Southern California Arbitration Mediation and Conflict Resolution : Settle it Now Dispute Resolution Services : Serving Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Century City : Settle It Now Negotiation Blog

I was cruising around the blogosphere this morning looking for links to the prime directive of all negotiations -- know your BATNA -- when I ran across this great 2007 post by Penelope Trunk of the Brazen Careerist -- How to Negotiate When You Have Nothing to Leverage.  

Penelope suggests the weakest strategy available -- exchange power for sympathy.  "If one person has a great BATNA," writes Penelope, "and the other has a terrible one, it’s not really negotiations; it’s trying to get a little something extra. It’s asking for a favor. If you approach negotiations from this perspective then you are much more likely to get a little bit of what you want."

Two of the savviest negotiators around Deepak Malhotra and Max Bazerman in their tremendously practical book Negotiation Genius have devoted an entire chapter to Penelope's problem called, not surprisingly, Negotiating from a Position of Weakness.  Their recommended strategies include the following:

• Don't Reveal that You Are Weak

[H]aving a weak BATNA is not terribly problematic if the other side does not know that your BATNA is weak. If you have a weak BATNA, don't advertise it! 

• Overcome Your Weakness by Leveraging Their Weakness

[W]hen both parties have a weak BATNA, it means that the [Zone of Potential Agreement] is large.  In other words, a lot of value is created when the two sides reach an agreement.  Who claims more of this value? . . . [T]he one who fares better is the one who makes the other side's weakness more salient throughout the negotiation. 

• Identify and Leverage Your Distinct Value Proposition

[V]ery often, you do bring something to the table that distinguishes you from your competitors.  This is your distinct value proposition (DVP), and it need not be a lower price.  You may have a better product,, a higher-quality service, a good reputation, a strong brand, or a host of other assets that your [bargaining partner] values and that you can provide more effectively or cheaply than your competitors.  

• If Your Position is Very Weak, Consider Relinquishing What Little Power You Do Have (This was Penelope's strategy in the Yahoo negotiation subject of her post). 

[I]f you can't out muscle the other side in a negotiation, you may want to stop flexing our muscles and, instead, simply ask them to help you.  When negotiators try to leverage their power, others reciprocate.  This pattern can be disastrous when you are the weaker party.  But when you make it clear that you have no intention of fighting or negotiating aggressively, others also may soften their stance.

• Strategize on the Basis of Your Entire Negotiation Portfolio

[A]udit the implicit assumptions you make when formulating your negotiation strategy.  You may perceive yourself as being "weak" if you only measure strength as the ability to push hard in any given negotiation without losing the deal.  But you may discover that you are actually quite "strong" once you begin to think about your ability to withstand losing some deals because you are maximizing the value of your entire negotiation portfolio.

• Increase Your Strength by Building Coalitions with Other Weak Parties

In the realm of international relations, a vivid example of the power of coalitions surfaced during the 2003 World Trade Organization negotiations in Cancun, Mexico.  Disgruntled by the continued lack of attention paid to the issues of concern to developing nations . . . twenty-one "weak" countries banded together to create the Group of 21.  This group is now in a much stronger position to negotiate for the interests of its members than any member nation would have been on its own.

• Leverage the Power of Your Extreme Weakness-They May Need You to Survive

[I]t is often useful to tell the negotiation "bully" that an overly strong show of force can be counterproductive:  "If you push me too hard, you'll destroy me -- and lose a value-creating partner."

• Understand -- and Attack -- the Source of Their Power

A number of Planned Parenthood clinics around the country have adopted a particularly creative strategy for fighting back [against protesters], usually referred to as the "Pledge-a-Picket" Program.  Here's how it works:  The clinic asks its supporters to pledge donations to the clinic on a per protester basis.  The more protesters that show up to picket the clinic, the more money the clinic raises in donations! . . . The Planned Parenthood of Central Texas in Waco has even posted a sign outside its clinic that read:  "Even Our Protesters Support Planned Parenthood."

Once the Planned Parenthood clinics understood that the source of their opponents' power was the ability to draw large numbers of protesters outside the clinic, they were able to think of a novel way of diminishing the benefits of doing so.

Malhotra and Bazerman conclude their chapter on Negotiating from a Position of Weakness by noting that

while being in a position of weakness is sometimes unavoidable, you will negotiate most effectively when you leverage the fundamentals -- systematic preparation and careful strategy formulation.

 

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This morning's guest blog -- Eye of the Storm Leadership:  Mediation as Leadership and Leadership as Mediation -- is by Peter Adler, PhD, President of The Keystone Center and author of Eye-of-the-Storm leadership: 150 Ideas, Stories, Quotes, and Exercises on the Art and Politics of Managing Human Conflicts. 

Not long ago, Bob Benjamin and I offered a session at the ABA meeting in Seattle called “Beyond Orthodoxy: The Adaptive Mediator in a Perpetually Changing Marketplace of Clients, Needs, and Ideas.” The session, surprisingly packed to the gills, focused on new and alternative frameworks for mediation. 

We began with three assumptions.

