dougnoll’s posthaven

Segment 1: BalancedCoaching.com.  On this edition of The Doug Noll Show we are speaking with Merle Rockwell and Ed Modell, founders of Balanced Coaching (www.balancedcoaching.com). Merle and Ed became mediators before mediation and coaching became mainstream. They are located in Maryland, which has long been a leader within the United States, and even the world, in regards to mediation.

Merle was always been drawn to trying to help people work together more effectively. She began her mediation career by taking classes and then organizing a grass-roots conflict resolution center. As founding director of the Conflict Resolution Center of Montgomery County, Merle built a non-profit in Maryland specializing in conflict management training.

Ed was a lawyer by trade but wanted to find his true calling, so to speak. He spoke with a career counselor who suggested mediation, and ultimately made the jump from law to mediation in 2002.

Segment 2: Conflict is Always Around Us.  In 2003 Ed was invited to sit in on a coaching class at a University and fell in love with the idea of coaching. He had spent 30 years asking questions as a lawyer, and it dawned on him that asking probing questions and participating in active listening is a skill that could be translated easily to a career as a coach and mediator.

Conflict is always going to be around us. How we deal with it is the key. Merle and Ed teach people the skills necessary to manage anger effectively and turn conflict into a productive effort instead of a destructive one. Neither or Ed or Merle have a fear of conflict, which has helped them in their careers. Blending coaching and mediation was a natural fit.

Segment 3: Keep It Simple, Make It Useful.  Merle and Ed work together to train mediators to be conflict management coaches. They recently did a 2-day training seminar with follow-up, refresher courses, and mentoring. Their philosophy is to keep it simple, make it useful.

Segment 4: Call It Courageous.  Their business is growing, mostly through word of mouth. One of the things they recognized long ago is that the word “mediation” is a turn-off for some people, so instead of calling it “difficult”, they call it “courageous.” Success has everything to do with the language that is used when they introduce the process and how they articulate the possibilities and the energy surrounding the process. There are great opportunities for people getting into mediation and coaching these days. There are now programs in prestigious universities and colleges, and a possibility of making a good living while doing something you love. To find out more about Merle and Ed’s work, please visit www.balancedcoaching.com. 

To listen to the entire interview, CLICK HERE or visit http://wsradio.com/082814-making-difference-peace-peace-merle-rockwell-ed-modell/.

Segment 1: Conflict Management Coaching.  On this edition of The Doug Noll Show we are speaking with lawyer, mediator, certified coach and former social worker Cinnie Noble. Cinnie is the founder of CinergyCoaching.com, a business focused on Conflict Management Coaching. Cinnie’s journey started as a social worker, working with people with disabilities. She started the first travel agency in Canada for people with disabilities, which taught her how to be a business owner and an advocate, and eventually led her to law school. In law school she began looking at conflict in a different way. Cinnie studied Family Law and ultimately found herself in mediation in the late 1980’s when it was a relatively new field. She became interested in studying how people learned conflict management and dealt with conflicts within the workplace, and eventually started her Conflict Management Coaching business.

Segment 2: Conflict Intelligence.  What is Conflict Management Coaching? It is a one-on-one process for helping people strengthen their ability to engage in conflict. It might be used before, during or after the conflict. The goal is to develop conflict intelligence and more proficiency in dealing with conflict. Her clients know what their habits are and what they’re trying to shift. The coaching is used to help people get underneath the emotions and ask, What’s triggering it? What’s behind it? How can we regulate he emotion and deal with the conflict in a healthy way? 

Segment 3: The Importance of Self-Reflection.  In mediation training there is very little that teaches us how to manage strong emotions. Cinnie often helps mediators who are suffering from fatigue and burn-out. In general, many of the lawyers and mediators who come to Cinnie for help have not been trained in being self-reflective and doing enough work exploring their own personal views and triggers. She would love to see ongoing coaching in mediation training centered around emotional intelligence. 

Segment 4: Practice, Theory, and Science.  So how does one go about becoming a conflict coach? Cinnie does a few online tele-seminars and webinars every year for folks all over the world. The candidates get coached through the training process and get certified. Cinnie’s book includes coaching principles, conflict management principles, and neuroscience principles. (Practice, theory, and the science behind it.) To learn more about Cinnie’s work, please visit her website: http://www.cinergycoaching.com/.

