The most recent addition to the World Directory of ADR Blogs project is CResearch, the directory’s first blog devoted to conflict resolution research, news, and commentary.

Published by John Windmueller, Assistant Professor at the University of Baltimore’s Center for Negotiations and Conflict Management, CResearch was created to further discussions and information sharing between conflict resolution researchers and practitioners.

As John explains, “[W]here possible I’d like to see the division between practice and research blurred, with practitioners becoming more empowered and able to integrate research into their everyday work. Toward that, the site will share techniques, tools, and tips for practitioners interested in following their curiosity and bringing more rigorous evaluation and learning into their practice.”

I invite you to join me in welcoming John to the ADR blogosphere.

I’m always on the lookout for blogs to add to the World Directory of ADR Blogs‘ growing catalogue. If you wish to add your blog or someone else’s to the Directory, please let me know. It’s a commercial-free site, and there is no cost to be listed. The Directory has information on submitting your blog and submission guidelines.

This is a web site you’ve got to see to believe–for a fee, you can arrange for an alibi or excuse for any occasion. From the web site:

We all encounter sensitive situations in our life. These may include family problems, social issues, work or financial difficulties. When you don’t want to involve your close friends and relatives for privacy reasons it is time to contact Alibi Network. Let us be your Privacy Partners.

Is it proof of humankind’s enormous capacity for deception, or evidence that people will go to any length (and expense) to avoid an argument? You decide.

Visit the Alibi Network to see for yourself.

A recent press release from Jim Melamed at Mediate.com reminds me of the words from the 1969 Who classic: “We’re Not Gonna Take It“.

It’s mediators who aren’t taking it any more, and what they’re not taking is the failure on the part of world leaders to engage in effective negotiations to defuse once and for all the crises breaking out around the globe.

From the press release:

Senior Mediators Release Statement Urging Effective Negotiation Approaches

There comes a time when even mediators will speak up. Mediators are conflict resolvers who help others to resolve conflict in a voluntary and constructive way. Mediators are normally quiet, priding themselves on their impartiality and neutrality. Now, however, over 75 of the world’s leading mediators have “had enough” according to Mediate.com CEO Jim Melamed, and have signed a statement urging that community, national and global leaders engage effective negotiation and mediation approaches. Here is the text of the Mediators’ Statement developed at the recent Senior Mediators Conference in Keystone, Colorado:

Given that the world is confronted with real and perceived threats from several international arenas we, the undersigned, urge that citizens of our nations insist their elected and appointed government officials immediately engage in honest, direct and unconditional negotiations with all authorities and powers who can resolve these pending crises in ways that are equitable and practical for all concerned without sacrifice to national sovereignty or security. As citizens of the world and as professional negotiators and mediators we urge that proven conflict resolution processes be employed now.

To show your support , visit the web site for the International Coalition of Concerned Mediators at www.concernedmediators.org.

Pass it on.

With Conflict Resolution Day just around the corner (October 19, in fact), conflict resolvers may be interested to know that today marks the official release date of the video game Bully, produced by Take Two Interactive Software, Inc. under its Rockstar Games label.

Bully depicts the adventures of teenager Jim Hopkins as he stands up to the obstacles–social, educational, and physical–that await him at fictitious private school Bullworth Academy (motto: canis canem edit—dog eat dog).
(For a post last year from this blog that covered Bully and pop culture depictions of conflict, please read “Seeing ourselves: conflict and negotiation in popular culture“.)

Many months before its release, angry parents, lawmakers, and educators on both sides of the Atlantic denounced Bully and called for an outright ban on its distribution and sale in protest of its purported glorification of high school violence–before any of them had even seen the game first-hand. One attorney, Jack Thompson, a conservative crusader against violence and sex in the media, is currently seeking to have Bully deemed a public nuisance in violation of Florida law.

Surprisingly, however, media and gaming experts who previewed the game report that Bully in fact has little violence. Clive Thompson, author of the blog Collision Detection, had this to say about Bully in a recent article on Wired.com:

It turns out the game doesn’t glorify bullying at all.

Indeed, it’s almost precisely the opposite.