First, we posited that mediators have become much too self-absorbed with rules, laws, titles, professional issues, and organizational matters.

Second, we noted that there is insufficient attention being paid to ongoing core negotiation issues and intervention dilemmas, as well as to the tensions surrounding competition, cooperation, and the deep human needs that attend conflict resolution.

Third, we stressed that it is time to take mediation to the next level in our popular and political cultures.

At the end of the session, one very thoughtful gentleman came up to me and said: “I like what you guys are saying but I really need to make a living. Much as I want to move our work to the next level, I have to focus on professionalization issues.”

But are the two incompatible? Not at all! 

Certainly mediators need to be concerned about fees, markets, specialties, certifications, associations, and affiliations. But there is a more important challenge, one that, if we meet it capably, will help advance our professional goals and simultaneously take our work to its zenith.

Quite simply, we must make our core mediation values part and parcel of the way leaders in the public and private sectors lead.  The creation of a widespread cultural mediation “pull” would necessarily both overtake and serve as the engine of our much narrower efforts at “pushing” settlement, resolution, and agreement in legal markets.

Mediators like to talk about “the field” or “the profession.”  But let's remember that our work is, at core, a passion. It is a shared calling that links us to millions of people worldwide who do not have the word "mediator" engraved on their business cards.

Most of people with whom we are so aligned have never been formally trained and don’t know what we are talking about when we slip into technical mediator-babble. Nonetheless they share the same passionate impulses and intellectual creativity as we do when they talk about the power of beneficial negotiation processes, the inclusion of diverse voices in our communities, and the ability of ordinary people to forge wise, effective, and tractable solutions to seemingly intractable problems.

In my work at The Keystone Center, I see these people all the time. Many of them are at the table grappling with the energy, environment, and public health cases and consensus building projects we work on. They come to assert their positions on reformulating food products, realigning the I-70 highway, or stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions and are stunned by their own progress. They open lines of genuinely new communication, form improbable alliances, and craft smart deals.

Tough as nails as negotiators, they also see the enormous value of collaborative problem solving. These same people are in positions to change our political and popular cultures. They hold influential positions in their companies, government agencies, and NGOs. They sit on library boards, church councils, and education commissions. They volunteer time to the PTA and sit on the boards of the local United Way. Some of them occupy elected or appointed to public offices. Others coach basketball teams, lead Rotary Clubs, or run neighborhood farmers' markets.  . 

We need to connect with these people, learn from them, pass our knowledge and experience to them, and help foster a new generation who can make the obvious links between the mediation skills we have learned and the native leadership work they are doing.

If we do that well, our political culture will flourish in new ways and business will boom.

______________________________

Peter S. Adler, Ph.D. is President of The Keystone Center, which applies consensus-building and cutting-edge scientific information to energy, environmental, and health-related policy problems. The Keystone Center also offers extensive training and professional education programs to educators and business leaders and runs the Keystone Science School in the Rocky Mountains.

Adler's specialty is multi-party negotiation and problem solving. He has worked extensively on water management and resource planning problems and mediates, writes, trains, and teaches in diverse areas of conflict management. He has worked on cases ranging from the siting of a 25-megawatt geothermal energy production facility to the resolution of construction and product liability claims involving a multi-million dollar stadium. He has extensive experience in land planning issues, water problems, marine and coastal affairs, and strategic resource management.

Adler has written extensively in the field of mediation and conflict resolution. He is the co-author of Managing Scientific & Technical Information in Environmental Cases (1999); Building Trust: 20 Things You Can Do to Help Environmental Stakeholder Groups Talk More Effectively About Science, Culture, Professional Knowledge, and Community Wisdom (National Policy Consensus Center, 2002); the author of Beyond Paradise and Oxtail Soup (Ox Bow Press, 1993 and 2000) and numerous other articles and monographs.

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I talk a lot in this blog about community; about the need for all of us to understand that when you drill a hole in the other guy's side of the boat, you sink too.  There's something about disaster on a grand scale that brings the best out in us -- creates heroes.  And maybe, if you're inclined to ask why "bad things happen to good people" the answer is that we need to be reminded of our common humanity; common fragility; and, our common obligation to serve as stewards of the planet and all life on it.

So it is with more than a small amount of pleasure that I announce the book launch for my good friend Cathy Scott's memoir of the heroic pet rescues that took place in the wake of Katrina.

Cathy was one of the "kids" in my neighborhood fom the time I was five years old until we all left the old neighborhood for our adult lives.  She was also a member of the first writers' group I was ever part of -- Sisters of the Pen -- a neighborhood "club" we started when I was in the sixth grade and Cathy just entering high school.

Only Cathy has truly fulfilled the dreams of that small group of children and teenagers.  This is her sixth or seventh book and the one that I just know is going to sell a million or more copies for her.

Nostalgia aside, here is the information on the book launch!  (for the r.kv.r.y. literary journal's special issue on natural disasters, click here).  

A book launch event will be held on Saturday, July 26, marking the national release of author Cathy Scott's  book, PAWPRINTS OF KATRINA: Pets Saved and Lessons Learned (to be released this summer by John Wiley & Sons).

