Case One Response (COMM 564 Ebo)

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CASE STUDY NUMBER ONE

Picture this scenario: You’re just returning from your lunch break when your boss walks up to you and tells you to pack your belongings. You’re fired. You stammer for an explanation. Did you mishandle an important project? Were you accused of embezzling company funds?

No. It’s because you’re fat.

Of course, immediately, I need to know some more clarifying information.

How do I know that I am being fired for what I’ll call obesity? What in my job requires that I must be of ‘normal’ weight? What is normal weight? Are we using a formula? Am I a dancer? Am I a model? Am I an athlete who needs to be in top physical shape to stay focused? Am I a trash person, who must be able to hang on to the back of a truck without fear of a quick turn? Is it part of a contract? Has anything actually been said to indicate that obesity was in fact the reason? The company is held, generally speaking, to a standard that prevents discrimination according to weight, which in this case might be coded as a disability.
I don’t think the case would stand very long in court or even be considered unless there is some factor which is not revealed in the case study, such as one of the scenarios I mentioned above, e.g. dancing, modeling, or some other work activity that requires the worker’s body to be of a certain fitness in order to do the work well. In this case, special care would have to be taken in the work agreement to measure what an ideal body was proportionally, in weight, and in tone, so that an objective analysis of the worker’s body could be shown to be outside of the margins of allowance. Otherwise, the scenario is akin to prejudice, in that bodily fitness has no impact of knowledge work, but may indeed be seen as having an impact on kinetic work.

I’d also add that I do not see it as very fair nor reasonable, even given a contract, that there not be an opportunity to make things right in the eyes of the contract. How many pounds out of the allowance are we? 20 pounds? 10? 10 pounds could be reasonably lost with a fitness and caloric regimen in 5 to 10 weeks. Can the work be held for that long? Is there some other task that the obese employee could do in the meantime?

John LeMasney

Case Study and Presentation

Final Case Study:

lemasney-case-study-natural-birth-revised (updated to reflect appropriate suggestions, thanks, Kathy!)

Final Case Study Presentation:

http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dckfm9fw_334gzztnmg6

Journal Entry New Directions Chapter 12

Personal Experiential Influence:

I found the idea of the recognizance of authority in mediation as counterproductive as a topic. I was especially conflicted (excuse the pun) about Twylen’s very well presented conversation topic on authority. I feel personally that authority is not necessarily attributed to either plaques, licenses, amount of books owned, length of time in position, or other external (extrinsic) indications of authority. I’ve found in that authority and expertise comes with experience and focused practice.

I know licensed drivers who should not drive, people in high titled authority who disgrace the position, and doctors who should not be in practice. In my opinion, the difference between a great practitioner of technology, for instance, is not the length of time that they have been a titled technologist, or a doctorate in technology, but rather what they’ve done in terms of development, discovery or practice regardless of the time that they’ve spent as a technologist.

It also seems to me that expertise and authority also has to do with the love attributed to craft by a practitioner. The presence provided for tasks at hand. If you do not love the work, or if you are not present in practice, your auhority and expertise are diminished.

Yes, when we walk into an office or other environment an it is full of books, diplomae, notes of thanks, and so on, we may be influenced to believe that the person in front of us is both experienced and of a certain authority. But if in the next ten minutes the discussion washes the diplomas from our thoughts and replaces them with feelings of doubt or even regret due to the way that the conversation has progressed, no amount of books with return the original superficial feeling of expertise and authority. Mediators are no different – the quality of their practice will most likely benefit most from a healthy regard (love) for the practice itself.

Moore, C. W. (1994). Mediator Communication and Influence in Conflict Management Interventions. In J. P. Folger & T. S. Jones (Eds.), New Directions in Mediation: Communication Research and Perspectives (pp. 209-221). Sage Publications, Inc.

