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In 1981, Roger Fisher  and Bill Ury, both of Harvard, published “Getting to Yes”  that  left me unsettled. The way Fisher and Ury describe interest-based negotiation seemed manipulative and not in integrity. As with many conflict resolution and negotiation books, I took what was useful to me and discarded the rest.

About a month ago, I read “Beyond Dealmaking” written by another Harvard scholar, Melanie Billings-Yun. Amazingly, Melanie saw the flaws in Fisher and Ury’s work and found the elements that were missing. In a nutshell, Melanie tells us to negotiate relationships, not deals. I invited Melanie onto the show and she is here to talk to us and answer questions about her work.

Melanie has a Ph.D. from Harvard University in diplomatic history, an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, and a B.S. with high honors from Portland State University. She has a professional consulting firm with a list of top international companies as clients. A native of Portland, Oregon, Melanie has lived and worked in London, Paris, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Seoul, Indonesia, and Singapore. She currently works from Washington, DC, and teaches at the Master of International Management program at Portland State University.

I ask Melanie what she would tell the political leaders in Washington DC now that the Democrats no longer have a filibuster-proof Senate? Melanie observes that politicians, like all people, look out for their own interests first. In order to make any deal work, you must offer somebody something tangible that satisfies an important interest. Many people feel that they offer up something tangible, they are showing weakness. However, Melanie says that people overestimate the fear of negative outcomes. Therefore, she says that in order to get, you must be willing to give.

Matt from Boston called to ask if international deal making was different and culturally based. Melanie observes that most cultures require trust before any kind of business deal can be made. United States and the Anglo-American culture is in a minority of cultures where that is not always true. I ask Melanie when relationships should be the focus of negotiation as opposed to the deal. Melanie says that the greater the difference between the people and the negotiation the more important relationship building becomes. The more similarities people share in a relationship, the less relationship building must occur.

Nancy from Portland observes that negotiation seems a man’s game. Women are afraid of negotiation because of the conflict but negotiation presents. Melanie says that if you do not like conflict, you might avoid it, you might not be prepared, or you might have a fear reaction. The best solution has to be prepared and to think ahead about what you expect in terms of behaviors and outcomes.

I take up Nancy’s question and points out that women as negotiators have many natural skills. Among other things, when facing rude, disruptive behavior from men, women can likely ask that the behavior desist. I relate how I have seen women stop aggressive men in their tracks by simply asking for civil, polite behavior.

Melanie says that women must learn to get over the fear of negotiation and, at the same time, learn not to feed the bears. In other words, if you are fearful going into negotiation, a dominant, aggressive person will be fed by your fear and persist in unproductive behavior. Melanie and I talk about reprogramming “the cringe,” which is the reaction people have when presented with high conflict. Melanie and I agreed that reprogramming occurs by not being surprised emotions and expecting outbursts. I point out that people in conflict and negotiation have standard sets of habitual behaviors that repeat themselves time after time. The set of behaviors is small and can be easily understood with some training and practice.

Diane from Orlando asks for suggestions in short-term negotiations where there is no relationship. Melanie and I agree that you should never yell, you should always be polite and kind, you should try the empathic, you should thank the person serving you for their assistance even though they may not have any power to do anything for you, and most importantly, if the problem is not solved gracefully, withdraw.

I ask Melanie to describe the four pillars of negotiating relationships. The first pillar is to build a productive relationship by focusing on the person, not the deal. Second, focus on the outcome, not on winning or losing points. Third, engage in problem solving rather than argument by asking questions in open, authentic way. Finally, focus on fairness. Melanie points out that there are three qualities to fairness which are allowing people to have a fair hearing and listening with respect and consideration. Allowing for a sense of equity and that whatever division is discussed is reasonable or least has reasonable explanations. Finally, fairness involves integrity, which means fulfilling the promises that you have made.

Melanie can be reached through her website www.beyond-dealmaking.com.

Filed under: Common mistakes, Gender differences, Mars vs. Venus, Negotiation, Preparation, Relationships, aggression, apology, collaboration, culture, difficult people, emotions, listening, persuasion, politics, power, women by dougnoll (Check me out!)
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Conflict, especially when it escalates to litigation, violence, or war, can be a nasty process to stop. People are emotional and cannot think too well. They tend to be reactive, habitual, and defensive. For us mediators and peacemakers, this is normal and expected. Dealing with emotional, angry, violent people is part of what we do. But how we do it varies greatly from mediator to mediator. A lot of mediators are pretty formulaic—they manage the mediation the way they were taught, and that works a lot of the time. When you have a really challenging conflict, however, the formulaic mediator will not do. You need a master.

Jeff Krivis began his mediation practice in 1989, when lawyer-mediators in Southern California were rare, and litigators had to look outside the state for experienced practitioners. Now, 20 years later and having resolved thousands of disputes — including entertainment, mass tort, employment, business, complex insurance, catastrophic injury and class action matters — Jeff is recognized not only as a pioneer in the field, but also as one of the most respected neutrals in the state.

Jeff’s journey began as a lawyer in the 1980s. His client asked him to mediate cases to settle them. Jeff, like many lawyers in California at the time, had no idea what mediation was. The client introduced him to a Texas mediator Rick Faulkner, who opened up mediation to Jeff. After training with Rick, Jeff started teaching mediation at the Pepperdine law school in the early 1990s.

Jeff and Doug talk about cases that do not settle. For mediators, failure is difficult to face. However, there are usually constraints that the mediator cannot influence. Usually cases that do not settle in a mediation settle shortly thereafter because people have learned more about their conflict. Jeff says that in any conflict, listening is the key to resolution. People always have something to say when they are in conflict. Cases do not settle when people cannot talk to each other.

