Hanging around my notebook are musings and questions waiting for an iron to get hot enough to strike. \u00a0Well, the iron hasn’t and it being August we might as well just lay them down there, unconnected but I hope not worthless.<\/p>\n
1. \u00a0The corporate people say that new ideas are hot and stale ones are not. \u00a0Is it true that ADR is still as worthwhile as it ever was as a corporate practice, it’s just no longer “cutting edge” and so it’s hard to find a champion for it?<\/p>\n
2. \u00a0The course, they say, goes like this: \u00a0Advocacy, then adoption, then success, then off-support. \u00a0So today’s rooster becomes tomorrow’s feather-duster, by virtue of delivering what he promised. \u00a0Is that the case with ADR?<\/p>\n
3. \u00a0Companies “get it” internally. \u00a0Most companies of any size have a front-loaded employment dispute management system, and have learned that it’s cheaper to acknowledge and address employee problems early than to chase after them late. \u00a0Why has this learning not migrated to relationships with critical partners outside the company?<\/p>\n
4. \u00a0Can you be a champion of an idea that is already familiar?<\/p>\n
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5. \u00a0Successfully mediating a conclusion to a case at the end of the litigation-prep process is not a success.<\/p>\n
6. \u00a0Why is business-to-business ADR pushed most enthusiastically by vendors, rather than those who would benefit from it?<\/p>\n
7. \u00a0A hostage negotiation shared a mantra: “Respect the other party; trust the process. \u00a0Not the other way around.” \u00a0How often I have seen disputes where neither respect nor trust was evident — for anybody<\/em>.<\/p>\n 8. \u00a0“Civil discourse.” \u00a0The concept seems to hinge on a willingness to listen and discuss views other than your own. \u00a0But in many corners — both in public and in private discourse — there seems often to be no reason to assume that the other person’s view is worth anything other than to refute. \u00a0And we didn’t invent this phenomenon — as long ago as 1650 Oliver Cromwell urged the Synod of the Church of Scotland, “in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.” \u00a0Arguers don’t; problem-solvers do.<\/p>\n 7. \u00a0Perhaps the best environment for civility is not a bilateral disagreement over whether A or B gets the money, but rather a multilateral disagreement over whether A’s river that irrigates B’s land can also be used to provide C with electricity without compromising the recreation that D needs for a living, knowing that if they can’t agree E will come in and regulate the whole thing.<\/p>\n 8. \u00a0We don’t need an open mike or a “town meeting.” \u00a0We need people to consider other’s views on the (admittedly wildly improbable) possibility that their own may be… able to be improved.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some floating thoughts offered for summer beach-thinking<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[8,10,22,23],"class_list":["post-1296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conflict-resolution","tag-adr","tag-conflict-management","tag-employment","tag-systems-design"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t![\"\"](\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/2\/24\/Oliver_Cromwell_by_Samuel_Cooper.jpg\/220px-Oliver_Cromwell_by_Samuel_Cooper.jpg\")
<\/p>\n