The event will be held from 1:45 p.m. - 5 p.m. at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary's Welcome Center (5001 Angel Canyon Road, Kanab, Utah 84741, a 3-1/2-hour drive from Las Vegas). Refreshments will be served.

Attending and signing books will be actress and animal activist Ali MacGraw, who wrote the book's foreword, and photographer Clay Myers, who has more than 70 compelling photos in the book. Also signing will be police K-9 handler Cliff Deutsch, who is featured on the cover rescuing a dog.

On display at the Welcome Center patio deck during the event will be Ark, a full-sized replica of a flat-bottomed boat used to save animals from floodwaters. It was created by Cyrus Mejia, in-house artist and a co-founder of Best Friends . The 4-by-10-foot boat is covered in a unique collage of animal admissions forms (with rescued pets' pictures), photos from volunteers, satellite images of Katrina, maps of New Orleans and strips from pet product bags used during the rescue effort.

Volunteers from Katrina will be at the event, and many Best Friends staffers who worked in the region will be attending too, so it will very much be a reunion. While book signings are scheduled for other parts of the country (including New Orleans on the third anniversary of Katrina), this is the kick-off event and a great opportunity to visit the sanctuary.

To find out where to stay in Kanab, go to: http://www.bestfriends.org/atthesanctuary/angelcanyon/visitorfaq.cfm.

A new Holiday Inn Express has opened in Kanab (435-644-3100), so if the sanctuary cabins and cottages or other hotels are full, the new one will probably have openings. Summer is a busy time in the area, because of nearby Zion, Bryce and the Grand Canyon, and booking early is highly recommended.

If you'd like to take a free tour of the sanctuary, which sits on 33,000 acres in Angel Canyon with about 1,800 animals on any given day, you'll need to book a reservation by calling 435-644-2001, ext. 4537. Or, for more info, go to: http://www.bestfriends.org/atthesanctuary/angelcanyon/visitorfaq.cfm

To learn more about Pawprints of Katrina, go to: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470228512.html

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(right, the must-read Google Story) 

If the point of litigation is winning what is the point of settlement negotiations?  Winning, right? 

Wrong.  The point of settlement negotiations is to create durable agreements that sufficiently serve the parties' interests so that they will either stop bothering one another -- for which the LawGod created iron-clad releases -- or flourish in their mutual business venture.

I mention The Google Story in this post because it contains a small narrative about a  business deal that killed its host.  

In Google years, this story arises at the beginning of time -- the year 2000.  Back then, Google was renting space by the square foot in the air-conditioned warehouses that store online company "servers." Google's stripped-down, high-powered hardware was so small (took up so few square feet) and so powerful (used so much electricity) that its lessor's electric bills drove the warehouse out of business.  The narrative doesn't suggest that Google intentionally negotiated this deal to "get the better of" its bargaining partner.  Nevertheless, a truly competitive negotiator, on hearing this story, would likely experience a little adrenalin rush -- the agreement being quite literally a "killer deal."  

I tell this story because I want to begin a series of posts about competitive and collaborative negotiation in the context of "bet the company" commercial litigation.  At the same time, I want to suggest the need for specially designated 'settlement' counsel to work alongside of (but not with) the litigation team.  The Google story will have relevance to those issues as we proceed.

If I can free up a little of the time of my friend and colleague, AAA arbitrator and Judicate West mediator Jay McCauley to help me out, you'll be hearing from him on these topics during the next several weeks as well.

For now, I'm leaving you with this 2004 article, Negotiation is not a competitive sport by Steven P. Cohen, President of The Negotiation Skills Company in Pride's Crossing, Massachusetts, together with his concluding remark.  

Competitive negotiation yields winners and losers and reduces the likelihood that losing parties will be fully committed to the resulting agreement. If the agreement falls apart, the negotiation must be deemed a failure. If parties are compelled to fulfill their part of the agreement but end up with a bad taste in their mouths, they will approach future negotiations with the winner with reluctance, paranoia, and distrust. The long-term consequences of competitive negotiation are unfavorable, yielding reduced enthusiasm and commitment as well as damaged relationships. Negotiation is about how the parties are going to bring about added value from having worked together. It is not a competitive sport.

See also Hard Bargaining:  What's Machiavelli Got to Do with It at the IP ADR Blog here.

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I'll soon be teaching a short session on career development over at the Straus Institute with one of the hottest mediators in town --  the busily brilliant Lisa Klerman, formerly of Morrison & Foerster and for the past few years the head of the USC Law School's Mediation Clinic.

