Free Telephone Seminar from Dina Lynch Eisenberg

In celebration of Conflict Resolution Day (The third Thursday of October annually – this year it is Oct. 16th) Dina Lynch Eisenberg of ADRPracticebuilder.com is offering a free telephone seminar:

Mini-website: A Mediation Marketing Secret Weapon

Learn more about what is a mini-site, why it works so well for mediators and how to find a good designer in this interview with graphic designer, Heather Coleman of Custom Graphic Designs. Bring questions to this free teleseminar in celebration of Conflict Resolution Day!

Thursday, Oct 16th 12:30 p.m. EST
60 minutes
Dial In Number: 1 218 339-2626 code 638938#

The seminar is free, however, long distance charges apply.

It promises to be an interesting discussion of a useful marketing technique.

Friday Funny – I’m thinking about a tattoo

What do y’all think?

Get your own knuckles at the knuckle tattoo gun.

Facilitative? Transformative? Evaluative? Whatever gets the case settled?

Geoff Sharp and Vickie Pynchon raise some interesting points in their posts today. Geoff asks, “Can settlement orientated mediators like me cherry pick from transformative process?” Vickie suggests that it is more complicated than simply using the right mediation “process.”

I’ll be frank, I know little about “transformative” mediation, and I bet few of you do as well.  According to one site linked by Geoff, transformative differs from the “other” type of mediation-problem-solving. The site explains:

The goal of problem solving mediation is generating a mutually acceptable settlement of the immediate dispute. Problem solving mediators are often highly directive in their attempts to reach this goal–they control not only the process, but also the substance of the discussion, focusing on areas of consensus and “resolvable” issues, while avoiding areas of disagreement where consensus is less likely.
* * *

The transformative approach to mediation does not seek resolution of the immediate problem, but rather, seeks the empowerment and mutual recognition of the parties involved. Empowerment, according to Bush and Folger, means enabling the parties to define their own issues and to seek solutions on their own. Recognition means enabling the parties to see and understand the other person’s point of view–to understand how they define the problem and why they seek the solution that they do. (Seeing and understanding, it should be noted, do not require agreeing with those views.) Often, empowerment and recognition pave the way for a mutually agreeable settlement, but that is only a secondary effect. The primary goal of transformative mediation is to foster the parties’ empowerment and recognition, thereby enabling them to approach their current problem, as well as later problems, with a stronger, yet more open view.

My clients do not hire me (or if I may generalize) any other mediator in this market to “foster empowerment and recognition, thereby enabling them to approach their current problem, as well as later problems, with a stronger, yet more open view.” Mediators are hired to help parties reach a resolution.

That does not mean, however, that the techniques and theories of transformative mediation cannot be useful. Again, I am learning on the fly here, but what I have read so far about transformative technique does not seem revolutionary. A little “touchy-feely” maybe, but clearly not as mutually exclusive as the “founders” would like you to believe.

What I find somewhat amusing is the fact that a field (mediation in general) that promotes self-determination, communication, openness , collaboration and problem solving can be so fragmented and territorial. I, for one, will not reject a useful technique because it does not promote some ideological goal. Mostly because I have no ideological goal. I’m there to help the parties and if that means they want to “transform” their relationship, more power to them.