…Instead, most of your early missions involve you defending the helpless: Escorting weak-bladdered nerds past phalanxes of threatening athletes, or sneaking into the girls’ locker room to retrieve an essay that popular cheerleader stole from a helpless she-geek…

Bully, however, may be subversive in ways that its opponents didn’t anticipate. According to Thompson, Bully functions as no-holds-barred polemic on the rigid social hierarchies and daily injustices that high school life is susceptible to:

Peel back the hood on the ludic violence, and Rockstar’s games have a surprisingly consistent moral view: Those with power will inevitably abuse it. It is a conclusion that would not displease Thomas Hobbes, or even Thomas Jefferson.

That’s why Bully is, in many ways, the ultimate Rockstar game. By turning to high school, the designers have found the perfect locale for exploring the cliquishness, unfairness and brutality of everyday society.

Which proves once again that things are not always what they seem.

Regular readers may remember “What’s bugging us: Cockroaches rival humans in ability to make decisions as groups“, a post that signaled my return to blogging following a brief break.

I now return to blogging at the end of a similar break. Therefore, it seemed somehow fitting to do so with a post that explores a related theme. This one concerns not cockroaches, but an even lowlier lifeform: germs.

Not only do cockroaches work well in groups, but so, too, do bacteria, according to “A Biologist’s Listening Guide to Bacteria“, a recent story on National Public Radio, which featured an interview with Bonnie Bassler, a professor of molecular biology at Princeton University, who has made some intriguing discoveries regarding marine bacteria.

Bassler’s work demonstrated the capacity of these tiny organisms to actually communicate with each other. In studies done on glow-in-the-dark bacteria, Bassler and her assistants learned that

It turns out that when one of these bacteria is all alone, it doesn’t glow. After all, that would be a waste of effort because nothing could ever see such a tiny amount of light. But it does send out chemical signals that say, hey I’m here … and it listens back for other bacteria sending the same signal.

When enough bacteria are doing this, they know they have a quorum. All of a sudden, they light up and do all sorts of other things to act in concert, like a super-organism.

“So they turn on and off 100 different genes, to let them turn off behaviors that are good when you’re alone and turn on genes that are good when you are a community. And for reasons we don’t understand, the gene that lets them make this beautiful blue light is one of the genes they turn on,” Bassler says.

Okay, folks, if cockroaches and bacteria can communicate and work together, what’s up with us humans? Hmmm?

Another blog has joined the conflict resolution conversation and the World Directory of ADR Blogs.

The Storyteller and the Listener Online, edited by Holly Stevens of Oak Ridge, North Carolina, publishes two guest essays each month which explore, in its editor’s words, “the role of story and narrative in peacemaking, healing, bridge building and reconciliation processes in communities around the world.”

Readers are thoughtfully offered two versions: full graphics and text only. Archived essays may be found in the left sidebar of the full graphics edition.

I hope you’ll take time to listen to this creative and compelling new voice.

Remember, if you wish to add your blog or someone else’s to the World Directory of ADR Blogs, please let me know. It’s a completely commercial-free site, and there is no cost to be listed. The Directory has information on submitting your blog and submission guidelines.

Technorati tags: alternative dispute resolution, blogging, mediation, mediation blogs, conflict resolution

Riverhouse ePress, founded by Ron Kraybill, a trainer and advisor in conflict transformation and peacebuilding since 1979 and an Associate Professor of Conflict Studies at Eastern Mennonite University, announces the release of free review copies of Style Matters: The Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory.

The inventory is a recently developed five-styles-of-conflict inventory used by business managers, organizational consultants, and conflict resolution trainers worldwide to teach personal conflict management skills. What makes this inventory unique is its ability to recognize cultural diversity among its users.

The 22-page instrument sells for $3.95 per copy in quantities of one hundred or more. A free trainer’s guide is available on the publisher’s website. Trainers and consultants may request a free review copy in PDF form, by sending an email indicating their organizational affiliation to StyleMattersOffer@RiverhouseEpress.com. A PDF file will immediately be forwarded.

For more information, you can visit the Riverhouse ePress web site.

Riverhouse ePress’s founder also publishes the latest addition to the World Directory of ADR Blogs, Paxblog: Alternative Perspectives on Security and Peace, which reflects blogger Ron Kraybill’s 25 years of experience in international peacebuilding efforts.

(Fans of personality tests should visit these earlier posts from Online Guide to Mediation: “Test of character: using instruments to probe conflict styles and moral intuition“, “Hidden agenda: online test reveals conscious and subconscious bias“, “Let’s face it: testing your understanding of facial expressions“, and “New world order: new web site promotes ‘culturosity’“.)