To listen to the entire interview, please CLICK HERE or visit http://wsradio.com/081414-cinergy-coaching-peacemaking-one-person-time/.

Arianna began her career in fundraising but quickly found that the work that she most enjoyed was more of the communications-based one-on-one work with donors. After going back to school she eventually partnered with another mediator and started a Family Law mediation business. At the time she was going through a complicated divorce herself and found the work tremendously therapeutic and healing. Her current practice consists of both coaching and mediation, but her cases are predominately mediation. Divorce is an emotional-based issue. Arianna helps her clients navigate a slippery legal slope, but she realizes the social management portion of the divorce is just as, if not more so, important than the legal aspect.

Segment 2: They Just Want to be Heard. ianna tries to humanize the situation and personalize what her clients are going through. She tells stories of similar situations, as well as her own mistakes and how she’s acknowledged them and moved forward. She also uses humor. Divorce is so difficult on an all-consuming level. She wants them to feel safe and supported when they’re in her office. It’s important to build trust right away.

Often clients are feeling a deep injustice. Their brain is telling them that they want vengeance, but in reality, they are wanting something else. They want to be heard. They want connection. They want control of their own lives. Arianna reminds people that when they go to court they end up disempowering themselves and putting their needs, wants, desires into the hands of a judge. In mediation, however, they have total control.

Segment 3: Empathic Listening. You cannot deal with emotions with logic alone. When in the middle of a conflict, don’t listen to the words; listen to the emotions. There are four levels of being an empathic listener:

1) Repeat the words

2) Paraphrase

3) Give core message

4) Label the emotion

Segment 4: The Cost of a Divorce.  It costs roughly $100,000 to get a divorce in LA County. It’s a huge waste of money. Collaborative Divorce costs about 60% of a regular divorce, and mediation is considered to cost 10% of the cost of a regular divorce. Mediation is the way to go. Additionally, Loyola and other law schools have programs where people can go to and get free advice. As a client, you need to go in knowing what needs to get done and have your homework ready (including financial data, etc.). She encourages clients to constantly do a cost-benefit analysis of their actions. Ask yourself, “How much is this day in court going to cost me? How much would mediation cost me?” To find out more about Arianna’s services, please visit www.ajmediation.com.

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Due to his training in social work, Bill had insights as to why people behave the way they do. As a lawyer he noticed that the high-conflict court cases were driven by the dynamics of personality disorders. The characteristics of these types of disorders include: all or nothing thinking, unmanaged emotions, extreme behavior, and a preoccupation of blaming others.

Segment 2: The High Conflict Personality.  Traits and disorders are a distinction that mental health professionals use that are not significant to the average person, which is why Bill began using the term “high conflict personality.” Although HCP people can look and seem normal at times, they are much more likely to get stuck in a conflict or be triggered by the environment around them.  HCPs are preoccupied with blaming others, and they tend toward all or nothing thinking. Their solutions are extreme and unpredictable.

Segment 3: The C.A.R.S. Method.  When dealing with someone who is a High Conflict Personality, one can manage the relationship by using Bill’s CARS method. The CARS method addresses the 4 key areas of difficulty that people have when dealing with high conflict personalities.

C – Connecting. Form a positive connection with these folks (which can be counterintuitive at times).

A – Analyze. Shift away from emotions to problem-solving. “Let’s look at our options here. What do you propose?”

R – Respond calmly to inaccurate information or hostile communications by using a “BIFF” response: brief, informative, friendly and firm.

S – Set Limits. HCPs can’t stop themselves. We must let them know what the consequences of their actions will be. Educate them and let them have a choice. It’s not personal; it’s about policies, or rules, or external circumstances.

Segment 4: www.highconflictinstitute.com.  The more you think about all these steps and practice them, the easier it becomes. To learn more about Bill’s invaluable work and the High Conflict Institute, please visit http://www.highconflictinstitute.com/.

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Segment 1: It’s Not All About the Fight.  Mediation is a process by which a neutral party helps people in conflict resolve their issues and move forward in peace. To speak about mediation and how it is used within the legal system we are interviewing Jan Frankel Schau, of Schau Mediation on this edition of The Doug Noll Show. Jan has over 20 years of experience as a litigator, and is also a public speaker, an author, and a mediator (http://schaumediation.com/).

