by the physical environment, affected by the social environment of cultures/societies, affected by family, affected by peers, affected by dysfunctionalities in any of them, affected by healthy versions in any of them.
   
2. I use the MBTI as a starting point, and when important I look at it/the person/the situation more closely, even very closely. It’s part of the working hypotheses I view the world with, at least some of the time. I don’t say it’s the only or even the best explanatory/predictive tool. It is one of the best for me, as a starting point — but then you have the person in the particular situation, for the particular purpose, etc. I think different people will prefer different tools.
   
3. Individuals vary in individual psychological health, experiential wisdom, courage and leadership. No one type is better than the other, there are healthy and unhealthy individuals among all types, wise and not wise among all types, courageous and not, etc.
   

I intend to post to this series weekly. I will appreciate your thoughts so please write me in the comments or privately!

“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.

To business owners — including mediators, attorneys and other conflict specialists– who already blog, this article is dated (2004). For those who are newer to the concept of using blogs and other online tools as part of professional, business and personal development, it’s useful.

As his (2004) bio states (he is now Managing Director at FastCompany.TV):

Robert Scoble is one of bloggingʼs best-known personalities. He is Microsoftʼs technical evangelist for the US .NET Platform Strategy. Before joining Microsoft, Scoble held a variety of jobs ranging from planning conferences at Fawcette Technical Publications, to being director of marketing for weblog software producer UserLand Software, to being sales support manager at NEC Mobile Solutions. He has a 10-year-old son and enjoys technology of all kinds, from playing with his Tivo and Xbox Live system to tinkering around with digital cameras.

Here’s his article The Corporate Weblog Manifesto from ChangeThis. As he says in his introduction:

Thinking of doing a weblog about your product or your company? Here are my ideas of things to consider before you start.

His points include:

• Tell the truth. The whole truth. Nothing but the truth.
• Post fast on good news or bad.
• Use a human voice.
• Make sure you support the latest software/web/human standards.
• Have a thick skin.
• Underpromise and over deliver.
• If your life is in turmoil and/or you’re unhappy, don’t write.

You can find the article at ChangeThis or download it by clicking here:The Corporate Weblog Manifesto.

Ralph Perrine has an article recently published at ChangeThis, described thusly:

Ralph Perrine believes drawing to be indispensable to good planning and good collaboration-the top two critical skills for success in life. Here, he shares twelve drawings to help bring focus and clarity to teams and any personal planning.

Well, actually, only 4 drawings are presented in the article but they are helpful and were enough to send me to his website where he is selling the full set as a 12-month 2008 calendar. The 4 in the article are:

• Balancing Your Life (this one has a charming metaphor so read below for more on it)
• 360 Degree Awareness (“helps you learn to widen your awareness so you can spot opportunities and issues earlier. Great ideas, and opportunities, as well as important issues often lie in our periphery, waiting for us to connect the dots.”)
• Critical Path (“helps you think through a sequence of important items you must navigate through in order to reach an objective. Do this exercise with a group to spot risks or issues ahead of time.”)

• The Bright Core (“helps you think about your ‘playing field.’ More specifically, where you are in relation to competitors, vs. where you want to be.”) Read more »

Vickie Pynchon started a good brainstorming on ethics in mediation over at Settle It Now! She invited my comments, which I repeat below. Please read her post and compiled comments for the full context.

ETHICS: FIRST, DO NO HARM

Thank you, Vickie, for writing about this issue and inviting comments directly. This seems a really good way to get some focused brainstorming in!

I have one primary thought/concern about ethics as sometimes practiced in this field (assuming we are a field). My shorthand definition of ethics is: First, do no harm. When we look at short lists of ethics we see this with their emphases on client determination and transparency. This list should be short and it should be clear.

