Mediation Marketing and Career Guide: Making Mediation Your Day Job

“He’s acting like a child.”

When I’m leading a mediation training, the frustration of new mediators can be downright palpable during some of the more intense roleplays. When we debrief afterward or when I interrupt to check in with a frustrated mediator and find out what’s going on for him, I hear comments like the one above and like these:

“She needs to stop being so (fill in the blank) because she’s getting in her own way…but I can’t get her to!”

“Well, I guess I can see why they ended up in mediation.”

“If I acted that way in front of other people I’d be mortified. He needs a good kick in the keister.”

“Why are they acting so badly and how can I make them stop?”

I remember wrestling with some of the same behavioral challenges when I was first learning 15 years ago. Fortunately, I had my mother, who died when I was in my mid-20s, whispering gently in my ear in those moments. She whispered, as she had when I was a teenager,

Stop judging. Just look for the equal human in front of you.

If you subscribe to my Conflict Zen blog, then you know I believe strongly that the way we think about conflict has a profound influence on the way we respond to it. So it would come as no surprise that I also believe the way mediators think about about conflict, behavior, and resolution profoundly influences the way we work with clients.

Why harsh judgment from the mediator is a problem

Here’s why the thinking reflected in the new-mediator frustrations above gets in the way:

• Clients don’t want or need to be judged by the mediator too. They’re (usually) judged harshly enough by the other party and the mediator has no business adding to it.
• Judging a party harshly focuses your attention on their behavior instead of your own. Big mistake (I’ll say more about that in a moment).
• Harsh judgment slams your mediator’s toolbox shut and leaves you with the temptation to chide outright or act out your chiding in other ways. No party to a mediation needs or wants their junior high school principal in the room.

What should the mediator do instead?

The trick is in changing your thinking, my friends. In flipping the coin of your thoughts, at first consciously, then later as a natural habit of mind.

Remember, no party who’s acting badly got out of bed that morning and thought to himself, “I want to act badly in front of other people today.” They got out of bed in the morning thinking the same thing you did: “I’m going to try to do my best today.”

The great news is that mediators can let go of playing the Respect Police or Client Wrangler. You can stop playing those roles because they’re no fun, can make things worse, and there’s something so much more elegant you can do instead:

Stop judging. Just look for the equal human in front of you.

When the mediator sees the equal human, you see someone whose gotten hijacked and would be so appreciative of a mediator who helps them find their way back to more graceful behavior. When the mediator sees the equal human, you see someone you can assist instead of feel disdain for. When the mediator sees the equal human, you realize that the mediator’s behavior is what needs to change, in order to help the party back to a place of better balance.

And when the mediator sees the equal human in front of them, you automatically start to wonder instead of judge:

What do you think? Let me know in the comments (if you’re reading this in email, click the article title and you’ll be taken to the web page with the comment form near the bottom).

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.Lenski.com.

A few years ago, I and my Woodbury College faculty colleagues Susanne Terry and Alice Estey published an article on mediator training and preparation in ACResolution. Last week’s Cafe Mediate podcast got me thinking about that article again – it’s content is still valid and the topic still timely. So, with my colleagues’ agreement, I’m posting an updated version of the article here. If you’re interested in this topic, you might also like my past article, The Integrated Practitioner: What It Takes to Be One.

The value of extended, integrated mediator education

by Tammy Lenski, Alice Estey and Susanne Terry

Traditional approaches to mediation training rely heavily on mastery of technique, strategy, rules and structure. Some also provide companion workshops in theory, research, ethics and content knowledge for specific types of disputes.

Many, if not most, professional and part-time mediators in the U.S. receive their training through a series of self-selected, intermittent workshops of one to 10 days’ duration. This cafeteria-like approach to mediator preparation, where mediators select items á la carte according to interest, has some of the same benefits as buffet food: Freedom to taste as much or as little as one likes, and the opportunity to experiment with new selections without significant investment. This allows “digestion on the run” so that other work and life commitments can continue on center stage.

It is entirely possible tor a mediator to become competent, even excellent, through the self-built training program, and there are a number of practicing professional mediators whose consistently high quality of service to others reflects this reality.

That said, we believe the cafeteria approach has noteworthy limitations for the mediator, for the field, and perhaps, in some instances, for clients. Since we have the good fortune to teach mediation in a graduate program that places high value on extended, integrated preparation, we’d like to paint a picture of what’s possible when mediators have ongoing opportunities to interact with the same instructors, receive regular, in-depth feedback on progress and are intentionally challenged to develop a deeper understanding of theory and more extensive practice of their craft.