Jan was always drawn to the drama and the narrative of law. Her involvement in mediation happened by accident, when she took a class for continuing education units. She soon discovered that mediation is different in the sense that it has two sides of the story, and the other side might have merit if you dig deep enough. She found with mediation that she didn’t have to be so narrow-minded or laser-focused on whomever had hired her as a lawyer. With mediation, it’s not all about the fight and the win; it’s about solving problems and moving forward.

Segment 2: A Heart Shift.  As Jan dove deeper into mediation she had what she calls a “heart shift” from fight and defend to “let’s work it out.” At that point she knew she was no longer an effective advocate, except for peace and conflict resolution. She didn’t have the fight in her belly anymore.

Lawyers who haven’t been property trained in mediation tend to cram human conflict into a narrow box of legal rights and remedies and processes and procedures, which strips away what makes people human. Mediators have an acceptance of the fact that there can be two truths. Instead of a YES BUT, it could be a YES AND. And out of those two stories emerge a new story of hope and peace.

Segment 3: Middle of the Road.  Jan’s newest book is titled View from the Middle of the Road: A Mediator’s Perspective on Life, Conflict and Human Interaction. It started as a personal self-reflection activity, and turned into a book of real stories with fictionalized characters, plus proven tools and rules for mediators and lawyers. To find out more about Jan’s book, visit http://viewfromthemiddleoftheroad.com/.

Segment 4: Plenty of Room for Peacemakers.  Unfortunately, Jan thinks mediation is a concept that hasn’t quite permeated society yet, although she is seeing more and more innovative programs developed by people with skills in negotiation and conflict resolution. The services are extremely valuable but it’s difficult to get the word out that they are available. She reminds us that it’s important to pull yourself back as a mediator and really listen to your clients. The mediator essentially has two missions: to come to an agreement, and to acknowledge the human side of the conflict. Jan believes there is plenty of room for peacemakers within the context of law. Practicing law is not the only way to help people with their law issues. Visit http://schaumediation.com/ for more information about Jan and her services.

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Segment 1: Friedman Mediation. Our guest on this edition of The Doug Noll Show is Bruce Friedman. Bruce is a former partner at Bingham McCutchen, LLP, has more than 37 years of complex litigation experience in the insurance, financial services and products, and class action areas. He is also the founder of Friedman Mediation (http://friedmanmediation.com/). Bruce has been a practicing trial lawyer for many years, but found that his greatest satisfaction was in evaluating cases and trying to resolve them as quickly as possible for his clients. Mediation allows him to exhibit his natural ability to analyze legal issues as well as resolve matters in a timely manner.

Segment 2: Legal Negotiation. Doug and Bruce are both amazed by how little trial lawyers – even sophisticated and very experienced lawyers – actually know about legal negotiation. Generally speaking, they usually don’t understand the process and do not come to the session with a written concession agreement. Bruce has found the initial offer is often a shock, and it takes a long time for the parties to “get real” about what needs to happen in a mediation session.

Segment 3: Constructive Conversation and Creative Thinking. If a young lawyer came to Bruce and said he or she wanted to learn about working with a mediator, Bruce would first tell them to take classes to learn about the process. He would also stress that they should know their case, be prepared to discuss the case in a reasonable manner with the mediator, and be creative to find solutions to the case.  

Bruce reminds us that clients can win in mediation. They can win in the sense that they can sometimes get a better settlement in mediation then they would in a trial. Additionally, it’s an opportunity for the lawyers to engage in a much more constructive conversation than they generally get to do in the context of litigation, and to offer some very creative and out-of-the box thinking that is not allowed in court.

Segment 4: Take Advantage of the Mediation. Bruce is seeing a trend these days to cut expenses by settling cases and not incurring additional expenses by furthering the case and taking it to trial. There is an effort to cut legal budgets within corporations as well. He is also finding people are willing to mediate earlier rather than later. He doesn’t think experienced lawyers appreciate how important it is to try to get closure at mediation. They need to really take advantage of the mediation process. Having all parties present and available to speak with each other is not likely to happen in court, or ever again.

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The capacity to maintain a “non-anxious” presence within a conflict may be one of your most significant capabilities. Not only can this capacity enable you to be more clear- headed about solutions and more adroit in difficult situations but, a non-anxious presence will modify anxiety throughout the entire group. This aspect of leadership can sometimes do more to resolve issues than the ability to come up with good solutions.