I have my own short list of practice development principles in How to Start a Mediation Practice.  These broad guidelines have taken me farther in the first four years of my mediation career than I should reasonably have expected though, of course, I remain impatient to simply be booked three months in advance right now! ("instant gratification takes too long").   Here they are:

1. be conscious, i.e., be alert to conflict escalation, the parties' needs and fears, and your own true goals and genuine strengths.
2. be teachable
3. be of service
4. always say "yes" to a mediation request
5. be the exception to any rule that would guarantee your failure

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention mediator and educator Tammy Lenski's meticulously crafted guide book to the perils and opportunities of mediation practice -- Making Mediation Your Day Job here, which I'll be putting on the bibliography list for Jack's class.  (Diane Levin's and my reviews of this book can be found here)

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, Lisa Klerman has passed along to Jack McCrory, guru to LL.M Dispute Resolution students over at Straus, the following article on business development for the final LL.M seminar before the students graduate from that program.  It is well worth re-printing here.

Yes, There Is Money in Mediation! Ten Success Secrets from Top (Non-Starving) Mediators.

It isn't exactly easy to make big bucks as a mediator, but industry standout
Jeffrey Krivis says it is possible. In his new book, he has teamed up with
some of his successful colleagues to share a few lucrative tricks of the trade.

Doctor. Teacher. Firefighter. Professional athlete. And mediator? Actually, yes. While few second-graders are naming this career on What-I-Want-to-Be-When-I-Grow-Up Day, mediation is becoming a hot career choice. Since the early 1990s many people, lawyers in particular, have jumped on the mediation bandwagon. No wonder. Its high success rate and lower costs (compared to those of a court case) have led to a boom in mediators. And surprise! Some of them are making serious money.

"Mediation is a career of extremes," says mediator Jeffrey Krivis, co-author (along with Naomi Lucks) of the new book How to Make Money as a Mediator (And Create Value for Everyone): 30 Top Mediators Share Secrets to Building a Successful Practice. /1

"This is a field in which it's possible to become wildly successful-think Tiger Woods, Martina Navratilova, Lance Armstrong-but only a relative few make it to that top tier. "There are many mediators who struggle," he adds. "And because they consider their career a calling, they accept the struggle. They'll tell you they can't imagine doing anything else. But the truth is, you can fulfill your calling and build up a healthy bank account."

Krivis and Lucks have written a book for mediators-and aspiring mediators-who want to do just that. It's an invaluable resource filled with practical, proven, and down-to-earth information on how you can develop a satisfying and lucrative career as a mediator, no matter what your area of interest. The book provides advice from 30 top mediators, who give a behind-the-scenes look at how they achieved success in this highly competitive profession.

Here are 10 great tips from How to Make Money as a Mediator that can put any new (or struggling) mediator on the path to success:

1. Inspire trust. You must ensure that your clients and potential clients-whether they are lawyers, helping professionals, families, or community leaders-feel they can trust you to be fair. They must believe you can help them grapple with the life-changing issues that arise in mediated negotiations. All top-tier mediators will tell you that inspiring trust is paramount.

2. Cultivate champions. A passion for mediating and terrific natural skills can take you only so far. You need to cultivate champions-influential people who believe in you as a mediator and who are happy to help you get your name out there to larger groups. "I have had several champions who paved the way for me, introducing me to important potential clients and polishing my reputation," says Krivis. "If you have even one such champion, you can consider yourself fortunate indeed. But note: they will not always come into your life by chance. You need to cultivate these relationships."

3. Practice authenticity. Authenticity is the bedrock on which trust is built. For a mediator, authenticity means being strong enough to work with ambiguity day in and day out, and to face the internal conflicts it sometimes engenders. You can't always know where things are going or how you are going to get there, but you must lead from an honest heart. This will give you the ability to walk the fine line between deception and honesty and to make the parties feel that you always have their best interests at heart.

4. Create value. Great mediators are always working to provide direction and encouragement, giving clients new tools for solving problems, guiding them around potential land mines, and helping them discover new opportunities. Krivis calls this creating value. In fact, he says, creating value might well be the foundation for getting clients and settling cases. When marketing your services, you can create value by finding out from the parties what their pain threshold is, what's causing them the most concern, and what has to happen in order for them to select you as the person who can help them solve their problem. Once you have this information, you can innovate regarding how to solve their problem.

5. Embrace rejection. Mediation is an isolated world. For every case you get, there are 10 you didn't. To be really successful, you have to expect rejection and embrace it. You must hold the view that when you've been rejected, it means that someone who believes in you has tried to sell you. He or she will keep putting your name out there, and eventually you'll achieve critical mass. "I hear the statement, 'Oh, your name comes up all the time' from people who have never used me," says Krivis. "Don't let rejection get to you. You may be on every lawyer's list of three top mediators, but you've got to remember that there are two other mediators up there with you. You just can't take the decision personally. It may be based on timing or scheduling, or the would-be clients just plain prefer another mediator over you that day."

6. Practice the Three Ps: Patience, Perseverance, and Persistence. Every single mediator who made it to the top did so because he or she understood the importance of the Three Ps. It can take three to five years to build a successful mediation practice, so relax, dig in your heels, and prepare to be there for the long haul. Believe in your abilities, believe that you can and will build a successful career, back up that assurance with real skills and real successes, and then stay the course.

7. Learn to deal with emotional overload. Sometimes, especially after a particularly rough or draining session, you just have to put the day out of your mind and move on.