The program at Vermont’s Woodbury Institute is based on a three-pronged framework tor advancing mediation as the primary profession of the practitioner: (1) develop masterful professionals capable of mediating any kind of dispute in which they’re interested, (2) foster heightened mediator self-awareness, and (3) contribute to the credibility of the field through the accomplishment of the first two goals.

Developing masterful mediators

One risk of stand-alone basic mediation training is that new mediators may mechanically replicate methodology, perhaps even zealously embrace it, without a broader context to guide them. The result can be an unintentional indoctrination into a specific mediation “camp” or “method” due to insufficient awareness of other approaches, skills, tools and the values and beliefs upon which they’re based.

When we designed the curriculum for the master’s in mediation and applied conflict studies several years ago, we focused on helping mediators move beyond a recipe of rules, techniques and processes attached to one style or school. Because of the length of the program, students have the time and the depth of learning to make meaningful choices about how they will approach their work not only in ways that satisfy and serve clients well, but which are also consistent with their own deeply-held values and principles.

We designed the program to be anchored by faculty with whom students have ongoing relationships over multiple courses that were deliberately interwoven. This encouraged students to examine their own relationships with conflict, deepen their understanding of the work they’re asking parties to do, and develop ways of knowing and working that aren’t limited by the conflict cultures in which they grew up or practiced in earlier professions. We wanted to give students the time and learning space to look into the mirror held up by instructors and learn from what they see reflected back.

Fostering mediators’ self-awareness

Excellent mediators develop a keen form of self-awareness that creates fodder for continuously improving their work. Such practitioners not only self-reflect deeply on their work, but also know how to translate those musings into greater artistry in practice.

In our experience, this self-awareness begins with the act of unlearning. The deep grooves of behavioral response worn into our students from years of navigating the world of communication, social interaction and conflict do not yield automatically to the introduction of new skills and knowledge. This is particularly true for mediation students who come from another field of origin, such as law or counseling, because old frameworks for problem solving are often deeply ingrained. An extended education program creates the space and mechanisms for students to return to “beginner’s mind,” that state described by Buddhist philosopher Suzuki with the words, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.”

We’ve noticed that newly minted mediators don’t really know what they don’t know. Our graduate mediation students often display wonderful confidence and solid ability after 30-40 hours of preparation. With more and regularly occurring instruction, they begin to second-guess themselves and lose that initial glow of confidence. We consider this a good thing! This is when we know they are beginning to unlearn and we’re witnessing the process of a re-wiring of old neural pathways being replaced by new ones, of old problem-solving crutches being set aside.

Over a period of months we observe students’ progress, challenge them, push against what they think they already know and ask difficult questions. We believe that one of the mediator’s most powerful tools is the use of “self as instrument.” To help our students begin to use who they are as one of the tools in their toolbox, we invite them regularly into the hard work of honestly exploring their own interior terrain. This on-going interaction between teacher and student, with the trust of challenge and support that’s built over rime, enables this difficult work to unfold in ways that intermittent trainings are rarely able to foster.

Building the credibility of the field

Mediators help parties navigate some of life’s most difficult moments: the dissolution of a marriage or a business, the evolution of a workplace team, decision-making about end-of-life care, negotiations over significant environmental and land issues. Considered in this context, it seems insufficient that the professionals assisting disputing parties in these major life matters may have had the equivalent of a week’s worth of specialized classes (distinct from their professions of origin) to prepare them for such a pivotal role.

We believe that the credibility of our field will advance when professional mediators make in-depth investment in their learning and development, in much the way required in other fields. While formal “school” learning never ensures professional excellence in any field, advanced, cohesive educational programs, along with the selecting and weeding that inevitably goes with them, significantly improve the quality of practitioners in any profession. Law students or counseling students with six credits completed are quite different professionals than ones who complete several more terms of study and practice, regardless of their first profession.

There is also the matter of hybridization—some would label it appropriation—of the mediation field. We believe the field will gain credibility when we abandon the current vogue of identifying practitioners with hybrid professional labels. The labels “attorney- mediator” and “counselor-mediator,” for instance, convey that the roles are somehow linked in practice, and reinforce the notion that the mediator role cannot or should not stand alone.

We invite professionals to name themselves as mediators and mediators only, to assume that role as primary, and to acquire the kind of cohesive preparation worthy of a profession that is pivotal in some of the most important matters and difficult decisions in people’s lives.

	Tammy Lenski, Ed.D., in private practice since 1997, served on the core faculty of Woodbury College’s Master’s Program in Mediation & Applied Conflict Studies for nine years.
	Alice Estey, M.A., teaches mediation skills, negotiation, and ethics in the Woodbury program; she is a mediator and conflict management specialist in private practice since 1994.
	Susanne Terry, M.S., is a mediator, facilitator and consultant in the public and private sectors worldwide. She founded and teaches in the Woodbury Mediation Program.