Jeff and Doug talk about how conflicts and disputes create identities. When identities are defined by a conflict, peace is difficult because the identities are threatened. Doug observes that this is a driving force in the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. Jeff agrees and says that the United States has used a” one trick pony” approach to the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

Doug turns the conversation to improvisation. Jeff tells us that he was using a static, formulaic process when mediating. He found that these static processes did not work for him. Jeff began to make up his approach on the fly. As he found that his intuitive approaches worked, he wanted to test his ideas so he took a class in standup comedy. Jeff learned that the success of a standup comedian was based on the connection the comedian makes with the audience. This insight led Jeff to study improvisational acting. Improvisational acting is based on agreement between the actors. In addition, the audience creates the story by connecting the dots. Jeff realized that this what he was doing in mediation.

Jeff centimes with how he evolved the idea of improvisational mediation and negotiation. As betook risks and worked in the moment, he found that he was more effective at helping cases settle. Jeff shares stories of cases where his improvisational style was effective.

Doug asks Jeff what advice he has for people in conflict. Jeff advises people to consider more from conflict to problem solving.

The Peacemaker’s Bookshelf

For this edition of The Peacemaker’s Bookshelf, I have chosen Beyond Dealmaking: Five Steps To Negotiating Profitable Relationships by Melanie Billings -Yun. This book is a refreshing, new, and innovative addition to the negotiation literature. Melanie tells us that instead of focusing on the deal, we must focus on the relationships. Getting to Yes is not good enough; if you want to get the results, you must focus on the relationships with the people.

As Melanie points out, those who focus only on getting a deal closed often find their victory does not translate into sustainable profits. Deals are as fragile as the paper they are written on. Countless conflicts arise when the negotiation process leaves one party unhappy, coerced, or disgruntled.

In five steps, Melanie shows us how to understand the goals of the parties beyond the immediate deal, developed routes to maximize mutual benefit, build openness and trust, keep relationships from growing stale or one-sided, and increase empathic communication, sincerity, and genuine care.

Of course, not all negotiations require a focus on relationships. However, in any deal when performance will occur over the long term, in which there will be future transactions, or in which there is future accountability, negotiating the relationship is more important than securing agreement to terms. Melanie points out that in every negotiation, the parties at the table have entered into the process with the belief that if the right terms could be worked out, they would be better off working together than not. Thus, building a productive relationship is one of the most important, if not critical tasks in the negotiation process. Melanie tells us that we will benefit by trying to understand the other party’s concerns, build empathy, then working together from that positive foundation, resolve the issues that divide us.

Although this is a brand new book, it has a place of prominence on my Peacemaker’s Bookshelf. The book is Beyond Dealmaking: Five Steps To Negotiating Profitable Relationships by Melanie Billings –Yun. It is published by Jossey-Bass, an imprint of Wiley & Sons Publishing.

Filed under: Mediation Practice, Mediation professionals, Negotiation, collaborative law, mediation by dougnoll (Check me out!)
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In December of 2009, the international community met in Copenhagen at the 15th international conference to negotiate a climate change treaty. As we all know, the conference was disappointing. No treaty was developed, and the nations of the world came no closer to solving what might be the most important problem to ever face humanity. The conference attendees, recognizing that the traditional style and process of diplomatic negotiation had failed, directed the host country of the next conference, Mexico, to consider how the process could be improved. Mediators Beyond Borders was present at the conference to advocate modern mediation, facilitation, public dialogue, and similar problem-solving processes be included in a treaty. In this edition of The Doug Noll Show, the president of Mediators Beyond Borders, Ken Cloke, joins us to talk about his experiences in Copenhagen and where the world goes from here to solve the climate change conflicts and crises.

Ken and I begin our conversation by getting an understanding of what climate change is really all about. Ken tells us that there are two truths regarding climate change: first, climate change cannot be predicted with equilibrium mathematics. Instead, chaos theory, which postulates that a small change can effect large results in a system, must be utilized to understand climate. The second truth is that there is a scientifcally demonstrable greenhouse effect growing in the atmosphere. The combination of weather as a chaos effect and the addition and accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hasled scientists to conclude that will be unpredictable outcomes in climate change unless human activity on the planet changes. As a result of scientific warnings, the Kyoto global warming protocol was negotiated in 1997. The United States Senate did not believe that Kyoto was fair to the United States. And, because the Senate was controlled by the Republicans, it did not want to give President Clinton a political victory. Behind the scenes, large corporations dependent upon carbon energy lobbied hard with millions of dollars in campaign contributions to prevent ratification of the Kyoto protocol. As a result, it was defeated in the U.S. Senate and Congressional resistance continues to this day.

Mediators beyond Borders, a private nonprofit organization dedicated to building conflict resolution capacity throughout the world, became involved in the global warming talks through one of its members in Copenhagen, Tina Monberg. Tina contacted Ken, believing that Mediators Beyond Borders should have a presence at the Copenhagen negotiations. Mediators Beyond Borders sent ateam to the 2009 pre-conference meetings in Bangkok and Barcelona. At those meetings, it askeddelegates to include treaty language permitting mediation and facilitation to be utilized inconflicts around climate change. The idea was generally well received by many delegates. However, none of the delegates were inclined to move on the issue.

Ken tells us that there are three reasons why classic diplomacy has been inadequate to respond toclimate change. First, climate change is everywhere, and no one country can fix it by itself with force or power. Second, there is no international organization that can compel or persuade actionon the problem. Finally, traditional diplomatic processes have favored the powerful nations overthe less powerful nations in negotiation. Copenhagen demonstrated that this power negotiationparadigm will no longer work towards solving a global problem like climate change. If the solutions are not agreed upon by all nations, then there will be no solution.

Ken and I talk about the effects of climate change on the environment and on the relationships between nations. A national Academy of Sciences study has demonstrated a historical linkage between civil war and temperature rise in Africa. Based on that study, scientists predict a 54% increase in armed conflicts by 2030 as a result of global warming. Mass migrations of human beings will begin such that over 200 million Africans will move north to Europe to avoid the growth of vast deserts in Africa. Likewise, the grain growing regions of North America will move north to Canada and vast reaches of western and midwestern America will become deserts unable to sustain food and agriculture. The economic, social, and political disruptions this will cause are unimaginable.