Regardless of one’s political views or on which side one stands in the terrible conflicts that have riven the Middle East, many of us are horrified and saddened by the death and destruction that have engulfed that part of the world.

Some have turned to the Internet to chart the geographic scale of the Israeli-Lebanese conflict, or to convey the reality of death toll figures along the Israeli-Lebanese border and in Iraq.

These are tragic events that unfold before us. Just when it seems that achieving peace is impossible, particularly between groups with a lengthy history of mutual hostility, hope arrives in the form of one remarkable community that has succeeded in transcending conflict.

A unique village in Israel bears two names, in Hebrew Neve Shalom and in Arabic Wahat al-Salam. In English the name means “Oasis of Peace“. Oasis of Peace is inhabited by Jewish and Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, who together “work for peace, equality and understanding between the two peoples”, according to its web site, exchanging culture, raising and educating their children, and co-governing.

More information about this remarkable community can be found on Neve Shalom ~ Wahat al-Salam’s page of frequently asked questions.

Grasping the devastating impact of violent conflict can be difficult, particularly for Americans who have not experienced ongoing full-out war on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor. It is hard as well to imagine the land where missiles and mortar fly or to understand the distances between the cities and towns named in this morning’s headlines.

One blogger, Andy Carvin, determined to map out the geography of conflict between Israel and Lebanon and to measure it against the contours of more familiar terrains, has created a short video which overlaps a map of the Middle East with a map of New England to understand better the scale of the distances between the regions. Andy observes,

For Americans who are used to countries being thousands of miles wide, it’s quite astonishing to realize what a compact area of land is affected by the fighting. For example, the distance between Haifa and Beirut isn’t much difference than the distance between Providence, Rhode Island and Lowell, Massachusetts.

You can view Andy’s video at his blog.

Technorati tag: conflict resolution

First safety-conscious (or fun-hating, depending on your perspective) school administrators banned dodgeball.

Next in their sights is tag, according to a story in USA Today, “‘Not it!’ More schools ban games at recess“.

Banning playground games like tag, however, may hold serious consequences for children’s social development:

Critics of the bans say playing freely helps kids learn to negotiate rules and resolve disputes. “They learn to change and to problem-solve,” says Rhonda Clements, an education professor at Manhattanville College.

(Thanks to the alert reader who sent me this.)

The University of Minnesota has produced an online guide designed to assist families prevent and address disputes over estates. Who Gets Grandma’s Yellow Pie Plate offers information and resources to aid families in making tough, emotionally fraught decisions over the inheritance of personal property.

There are free articles available as well on this site, along with some quizzes to assess your estate planning preparedness.

Mediators, however, will come away disappointed. Although this excellent site offers useful material and resources, mediation was somehow omitted from a web site created to assist families prevent, reduce, and address conflicts over estate-related issues.

(Thanks to Joel Schoenmeyer, author of the Death and Taxes Blog, for the link.)

In “Why Religion Must End“, a Beliefnet interview that will surely offend almost any person of faith, controversial author Sam Harris argues that the only way to end world conflict is for people to embrace reason over religion.

What do you think? You can read reactions to Harris’s interview here.

Among the tools that mediators bring to the negotiating table the most powerful may be reframing. In the words of Bernie Mayer, “The art of reframing is to maintain the conflict in all its richness but to help people look at it in a more open-minded and hopeful way.”

Reframing is also what gives successful entrepreneurs and business leaders the ability to see possibilities where others see problems. This model for problem solving is known as Appreciative Intelligence (AI), according to the two organizational design experts, Tojo Thatchenkery and Carol Metzker who describe and analyze its qualities and characteristics, along with methods for cultivating it, in a new book, Appreciative Intelligence: Seeing the Mighty Oak in the Acorn.

As this article from Ode Magazine explains,

Appreciative intelligence can be defined as the capability of perceiving the inherent generative potential within a situation at hand. Put simply, appreciative intelligence is the ability to see the mighty oak in the acorn. It is the capacity to see a strong trunk and countless leaves emerging from this small nut as time unfolds. It is a knack for seeing a breakthrough product, top talent or valuable solution for the future hidden in the present.

This should all sound very familiar to mediators.

Appreciative Intelligence grew out of Appreciative Inquiry, a method for engaging organizations and groups in developing and implementing positive change and achieving potential.

For more information on Appreciative Inquiry, you can visit the Appreciative Inquiry Commons web site.