© 2007 by Tammy Lenski, Alice Estey and Susanne Terry.

I periodically profile good tools for the mediator’s toolbox (many also work for conflict coaches and trainers as well) – tools that help us do our jobs better and help our clients get a new angle on an old problem.

The Conflict Dynamics Profile® (CDP) is one of those tools. I’ve been certified in the use of the CDP since 2005 and decided it was high time to blog about the CDP.

Nancy Pridgen, Communications Director for the Center for Conflict Dynamics at Eckerd College, graciously agreed to a brief interview. The Center, home of the CDP, helps leaders and organizations maximize the benefits and minimize the harmful effects of conflict through assessment and training, research and publishing. Nancy holds a B.A. and J.D. from the University of Florida and is a member of the Florida Bar. She has special interests in conflict management, team leadership, and executive coaching.

Tammy: What is the Conflict Dynamics Profile® and what is it designed to do?

Nancy: The CDP is an assessment tool which improves self-awareness of what triggers conflict in individuals as well as how they respond to conflict. The instrument examines particular conflict behaviors, both constructive and destructive. Through feedback from the instrument and a subsequent plan of action, people can become more effective at resolving conflicts.

Tammy: What are the optimal circumstances for using the CDP?

Nancy: The CDP can be used in all kinds of settings, but probably the best scenario would be a situation where an individual or an organization wants to be conflict competent and is willing to practice those behaviors that result in more effective conflict resolution skills. By creating an action plan and working in a proactive way to improve conflict skills, people can prevent conflicts from occurring in the first place and enhance their leadership effectiveness.

Tammy: In what circumstances have you found the CDP not particularly helpful?

Nancy: The CDP can be beneficial in a myriad of circumstances, but since it is focused solely on conflict resolution skills, it would not be appropriate for someone who wants a broad-based assessment of overall leadership skills unless it was used in conjunction with other assessment instruments.

Tammy: What are some of the ways you’re seeing the CDP used most?

Nancy: The CDP is being used in all kinds of training situations including leadership development, team building, and, of course, conflict resolution. Not only is it used as a “preventative” tool to reduce the amount of conflict in the future, but it also is used to address current, ongoing situations, including everything from a one-on-one disagreement, to a dysfunctional team, to an overall pattern throughout an organization of destructive conflict management.

The CDP is also used quite a bit in individual coaching, individual and team mediation, and organizational development projects examining conflict culture and change initiatives.

One other way it is used is through the process of developing “Teaming Standards” or team norms for interacting with one another. Individuals gain self-awareness of their own behaviors, share their strengths and development needs with other team members, and then the team as a whole arrives at a set standard of how it is going to operate in the future when faced with conflict situations.

Tammy: Describe one thing you’ve learned from your research that might be of interest to conflict resolution practitioners like mediators and conflict coaches.

Nancy: Our research finds that for everyone in the workplace, whether it be male, female, manager, or subordinate, the “hottest” (most upsetting) hot button is untrustworthiness. (Tammy sidenote: Now that’s a whole separate blog post right there.)

Tammy: What methods are available to folks for getting certified in using the CDP, including methods if they’re not geographically near you?

Nancy: Phone certifications are conducted several times a year where participants can register, prepare 5-6 hours of pre-work, and then “attend” a two-hour certification over the phone. Custom certification programs for several people in an organization can be scheduled either on site or on the Eckerd College campus in St. Petersburg, Florida.

More information on the Conflict Dynamics Profile®

• The Dynamic Conflict Model on which the CDP is based
• About the authors
• Getting certified

Thanks, Nancy, for taking the time to answer my interview questions.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.Lenski.com.

“I would love to be a fly on the wall of a real mediation.”

Many of my mediation students have said that to me and I don’t think there’s a mediation trainer or professor alive who hasn’t heard something similar – for good reason.

Notes mediator and trainer (and one of the trainers I first took Basic Mediation from 14 years ago) Sandi Adams, “I have heard many newly trained or beginning mediators ask to observe or listen to ‘a real mediation’ so they might get a better understanding of what exactly the mediator does and says to assist parties in a session. ‘How do you learn mediator-speak?’ they ask.” Roleplays only get you so far.

Opportunities to observe highly skilled, seasoned mediators in action are rare for fledgling mediators, though. So in 1998, Sandi compiled a concise book of examples from her own years of practice – examples of what a mediator might say in each stage of the mediation, in response to typical dilemmas and needs in a session, in response to tricky moments, and to do our work of supporting the parties, helping them negotiate, and attending to the process.