I ask Ken what will be necessary to engage the nonbelievers into taking action. Ken tells us that there are really only three possibilities. The first is to wait for catastrophe and then try to act. By then, of course, it will be too late for the nonbelievers to effectuate significant change to the climate. The second possibility is to look for scientific and technological fixes. The problem here is that we will between tinkering with something that we do not understand and may possibly make the problem worse. The unintended consequences of tinkering with weather could be just as bad as no tinkering at all. The third possibility is to negotiate treaties, laws, and regulations to regulate climate change.

Although Copenhagen was disappointing, the climate change talks will continue in 2010 in Bonn and Mexico City. Mediators Beyond Borders is organizing for those meetings. Ken sees four paths for action in 2010. First, Mediators Beyond Borders will influence delegates and encourage inclusion of mediation missions in the final treaty. Second, Mediators Beyond Borders will put together a process improvement team To examine, what did not work in Copenhagen. MBB will work with other international organizations to create process recommendations for the Mexican hosts. Third, MBB will form an implementation team. With these other organizations, it will find mediators in organizations like the International Mediation Institute, train them, and hopefully have them assigned to delegations and groups at the Mexico City conference. Finally, Mediators Beyond Borders will build a research team to create a scientific resource guide showing how mediation can assist in resolving conflicts around climate change. People interested in joining this effort may join Mediators Beyond Borders at www.mediatorsbeyondborders.org.

The Peacemaker’s Bookshelf

For this edition of the peacemaker’s bookshelf I have chosen Conflict Resolution at Work for Dummies by Vivian Scott. Sure enough, there is now a Dummies book about resolving conflict at work.

Typical of all Dummies books, Conflict Resolution at Work for Dummies is divided into parts and chapters that break down the problem and offer common sense solutions to managers and leaders in the workplace. The first part, consisting of five chapters, gives you a basic understanding of conflict in the workplace. It includes an understanding of individual conflict, group conflict dynamics, and the contribution of leaders and managers in promoting and escalating conflict.

The second part teaches you how to resolve a conflict between two or more of your employees. The six chapters in this part walk you through the basic mediation process from planning to accountability.

Part Three talks about the use of additional resources in resolving workplace conflicts, including internal company resources and retaining outside experts. Part Four tells you what to do when you are in the conflict yourself, either as a superior, a peer, or a subordinate. Finally, Part Five, The Part of Tens, gives you some information in three lists of 10 items each. In particular, Chapter 11 provides 10 pearls of wisdom from professional mediators.

This book will be useful for any person who has responsibility for leading one or more people in an organizational team setting. It is a great introduction to conflict resolution at work. However, it is not a substitute for hands-on mediation training. I think that if you took a basic 40 hour mediation course, this book would be a great reference for reminding you what to do when you face conflict in your organization. Trying to be a peacemaker by reference to this book alone, however, probably will lead to less than satisfactory results. Nevertheless, it is a good Dummies book, and a great introduction to peacemaking in the workplace.

The book is Conflict Resolution at Work for Dummies, written by Vivian Scott and published by the Dummies people at Wiley Publishing.

Filed under: China, Climate Change, International Peace, peacebuilding, peacemaking, politics, power by dougnoll (Check me out!)
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The Middle East conflict, in particular the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has been an enduring and difficult problem for peacemakers. Despite decades of conferences, multiple tracks of diplomacy, and the desire of most Palestinians and Israelis for peace, agreements between the two peoples seem out of reach. International diplomacy seems to be ignoring the deeper underlying psychological dynamics of this conflict. To better understand these dynamics, Doug invited a scholar who has studied and analyzed the psychology of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for a conversation on The Doug Noll Show.

Dr. Moises Salinas is a Cross Cultural Psychologist, an expert in stereotypes, prejudice, ethnic identity and conflict resolution. Born in Mexico City, Dr. Salinas completed his BA degree at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Educational Psychology. In 1998, he earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Salinas then moved to Connecticut where he works as a Professor of Psychology and Chief Diversity Officer at Central Connecticut State University.

He has published a large number of articles and chapters on areas related to cross-cultural, educational, and social psychological issues. His latest book, Sowing Hatred, Planting Pain: the Psychology of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was published by Greenwood-Praeger in June, 2007. He is also co-editor of the book “Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Perspectives on the Peace Process” recently published by Cambria Press.

Dr. Salinas tells us that his journey started in Mexico, where he was born with Jewish roots into a multicultural background. A young age, he tells us he became very interested in social justice issues, and visited Israel for the first time when he was 18 years old. Israel fascinated him, and he decided to return there to go to college. While he was in college, he was dating an Israeli woman, and he made friends with a Palestinian man living in the West Bank. He and his girlfriend were invited to visit his Palestinian friend in the West Bank village, but she was hesitant to go.

The visit was ultimately made, and Dr. Salinas’s girl friend said she had a great time. On the way back to Jerusalem, she said, “I never realized the Palestinians were people.” It was this comment that led Dr. Salinas to write a book about the psychology of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In 2005, Dr. Salinas was taking a sabbatical from his teaching position at Central Connecticut State University and was teaching at two institutions in Israel. As a class assignment he tells us, he assigned students to interview both Israeli and Palestinian Arabs in their native language, Arabic or Hebrew, to obtain a sample of what people thought about the conflict and about each other. Over 200 interviews were conducted by his students across a broad population spectrum. Those interviews formed the basis of his book, Sowing Hatred Planting Pain.

Dr. Salinas tells us that while it is not politically correct to speak in certain ways, at a deeper level we make judgments about everybody we meet. We tend to categorize individual people based on group attributes and this categorizing is called stereotyping. Stereotypes are very difficult to change, and they are very powerful. Stereotypes can only be changed through education, contact, and constructive collaboration. Dr. Salinas found the stereotyping between the Israelis and the Palestinians to be a major barrier to trust, understanding, and peace.