Do not confuse a “non-anxious presence” with the idea of staying cool under pressure. A non-anxious presence is a true state of inner calm. You are connected to your people, but detached from their swirling emotions. Peacemakers are like transformers in an electrical circuit. To the extent that they are anxious themselves, when anxiety in the peacemaking session permeates their being, it potentially comes back into the session at a higher voltage. Consequently, to the extent that they can recognize and contain their own anxiety, they function as a step-down transformer or perhaps as a circuit breaker. In this case, their presence, far from escalating conflict, actually serves to diminish its destructive effect. 

Two aspects of non-anxious presence are worth highlighting. The first is playfulness.  Anxiety’s major tone is seriousness, often an affliction in itself. It is always content- oriented. Its major antidote is playfulness, especially with those for whom you feel responsible. Your capacity to be paradoxical, challenging, earthy, sometimes crazy, and even “devilish,” often can do more to loosen knots in a peacemaking session than the most well-meaning “serious” efforts. This is not because being paradoxical affects the content in the heads of others (reverse psychology), but because the act of being playful frees others by forcing them out of their serious “games.” I have gotten up from a table in the midst of a very heated dialogue between counsel and stepped into a nearby wastebasket. I stood there until they looked up, incredulously. A fifty-year-old man dressed in a dark business suit, standing in an office wastebasket was too much for them.  I grinned at them, they laughed, and the dialogue loosened up. We take ourselves way too seriously in our conflicts and in our efforts to resolve them. This is not to say that peacemaking is not serious, difficult work. It is. But we cannot get too carried away with it. When you have to assume the mantle of peacemaker, keep the load light when you can.

The opposite of playful functioning, which is most likely to heighten the seriousness in a system, is diagnostic thinking. Diagnostic thinking tends to increase polarization, intensifies anxiety, and is the natural manifestation of anxiety. When you become over-analytical, you become anxious about you own analysis. Am I right or not? Will I solve this conflict or not? The parties will pre-consciously sense your seriousness and will misinterpret it as worry or concern.  Their anxiety will skyrocket, with the usual, predictably negative conflict behavior. 

The other aspect of “non-anxious” presence is hope. If the conflict is escalated enough for a peacemaker to intervene, the parties have probably lost any hope that it can be resolved, not to mention transformed. Maintaining a “non-anxious” presence exudes confidence in the parties that they can, together, work themselves out of the conflict. Most importantly, it gives the parties hope. With hope, they will try harder, be more engaged in the peacemaking process, be less competitive and adversarial, and ultimately find the solutions they need. They can be skeptical about outcomes and wary about the peacemaking process. As long as you provide them hope by maintaining your “non-anxious” presence, they will come through. 

Douglas E. Noll, Lawyer to Peacemaker

Creator of Negotiation Mastery for the Legal Pro

California Lawyer Magazine, California Attorney of the Year 2012

Hierarchies are formed through a quiet, usually unconscious, struggle as people sort out who will be superiors, inferiors, and equals. If you look closely at any group, you will see a hierarchy. One person has more respect or popularity or responsibility, and is therefore a “superior.”  Others, usually followers or subordinates, are “inferiors.” People of equal rank are “equals.” The terms “superior,” “inferior,” and “equal” should not be confused with worth of a person. In this context they refer simply to social ranking within a group.

Most of the time, hierarchies are benign and useful. However, superiors can abuse their positions. Likewise, inferiors can ineptly not “fit in.” In our culture, individualism and egalitarianism is so highly regarded, and the notion of hierarchy is distasteful. Thus, most people either overlook or deny the existence of hierarchy. This social blindness can be a mistake. 

People develop their positions in hierarchy through roles and status. Every individual portrays multiple roles deriving from the various communities in which he participates. A person may be superior in one community, but an inferior in another. The complexity of society requires that each person play many roles, alternating between superior, inferior, or equal, within hours or even minutes of each other.

Within a hierarchy, successful role-playing is determined by how well we deal with our superiors, inferiors and equals. We learn these hierarchical social skills as children. Our parents are our first experience with absolute authority. We play before our parents, bring things to them, and entice them to play hide and seek. In this way, we learn to attract and hold the attention of our first significant audience. However, until we learn how to play other status roles, especially roles with equals, we will relate to superiors and inferiors as we learned to relate to our parents. 

Learning other status roles comes from learning manners. Through dress, gesture, speech, and bearing, we indicate to others and to ourselves where we belong or want to belong in our society. All manners are a dramatization of the self, telling others how we want to be regarded and how we regard others. Manners are the daily language of hierarchy, and the absence of manners signifies the absence of social order.