I’ve handed out print copies of What the Fly Heard: What Mediators Say Behind Closed Doors for many years in my mediation trainings. It’s not available in print at this time, but since I get multiple requests each month from mediators who want to observe my sessions or would like advice about how to say something, I approached Sandi about making an e-book version available here. She graciously agreed and I’m pleased to announce it’s now available from me (purchase link is at foot of this article).

The book has nine chapters with examples of mediator language that’s helpful – and language to avoid:

1. Listening in on the Mediator’s Opening Statement
2. Things Mediators Say to Clarify Information and Parties’ Interests
3. Flies in the Ointment – Sticky Comments to Avoid
4. Eavesdropping on Issue Checklist and Agenda Setting
5. Mediator-Speak During the Negotiation Stage
6. You Could Get Burnt – Don’t Fly Near These
7. Say What? Finalizing Any Agreements and Agreement Writing
8. Closing Statement Statements
9. Flypaper – Don’t Get Caught in These Traps

About Sandi Adams

Sandi Adams, MSCM, has been working in the field of conflict resolution since 1982. Her work includes providing direct services of mediation, facilitation, conflict coaching, and conflict resolution, mediation, negotiation, and facilitation trainings. She is also an ADR Advisor for FEMA, and is on the roster for mediating ADA complaint cases.

Previously, she was director of the Mediation Training Program at Woodbury College in Montpelier, VT and Friends Conflict Resolution Services in Philadelphia, PA, and taught at University of North Carolina-Wilmington.

She holds an M.S. in Conflict Management from George Mason University, has been an associate editor of Peacemaking in Your Neighborhood: Mediator’s Handbook, 2nd ed., and has published articles in a number of journals and magazines.

Purchase What the Fly Heard: What Mediators Say Behind Closed Doors here.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.Lenski.com.

If you haven’t yet read Vickie Pynchon’s post, Do Attorneys “Get in the Way” of Mediator-Assisted Negotiations? go there right now and read it.

If you’re a mediator who thinks it’s all about settlement all the time, read her post. If you’re a mediator who thinks attorneys’ presence is a problem during negotiations, read her post. And be sure to pause and absorb the second-to-last paragraph:

So we can all stop pretending now. We can all put down the burdens we’re carrying; the shame at our own human fallibility; the grandiosity that makes us believe we’re self made. We’re part of the team. We’re in it together. Isn’t that good news for the New Year?

Amen to the beginning of the end of arrogance and self-righteousness.

I’ve written before about the importance of taking periodic “ramp up and renew” retreats to step back from business, take the long view, and re-energize.

When I take one, which I do about quarterly, I like to bring a small pile of books to spark my thinking and challenge my mindsets. Sometimes they’re new books and sometimes they’re old friends I re-read to get insights I wasn’t ready to notice the first time around.

Here are five books (amazon affiliate links) I just read and re-read during my December retreat:

1. The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters by Peter Block. I’ve given this book to numerous organizational clients over the years and thought it was time to re-read it. It inspired me all over again. It’s about modern culture’s “how-to” craze and the way the question “how?” distracts us from doing the things that really matter in our professional and personal lives. It’s a book I love for the way it calls me to think about where I put my time and mental energy and decide anew whether it’s the mix I want for my life.
2. Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande. At first glance, this is a book about making the American health care and malpractice systems better. But at its heart, it’s about what it takes for any professional to get better at what they do. That’s the spirit in which I read and recommend it.
3. Trust-Based Selling: Using Customer Focus and Collaboration to Build Long-Term Relationships by Charles Green. Charlie sent me a copy about a year ago and I read it quickly on a plane during a business trip. Now I read it with care and ample digestion time and know it’s one for my permanent bookshelf. It parallels the relationship- and dialogue-based approaches I discuss in my own book, but focuses much more on the selling process. If you haven’t read this book yet, do. And read Charlie’s blog, Trust Matters, too.
4. Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. Trust is in the air, I guess. The social web is suddenly full of self-proclaimed social media gurus and caveat emptor matters all over again. But Chris Brogan is the real deal. I first met him at SOBCon ’08 and he wowed the room with his honest, funny and humble presentation. Chris and Julien’s book is so relevant and spot-on I’m using it in a marketing course I’m teaching in the spring for master’s students in Lipscomb University’s Institute for Conflict Management.
5. Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application by Jason Fried. Yes, it’s a book about building web apps. But no, it’s not completely a book about building web apps, it’s a book about trading in bells and whistles and the noise of business for an agile excellence that gives customers everything they want and eliminates what they don’t. Jason, by the way, is the CEO of 37signals, the company that makes two of my absolute favorite tools for running my business, Highrise and Basecamp. You can buy the print or PDF book or you can read it for free via the link I’ve provided.

Happy new year and happy reading,

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.Lenski.com.