Doug asks Dr. Salinas about hatred and extremism. Dr. Salinas says that extremists are thought to be fanatics. Actually, extremists come from all walks of life and social economic levels. No specific personality leads to extremism, and most suicide bombers are not fanatics. Instead, they seem to be vulnerable to exquisitely applied psychological pressures applied by their recruiters and handlers.

Doug and Dr. Salinas talk about psychological pain resulting from violence. Dr. Salinas tells us that in both Israel and the Palestinian areas, the people suffer from a high incidence of posttraumatic stress disorder. It is a large social problem that permeates culture. At some point in time, the stress has become so great that the reaction to it in the sense of victimization has become a badge of honor. Doug and Dr. Salinas talk about the high levels of posttraumatic stress disorder amongst children. The epigenetic implications of that for future generations are staggering.

Doug asks Dr. Salinas if he found any hope of peace and reconciliation between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. Dr. Salinas says that most people on both sides want peace, and generally agree on the parameters of what peace will look like. The major obstacle is that no one believes that the other side wants peace. There is no trust. Thus, trust building, humanization, and cooperation, especially at the grassroots level, between Palestinians and Israelis is critical. In addition, Dr. Salinas says that there are extremists on both sides, whose identity only exists to support violence and their extreme beliefs. The good news is that those extremist identities only exist as long as there is popular support. When there is no longer tacit acceptance of violence, when extremists are no longer seen as heroes, and when sabotage is no longer accepted, the people will accept a negotiated settlement created through the hard work of their political leaders.

The Peacemaker’s Bookshelf

For this edition of The Peacemaker’s Bookshelf, I have selected the book, Collaborative Divorce Handbook: Helping Families without Going to Court, written by Forrest S. Mosten. Woody Mosten is a well-known teacher, trainer, and author in the peacemaking and mediation field. In his latest book, he writes about the concept of collaborative law as a means of resolving divorce him. As Woody says, he never goes to court because he believes that adversarial jousting is a pernicious and destructive process. He believes that most disputes can be resolved by the parties themselves because they have the answers within them. Collaborative Divorce Handbook is a guidebook for lawyers, psychologists, financial experts, and others who wish to learn more about the collaborative divorce process.

The handbook is an integrated study of collaborative law, divorce law, unbundled legal services , and mediation practice. Woody describes how collaborative divorce works with mediation and unbundled legal services. He describes the process of collaborative divorce: what is and how it works. He provides a toolbox of strategies to reach collaborative agreements. He talks about the interdisciplinary approach of collaborative divorce, and for those interested in making this a part of their practice, Woody tells us how to make collaborative divorce practice our day job.

Woody challenges collaborative divorce practitioners to think of themselves as peacemakers. He is not ashamed to ask lawyers to think on the meaning of peace and to talk their clients about what peace feels like for them. In addition, he asks collaborative practitioners to think about their vision of peace in the world that goes beyond their professional practice. At the end of his book, Woody lists 25 strategies to integrate peacemaking into life. These are questions about values that guide everyday practice and living.

As usual, Woody has produced a profound and thought-provoking seminal work that should influence generations of lawyers to come.

The book is Collaborative Divorce Handbook by Forrest S. Mosten and is published by Jossie Bass, an imprint of Wiley and Sons Publishing.

Filed under: Intense Conflicts, International Peace, Intolerance, Israel-Palestine, Lawyers and lawyering, aggression, collaboration, collaborative law, discrimination, peacebuilding, peacemaking, prejudice by dougnoll (Check me out!)
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Ever wonder what a legend looks and sounds like? We hear about these amazing human beings and rarely have the chance to talk with them let alone have them share their stories and journeys with us. One of the great things about being a radio host is that I get to seek out legends for all of us to talk with. This show features one such legend.

Forrest “Woody” Mosten is a mediator, collaborative attorney, author, and Adjunct Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law who is in high demand as a keynote conference speaker and conflict resolution trainer throughout the world. Named as a Los Angeles Super Lawyer in Family Law and Mediation, Woody maintains an active practice as a family lawyer and never goes to court. As a disclaimer, I will also tell you that Woody and I are core faculty members of the American Institute of Mediation.

Doug asks Woody to tell a little bit about his personal journey. Woody tells us that he started as a founding member of Jacoby and Myers in 1972. The concept behind the firm was to provide storefront legal services for the middle class. The firm opened in September 1972, but in November 1972, the firm received a letter from the California State Bar saying that it was being charged with ethical violations. The State Bar ultimately suspended Jacoby and Meyers for 45 days. However, in the end, the suspension was overturned by the California Supreme Court, and the justices ruled the Jacoby and Mayer were acting in the highest principles of the legal profession in trying to provide access to legal services to the middle class.

Woody says that he was not suspended by the State Bar because he was not yet a lawyer. He had graduated from law school in the spring of 1972 and sat for the July 1972 bar exam. Although he had passed the bar, he was not admitted into practice until December of 1972.

Doug and Woody talk about the recent article by California Supreme Court Justice Ron George, stating the need for unbundled legal services and better access to legal services for the middle class. Woody tells the story of a case involving two women who were arrested for being topless on a Los Angeles beach. Woody defended the women before then trial judge Ron George. Judge George found that women technically guilty, but find them $25 total,  payable one dollar per week.

Doug asks Woody to talk a little bit about collaborative law. Woody says that collaborative law is a dream come true for him. It is a new way of being for lawyers who have been trained in adversary ideology, but do not care for the contentiousness of that ideology. In a family law setting, the clients sign a contract along with the lawyers representing them. The contract says that if the parties do not settle the case or if anyone wants to go to court, the current lawyers must be discharged, and everyone must hire new workers to start over again.

