Business Conflict Blog

I am spending this week in beautiful Silver Bay, New York, on the western side of Lake George.  There, at a grand old historic YMCA summer camp, the New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) holds its annual summer conference.

Quakers are  a “peculiar people” and proud of being so.  But spending time with a whole nest of them coming from around the country and around the world is surely a blessing. 

Many readers are familiar with the drawing of three mice looking at a wedge of cheese and drawing different conclusions as to the shape of the object, based on their positions and perspectives:

Well, when Quakers meet to conduct business they don’t vote or persuade; they share perceptions and senses of what the right thing to do might be, and let it float out there until the entire group is in unity with the right decision.  Folks who have never watched this procedure or taken part in it themselves find it very difficult to understand, but the mouse drawing is as good an entry into it as any.

I just plain like the way Quakers think, how they approach problems.  Here in Silver Bay, or in my small Quaker Meeting in Cornwall, New York, a matter will be raised in a meeting for business and a period of silence will ensue.  Then someone will pipe up and say, in effect, “I see a rectangle here.”  There will be a pause for several minutes, and someone will say “I see a square.”

At that point most folks would see a disagreement.  But Quakers? 

Quakers sense there might be a piece of cheese nearby.

Tags: Culture

Frederic Luskin, Director of the Stanford Forgiveness Projects, reminded a packed house at the ABA Dispute Resolution meeting in San Francisco that a 2-yr old who is told “no” screams and yells when she doesn’t get what she wants, but then eventually stops and moves on to the next thing.  By contrast, a 40-year old who doesn’t get what he wants can persist in expressing his anger and indignation for many, many years; in some cases, he will never stop.  In this lies the attraction, for some, of the American civil judicial system.

Dispute resolution professionals often encounter people whose wound has morphed into an attribute of their very life.  Who they are is fundamentally tied with the claim.  They are no longer wife or butcher or brother or son; they are The One Who Was Wrongly Dealt With.  Dr. Luskin asked us whether we might consider not just helping that person to ”resolve” the dispute, but facilitating the removal of the conflict as a central mechanism of the relationship.  Might we help to guide wounded people past their wound? Read more »

Tags: ADR, Culture

In his keynote address to the Section of Dispute Resolution of the American Bar Association, MIT Professor Lawrence Susskind urged that it was time for ADR professionals to get involved in the failure of meaningful discourse in American public life, and to assist people to talk to each other about deeply held beliefs.  He focused on disputes that arise “when people describe who they are rather than what they want” and outlined an approach to dispute resolution that is distinct from the familiar Fisher/Ury interest-based model.

The underlying assumptions of interest-based facilitation — that the parties have interests, know their BATNAs, will seek maximum return without unnecessary delay, and will accept an agreement whose terms are better than no agreement – don’t work when people’s values, or their very identities, at at stake.  Abortion or same-sex marriage are not interests, or even principles; they define who some people are.  When these defining values are encroached upon or attacked, what facilitation model applies?  Read more »

Tags: Culture, Mediation, Negotiation

I hope that those attending the ABA Dispute Resolution Section meeting in San Francisco will consider attending the panel at 4:30 Thursday April 8 titled “Gazing Into the Crystal Ball: What Will ADR Be Like in 25 Years?”  The speakers are deeply informed and imaginative.  They include Michelle Leetham of Bechtel, Janet Kloenhamer of Fireman’s Fund, Jay Folberg of JAMS/USF, and Colin Rule of Ebay/PayPal.

During prep sessions it has been difficult to restrain the good humor, lacerating wit, and sheer brilliance of these folks.  They have spent their lives devising ways to anticipate and then manage disputes, and have a lot to say about what might lie ahead. 

Twenty-five years ago people were plugging phone lines into “home micro-computers” and bemoaning Cravath’s setting $60,000 as a starting salary.  I hope that, 25 years hence, ADR processes that commence with the filing of a complaint or demand will be considered quaint.  Anyway, do join them — you won’t regret it.

Tags: ADR, Culture, ODR