(With thanks to Stephanie West Allen for introducing me to AI and for sharing many of these links. Stephanie is currently working on an interview with Carol Metzker for her blog, Idealawg, to be published soon.)

Via my friend Colin Rule comes news of a new conflict resolution blog published by Sanjana Hattotuwa, ICT for Peacebuilding, created as a medium for exploring “the use of Information Communications Technology (ICT) and its possible uses in conflict transformation and peacebuilding.”

Sanjana’s work breaks revolutionary new ground. As he puts it,

ICT is often associated with e-commerce or e-govenrment. A couple of years ago, when I first proposed possible linkages between ICT and peacebuilding, there weren’t many who took me seriously.

That’s changed with time.

ICT4Peace, though as yet embryonic, is soon gaining currency as an important field that’s distinct from other related domains of ICT, such as governance.

I helped setup InfoShare to pursue some of the possibilities of using ICT for peace in Sri Lanka in 2003. The on-the-ground experience of using technology in support of an on-going peace process is one that was without historical precedence or parallel.

Using this experience, I conducted my research in Australia on Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW), ICT and Peacebuilding. Throught my research, I explored ideas to bring together these seemingly diverse fields of theory and practice into a new spheres of collaboration.

At around this time, I was also introdoced [sic] to Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) - another interesting use of technology to resolve commercial disputes. My growing interest in ODR led me to push the boundaries of its theory and application - introducing it to the complex domains of ethno-political conflict and strategically envisioning future scenarios for ODR…

This blog is an attempt to cover issues on a regular basis that are of interest to me and a visionary and practitioner of ICT4Peace.

To view more of Sanjana’s research, visit his website.

Technorati tags: Blogging, conflict resolution, mediation, mediation blogs, online dispute resolution, technology

As a mediator helping people repair the damage that conflict has done, I have seen the havoc a single e-mail message can wreak. And as a corporate trainer, I have heard supervisors and employees alike complain about the lack of civility in e-mail messages from co-workers.

Paradoxically, e-mail’s advantages are also its shortcomings. The advantages? E-mail instantaneously delivers information and content. The downside? E-mail instantaneously delivers information and content. It is all too easy to blast off the blistering e-mail response that you typed in a ten-fingered fury. And once you hit “send”, there’s nothing you can do to take it all back.

The latest cautionary tale regarding the destruction that e-mail can unleash comes, alas, from the legal world. Lawyers and now this morning’s Boston Globe are buzzing over an e-mail exchange between two Massachusetts attorneys, one an experienced and respected practitioner, the other a newly admitted lawyer who turned down a job offer in a rather ill-advised way.

Despite its tremendous convenience and speed, e-mail is unfortunately no substitute for face-to-face communication, nor is it always an effective medium for dialogue. So, before you hit that “send” button, please consider the following advice from a mediator on how to make the most of e-mail:

It’s the Little Things That Count

One of the most frequent complaints I hear about e-mail is how downright unfriendly they sound. That’s because many people want to keep their e-mail messages short and to the point. That’s fine, but to avoid sounding abrupt, you may want to include the following touches:

• Start with a greeting–and remember to use the recipient’s name.
• A little small talk doesn’t hurt. You need only a handful of words to ask how they’re doing or to say you hope they’re well.
• Provide your contact information and encourage them to call you if there are questions. Remind them that there’s a real human being on the other end.
• End by signing off–whether it’s “Thank you” or “Take care” or “Very truly yours”, along with your name.

Speaking of “thank you”, words like “please” and “thanks” aren’t just good manners. They can also soften a request (even if that request is actually a direct order) and convey respect and courtesy–which still carry a great deal of weight even in these modern, multi-tasking times. Make your mother proud.

Is E-Mail the Best Way to Handle This?

If you’re about to fire off an angry e-mail, take a moment and think. Is e-mail really the best way to resolve this?

People who are conflict-averse like e-mail a lot because it seems like an ideal way to avoid a face-to-face confrontation. The problem is that e-mail usually makes things worse. Unlike a face-to-face conversation where we can gauge tone of voice, inflection, facial expression, and other cues to divine the real intent behind someone’s words, with e-mail we’re flying blind. It’s easy to make assumptions about what someone meant, and it’s also easy to mistake the impact of our own words.

If the e-mail has raised important issues, your chances of addressing them effectively and meaningfully will be increased if you take courage in both hands and speak directly with the other person. You’ll avoid and prevent misunderstandings if you do.