I distinguish ethics from professional obligations, which might be shorthanded as “then, do good.” I am concerned about the blurring of lines between the two. Do we really want it an ethicial issue whether or how one advances the field? For example, I oppose mandatory “pro bono”, whether it’s in mediation or in the practice of law. In law, at least in New Mexico, we are not ethically required to provide pro bono services, but it is our professional obligation to aspire to provide them. That leaves it to the attorney to consider what she can afford in terms of time, money and energy. Yet, I’ve sat in meetings with a combination of practicing attorneys, practicing mediators, state bar staff, court staff, and a judge where it has been stated there is a requirement that the attorney provide pro bono services. When the people who set up programs misunderstand an aspiration as an ethical obligation, they can also then more easily set up mandatory pro bono within their programs. In New Mexico, most state and city, government and judicial ADR programs require mandatory pro bono from their mediators. I understand the budgetary constraints programs work with, and that this is the primary reason they don’t want to pay for all services rendered. At the same time, I believe a confusion of a professional aspiration for pro bono with an ethical obligation helps program designers appear to justify their nonpayment for services. I believe it harms the solo practitioner who seldom can afford the same scale of pro bono that larger or richer offices can handle, and harms the field by demeaning the value of its services. (This confusion also perhaps helps fuel some of the intolerance of other forms of practice that Diane writes about!)

Leslie Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant have an article (which could be subtitled “Social Change Without Borders”) recently published at ChangeThis, described thusly:

Using Habitat for Humanity as a dynamic example,
authors of Forces for Good, Crutchfield and Grant, present this manifesto on what high-impact nonprofits do to achieve wide-scale social change. These methods are insightful for all organizations, including for-profits and individuals. You may just want to pick up a hammer and take a swing at changing the world.

They studied 12 highly-successful nonprofit organizations for their forthcoming book, Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits. Their findings are overviewed in this article, which you can download at the end of this post.

These are the 6 things these highly-successful nonprofit organizations did extraordinariy well:

1. Advocate and serve. They realize that they cannot achieve wide scale systemic change through service delivery alone, so they add advocacy to access government resources or to change legislation, as contrasted to nonprofits that only provide direct services and avoid politics.
2. Make markets work. Use the power of self-interest and the laws of economics which are far more effective than appealing to pure altruism and avoiding engaging with business or capitalism.
3. Inspire evangelists. Volunteers are recognized as much more than a source of free labor or membership dues, and are engaged in meaningful experiences to build long-term relationships.
4. Nurture nonprofit networks. True collaboration, not merely lip service to it and seeing fellow nonprofits as “competitors”.
5. Master the art of adaptation. Nonprofits must listen, learn, and modify their strategies based on external cues and internal evaluation, instead of becoming mired in bureaucracy or overwhelmed with too many ideas.
6. Share leadership. Others must be empowered to take action, instead of maintaining a command-and-control hierarchy with the CEO as the “hero”.

You can download a copy of the article by clicking here:

Change the Way You Change the World: A Model for Wide-Scale Social Change

Occasionally, I’m asked and I’ll answer something that seems worth sharing (for what it’s worth — 5 cents?). Here’s a quick answer to “how to get your blog out there”:

To get the blog known, you must write blog posts; write regularly; and write “well” (giving value to the readers, in an authentic voice, written straight and simply). Next, you identify who you want to network with, in terms of who already has blogs that are related to yours; you add them to your blogroll to acknowledge their value to you; you consider commenting to their posts at their blogs; and you establish to them that your blog gives value through its posts and ask them to link to your blog (after your value is established to them). Third, there are some technical “tips”, such as putting the name of your blog in the post title (like I do); having your post titles be interesting in and of themselves to draw readers; and having your posts link to earlier, related posts in your blog. All these, step by step, grow your readership and credibility– and it won’t be fast, so be prepared to go the distance.

There is much more beyond this, but this is what you do to start, and you do this for at least 6 months in order to get used to this form of communication before you go the next round of activities. So… start blogging! Get the hang of it! See what amount of timing, what kinds of articles, what kind of voice works for you (by which I mean you will be able to continue it naturally on a committed basis).

If you have questions I might help with, please email me, and I’ll see what I can do.