{"id":173,"date":"2009-07-28T11:24:36","date_gmt":"2009-07-28T15:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/?p=173"},"modified":"2009-07-28T11:24:36","modified_gmt":"2009-07-28T15:24:36","slug":"mediator-certification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/2009\/07\/mediator-certification\/","title":{"rendered":"Mediator Certification"},"content":{"rendered":"

In her excellent blog<\/a> (linked on the home page of this blog), Diane Levin does us a great service by cutting to the quick of the debate on certification.\u00a0 Her post<\/a> is an essential read.<\/p>\n

I have a lot of trouble with certification.\u00a0 As a threshold matter, we are told in Genesis 7:16<\/a> that, after Noah had stowed one male\u00a0and one female of every kind\u00a0into the ark, “the Lord shut him in.”\u00a0 I don’t think the Lord did anything of the kind. I think Noah lifted that gangplank, with help from those aboard.\u00a0 You can be damn sure those wet and eager folks outside didn’t raise it.\u00a0 The\u00a0rain looks a lot different from inside the ark than outside.<\/p>\n

No one seems to talk a lot about the\u00a0“Noah” syndrome\u00a0in mediator\u00a0certification.\u00a0 Like the early days of\u00a0the AMA, the ABA and all other “professional” societies, at heart it can be seen as a way of making sure that the “unwashed” don’t sully the practice.\u00a0\u00a0 And a lot of the folks who most stridently advocate for certification are those who either assume they would be certified, or hope that they would be doing the certifying.<\/p>\n

I also have a problem with the whole desire to “professionalize” mediation.\u00a0 First, I just hate verbs formed by taking a poor innocent unsuspecting noun and lashing the suffix “-ize” to its pitiful body.\u00a0 Second, I see no reason why being certified makes you a professional.\u00a0 Being a certified “Sharpshooter” in Boy Scouts doesn’t make you a professional sniper.\u00a0 And Lord knows (see above) that being “certified” by passing\u00a0your state bar examination doesn’t make you a professional lawyer — in the sense of being any good to anybody, or ready to earn a living from it.<\/p>\n

The idea of certification is also an invitation to abuse.\u00a0 Folks are out there who are ready, willing and able to “certify” (for a price) computer professionals<\/a>, secretaries<\/a>,\u00a0managers<\/a>, finance professionals<\/a>, convention planners<\/a>, photographers<\/a> and sediment controllers<\/a>.\u00a0 It is not that these programs themselves are “abusive” — these are all above-board and admirable trainings, I have no doubt.\u00a0 But are they\u00a0appropriate to “professionalize” a practice in which there are scores of applicants for every job, and in which the median annual earnings is zero?<\/p>\n

Besides, there are lots of professions that are absolutely critical to society\u00a0but\u00a0where civilization\u00a0muddles on without certification.\u00a0 Parents aren’t certified.\u00a0 Neither are Senators or Presidents.\u00a0 Chief Financial Officers of global enterprises aren’t certified, and neither are inventors or cooks or asphalt makers or farmers.\u00a0 Stage fight directors<\/a> can be trained, but they can’t be certified.<\/p>\n

What criteria\u00a0would you\u00a0apply to “certify” an actor?\u00a0 Or a writer?\u00a0 Both have critical professional jobs to perform.\u00a0 How would you distinguish a skilled mediator from an unskilled one?\u00a0 And whose interest is being served by\u00a0making that distinction and creating obstacles to entry for those who seek to practice?\u00a0 The folks already on the ark?\u00a0 The folks who are being paid to make the distinction?\u00a0 The folks who will earn\u00a0money by offering training to would-be “certified” mediators for whom, as a practical matter,\u00a0no jobs exist<\/a>?<\/p>\n

The greatest challenge to the mediation profession is not the multitude of unskilled has-been or\u00a0wanna-be mediators.\u00a0 It’s the ignorance of the end-user (and the end-user’s counsel) as to what mediation is, and how it promises value apart from mere compromise of a claim.\u00a0 If somebody wants to do mediation a favor, put that knowledge in everyone’s Kool-Aid<\/a>.\u00a0 Until then, let the poor mediators alone!\u00a0 And “Let a Hundred Flowers Blossom!”<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The discussion on mediator certification is revving up once again, and a recent post prompts some thoughts on the propriety of even seriously discussing the issue. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,14],"tags":[25,15,28],"class_list":["post-173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conflict-resolution","category-mediation","tag-adr-institutions","tag-mediation","tag-training"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}