Journal entry: New Directions Chapter 11

Personal Experiential Influence

This chapter talks about an 800 pound gorilla in the mediation chamber – the one that indicates that mediation theory in the transformative/relational tradition and mediation practice in the problem solving/individualist tradition are at odds, not speaking, and distrustful of one another – which is ironic, considering mediation might be a good way to bring about relatinal understanding between these two groups. They have so much in common – they want to help people, they want to resolve issues, and they want to take all the framing instances and find a common frame. However, because acting upon the criticisms and theoretical analyses of mediation might be considered experimental in real world practice, current mediator training is strictly focused on the practices and ideas that have come before. It is the antithesis of innovation, and seems much more like stagnation. Maybe what needs to happen is something like the case study that occurs in Chapter 12 concerning the Wolf population control issues in Alaska. If we could get critics, mediators, managerial 3rd party practitioners, and disputants who have both succeeded and failed in mediation to participate in a controlled dialogue on the issues of what’s right and wrong in individualistic vs. relational approaches to mediation, maybe we could all find something in common with other extant views.

Rifkin, J. (1994). The Practitioner’s Dilemma. In J. P. Folger & T. S. Jones (Eds.), New Directions in Mediation: Communication Research and Perspectives (pp. 204-221). Sage Publications, Inc.

Journal Entry: New Directions Chapter 10

Personal Experiential Influence

I found the focus on Community to be extremely interesting in this chapter, because in my quest for leadership opportunities, I have begun this year to pursue a leadership role in my neighborhood as a captain in the my neighborhood’s Community Group. I feel like I’ve been doing all of the right things: I advertise in a few different ways. I gathered feedback about what it was that people wanted out of the group. I established a regular meeting schedule with a neutral, comfortable space. I arranged for speakers. I developed and maintain a web site. I made phone calls and emails and mailing lists and committed myself. I drafted a strategic plan, vision and goals for the group, and got it approved, though not by a quorum, which is the key issue: attendance. Despite 400+ homes in our neighborhood, we struggle to get 15 people to attend each month. This chapter on community gives me some solace.

It talks about the needs of community: to invent the processes that allow people to live together, such as mediation. “Community members struggle with the traditions that bind them and the interests that separate them in order to realize a future that is an improvement upon the present” (Moore, 1996, pp. 198-199). I have found that our largest attendance numbers occurred right after something negative has happened in the community, such as a robbery or car theft. When these issues arise and there is a neutral or quiet response from police or other officials, we look to those around us who shared in the experience in order to help us make sense of it. I’m starting to think that our meeting schedule could become less frequent and perhaps we could begin performing mediations instead of simply meeting to review the police blotter. According to the strategic plan, the neighborhood wants a group that can help us to watch out for each other, perform our civic duty, and celebrate the beauty of the space where we live. Mediation might be a great way to provide some of those goals.

Moore, C. M. (1994). Why Do We Mediate? In J. P. Folger & T. S. Jones (Eds.), New Directions in Mediation: Communication Research and Perspectives (pp. 195-203). Sage Publications, Inc.

Journal Entry: New Directions Chapter 3

This chapter talks about the pros and cons of the storytelling metaphor of Mediation, in which a story is told by each side. Work is done by the mediators and disputants to weave a new tale that none would dispute.

This chapter talks about the potential issues with mediation’s storytelling metaphor. Cobb argues that the practice of storytelling and the content of each disputant’s story can be managed through mediation to be a powerful record of a more complete record of the truth between divergent disputant stories. The issue is that if the mediator is to stay outside of the realm of content building, how can they both shape the stories being told, while not being a storyteller themselves? I personally feel that this is the necessary balance that a mediator must be aware of and respect.

This chapter makes note of the idea that the truthful reality, the story as it appears in the mind of each disputant, and the way that it is mentally or verbally practiced and then told in mediation may all be completely different stories, and so it is the task of the mediator to be aware of all of these contingent potentialities, and to work to passively engage disputants in the task of aligning reality, their own story, the story of the other, and the stories being told in the mediation session, so that they all achieve commonality in the majority.

Of the utmost importance are coherence, or the common understanding and agreement of each story, closure, or the filling of gaps in stories, interdependence, or the ways in which disputants might feel the need to have mutually divergent stories in order to fulfill their role of disputant, and that mediation must be seen as a way of clarifying and commonizing stories on opposing sides of conflict.