Collaborative law started with a lawyer in Minneapolis, Stu Webb. Webb found that families were often poorer and more conflicted than before they began divorce proceedings in court. Webb encouraged some colleagues to form a study group, and they agreed on some ground rules. They agreed that in divorces in which they were representing parties, there would be no court appearances, there would be full disclosure of all information, there would treat each other with mutual respect, and the goal would be to solve problems. This was a hugely successful experiment. It turns out that the vast majority of people prefer to go to lawyers who will not go to court and will help them solve problems. Woody tells us about Roy Disney’s divorce. Woody represented Roy, who was both a friend and client. The family wanted a confidential process, and collaborative law was perfect for them. Woody tells us that divorce does not require that family privacy be violated, and that people can get what they need without undue antagonism through a collaborative law agreement.

Doug asks Woody about his latest article, Lawyer as Peacemaker. How does peacemaking differ from mediation or case settlement? Woody says that is when we engage in peacemaking, we are helping people go beyond the symptoms of the conflict to a deeper place emotionally and spiritually. Peacemaking is a learning process, a reflective process, and an engaged process to help people make their lives better. Lawyers have a great opportunity to be peacemakers for clients, and those lawyers that engage in it derive great satisfaction from their work.

Doug asks Woody about his new book, Collaborative Divorce Handbook: Helping Families without Going to Court. Woody said that he felt that there needed to be a book that would help integrate mediation, unbundled legal services, and legal representation of families and divorce into one volume. In addition, many different kinds of professionals are becoming involved in collaborative law, and they need a reference book to give them background on what collaborative law is all about.

The Peacemaker’s Bookshelf

For this edition of The Peacemakers Bookshelf. I have chosen the book Improvisational Negotiation by Jeffrey Krivis. Jeff and I are colleagues, and fellows in the International Academy of Mediators. I finally have a chance to pick up his book and read it and thought that it was so good that it deserved a place on The Peacemakers Bookshelf.

Jeff is a prominent Southern California mediator and has mediated thousands of cases involving all kinds of disputes. He is also interested in improvisational acting, which is the source of the title for his book. Improvisational Negotiation is based on a number of Jeff’s stories of conflicts around love, money anger, and the strategies that resolved them. The book is divided into four parts, including healing relationships, show me the money, getting to the bottom line, and a hip pocket guide to mediation strategy. This book is written for anybody involved in serious negotiation and is particularly useful to professional mediators. Jeff’s stories will resonate with anyone who has worked with clients and parties in thousands of difficult conflicts. Jeff tells the story from the perspective of the mediator and shows how he was able to draw people out from being their worst to being their best. At the end of each story, Jeff talks about the strategies and lessons to be learned from that particular example of mediation.

What I love about this book is the way that Jeff brings out the humanity in each of the people that come to him for mediation services. These are people that through the vicissitudes and bad luck of life or due to their own intransigence have faced conflict. Jeff shows us the power of sensitive mediation and the power of his intellect as he sorts through the problems, de-escalates the people, and helps them find the peace that they are so desperately looking for. Whether it is a couple of kids who have shot paintball that hit a seven-year-old girl or a personal injury case involving a young man and a legally blind 80-year-old woman, the stories are poignant and powerful.

Jeff shows the power of using the joint session to allow the parties to tell their stories to each other. He shows how he very deftly controls the emotional temperature in the room, allowing it to heat up as necessary for the parties to feel like they are obtaining justice. At the same time, he shows us how he deftly separates parties when necessary to have them reflect upon the choices ahead of them. The stories alone make this a gem, and it deserves to be on every peacemaker’s bookshelf.

The book is Improvisational Negotiation by Jeffrey Krivis and is published by Jossey- Bass, an imprint of Wiley and Sons.

Filed under: Lawyers and lawyering, Peacemaking, collaboration, collaborative law, mediation, peacemaking by dougnoll (Check me out!)
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Peacemaking and mediation is mostly made up stuff by people who have tried things and have found them to work. Like other professions and practices, mediation has accumulated a large hoard of practices and procedures that are based on anecdotes, experiences, and miserable failures. Not many people study the science of mediation and settlement, what little there is, in any systematic way so I thought it would be fun to bring on a guy who does that sort of thing.

My guest on this edition of The Doug Noll Show is an expert at negotiation and is a student of the science of settlement. He even has a book by that name—The Science of Settlement. Barry Goldman is a lawyer in Michigan and a full time mediator and professor of law. He received his undergraduate degree at Wayne State University, a masters degree in philosophy at the University of Hawaii, and his law degree from Wayne State University Law School. He has mediated and arbitrated over 2,000 conflicts in forums as diverse as the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the Michigan Employment Relations Commission, and the National Center for Dispute Settlement. Barry’s book, The Science of Settlement, was published by the American Law Institute and the American Bar Association, known as ALI-ABA and is now in its 9^th printing. As books for negotiators go, it is one of the best.

Doug asks Barry about the meaning of the title of the Science of Settlement. Barry tells us that most of the academic work about mediation practice is made up stuff; it is not science. Barry says that if mediation is ever to become fully professional, the academic scholars have to move away from made up stuff and start performing some hard research on tough questions. Barry says that there are many tantalizing clues coming from behavioral economics, decision-making theory, social neuroscience, and psychology. Doug asks Barry about two seminal works in the field of mediation, Getting to Yes and The Promise of Mediation. Barry asks us to consider where the science is in these books—there is none and it is all made up ideas based on personal experience and anecdote.

Barry gives us an example of good science outside of mediation that helps us understand some of the fundamental challenges of helping people resolve conflict. In one study, a group of participants were randomly divided into two groups. One group was asked to remember a 2 digit number; the other group was asked to remember a 7 digit number. The two groups were led out of the room and taken down the hall to a snack room where they were offered apples or brownies. The group that was working on remembering the 2 digit number tended to pick apples, while the group that was working on remembering the 7 digit number tended to pick brownies. The study, says Barry, tells us something about impulse and emotional control. As we overload our brains with even an apparently simple task like remembering a telephone number, we no longer have as much capacity to make logical, reasoned decisions. This, says Barry, is the type of research that dispute resolution professionals should be pursuing.