When we mediation trainers talk about the mediator’s toolbox, we’re usually talking serious stuff like reframing, uncovering interests, and the like.

There’s room in those toolboxes for well-timed humor, too, and this post describes six of my favorite gizmos and tools. I’ve got all of them and I use ‘em when the timing’s right. Oh yeah – they make me laugh too, and I’ve been known to use them in my own life. Enjoy!

Wash Away Your Sins Moist Towelettes

My big sister found these and thought I’d get a hoot out of them. I did indeed. I’ve had several clients who got a chuckle too. May I suggest placement near the soap dispenser in your office restroom?

Wag More Bark Less Bumper Sticker

I buy these by the bunch now and give them to clients. There’s one on my own car too, and people express appreciation for it all the time. Maybe if we all put them on we can cure some of that road rage out there.

Dog House Cards

These cards are hysterical. Straightforward, no bull, great images to make the point in very few words. They’re perfect for the reception space in your office and to lighten the mood a bit.

Dial-an-Excuse

I’m a big fan of KnockKnock’s witty products and this one’s no exception. A tongue-in-cheek set of “excuse-necessary scenarios” and 180 corresponding excuses.

Argument Ender Dice

I’ve had occasion, when I decided the mood in the room could handle it, to pull these out and offer them to clients for help in those last little details that are getting in the way of them being done with negotiations. Yes, I keep a little bag of the dice in my briefcase.

The Official Karma Violation Ticket Book

30 humorous “karma tickets” to let friends, family and colleagues know they missed the mark, bound in a realistic looking ticket book. My mediation students loved them.

Have any humorous conflict and resolution-related gifts, tools, or knickknacks you love? Tell me about it in the comments – I’d love to add more to my toolbox.

Happy holidays, everyone. Thanks for being there, for sharing your questions, ideas, feedback and reactions for the five years of this blog’s life — you make it worthwhile and, yes, fun! I’m closing my office through January 3 to give my full love and time to family and friends over the holiday season. There will be a post or two here during that time and I’ll respond to comments and questions on January 4.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.Lenski.com.

Diane Levin recently blogged about five mediation career myths worth debunking. It’s a terrific post and her list is on-target:

1. Twenty-four (or 30 or 40) hours of training is all you need to become a mediator.

2. Lawyers are already qualified to mediate by virtue of their profession and need little if any mediation training.

3. Lawyers always make the best mediators (or, alternatively, only lawyers can be mediators).

4. Online training in mediation is a great way to get certified as a mediator.

5. I can make big money as a mediator – right after I finish my 30-hour training.

Good, good list. So I think it deserves one more:

6. I’m a certified mediator.

You are, are you? Are you sure? Says who?

Here’s the speech I deliver at the end of the occasional Basic Mediation course I teach: “Ok, so you’re all about to complete this course. You’re about to receive a certificate, a pretty little thing, that proves you put in your time. The certificate does not mean you’re certified. It means you’re certificated. Let me repeat: It does not mean you’re certified. This is not a certifying agency or body. And if I find you’re out there telling people you’re a certified mediator after taking this workshop, I will track you down with bloodhounds.”

There’s a huge difference between putting in the seat time and getting a certificate of completion and being a truly certified mediator, still a bit of a rare animal in the U.S. Though if you open your local yellow pages, you’d be tempted to conclude otherwise.

Certified vs. certificated

Certification in the U.S. is a slippery little sucker. There are some certifying programs, but not nearly as many as there are mediation trainers claiming to certify you. Or who conveniently look the other way when you misunderstand and start calling yourself a certified mediator without legitimate certification.

Who certifies? Depends on where you are and how fast and loose you are with the definition. Me, I’m a stickler on this stuff because I don’t think it’s ok to put one over on an ill-informed public. They see “certified” and they make some assumptions that are less accurate than they ever dream in far too many circumstances for my comfort. And as long as we’re a fast and loose profession on this, we’ll continue to have a hard time building legitimate credibility as a profession.

Beware of false prophets

So, who’s a legitimate certifier? In my mind these kinds of places belong on the list:

• Court programs, though I’ll echo Diane here and say that 30-40 hours is pretty bare bones for anyone, even if you think you’ve got natural talent or a prior degree that tells you all you need to know.
• Programs created by statute and regulated by an oversight board, such as the Marital Mediation Certification Board in my state of NH.
• State, regional or national associations, such as ACR. They don’t do it, but I sure wish they’d pick the issue back up. In the absence of leadership, others who shouldn’t be are filling the vacuum.
• Programs like Mediate.com‘s and IMI‘s, because I think these groups are trying to be very thoughtful about how to fill the gap left by our professional associations.