It provides a way for each disputant to have a voice, participate, and reconstruct the individual’s tale into a relational, collaborative story. Through conflict stories, the individual view that precedes any sort of collaborative mediation work, we can find the differences between realities, and by knowing these differences in reality, we can begin to construct more whole, encompassing views of the conflict, in order to find commonalities, establish coherence, and reframe conflict stories into an acceptable narrative for all involved (pp. 52-54).

The reluctance for disputants to part with their ‘closed, written’ conflict stories and opt for an opened up, bidirectional, relational narrative makes sense. In opening ourselves up to question, alter, or reveal our inner reality for scrutiny can be emotionally dangerous, relationally imbalancing, and potentially conflict increasing, but it is also possibly essential as a process for digging down to the whole, acceptable reality of the conflict, one that shows and describes all sides of a disagreement (pp. 54-56).

Mediation’s place in narrative building is not as editor, but more I think as fact checker. The facts are checked by the disputants themselves as part of the inquiry process of mediation (pp. 58-61). If disputants can open up to see more than their own world view, and can further be engaged to the degree that they can realize and accept not only all of their own experience and narrative, but the experience and narrative of the other side(s), then mediation can be seated and see what agreements will come (pp. 61-62).

Cobb, S. (1994). A Narrative Perspective on Mediation. In J. P. Folger & T. S. Jones (Eds.), New Directions in Mediation: Communication Research and Perspectives (pp. 48-64). Sage Publications, Inc.

Personal experiential application:

I wonder if it would work to go beyond the idea of storytelling in conflict narratives to an idea of poetry writing in conflict narratives. I’m not talking about injecting rhyme or rhythm into conflict narratives, but rather an emphasis on the poetic premise of the emphasis on sense based, concrete, nonabstract imagery in order to provide a recording of an event in an unbiased way, so that the reader can in effect experience the event for themselves. For instance, if I were to say:

/I loved her hair/

it would not likely be very telling, or convey what love is, because love is something I might feel differently than others do. I might define my own sense of love in an unbiased way instead:

/her hair was dark, down to her elbows, very straight, and smelled of lavender./

You might despise long dark hair, and not care for lavender. Do you love her hair? It’s up to you.

I also wonder about the potential for an electronic coop caucusing feature where the disputants could still be in content visually and aurally, but in a more comfortable physical space, maybe the room next door, by way of videoconferencing, closed circuit TV, or even just a phone. This way the face to face feature of mediation would be preserved, but in the case of a physical dispute or one in which violence took place, there would be no danger of any violence taking place during the mediation, despite all parties being ‘present’.

What might the introduction of a discussion board or a wiki do, where the narratives get told in written form, saved and recorded each time for posterity and progress assessment, but then is given to the other disputant so that they could edit the story to make it ‘more realistic’ according to their own reality?

Journal Entry: New Directions Chapter 9

Chapter 9 in New Directions talks about the idea of mediation in the ‘workplace’, where the manager acts as the 3rd party, and the issues that this change brings.

In the chapter, a model is dissected in which 5 elements are considered for the analysis and application of managerial 3rd party mediation. The dispute scenario (nature, relationships, 3rd party experience & preferences), effectiveness criteria (intent assessment tools like efficiency, effectiveness, participant satisfaction, and fairness), third party role ( the approaches of the manager as mediator: autocrat, arbitrator, mediator, motivator, restructurer), outcomes (the result of the mediation: resolution/impasse, nature of agreement, disputant perceptions), and the organizational context (the state of the organization and the way it affects the conflict: history, culture).

Karambayya, R., & Brett, J. M. (1994). Managerial Third Parties. In J. P. Folger & T. S. Jones (Eds.), New Directions in Mediation: Communication Research and Perspectives (pp. 175-192). Sage Publications, Inc.

Personal Experiential Application:

Dr. Millen asks “Therefore, let’s begin the discussion tomorrow night by considering new metaphors, terms, or general frames that are designed to embrace and foster this transformative view of conflict and its resolution.”

I’ll participate as usual tonight, but I was very intrigued by this metaphor replacement, and had some thoughts I figured I’d share as my chapter journal entry. I feel like training implies that we have to apply mediation as though it were a single key that fits a single lock, and without that training that mediation has no chance to succeed.