Barry tells us about another recent experiment. In this study, the participants were divided randomly into two groups. Their task was to interview a prospective job candidate and make a recommendation whether to hire or not. One group was handed cups of hot coffee; the other group was handed cups of iced coffee. The researchers were interested in seeing if the mere difference in hand temperature affected interpersonal evaluations. Barry says, sure enough, they did. The warm handers like the job candidate using words indicating friendliness, warmth, and openness. The cold handers did not like the job candidate as much, using terms like aloof, distant, and cold in describing the person. Of course, the job candidate was the same person in every case following a carefully prepared and rehearsed script. Barry says that this study seems to implicate physical sensations in our hands with the emotional centers of the brain. Somehow, our evaluations of people are affected in part by our physical state as well as by our cognitive processes.  This, says Barry, is another example of science that can inform mediation. Imagine understanding that how much someone likes another may be based in part on whether their hands are warm or cold. Or, at a minimum, that hand warmth influences emotional processing of information.

Barry and Doug talk about other aspects of decision making that have been studied scientifically and inform the practice of mediation.

Doug asks Barry about his current thinking. Barry tells us that he has been studying the history of medicine with the intent of mapping it against the history of dispute resolution. Barry thinks the science of mediation is somewhere after Galen and before Vesalius. Vesalius, Barry says, was a Renaissance-era researcher who closely observed symptoms of dying people, then cut them open after death to see what was observable. He was essentially the father of autopsies. It took thousands of bodies over hundreds of years to build a knowledge base that connected symptoms to breakdowns within the human body. Barry thinks the same tedious, methodical methods will have to be used to build a scientific knowledge base around mediation. Doug asks if mediation is not too complex to study in that way. Barry responds by saying that people in the 13^th century thought the human body was too complex to study systematically, yet it happened. The science of mediation, Barry says, is waiting to be explored and discovered.

The Peacemaker’s Bookshelf

For this edition of The Peacemaker’s Bookshelf I have chosen Planting Hatred, Sowing Pain by Moises F. Salinas. Professor Salinas is Associate Professor of Psychology at Central Connecticut State University. He spent the better part of 2005 and 2006 in the Middle East conducting interviews and research around the psychology of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In addition, he enlisted 250 Israeli and Palestinian college and graduate students to conduct hundreds of interviews across the region.

Each chapter of the book includes samples of the interviews, which were selected out of the hundreds of interviews collected, because they representative a collective example of the thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and beliefs of average people. In addition, Professor Salinas reviews the academic and scientific research that underlies our understanding of the difficult issues in the Middle East. Professor Salinas gives us insight into stereotypes, prejudices and misconceptions that underlie the beliefs of Israelis about Palestinians and Palestinians about Israelis. He examines the nature of extremism and includes two interviews that are nearly identical in their beliefs-except that one is from an Israeli and the other is from a Palestinian. Each expresses an identical hatred and desire to obliterate the other in almost identical language. Professor Salinas also looks at the effect of trauma, collective trauma and the psychological consequences of violence and conflict on the Israeli and Palestinian populations. He ends the book with a chapter on peace and reconciliation, showing how deeper insights into the psychology of the conflict and sensitivity to the cultural differences of the Israelis and Palestinians may lead to more fruitful negotiations around peace in the Middle East.

This book is easy to read and full of insights about the Middle East that can be applied equally in other conflict areas of the world. The book is Planting Hatred, Sowing Pain by Moises F. Salinas and is published by Praeger.

Filed under: Mediation Practice, Mediation professionals, Negotiation, emotions, mediation by dougnoll (Check me out!)
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I was in my dentist’s office this morning and picked up People Magazine. I am not a regular reader, unless you count perusing the weekly cover while standing in line at my local supermarket. So, I was mildly curious about it. I was struck by the idea that People Magazine is all about conflict with celebrities. As I flipped through the pages, I wondered how many of these celebrity conflicts get mediated. There was only one guy to call—Mr. Hollywood Mediator, my friend and colleague Jeff Kichaven. Jeff graciously consented to joining me on the show and suggested we bring in a high-powered trial lawyer that works in the entertainment industry. So we also have Nabil Abu-Assal with us. Let me tell you more about these two talented guys.

I start our conversation by asking Jeff and Nabil how normal celebrities are. Jeff tells us that celebrities are performers. Because of that, they are different from non-entertainment people, yet they are human beings too. Many celebrities are used to being the center of attention because their personality is their brand. They are used to getting what they want because their success generally comes from persistence, hard work, some luck, a refusal to accept “No,” and a willingness to take risks. Many celebrities are therefore not used to being told “No.” Because they live in a very insecure, risky world, where success is difficult and elusive, they must have strong personalities to withstand rejection and failure. Nabil says that celebrities and lawyers are very similar — they tell stories to make a living and controlling celebrities can be very interesting and challenging. They believe they are the best storytellers and really wish no interference in that process.

Jeff tells the story of a rapper accused of copyright infringement. In a moment of honesty, the artist told Jeff that because of his drug use, he did not remember anything that happened during the summer in question. Jeff says that time and time again, he mediates with artists and media personalities that are icons in the world. Sometimes, he says he walks away from the mediation feeling sorry for these people that seem so successful on the outside yet are so troubled inside.

Jeff says that one of the keys to dealing with celebrities in mediation is to stand your ground and not be pushed around. Celebrities will use personal charisma and physical attraction to intimidate those around them. A mediator working with celebrities must remain conscious of that manipulation and intimidation. Entourages present another challenge Often times there are many layers of advisors, agents, attorneys, and hangers-on insulating the celebrity from the real world. Sometimes in mediation, these intermediaries show up instead of the celebrity. Because they depend on their continued good relationship with the celebrity, they are afraid to make important decisions for the celebrity. Of course, this makes resolving the underlying dispute most difficult.