What about everyone else? If they’re not on the above list, do I think they’re taking advantage of new professionals desperate to create a modicum of credibility? No…and yes.

No, because I don’t pretend to have enough knowledge of all those out there who offer “certification,” nor of how thoughtful, thorough and right-minded they’ve been about it.

Yes, because I’m always troubled by self-proclaimed prophets. And certifiers.

There are so many training programs out there, some superb, some far less so, and a lot of these claim certification as part of their marketing. And it begs this question: Who says someone should be able to “certify” other mediators simply because they decide to do so? Because there’s a market willing to fork over the bucks for the title, not knowing any better?

It remains as true as the first time it was ever uttered: Caveat emptor.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.Lenski.com.

I attended a blogging conference last weekend (note: this post was written in 2007), a first for me. It was SOBCon ‘07 and the sense of community and affiliation in the room was powerful. It turns out that relationship bloggers hug as much as some mediators, and this bunch was just as good at creating meaningful conversation.

During one of the many excellent discussions between presenters and the 110 bloggers in the audience, Lisa Gates of 360 Alliance Coaching) said, “In improv, the rule is to accept the offer and move it forward.”

It struck me as really apropos for mediators, too. Accept what the parties offer you next, and move it forward. This keeps you running ahead of your parties, helps you learn not to listen with your answer running, and helps keep you in the present moment (after all, that’s where the gems are).

This post was originally written in May 2007 for Mastering Mediation Blog.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.Lenski.com.

Agile creativity is the sweet spot at the intersection of planning and improvising. I propose that’s the intersection from which skilled mediators work much of the time.

David Armano, whose influential marketing blog, Logic+Emotion, is a source of inspiration about creativity, design and user experience, says this about agile creativity:

Agile Creativity is about planning for a variety of scenarios—anticipating and developing a strategy, but not being so rigid as to lose the capacity to improvise when things don’t go as planned. In the overlap exists a state of agility, founded off a core set of guiding principles—yet flexible enough to adapt to changes in the creative ecosystem.

That’s apropos thinking about the art and craft of mediating, too. Skilled mediators are agile, able to anticipate, able to work from a plan of sorts, yet also able and willing to let go of that plan when it makes sense to do so. I say to my mediation students, “Hold on tightly and let go lightly.”

What does it take to become creatively agile? My list will never capture all the possiblities (so please leave a comment to add what I’ve missed), but these occur to me: Confidence balanced by humility. Knowing balanced by comfort with not knowing. Advanced skill balanced by the Zen-like beginner’s mind. Healthy comfort with stepping into the muck of a conflict balanced by a healthy respect for the power of conflict.

This post was originally written in November 2006 for the Mastering Mediation Blog.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.Lenski.com.

This post was originally written in November 2006 for the Mastering Mediation Blog.

Is there a qualitative difference between training mediators and educating mediators? I think so and I’m going to put myself far out on the limb here. No doubt one of you will want to shake me right off.

While training will likely always have its place in the ADR world, I’d like to see greater embrace of educating and less commitment to short-term, “let-me-call-myself-certified” training.

Training is traditionally concerned with the development of skills and preparation for specific jobs or roles.

Education is traditionally concerned with the development of the intellect, stretching and learning to use one’s mind.

It’s rarely as clear a dichotomy as that, but I hope this will spark some discussion that will, in turn, spark more writing.

One thing’s clear, at any rate: I’m the result of a liberal arts education and my thinking reflects it.

Your thoughts?

© 2006 by Tammy Lenski. Work originally published at MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

This post was originally written in November 2006 for the Mastering Mediation Blog.

I sat in Alice’s office, weeping. Hard. And feeling embarrassed about weeping, even as I cried harder. I felt pathetic.

Alice, my teacher at the time and my colleague now, sat there quietly, in that graceful way she has. Her compassion was palpable, her attention fully on me. But there was something she was specifically not doing and I recall being a bit puzzled by it even while I was steeped in my own misery.

“I thought I was a bright person,” I said. “But I can’t mediate my way out of a cardboard box at the moment.” Sob, hiccup, sob.

The moment in Alice’s office had followed one of my more traumatic moments as a student. This was almost a decade ago and I was in my last term of Woodbury’s then-year-long certificate program in mediation and conflict management. I’d been mediating informally as part of my higher ed work and was now in the culminating term, when I clearly should have been able to mediate.

Anyone who’s ever taken Mediation Lab with Alice knows this experience or something akin to it: I was mediating in a roleplay. I can’t recall at all what the scenario was, probably because I was so focused on what I wasn’t doing. Bad sign, to be focused on self instead of on the parties. Every time I opened my mouth to speak, nothing came out. Alice was coaching in that roleplay, sitting off to my right, and I could see out of the corner of my eye that she was moving more and more forward in her seat, staring at me. That was a bad sign, too. The more I couldn’t come up with the right thing to say or ask or do, the more upset I became, leaving me more wordless than a moment before.