Get a Second Opinion

If you’re not sure about the tone of an e-mail message, get a second opinion. Have a trusted colleague or friend read it for you and give you their feedback before you send it. Be careful, however: make sure that this colleague or friend will respect your confidentiality. You don’t want your e-mail to be seen by the wrong eyes.

Keep The Focus on the Problem, Not the Person

This is a favorite expression of mediators everywhere, but this is no meaningless platitude. It actually works. Whatever you do, don’t make it personal. Stay away from adjectives that insult the other person’s character, work ethic, or personal habits. Focus on the problem. Explain its impact on you. Ask for a solution. And definitely avoid all caps–YOU DON’T WANT TO LOOK AS IF YOU’RE SHOUTING, DO YOU?

Think About the Long Term

Right now you’re angry. And undoubtedly it would feel good to e-mail exactly what’s in your heart. For maybe about 30 seconds.

But our actions hold consequences not just for today, but for tomorrow as well. I was struck by something the older and more experienced lawyer said in one of his e-mail messages to the young attorney: “You need to realize that this is a very small legal community…”

That wasn’t a threat–it was the truth. It was a reminder to her of how small the world is. Everything we do builds a bridge between us and someone else, or burns one down. You can be either an architect or an arsonist, it’s your choice.

In the end, relationships really do matter. And how we conduct ourselves in life has impact, when we are all in fact so closely linked. Before you send that e-mail, think about what it may mean for you years down the road. Will sending it mean the end of a business relationship? A friendship sabotaged? Is it really worth it? What’s the big picture? And what can you do instead that will make a positive difference for your future?

The You of Tomorrow will thank you.

And, for further reading, I recommend “How to Be a Mensch“, by Guy Kawasaki. (See also his terrific post on “The Effective Emailer“–with thanks to Jim Calloway for the link.)

The Boston Sunday Globe BostonWorks section regularly features The Corporate Curmudgeon, a column by Dale Dauten. Today’s curmudgeonly column asked, “Is anyone really listening in the office?”

It’s certainly a fair question.

And it’s actually a question I found myself asking last week as I suffered through one of the worst customer service experiences it’s ever been my misfortune to endure.

I got a phone call from a sales rep at a very well known telephone directory company. This past year, against my better judgment, I had decided to experiment with some phonebook and online directory advertising through this same very well known company. My online listing has never functioned properly, despite repeated calls to tech support. I basically derived about the same benefit from my advertising dollars as I would have had I simply flushed the cash straight down the loo. So in all fairness I have to say that I was not exactly in a receptive frame of mind to increase my advertising spending when the sales rep called.

The sales rep, however, did nothing to aid his cause. His main problem? He didn’t listen to me. Not to a single word I said. It was pretty obvious that he didn’t care what my needs were, since he never bothered to ask. Instead, he argued with me. And he interrupted me. The guy would not let me get a word in edgewise. And, worst of all, not only did he talk right through me, he talked down to me, too.

Thanks to his utter inability to listen, this sales rep succeeded in sabotaging whatever good will may have still existed between me and his employer.

Ironically, what he also succeeded in doing was to show me firsthand how important listening is–and how acutely its absence is felt when it doesn’t happen.

Certainly I understand that as a professional–it’s after all a large part of what mediators do. And I think that generally most people understand, in an academic kind of way, just how important listening is to business and social interactions.

But listening is more than just a theoretical exercise–it has real-world impact.

To see what I mean, read this post and this one by Patrick Lamb of In Search of Perfect Client Service, as well as this one by Bud Bilanich.

By the way, do you want to become a better listener? Take a mediation training. It’s a great way to learn and apply listening skills. And if you don’t have time to take a mediation training? Then try this:

1. Remove distractions. Listening and multi-tasking don’t mix.
2. Ask questions to find out what people are thinking. As Roger Fisher once said, “Statements get opposition. Questions get answers.”
3. Listen carefully to the answers. Really listen. Most of the time, instead of listening, we’re planning a snappy comeback or thinking of our next question. Let go of that–just open up your ears and listen.
4. Summarize in your own words what you’ve just heard.
5. Lather, rinse, and repeat.

Now go ahead and practice those listening skills on an unsuspecting colleague, friend, or family member. You’ll be amazed at how much you’ll hear.

As I have observed before—here and, more recently, here—optical illusions are of interest to mediators, particularly because of the way in which optical illusions, like mediation, challenge us to see things differently.