Lawyers in the entertainment industry tend to be celebrities themselves. On the one hand, this presents another layer of large egos in mediation. However, because these lawyers are highly sought after, they can be more direct and honest with celebrity clients in mediation than lesser known attorneys.

Most celebrity lawsuits involve mundane bill collections as people who have provided goods and services to a celebrity have to sue to get paid. Other frequent disputes involve business ventures with associates that have gone bad and disputes between studios, and celebrities. In addition, of course, divorces tend to make the headlines in Hollywood. Interestingly, Jeff observes that mediation is becoming more accepted in the entertainment industry because of its confidentiality. Unlike the thought of a generation ago were all publicity with sought after, celebrities now recognize that negative publicity in the age of the Internet is not good. A bad round of publicity can go viral and severely damage career. Thus, celebrities are finding that resolving disputes in a confidential, quiet way is more useful to them is splashing out the disputes in the media.

Filed under: Egotistical people, Narcissists, Self-absorbed, difficult people, mediation by dougnoll (Check me out!)
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Divorce is never pleasant and often is ugly. Anger, frustration, fear, grief, sadness, hopelessness, and despair all run through people as they experience the terminal illness of an intimate relationship. Some people jump into a new relationship, only to experience the same pain again. Others stay away from relationships, not wanting to be hurt. Some people, however, are able to grow from the experience of divorce.

On the December 3, 2009 edition of The Doug Noll Show, we are joined with two Integrative Coaches who are excited to talk with us about “Spiritual Divorce” – what it is, who has one, and what it means to use divorce as a spiritual wake up call.

Darby Barclay is a master integrative coach. He is a business entrepreneur as well. And, one thing that Darby and I have in common is that we are both fully certified, Level 3 ski instructors. Darby has trained at the Debbie Ford Institute and is a mentor coach in that program.

Karen Ciandella is also a master integrative coach. A successful entrepreneur for more than 20 years, Karen left the corporate world to pursue her vision — supporting men and women to redefine divorce (or any relationship) as a spiritual wakeup call and a catalyst for growth – personally, professionally, and spiritually.

Spiritual divorce is about healing and transforming from broken relationships.

Spiritual divorce is based on 7 laws or principles. The first four are acceptance, surrender, divine guidance, responsibility. Acceptance is knowing that everything is as it should be, even in the most difficult circumstances of divorce. Surrender is examining resistance, identifying it, and letting go. Divine guidance is getting out of the way by letting go of defenses. Responsibility is taking back responsibility for self and not being overly responsible for others.

The last three principles of spiritual divorce are choice, forgiveness, and creation. Choice is creating a new interpretation of what happened and creating a new meaning from the experience of divorce. Forgiveness, a sacred gift, is about forgiving yourself, then forgiving others. Creation is the process of living a new life once you are free of the past.

Spiritual divorce does not have to be about marriage. The coaching process works any time a relationship is broken or there is separation. Losing a job, dealing with death, even the birth of a baby can all be transformed with the process.

People who seek out spiritual divorce coaches are motivated to change their lives, are open to examining themselves deeply, and desire transformation. They are drawn to the possibility of growing from the experience of the separation and rendering of an intimate relationship.

The coaching process is led by a coach who undergoes significant and substantial training over a year. Typically, sessions are conducted by telephone, one session per week, over 14 weeks. Both Karen and Darby speak to the transformations they have witnessed through this work.

The Peacemaker’s Bookshelf

I have chosen The Truth About Camp David: The Untold Story about the Collapse of the Middle East Peace Process by Clayton Swisher. This is a modern history of the events in the Clinton administration from 1999 to 2000 concerning US attempts to mediate peace between Israel and Syria and Israel and the Palestinians. The conventional wisdom and media reported that the collapse of each of these mediations was due to the intransigence of Hafez al-Asad, the leader of Syria, and Yassar Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian Authority. What Swisher portrays is something very different.

Swisher interviewed dozens of people on all sides of the mediation, including former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and other high level officials in the US, Syria, Israel, and in the Palestinian Authority. As the story unfolds, we begin to see that the fundamental problems were not the intransigence of Asad and Arafat. Instead, the problems were caused by the unskilled, unprepared, biased, and incompetent team of mediators fielded by the United States. Any experienced commercial or family mediator reading this book will cringe at the rookie mistakes made time after time by the U.S. mediators, including the sitting President of the United States. The ethical mediation principal of impartiality and neutrality was completely abandoned as we learn how Dennis Ross, the chief mediator on the US team, was grossly biased in favor of Israel. President Clinton, desperate for an opportunity to end his administration on a high note in the aftermath of the Monica Lewinsky affair, essentially misrepresented offers and counter-offers to the representatives of Syria and the Palestinian Authority in the hope that he could force a deal. The mediators misread the parties time after time, ignoring cues and emotional data that any reasonably competent mediator would have seen. The utter lack of transparency, authenticity, and integrity of the mediation process is breathtaking when one considers the stakes of the negotiation.

We are led to believe that the people in charge are mediating and negotiating international disputes, conflicts, and wars because they are the best, the brightest, the most experienced, and the most knowledgeable. The Truth About Camp David is a chilling wake-up call that when those in power have little professional expertise, knowledge, or experience in mediating  deep and intractable conflicts, bad things happen. This is a great book of how not to conduct any mediation and especially how not to mediate deep, serious, and difficult international conflicts.

The book is The Truth About Camp David: The Untold Story about the Collapse of the Middle East Peace Process by Clayton Swisher. It is published by Nation Books.