8. Make yourself a standout. Here's the brutal reality: there are far more mediators than there are mediation opportunities. Think hard about who you are and what makes you unique, and how you can help your clients and potential clients recognize that uniqueness. Find creative, compelling ways to help yourself stand out from the pack whether it's through teaching courses, writing, or attending CLE programs. Put your name and face in front of your clients with enough frequency that you become familiar-a known quantity they respect. Whatever you do, be discriminating in the marketing choices you make for your practice. Interestingly, says Krivis, standing out doesn't mean tooting your own horn. "You're not out there to tell people how great you are, but to find out what's going on in their practice and how you can help. When they remember your name and face, that's the subliminal message they should receive on their radar screen."

9. Market yourself as a professional. What does it take to establish yourself, to be the name that repeatedly shows up on the ledgers of people who are looking for mediators? You must think of yourself as a professional mediator, believe in yourself, and live the part every day. You must develop a reputation for mediating well and staying with a case until it closes. But beyond these fundamentals, you must understand how to market yourself as a mediator: what it takes to get the power players on your side and what you need to do to be seen as-and become-part of their inner circle. Don't inadvertently market yourself as a fringe player.

10. Stay fresh to survive. Yes, everyone gets tired at some point. But you'll survive in this business by making an effort to stay fresh in your approach and your outlook toward your practice. Do all you can to maintain your compassion for the parties you serve. If, despite your best efforts, you find yourself getting stale or robotic in your approach, take corrective measures fast. You can get your blood pumping again by collaborating on ideas with other mediators or taking "educational vacations" to exercise your mind by learning about faraway places and far-out ideas. 

______________________

1/ See local mediator Charles Parselle's review of Krivis' book here.
 

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I've got a little series on law firm happiness going on over at the tremendous workplace law resource Connecticut Employment Law Blog.  Dan Schwartz, the dynamite Blog Meister behind Connecticut Employment Law had to take a blog break  while actually TRYING A CASE (yes, people still DO).  While working, he filled his excellent blog with guest posts, including my three-part series ending with partnership compensation today.  

Call me an idealist, but some of the suggestions made in my current post over at the Connecticult Employment Law blog are taken from Lauren Stiller Rikleen's exhaustive analysis of the modern law firm's ills and potential remedies in Ending the Gauntlet, my review of which will appear in this section of the Complete Lawyer's next issue so keep a look out for it!

 

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Yes you CAN pre order this book now!!  Right here.

  Not ready for the revolution?   Read this review by clicking on the upper right hand corner and hitting "view full screen" at the bottom of the menu.

Book Review of Conflict Revolution; Mediating Evil, War, Injustice and Terrorism: How Mediators Can Help Save the Planet by Kenneth Cloke reviewed by Victoria Pynchon - Get more free documents

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(right:  Calvin Coolidge, Zelig and Herbert Hoover)

Soon, the Complete Lawyer's Human Factor Columnists (first appearance, Vol. IV, Issue 2 /*) are going to be addressing the ways in which you can use conflict resolution techniques to create, or restore, peace in your law firm.  

Though my contribution to that particular column is slicing the law firm's money pie with an eye toward the collective good rather than the individual's advantage, I can't pass up the opportunity to note the importance of accountability -- one of mediation's core values -- covered by The Snark in -- Oops!  An Associate Did it Again (excerpt below).

FESS UP

This is the hardest plan to implement because you fear finally being discovered for being imperfect and possibly over-rated. Will you be fired? Will it go down in your "file" only to rear its head in four years when you are denied admission into the partnership and the only reason they can give is, "Back in your second year, you missed that 1 p.m. meeting with our best client, MegaCorp."

But I think in the end it is better to fess up. Just don't do it in a way that makes things even worse: no crying, sniveling or begging for mercy. And no need to shave your head or hold a press conference.

You just need to explain yourself while displaying the appropriate level of remorse blended with confidence that says, "Yes, I screwed up that once, but it was an uncommon lapse that will be rectified. I will work even harder and bill a few extra hours to make up for lost faith in my value."

Provided your mistake didn't actually cause lost revenue or client relationships, you likely will be forgiven. But don't let it happen again. You get paid way too much money to make mistakes.

BigLaw or Small, You are Not a "Cog"

I know the Snark's column is meant to be witty, sarcastic, ironic, snide, and all of that, but the demeaning reference to BigLaw associates as "Cogs" is unfortunately reflective of some young lawyers' felt reality.  (Remember Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal -- eat the poor?  It's not a joke)

Here is my advice to every first year associate at every law firm in the country -- be it a Two-Person Enterprise or a Ginormous BigLaw Endeavor: 

NOT ONLY ARE YOU NOT A COG, YOU DO NOT WORK FOR THE LAW FIRM

You WORK for the client.  If your "boss"  or your firm is not helping you do that to the highest level of your own abilities, then he/she is simply the guy/gal you need to circumvent so that you can give your client the best legal advice and services available.

THE BUCK STOPS WITH YOU.

You are a lawyer, with a lawyer's professional responsibilities and the right to be respected for the highly educated, skilled and semi-trained professional you are. 