Optical illusions also pointedly remind us of the unreliability of our own senses and the degree to which human perception can be manipulated or altered.

For those of you who can’t get enough of optical illusions, Matthew Homann, president and founder of LexThink, an innovative law practice consultancy, and the author of the excellent the [non]billable hour, has a link on his blog to an especially mesmerizing one.

As numerous news sources reported today, two game theorists—one an economist, the other a mathematician, were awarded the Nobel Prize in economics yesterday. According to its press release, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences “award[ed] the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, 2005, jointly to Robert J. Aumann, Center for Rationality, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and Thomas C. Schelling, Department of Economics and School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA, ‘for having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis’.”

By the way, a great online resource on game theory for educators, students, professionals, and “geeks” (at least that’s what the web site says) can be found at GameTheory.net.

There’s plenty of interactive materials and games available for game theory enthusiasts, and even links to references to game theory in popular culture.

Games and game theory crop up frequently as topics in conflict resolution literature. Games, after all, are a great tool for teaching conflict resolution theories and skills, and game theory, which utilizes mathematical formulas to predict and understand complex human behaviors, can help shed light on conflict and collaboration.

I have several links to share with you for game and game theory enthusiasts. First games, then game theory.

Bill Warters, the author of Campus-ADR Tech Blog, has an enviable knack for discovering great web sites. Case in point: Bill recently blogged about the Distributive Justice Interactive Web Site, a fascinating project which examines notions of justice and fairness with respect to the distribution of goods and resources. It includes a game in which players can create their own distribution model. (Click on “enter” at the main page and place your cursor over the image of the gear.) You can also complete a survey, read about theories of distributive justice, or subscribe to the project’s newsletter.

There are some interesting insights into gaming in an essay by Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, which challenges the commonly held belief that video games are vehicles for promoting violence, and describes ways in which games instead are used to teach empathy or build understanding of other cultures.

This essay includes a link to Water Cooler Games, a forum for video games designed for purposes other than entertainment, which in turn leads you down the rabbit’s hole of gaming sites and other articles. This led me to The Better Business Game, in which players wrestle with social and environmental issues in the context of running a business; and the United Nation’s World Food Programme’s Food Force, in which players participate in 6 missions to address hunger in troubled regions.

Let’s turn now to game theory. Although game theory has been used to analyze human behavior in activities that include conflict and cooperation, it has also been utilized to weigh issues of grave consequence in today’s world: terrorism and counterterrorism. Several articles are available online that examine the use of game theory in examining these issues. Among these are:

A recently published article by Ronald D. Fricker, Jr., of the Naval Postgraduate School, asks the question “Game Theory in an Age of Terrorism: How Can Statisticians Contribute?” (Click here for either HTML or PDF format.)

There is also an article by Todd Sandler, “Counterterrorism: A Game-Theoretic Analysis,” which appeared in the April 2005 issue of Journal of Conflict Resolution, which can be downloaded in PDF format by clicking here.

I couldn’t resist the following headline from today’s Orlando Sentinel: Could barbecue succeed where mediation fails?

According to the story that followed, mediation has unfortunately been unsuccessful in a long-standing dispute between Volusia County, Florida, and the City of Deltona over Deltona’s intended annexation of 5000 acres of land. Therefore, in a moment of civic inspiration and Southern hospitality, a resident of Deltona has invited municipal and county officials over to his place to sit down and work out their differences over a plate of barbecued ribs.

My thought is—hey, why not do both? Mediate and eat barbecue? After all, if collaborative law, which envisions the use of a team of attorneys and other professionals, including financial planners and therapists, to help disputing parties resolve differences cooperatively, why not apply the same team-based approach to mediation–pairing mediators with barbecue pitmasters to break down barriers to agreement and foster collaboration?

All kidding aside, quite a few mediators I know make a point of feeding their clients, not only because providing coffee and pastry is a nice thing to do, but for other reasons as well. Consider that the act of breaking bread with another human being is deeply symbolic, a reminder of the link between each person at table. (Note that the English word “companion” is derived from the Latin words for “together” and “bread”, signifying “the one with whom I share bread”.) There’s anecdotal evidence to suggest there might be something to this: a friend of mine, a community mediator who works primarily with families with teenagers and who often bakes brownies and cookies for her mediation sessions, insists that there’s something about the aroma of freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies that puts everyone in a much more collaborative frame of mind–something which I can well believe.

Bon appetit. (And please pass the napkins.)