Filed under: Conflicts, Divorce, Inner peace, Relationships, Spirituality, forgiveness, self-awareness by dougnoll (Check me out!)
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The November 19, 2009 show is about cultivating inner peace. Neuroscientists are discovering that a brain at peace is in optimal operating condition while a brain in stress is bathed in toxic chemicals that drastically decrease intelligence and performance. When we are deep conflict with our kids, our spouses, our boss, or our colleagues, our brain is stressed. How much better would it be to maintain a brain in peace even when the outside world is crazy and chaotic? As a professional peacemaker, that’s part of my job—to stay calm and centered in the midst of chaos and help the people who have hired me to do the same. My guest tonight is also an expert at developing an optimally performing brain.
Rik Isensee is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, and has worked in a variety of mental health clinics and settings over the last thirty years. His private practice is in San Francisco. Rik has a Master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Hawaii, 1979. He has a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Rik’s interest in the creative process led him to get a second Master’s degree (in Creative Writing) from San Francisco State. He is the author of the book Shift Your Mood and he presents workshops at one of my favorite places, The Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California.

Rik and I talk about applying the concepts of mindfulness to conflict. Rik says that the practice of mindfulness requires us to be aware of what’s happening physically in our bodies. Do we feel tense, anxious, fearful, startled? Next, register when that feeling arose and in what context. Finally, begin to rehearse other choices and ways of being in similar future contexts.

James from San Francisco called in asking how these concepts can be used in arguments with others. Rik tells James that using mindfulness, back off the emotions for a moment. Doug tells James to consider mining the emotional data field of the other person. What is that person feeling and experiencing? Feed that information back with brief statements like “You are feeling frustrated.” By focusing on the other person’s experience, you empower yourself, move out of victim mode, and create an empathic connection with the other person that will naturally de-escalate the conflict.
Rik says that in working with couples, he slows the conversation down. He teaches them how to listen and how to say things in a way that will be received. Doug asks Rik about dealing with anxiety. Rik teaches a simple exercise: tighten each body part starting with the feet, hold your breath, then relax with a big exhale. Move up your body a bit and repeat. In less than a minute, the anxiety will dissipate.

Doug asks Rik about set points of happiness. Rik says that we each have a set point that we naturally operate around. He talks about studies comparing lottery winners to people rendered quadriplegic from accidents. Within two years of the life changing event, whether good or bad, people seemed to return to their pre-event set point.

Rik says that one to raise your set point of happiness is to keep a simple gratitude journal. At the end of each day, write down 2 or 3 things you were grateful for during the day. Rik says that this focuses us on the good things that happen to us each day. Humans are hard-wired to be slightly anxious, wary, and defensive. Thus, our thoughts will tend towards the negative unless we consciously choose to focus on the positive. Becoming aware of the goodness in our lives is soothing and calming.

Filed under: Communication, Conflicts, Dealing with fights, Inner peace, Reactivity, Relationships, Triggers, emotional awareness, emotional intelligence, emotional mastery, emotions, listening, mindfulness, self-awareness by dougnoll (Check me out!)
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In today’s touch economy, stress is everywhere. And where there is stress, there is bound to be conflict. So it stands to reason if you can figure out a way to reduce your stress and the stress of the people around you, you are more likely to have peace in your life. But how can you reduce stress when you face layoffs, underemployment, unrealistic work and family demands, and all the other pressures of modern 21st century life? My guest on this edition of The Doug Noll Show has learned about stress the hard way and gained some valuable insights that he will share with us.

Don Joseph Goewey’s career in human potential spans more than three decades and includes collaborations with Carl Rogers, Ph.D, the founder of humanistic psychology, and Gerald Jampolsky, MD, founder of attitudinal healing. Goewey served as an executive at Stanford University Medical School and was executive director of the International Center for Attitudinal Healing, recognized worldwide for its approach to human crisis. His interest in the ability of the brain to overcome stress was sparked two decades ago when he experienced a series of personal crises. He lost his job, was diagnosed with a brain tumor and saw his marriage fall apart, all within 10 days. Then he experienced a defining moment that left him free from stress and the damage it was doing in his life. Over the years, Goewey has worked with war refugees, prisoners, patients with life-threatening illness, business leaders and others in high-stress occupations. In 2006, he co-founded ProAttitude, a human performance firm dedicated to ending stress in the workplace. His new book, Mystic Cool, combines the latest research in neuroscience and psychology with practical spiritual insights on how to reduce stress and unlock creative potential.

I ask Don if his conceptualization of the brain in three parts is similar to Paul MacClain’s triune brain theory. Don agrees that it is. He sees the primitive brain as holding the fear response mechanism. Fear consists of primal physical fear and psychological fear. The primitive brain cannot tell the difference between the two types of fear and responds the same way to each. Don and I talk about neuroplasticity and the idea that our brains can be reprogrammed so as to not be so reactive and fearful.

Don and I talk about the concept of flow developed by University of Chicago psychologist, Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. Don understands peace to be a state of flow in our brains. When our brains are operating under optimal conditions, we are not threatened by outside conditions or events, and we are emotionally calm and centered. Doug and Don talk about the idea that peace is not a static, sit under the tree event; peace is dynamic. As a dynamic process, peace is actually a state of immunity against stress.

Don says that it takes four weeks to reshape the brain. The basic technique is to slow down and become consciously aware of fear and stress patterns. By simply becoming aware of these patterns, you can break through them. Don says his process is based on cognitive behavioral therapy—become aware, choose, and reprogram.

In working with others in conflict, Don says that holding a compassionate presence and deeply listening work well. Doug and Don talk about the mirror neuron system as the foundation for empathy.

I ask Don how he responds to push back from corporate and business people who feel that this work is too emotional or touchy-feely. Don says that after he explains the neuroscience, people get it and are ready to learn different ways of being. He says that peace is a way of engaging the world without fear. As a result, stress is reduced in the work environment, which directly and positively affects profits.

Filed under: Conscious Peacemaking, Inner peace, Reactivity, Triggers, emotional awareness, emotional intelligence, emotional mastery, emotions, forgiveness, listening, mindfulness, self-awareness by dougnoll (Check me out!)
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