Don't let anyone fool you.  You are not only important, you have power.  And with power comes accountability.  

Be a mensch.  Be a star. 

Welcome to the profession.

_______________________

/*  The columnists are Gini Nelson of Engaging Conflicts, Stephanie West Allen of Idealawg and Brains on Purpose, and the mother of all mediation-bloggers, Diane Levin of the Mediation Channel.  Oh yes, and me, Zelig.

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Making enough money doing what you love to do? No?

Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker, Doctor, Lawyer, Native American Chief, here's the book you must buy and read immediately -- Making Mediation Your Day Job: How to Market Your ADR Business Using Mediation Principles You Already Know

First, Mediation Earth Mother, Scholar and Entrepreneur, Diane Levin's review:

Shakespeare once wrote, "This above all: to thine own self be true." These words, written 400 years ago, resonate today. They do so especially for the many professional mediators who cringe at the very thought of marketing -- with its associations with shameless self-promotion, glad-handing, and cold-calling. For many mediators, marketing just feels wrong.

Now, at long last, there's a guidebook that achieves something no other mediation marketing resource has done. It helps mediators do the impossible: become more effective marketers and remain true to themselves and their work. Dr. Tammy Lenski, a mediator and mediation marketing coach who has run her own successful practice since 1997, has created Making Mediation Your Day Job, the definitive resource for mediators who want a realistic, practical blueprint for marketing their practice.

The clue to Dr. Lenski's formula for success is in the second half of the title of the book: How to Market Your ADR Business Using Mediation Principles You Already Know. She asks readers, "Would you enjoy marketing more if your primary aim isn't selling and self-promotion? I'm betting most of you would say yes." Like the skilled practitioner she is, she reframes, inviting readers to see marketing anew, "as dialogue or as a learning conversation", something mediators already know how to do, and do well.

Using humor, anecdotes, and real-life examples drawn from her clients, her students, and her own experience, Dr. Lenski encourages her readers to step outside their comfort zone and draw upon the professional skills they already have to build opportunities. She also offers sensible productivity tips, business planning advice, and useful exercises that help mediators master marketing.

What also distinguishes this work from the numerous resources available now on mediation marketing is its emphasis on professional integrity -- on honoring the profession through a commitment to mediation excellence. Dr. Lenski reminds readers that it's not just good marketing that matters; mediators also have a duty to uphold standards of excellence and develop their professional skills. She wisely observes, "In the end, it's the quality of the work you deliver that's going to help keep the clients coming."

More than a book, Making Mediation Your Day Job functions like an honest conversation with a wise and caring friend. Dr. Lenski writes as someone who has been there and understands where and why any of us get stuck when it comes to marketing. She's there to nudge us forward, with encouragement and straight talk. Making Mediation Your Day Job offers authentic, real-world advice for mediators who want to use marketing to take their practice to the next level -- and all the while stay true to themselves and their work.

And mine -- both of which can be found on amazon.com where you'll be purchasing Dr. Lenski's book today, yes?

I just finished consuming Making Mediation Your Day Job: How to Market Your ADR Business Using Mediation Principles You Already Know.

When I say "consuming," I'm talking about the way we exhaust our appetites over a Thanksgiving dinner plate -- eager, greedy and far too quickly -- before pausing to wonder where the turkey, potatoes, gravy, green beans and yams could possibly have gone.

Teacher, trainer, and mediator, Tammy Lenski is less than candid when she says this book is about marketing our ADR Business. This book is about locating and achieving our dreams. But Dr. Lenski doesn't stop there. She goes on to provide practial advice about making our living by living our dreams.

Why such effusive praise for a short book on marketing a mediation practice? Because it's not a "how to" but a "why" and a "what," with workshop questions to help us fill in the gaping holes of our lives.

This book does what no other career or marketing guide I've ever read even seeks to accomplish. It inspires and guides. It suggests reaching for the stars with our feet firmly planted on the ground. It asks us to look inside our very own hearts; to assess our strengths and weaknesses; and, to measure the width and depth and breadth of our desires. Then it gives us the action plan we've all been waiting for. The one that helps us make ME, INC. our day job.

It would be unfair -- selfish even -- to recommend this book only to mediators. Why would we withhold this practical wisdom from the aspiring lawyers, chefs and novelists in the world? Why would we deny the entrepreneurs and financial wizards; the actors and the politicians of the benefits of Dr. Lenski's ground-breaking work? It wouldn't be nice; it wouldn't be fair; it wouldn't be right.

And in this I do not exaggerate even a little. 

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I'm in the middle of reading two books, both of which should be on every mediator's night table -- Final Exam, A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality by Pauline W. Chen and Faith-Based Reconciliation:  A Moral Vision that Transforms People and Society by Canon Brian Cox.

Why should a commercial mediator read these books?  For the same reason your business clients should -- they address the most important technology for making business effective and efficient -- do it yourself dispute resolution.

Maximizing Profit by Negotiating Peace

As my dear friend attorney-mediator Richard Millen says, "people don't have legal problems; only lawyers have legal problems; people have people problems."