These concepts allow us to consider some causes of conflict. First, conflict arises when people are ignorant of the basic social forces that compel formation of hierarchies. Thus, they do not perceive that a role appropriate in one context or hierarchy is completely inappropriate in another. When people do not enact expected roles, groups act quickly to either force conformity or expel the offender. Conflict can be transformed in these cases when people become conscious of the hierarchies within their lives, and adopt behaviors appropriate to the role of the moment.  

Conflict over bad manners arises from the belief one is not really important in the eyes of the transgressor. A faux pas made out of ignorance (and soon corrected) will be readily excused. With a faux pas, the importance of manners as a social bond is not challenged. Likewise, people laugh at a comedian’s vulgarity so long as what they feel important is not threatened, but people become uncomfortable with savage ridicule or continued vulgarity because this conduct endangers the social order upon which manners are based.

Much conflict derives from poor training in status communication. People want to communicate effectively with superiors, inferiors, or equals, but, because of a status difference, often do not know how to do so. An employee may have a difference of opinion with a supervisor, but may not know how to address that person effectively. Similarly, a superior may not have sufficient skills to communicate effectively to subordinates. Likewise, equals may have difficulty expressing concerns or differences with equals. These are all examples of deficient status communication skills. If a person’s social experience precludes open discussion of differences with equals and superiors, he cannot be expected to welcome it. Thus, inability to deal with hierarchical differences leads to conflict avoidance, anger, frustration, shame and guilt.  

If you are facing a conflict situation within a work group, discern the underlying hierarchy. What are the roles of each of the members? Who is superior? Who is inferior? Who are equals?  What is expected of each role? Is the individual behavior consistent with the role in the hierarchy? If not, is the individual aware of the dissonance between behavior and role? If not, is the problem one of insufficient skills in status communication or possibly bad manners? If the individual is aware of the dissonance, a power struggle may be occurring.

Douglas E. Noll, Lawyer to Peacemaker

Creator of Negotiation Mastery for the Legal Pro

California Lawyer Magazine, California Attorney of the Year 2012

For others, however, peace in the workplace means that employees feel respected, are cooperative with one another, are enthusiastic about what they do, and have a sense of teamwork. They love coming to work and value their friendships. I get excited about this kind of peace.

If peace means the absence of conflict, then both concepts of peace are accurate. But clearly they are not the same. One way of distinguishing types of peace is to consider the idea of negative peace versus positive peace. Negative peace is generally defined as the absence of overt conflict or violence. A ceasefire in Bosnia is negative peace. In the corporate setting, a negative peace may exist when all expressions of disagreement or conflict are suppressed. Employees put on their “happy” faces, pretend to get along, and avoid raising uncomfortable or difficult subjects for fear of angering the boss. The absence of conflict or violence does not lead to a positively defined condition. Hence, peace is characterized as negative. 

Positive peace, on the other hand, may parallel the ancient concept of shalom. Every person is valued and feels valued. There is a right relationship between each member of the work group.  Not only is conflict absent, but an esprit d’corps seems to exist. People are motivated by each other and strive for excellence. A balanced blend of personal, internal competition (How can I improve?) and external cooperation (How can I help the other person do better?) predominates. People are excited about their work. They feel privileged that someone is paying them for what they do.

Most workers would prefer to have positive peace around them. Yet most work environments are satisfied with negative peace. For example, I asked a company president if her company had a peaceful environment. She indignantly said yes and challenged my implication that her company’s environment was hostile. Of course, my question was purposefully unfair because I did not distinguish between positive and negative peace. I then asked her if the peace within her company was positive or negative. She was nonplussed by the question. When I explained the difference, she thought for a moment. To her credit, she admitted that her company probably maintained a negative peace.  

Why do most companies have negative peace? First, companies seek an interpersonal goal of absence of conflict. Absence of conflict is comfortable because anxiety is reduced and a sense of control prevails. After all, overt conflict means anger, loud words, and imminent loss of emotional and possibly physical control. One of our dominant cultural norms dictates lack of emotion, rationality, control, and repression of emotion so as not to be frightened with potential violence. Companies also seek a kind of corporate homeostasis or status quo. Maintaining status quo requires less effort, less thinking, less resources, and less creativity. Any strategy reducing difficult objectives appeals to many over-worked managers. 