Finally, Alice stood up and came over to me. “What’s going on for you right now?” I replied by bursting into tears.

Sitting in her office a few minutes later, Alice was quite noticeably not fixing my problem or my misery. She wasn’t doing what most would have done in that moment: “Oh, it’ll be ok. You’re fine. You’re just in a momentary rough spot. Just a bad day.” That sort of thing. Zippo from Alice.

I wanted to hear that, though. I wanted reassurance rather desperately, particularly from someone I wanted to impress.

Didn’t I?

But Alice did something else. She sat, figuratively holding my hand, and asked gentle questions. What was going on for you in there? Why do you think that was happening? Why do you conclude you can’t mediate worth a damn? Gee, it sounds like you came smack up against your own drive to be perfect…what do you take from that? What are you going to do with the learning from this awful experience?

Slowly, the weeping subsided as I worked through the questions Alice posed. Somewhere in the distance, a small ray of sun began to shine.

That, my friends, is excellent teaching, excellent mediation teaching. Because those few moments in Alice’s office taught me something about mediating that I hadn’t understood other than intellectually: That the way to help others who are struggling with a strong emotion or profound funk isn’t to “make it all better.” It isn’t to blindly tell them that all will be well. Who are we to know whether or not all will be well? False, though well-meant, reassurance offers little real help, beyond the moment or so where it feels nice to the receiver.

The real help, as Alice knew and so exquisitely taught me, is using the mediator’s skill to allow the person to find their own reassurance…or face their own truth and decide what to do about it.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.Lenski.com.

This post was originally written in November 2006 for the Mastering Mediation Blog.

Last week we had one of our on-campus residencies for the newest cohort of grad students in the Mediation and Applied Conflict Studies program. I always look forward to the residencies because, for me, nothing substitutes for working in-person with my students.

I was wrapping up teaching Interpersonal Conflict with this group; it’s a course I’ve developed over the past seven years and one of my favorites to teach. In it, I essentially ask students to begin delving into the ways their own “conflict selves” influence their intervention work, and I invite them to step up to their own difficult conversations as a path to understanding what we’re asking of our clients.

At break, I noticed that one of my students looked lost in thought. As the classroom emptied out and others headed straight for the coffee and snacks table, this student, holder of several degrees and a rich professional history, remained seated, staring into space. I commented on his far-away look and wondered aloud what he was musing about.

He replied that he was pondering the giant abyss.

After pausing a moment for me to absorb the image, he reflected on the dawning realization about how much there is to know about conflict and its engagement, and how truly complex a subject it is. He said it was daunting to realize how much he doesn’t know.

My student, just a few months into his mediator education, is already well along the “conscious incompetence” path. If you’re unfamiliar with this concept, a quick primer (also see excellent treatment of the subject in Bowling and Hoffman’s Bringing Peace Into the Room):

• The new mediator, perhaps just out of Basic Mediation and a few follow-up workshops, may be unconsciously incompetent. Armed with a few tools and skills, she is unaware (sometimes blissfully so) of what she doesn’t yet know.
• The goal of any good training or education approach to mediation is to help the learner enter the consciously incompetent stage, where he begins to recognize the significant amount of knowledge or experience he doesn’t yet have. Some folks reach this point after basic mediation training or a few follow-up workshops, some much later. We see most of our grad students move into this stage during their first term of study.
• The would-be mediator who makes a commitment to learn and grow may ultimately move into the consciously competent stage, where focused practice and concentration help develop her skills and artful use of them in a conscious way.
• With committed practice and a healthy, ongoing dose of self-awareness and self-reflection, the mediator may finally move into the unconsciously competent stage, where the mediator’s craft is second nature and the act of mediating is integrated with the person who is the mediator.

Of course, the cycle doesn’t end there. Reaching that last stage ultimately means returning to the first stage as the mediator develops greater capacity and raises the measuring stick for herself.

I dared not say this last part to my student. The “giant abyss” of conscious incompetence is enough for him right now.

His musings reminded me of one of the great ironies I experience repeatedly as a teacher in a long-term, integrated mediator preparation program: Our students, who complete our program with hundreds of hours of preparation and practical experience, often express trepidation about their knowledge and ability as they get ready to bring their work out into the world. I think the underlying awareness of perpetual conscious incompetence is always lurking for them—not a bad thing, really.

Except that they’re going out into the ADR world with too much self-doubt, probably more accurately described as self-honest awareness, and running into the over-confidence of mediators with 80 hours under their belts.