I've adopted Richard's mantra for commercial litigation -- businesses don't have legal problems; businesses have business problems and most of those business problems are people problems. 

Organizing teams of people into efficient working groups -- whether it be your Board of Directors; your research scientists; your associate attorneys; your sales staff; or, your physicians -- is the greatest challenge of every business -- making inventing the cure for cancer look like child's play. 

We are a fractious, competitive, grudge-bearing, insecure, angry, difficult bunch.  And yet everything we have ever accomplished by way of creating civilization and insuring our own survival as a species has resulted from our ability to communicate with one another for the purpose of engaging in a team effort. 

As the author of The Brain Rules, John Medina has written of the course of evolutionary human events,

Suppose you are not the biggest person on the block, but you have thousands of years to become one.  What do you do?  If you are an animal, the most straightforward approach is becoming physically bigger, like the alpha male in a dog pack, with selection favoring muscle and bone.  But there is another way to double your biomass.  It's not be creating a body but by creating an ally.  If you could establish cooperative agreements with some of your neighbors, you could double your power even if you did not personally double your strength.  You could dominate the world.  Trying to fight off a woolly mammoth?  Alone, and the fight might look like Bambi vs. Godzilla.  Two or three of you however, coordinating your  behaviors and establishing the concept of teamwork, and you present a formidable challenge:  You can figure out how to compel the mammoth to tumble over a cliff.  There is ample evidence that this is exactly what we did.

Did I say I'm also in the middle of reading The Brain Rules and you should be too?

So, here's the thing.  I'm starting a new category on the negotiation blog -- Do It Yourself Dispute Resolution.  The next several posts are going to talk about what we need to understand to do that, jettisoning our attorneys for most of the business and people problems that end up in court so that we can reserve the attorneys to plan a better, more profitable future instead of fighting over the unprofitable past.

And the litigators?  There will always be matters of principle; new law; new problems; and, new conflicts to resolve that require the process of an adversarial proceeding.  I'm just looking to notch up your legal work a bit -- make it more interesting, satisfying and people-problem free.

Ready?  Let's roll!

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Service!!

Thanks to Joe Provenza of Can I Have That With!!  for dropping by yesterday's post and leaving a comment and for hipping us to the Mental Blocks that prevent every negotiator and negotiation advocate from distinguishing the conflict resolution forest from the money trees.  Joe comments upon and quotes Steve Pavlina's post “2 Mental Blocks to Making Money” with the good news that we should be thinking about people, not money.

(photo Adam and Eve on a Raft by Duane Romanell)

“…By focusing on trying to get money, you’re missing the point. The point is to provide value to others. This means serving people in a way they aren’t already being served, in a manner that aligns with your unique creative self-expression. Share what only you can share. Express what only you can express in the way that only you can express it…

…Try to look past your own needs and recognize there’s a pretty interesting world around you. Through your actions you can have an impact on it, for better or worse. Think about how you can provide something that people want or need in a way they aren’t already being served, something that will make a positive difference. Then act on it.”

"Focus entirely on the customer," echoes Provenza "and then act upon it."

 A bias for action is tantamount. Too often we spend our energy preparing to act, yet take no action. We have the resources all about us, however we do not use them.

Focus on the customer and acting upon that focus is the only way to break through Mental Blocks!

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this is what happens when you piss off a jury . . . .

A jury awarded $6 million Thursday to a couple who accused a substitute teacher at a day care center of striking their toddler son, causing marks on the boy's buttocks and legs.

For the full article, click here. 

Bottom, Gene Hackman in Runaway Jury.

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The negotiator's equivalent of "don't make a federal case out of it" is "what do you think you're doing, brokering a negotiated peace in the Middle East?"

Well (thanks -- again! -- to Geoff Sharp) we bring you negotiation tips from a guy who has brokered Middle East peace treaties -- Dennis Ross (Diplomacy: Talking Sense)  former Middle East envoy and chief peace negotiator for both the Clinton and Bush senior administrations.

(Ross' new book:  Statecraft and How to Restore America's Standing in the World, right)

Here, Ross gives us a twelve step list for effective negotiations (please go to the article itself for the detail; it's well worth the read):

1. Know what you want, know what you can live with.
2. Know everything there is to know about the decision maker(s) on the other side. 
3. Build a relationship of trust with the key decision maker. 
4. Keep in mind the other side's need for an explanation.
5. To gain the hardest concessions, prove you understand what is important to the other side. 
6. Tough Love is also required. 
7. Employ the good-cop, bad-cop approach carefully. 
8. Understand the value and limitations of deadlines. 
9. Take only calculated risks. 
10. Never lie, never bluff 
11. Don't paper over differences. 
12. Summarize agreements at the end of every meeting.

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In recommending Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People by G. Richard Shell; Negotiate to Win: The 21 Rules for Successful Negotiating by Jim Thomas; and, my favorite Beyond Reason by Fisher and Shapiro as the three Best Business Books [on] Negotiation to arrive on our commercial shore in 2006, reviewer Nikos Mourkogiannis  of Strategy + Business outlined the three essential elements of every negotiation -- art, science and wisdom.