I’m finding now, especially after reading chapter 9 on managerial third parties, that many of the aspects of transformative mediation can still exist and be useful and successful even though many of the rules (confidentiality, impartiality, neutral third party, professional emotional distance, etc.) may or may not be present.

I think one really useful metaphor for transformative mediation is ocean surf swimming, in which the mediator acts as a sort of lifeguard. Disputants get in to the turbulent water, go as deep as they feel comfortable with, go in any direction they like, progress at their own pace. There might be sharp shells in the sand underfoot, the waves might be a little bit too active, and there are jellyfish, but anything’s better than sitting out on the blazing sand. It hurts! The lifeguard might have swimming advice, might blow a whistle if things start to become dangerous, calling swimmers to come back in to a safer place. Not everyone knows how to swim in the same way – some people learn naturally, some take classes, and some go on to be Olympic surf swimmers. Some people are deathly afraid of water, and some people don’t mind pools, but are afraid of surf. How would training work with them?

Meanwhile, the activity of swimming can be a competition, but in this case, it’s just exercise, a way to feel better, it’s self-directed, and it only goes until the swimmer is satisfied. Unless the lifeguard suggests otherwise.

Journal Entry: Mediation Chapter 2

In this chapter, Mediation as a process is described and introduced, much in the same way we do in a very abridged way in the beginning of a mediation session. The ideal role of the mediator as facilitator, empowerer, and face manager (not judge) is described. The benefits of mediation, including convenience, effectiveness, preventative nature, relationship preservation and redefinition, and confidentiality are discussed, if in a somewhat biased way. The types of mediation are also discussed. At the end of the chapter there is an interesting exercise which asks us the look at one definition of mediation, and to dismantle it in order to see what aspects of the process are lost when those definitive elements are removed.

Domenici, K., Domenici-Littlejohn, & Littlejohn, S. W. (2001). Mediation: Empowerment in Conflict Management, Second Edition. (2nd), 198. Waveland Press.

Personal experiential influence:

Mediation: A confidential, voluntary process where a neutral third party facilitates negotiation between two or more parties with mutually acceptable agreement as one possible outcome (Domenici, et al., 1991, p. 43).

Without confidentiality, mediation could be embarrassing, fear generating, or hurtful to disputants.
Without being voluntary, mediation generated agreements might be less likely to hold.
Without neutrality, the mediator could have a powerful influence on outcomes they themselves want.
Without facilitation, mediation could degrade into chaotic name calling.
Without all parties present, mediation could reinforce barriers between disputants.
Without mutually acceptable agreements, they will be less likely to be actually agreed to by all parties.
With mandated agreements, disputants might be unwilling to accept outcomes.

Journal Entry: Mediation Chapter 6

This chapter focuses on the concerns in mediation practices, and specifically focuses on four concerns: Appropriateness, use of caucus, confidentiality, and ethics (p. 117).

Appropriateness refers to the ability to use mediation effectively in order to work to resolve a dispute. In some cases, such as these where disputants are being coerced to mediate, have a long standing reinforced distrust that mediation may fail to bypass, or where legal issues, abuse, or immense sums of money are involved, mediation may not be the best choice, though it may be a good starting point for beginning to encourage communication between parties on their way to other dispute resolution methodologies (pp. 117-121).

The use of caucus is a concern because it potentially works against the most effective aspects of mediation, e.g. bringing parties to the table, and engaging in face to face communication with openness and transparency (pp. 121-123).

Ethics of course is always a concern in mediation, since trust, openness, transparency, and commitment require that all parties are there in good faith, that the mediator is not leading the process, nor biased for or against any of the disputants. It is important that mediators are always asking themselves if they have lost their impartiality, and if so to remove themselves from the process or if possible, refuse their own biases and question their own assumptions (pp. 123-126).

Finally, confidentiality is a concern because without it, disputants may be reluctant to participate at all. In order to gain trust, open up, and focus on positive outcomes, it is important to be able to get all relevant information out on the table. That can only happen in some cases if that information goes no further than that room. The mediators must let everyone know up front (in the introduction) that information recorded during the mediation, (other than the agreement itself, if reached), will be destroyed and carried no further (pp. 127-129).