I’m tempted to say that it just is what it is and so be it. Another part of me really wants to make sure that more of our students, who are probably in Stage 3 at the time they finish the master’s, fully appreciate their Stage 3-ness and begin their post-grad work with the humble confidence that brings. I don’t know that we do a very good job of this.

Back to the drawing board.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.Lenski.com.

This post is based on one I wrote in October 2006 for the Mastering Mediation Blog.

One of my most treasured times in my professional ADR life were the months spent with my three core faculty colleagues, planning the curriculum for what would become Woodbury’s master’s degree in mediation. We’d all been teaching in the undergraduate mediation certificate program for some time, but since all of the faculty are full-time practitioners in our field and not full-time academics, our paths didn’t consistently cross in person. It was a treat, then, to work together for an extended period.

There we sat, in Alice’s stunningly beautiful and graceful rural home, coffee and tea cups in hand, musing and creating together. Laughing together. Arguing together. Problem-solving together. It’s a treasured thing to create a new program from scratch, from all that came before it and yet with the freedom to adopt or toss what we wished. It’s an even more treasured thing to have done it with people I cherish.

We were clear on one thing from the very start: Learning to be an effective mediator is improved upon by an integrated learning experience that leads to practicing in an integrated way. We called it our 4-legged stool – even one leg missing leaves a wobbly mediator:

Leg 1: Skills. The artful use of the mediator’s toolbox. Learning mediator skills means developing general capacities to perform as a mediator and the practical ability to apply theoretical knowledge and process knowledge to particular situations.

Leg 2: Structure. A way of navigating and organizing information during a mediation. Learning about structure means, in part, understanding the ways that structures can be adapted to serve different contexts.

Leg 3: Theory. A foundation for understanding and engaging conflict. Learning about theory means gaining knowledge of the conceptual basis of practice; theoretical foundations of the mediators’ work, both from the ADR field and other disciplines; and the connection between theory and practice.

Leg 4: Self. Bringing self-awareness to the mediation table and using self as instrument. Building and working from self-awareness means developing a deep self knowledge, including mediators’ knowledge of own presence or way of being at the table; awareness of our deepest beliefs about conflict and its resolution and how those influence our choice of word and action; consciousness of the ways we influence the unfolding of events during the mediation; and attentiveness to the intuitive signals we’re experiencing.

What do you think about these legs? Where are you the strongest?

© 2009 by Tammy Lenski. Work originally published at MakingMediationYourDayJob.com.

Many of you know that I taught mediation and conflict resolution at the graduate level for many years, serving as one of four core faculty members in Woodbury College’s well-regarded program in Mediation and Applied Conflict Studies. During my decade-long tenure on the core faculty there, I founded a blog for students and colleagues, Mastering Mediation. The blog was intended as a way to explore what it takes to teach and learn truly elegant mediation. About a year after I left my teaching post, the blog fell by the wayside and passed away quietly.

I miss thinking about how to help people learn to be masterful mediators and translating my ideas into learning experiences that create light-bulb moments. And, truth be told, I’ve felt a bit stale here at Making Mediation Your Day Job. While I enjoy writing about building a successful practice and about leveraging technology to build and manage business, something’s been missing.

What’s missing whispered to me in December when I read Geoff Sharp’s Five things I learnt this year (and should have known already). I heard another whisper recently while pondering Vickie Pynchon’s Separating the People from the Problem at the ABA DRS Conference. And the whisper grew louder as I caught up on my blog reading with Diane Levin’s What about clients? Time at last to consider what they want from mediation.

There’s a discourse going on about mediation and with all due respect to my three colleagues above, all of whom are also attorneys (the enlightened kind, I hasten to add), the blogged discourse needs to include the voices of people who have extensive mediation experience and training, have taught it extensively in and outside of academe for years, and who hail from professions and graduate degrees other than law (my doctorate’s in education with an emphasis on leadership and human behavior). People like me. Attorneys alone should not be shaping the online discourse about the craft of mediation.

So, starting today, I’m going to return to writing about teaching and learning the craft of mediation as part of my work here. It’ll become a topic I write about in addition to mediation marketing, tech tips, and profiles of successful mediators.

My hope, of course, isn’t just that it’ll serve me, my interests, and my desire to join the discourse. I hope it’ll offer you some insights into strengthening your craft, whether you’re a neophyte or a seasoned practitioner. As I said in my book, building a healthy business – making mediation your day job – is as much about being a good mediator as it is about being a good entrepreneur. So this new chapter of the blog will speak directly to that.

One of the things I’ll be doing first is reprinting some of the articles I wrote for Mastering Mediation. I hope you’ll join me in the conversation about our craft.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.Lenski.com.