Third, companies focus on the financial bottom line or the stock price. The payoffs from the efforts required for a positive peace are not easily related to the current value of stock options.  Thus, the minimum socially and legally required effort to maintain peace becomes the standard human resources objective.  

Imagine, however, how positive peace might operate on a company’s stock value. Employees would be easy to recruit because the company holds a reputation as good place to work.  Retention would not be as difficult. When restless employees compare their environment to other opportunities, positive peace wins. Since most companies have negative peace, the competition for retention favors the few who foster positive peace. Positive peace increases morale, reduces absenteeism, increases creativity, and increases productivity.  People are, to put it simply, happier.

So why don’t companies work towards positive peace? Probably for the same reasons most companies are average financial performers: unawareness, apathy, insufficient human and financial resources, and lack of commitment. Those companies that do concentrate on positive peace find that their investment is rewarded by huge multiples in terms of recruiting, retention, productivity, and valuation in the marketplace. In other words, wealth is proportional to positive peace. 

Douglas E. Noll, Lawyer to Peacemaker

Creator of Negotiation Mastery for the Legal Pro

California Lawyer Magazine, California Attorney of the Year 2012

Escalation is charted in five phases, each having its own characteristics and triggers.   Stage One is part of normal, everyday life. Even good relationships have moments of conflict. These can only be resolved with great care and mutual empathy. In this stage, people look for objective solutions in a cooperative manner. If a solution is not found, especially because one of the parties sticks obstinately to his or her point of view, the conflict escalates.

In Stage Two, the parties fluctuate between cooperation and competition. They know they have common interests, but their own wishes become more important. Dealing with information becomes limited to favoring one's own arguments. Logic and understanding are used to convince or win over the opposing side. At this stage, each party does everything possible to not show weakness. The temptation to leave the field of argument increases until the conflict escalates because of some action taken by one of the parties. 

By entering Stage Three, the field of concrete actions, the parties each fear that grounds for a common solution is lost. In other words, they lose hope for a reasonable outcome. Interaction becomes hostile. All logic is focused on action, replacing fruitless and nerve-wracking discussions. The parties each believe that through pressure they will change the other party. At the same time neither is prepared to yield. At this level, stereotyping is applied as a negative identification of the opponent. Power becomes important as empathy disappears.  

At Stage Four, the parties’ cognitive functioning regresses. One is aware of the other’s perspectives, but is no longer capable of considering the other’s thoughts, feelings and situation. How often have we remarked that parties in conflict are acting like children?  In fact, they are because of the escalation. Both sides feel forced into roles from which they see no escape. If the conflict cannot be halted at this stage, the escalation undergoes a dramatic increase in intensity. Escalation results when one side commits some action that is felt by the opposite side as a loss of face. 

At Stage Five, progressive regression appears in the form of a comprehensive ideology and totalizing of antagonistic perspectives. Sacred values, convictions, and superior moral obligations are at stake. The conflict assumes mythical dimensions. Sometimes the parties have fantasies of omnipotence, seeing no way that they can lose in court. In psychological terms, the escalation has reached a hallucinatory-narcissistic sphere. The entire self-conception is drawn into the conflict such that individual perceptions and evaluations disappear. By threatening and creating fear, both parties strive towards total control of the situation and thereby escalate the conflict further. To remain credible and to restrain the enemy from an act of force, the threatened party feels compelled to commit acts of force itself. This process continues until the parties reach financial or physical exhaustion, or the matter is decided in the courtroom.

At some point along the way, the parties may seek mediation. The difficulty of an escalated case is that the parties must be walked back through the stages of escalation.  If a mediator is not aware of the escalation cycle and assumes that the parties are at Stage One, the mediation is doomed to failure. Furthermore, working back through the escalation stages takes time and infinite patience. The parties may backslide and regress.  Oftentimes, the parties resist the mediator’s efforts to move them into more mature levels of escalation. This behavior is very similar to parents working with children who have temporarily regressed. Sometimes, one party will move to an earlier stage of escalation faster than the other, creating more complexity. Thus, the mediator’s function is to act as a guide for the parties, assisting them in finding their way to the common ground of Stage One. Only when the parties have reached Stage One will they be ready to find a common ground for resolving the conflict. 

Douglas E. Noll, Lawyer to Peacemaker

Creator of Negotiation Mastery for the Legal Pro

California Lawyer Magazine, California Attorney of the Year 2012