Domenici, K., Domenici-Littlejohn, & Littlejohn, S. W. (2001). Mediation: Empowerment in Conflict Management, Second Edition. (2nd), 198. Waveland Press.

Personal Experiential Influence:

The appropriateness of mediation in context is an interesting topic. I can think of several situations in which mediation would have been more or less appropriate in my life: Small hallway skirmishes in high school might have benefited from mediation, and small jobs in design, where I lost thousands of dollars in unpaid consultant fees, would definitely have benefited from the parties having the opportunity to voice their opinions. I’ve also encountered conflict in the car, where someone cuts me off, or fails to signal – it wouldn’t be apropos to bring that party into a mediation session, for instance. In the design case, We missed our day in court because we decided to stay out of court and use an conflict avoidance approach, but we might have agreed to mediation.

Journal Entry: Mediation Chapter 5

This chapter talks about the when and how of using the basic tools we learned about in Ch. 4. (p. 99) One question to keep in mind: “What do I want to accomplish, or what do I hope will happen, at this point in mediation?” (p. 100)

The concept of the goal triangle is introduced, in which we see the cooperative goals of building empowerment and recognition, building community consciousness, and building commitment. By engaging in mediation, we are perfectly enabled to meet these goals, whereas in other forms of dispute resolution, such as judicial proceedings, these goals are unrecognized and possibly unattainable. For instance if we are given a judgment against us, we may not feel particularly committed to it, but are coerced to follow the orders of the judgment. In transformative mediation, we collaboratively develop solutions and listen to others’ ideas for solution (empowerment and recognition), which potentially makes it easier to commit to them, because they are our collective solutions which benefit the disputants as well as others, potentially (community consciousness); the solutions are ours, and thus we own them (providing an easy path to commitment) (pp. 100-104).

In a section about appreciation, we are reminded to have disputants remember and try to celebrate what makes them interdependent: What is your best vision for the future? What would the situation be like without your differences? (pp. 104-105)

Co-mediation is discussed as beneficial in complex cases, cases where there is a lack of experience with mediation in one of the mediators, high tension disputes, longer sessions, etc. However, co-mediation can introduce problems as well, such as increased costs, and the potential for divergent mediation style (pp. 105-107).

The chapter then goes on to explore issues of diversity and cultural awareness. It suggests the following techniques for meeting diverse cultural needs in mediation. Expect different expectations, don’t assume understanding, listen carefully, seek ways to allow parties to appreciate each other, be patient, go for win/win solutions, do things differently. By keeping an open mind and watching for culturally influenced reactions, mediators can avoid potential new conflicts within mediation (pp. 108-114).

Finally, we are introduced to the LARC Model, which is a mnemonic acronym for listen, acknowledge, respond, commit. Figure 5.2 on page 116 describes the finer points of the LARC model, such as asking questions to clarify as part of the listen directive, and suggesting positive resources for change as part of the respond directive (pp. 114-116).

Domenici, K., Domenici-Littlejohn, & Littlejohn, S. W. (2001). Mediation: Empowerment in Conflict Management, Second Edition. (2nd), 198. Waveland Press.

Personal experiential influence:

I really enjoyed learning about the mediation Goal Triangle, in which we as mediators work on building empowerment and recognition between disputants, building community consciousness through the mediation process, and building commitment in the disputants, or rather helping them to build it themselves.

I think that building empowerment is mostly accomplished by allowing disputants to use their own voice to address the issues, rather than having the stroy told thorugh representatives, like in a legal proceeding.

I think that building recognition is accomplished by mandating active listening as part of the mediation process – what better way to get disputants to hear the others point of view than to require silent active listening and single speakers?

Community consciousness is almost a byproduct of mediation itself – if disputants find success in dealing with the conflict through mediation, they may take those newly found skills out into the world where they can begin to virally infect other conflictors with active listening, collaborative problem solving, and conflict as opportunity.

Because disputants use their own words, and agree throughout with reframed ideas, restatements, and respectful language, it is more likely than other forms of dispute resolution in gaining true commitment.