We reprint an excerpt below and link to the full article above.  

E]very negotiation involves three fundamental elements: art, science, and wisdom.

Artistry is always involved, because negotiations can never be fully planned; the circumstances vary too much. At the heart of even the most mutually beneficial negotiation, there is always a haggle between two conflicting positions. A creative solution can clear a stalemate and produce agreement, but not by eliminating or resolving the conflict; rather, by suggesting new, acceptable concessions that make the conflict less intense. Making this happen is the art of negotiation.

The second element is science. Why would one person ever concede anything to another? Because the first person judges that without that concession, the second person will walk away from the deal. The leverage held by each of them can be determined analytically: It can be expressed as the difference between the expected cost of the concessions and the cost of a failure to reach agreement. The science of negotiation is the process of maximizing leverage — what strategists call advantage — by analyzing this difference in cost (which is subject to change at any moment).

The third fundamental element is wisdom. Every negotiation entails some wisdom. Otherwise, we would just have open conflict. Wisdom is the ability to observe the negotiation as it evolves, so that one can seize the opportune moment just as Prince William did. Wisdom also involves the ability to anticipate the negotiation’s most likely results after the deal is struck. A skilled and ruthless negotiator may win every last demand, but never again be invited to the table. A cultivated sense of timing helps any negotiator reach his or her most important goals: to win the most critical concessions, or possibly to negotiate a change in the rules that will provide winnings forever without any more negotiations being necessary.

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Henry David Thoreau, Walden (the 150th Anniversary Edition)

A couple of years ago, a friend bought me the 150th Anniversary Edition of Walden – a text I hadn’t read since high school. While building his spartan but serviceable cabin in the woods, Thoreau does a cost-benefit analysis of home ownership, calculating that “an average house . . . costs perhaps eight hundred dollars, and to lay up this sum will take from ten to fifteen years of the laborer's life.”

The thing, as we were taught in law school, speaks for itself.  Or as Thoreau put it, “the cost of a thing is the amount of life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”

This line stopped me dead in my tracks. Was this phrase more profound to me than the observation that “time is money” just because it appeared in 19th Century prose? Or had I simply lived too much of my life converting my own time into money, shaving hours into tenths, merging them weekly, monthly and yearly with my colleagues’ hours, converting the whole at year’s end into overhead, earnings, distributions and investments.

Whatever the reason, Thoreau's calculus made me suddenly recognize that the sheer raw number of my actual yearly wage had become more important to me than the things it might allow me to purchase, or even to store up against potential future calamity.  In all the getting and gathering, I thought, I may have lost the point of job, career, occupation.  

And this has to do with mediation in what way? 

I often quote Thoreau's aphorism when parties reach impasse.   It helps everyone make money transparent again.  That money is the means to particular end, not an end in itself.  That, even in this cynical age, most people would prefer a fair distribution of resources reached through compromise than total victory at all costs.  This continues to mark my own experiences as a mediator, despite the fact that the justice survey is continuing to run 50-50 on the question, "would you prefer to win unfairly or lose fairly."  

So as strange as it might seem, I heartily recommend Walden as one of the tomes you tote to the beach this summer along with your soda pop, sandwiches, cole slaw and sun screen.  

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Below is an excerpt of the Washington Post's review of Cobra II  The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, the book that is not simply sitting on my bedside table but which I am actually reading.  

It is too soon to provide my own brief review other than to say that I am no military history, nor even history, buff.  I just want to start making more sense out of what actually happened, admitting that I get most of my war analysis from the Daily Show and the New Yorker (the latter easier to admit than the former).

Although it's ok with me that blogging has completely replaced television as a leisure activity, Mr. Thrifty recently commented to its seems to have replaced reading books with covers and paper pages held in my hands.

Because that is not OK, I immediately headed off to my nearest Borders and its 3-for-the-price-of-2 table.  I decided to tackle Cobra first and am glad I did.  I am beginning to make sense of the actual front page and occasional network news again (the latter apparently available for download -- sans commercials! -- somewhere on the 'net since Thrifty has adopted a new marital habit of bringing his computer over to the couch where I'm blogging and turning on Katie Couric for me.  Ah togetherness!!).   

Before giving you the Washington Post Review, I'd like to suggest to my ADR buddies that they let us know what they're reading.  This isn't so much as a "meme" tag as it is a request to make reading material a category on their blogs, as I've just made "What I'm Reading Now" on mine.  

How about it Tammy Lenski, Diane Levin, Geoff Sharpe, and Stephanie West Allen?  Wouldn't you like your readers to know from time to time what it is that you're reading?  I'd sure appreciate knowing.

On their "inside story" of the war, Michael R. Gordon and Gen. Bernard E. Trainor . . . show that the U.S. military's tactical brilliance during the war's early stages came despite the strategic miscalculations of senior civilian and military leaders -- and that the Bush team's misjudgments made the current situation in Iraq far worse than it need have been.

Continue Reading...

Tags: International Diplomacy, What I'm Reading

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