Healing from the heart

On Thursday evening I attended a presentation by two extraordinary people from Sierra Leone. Paramount Chief Alfred Banya who is the Chair of Fambul Tok’s Moyamba District Executive Committee and his sister, Micheala Ashwood who is the National Coordinator of Fambul Tok’s growing network of peace mothers’ groups.

They told a remarkable story about how the slow process of rebuilding fractured communities after the civil war is being supported by the simple act of storytelling around a bonfire. ‘Holding the space so people can talk.”

Of course, it is not a process that guarantees success, but successful it is by any measure.

It reminded me how important it is for all human beings to have the chance to tell their story of how the dispute has affected them. In a moving video presentation, people maimed and bereft of family and friends as a result of the atrocities carried out by their neighbours and family members were able to forgive, if not forget. Storytelling can achieve that kind of reconciliation and there is a place for it in all disputes and conflict.

We shouldn’t lose sight of this and make the mediation process so focussed on money, legal merits or outcome that we forget the deeply human need to share stories of disappointment, betrayal, lost hope and humiliation with our fellow human beings, especially with those we feel need to know.

Guest post by Simon Howarth, Director of Teviot Associates Ltd

Earlier this year Simon attended the Foundation Commercial Mediation Skills training course which I teach with Charles Middleton-Smith at the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in London.

One of the learning goals of the course is understanding how you can use your new skills ‘from tomorrow’ whilst you build and develop your mediation practice. We say that marketing and education for key business groups in your network is absolutely key. As part of his marketing and education programme, Simon produces a weekly ‘tip’ via email where he applies the mediation approach to areas relevant to his market. They are really good. So good, I asked Simon if he would post his latest tip here on my blog.

I once had occasion to take a photograph of one part of the chemical plant I was responsible for, whilst preparing for a site open day.  I then took a look at the photo whilst sitting in the office later that day and it’s fair to say I was less than impressed!

The photograph showed an extruder, a key piece of process equipment, which I looked at at least once a day as I walked through the plant.  What amazed me was how dirty, untidy and generally uncared for the equipment and it’s general area looked in the photograph.  As I examined the photo I realised that by viewing the extruder in this way, whilst sitting in my office, I was seeing it (or even looking at it) as a visitor might do when viewing it for the first time.  It certainly wasn’t the impression of our operation I wanted to give my friends and family, let alone the local community!

Needless to say, a review of the maintenance and housekeeping procedures associated with that area followed, however this made me think about the concept of ‘Visitors eyes’

In my mind Visitor’s eyes can be quite powerful in two distinct ways:

• As in the case above, they will see things that everyday familiarity either prevents us from seeing or makes us complacent to.  A different perspective can very often lead to a different awareness and a step change in performance.
• Alternatively they can bring our attention to things that we were completely unaware of.  Visitor’s eyes can often hold up the metaphorical mirror and provide feedback about things that to the outsider are quite obvious but to us are completely new information.  Armed with this new information we can decide to make important changes to the ‘status quo’.

To my mind the Visitor’s eye view, be it literal or metaphorical, will provide insights which can yield benefits to businesses when considering any of:-  Physical facilities, Business Processes, Personal Behaviours / Leadership style.

How could you or your business benefit from a pair of Visitor’s eyes?

Simon Howarth
Director

In the desire to ‘commercialise’ mediation, I feel we are at risk of cutting out the very things that make mediation work. I hear about mediators who have dispensed with the opening meeting and those who think it is always just about money. Sometimes they tell me that this is what the clients want (and which clients are they talking about, I wonder).

I heard a story recently from a very experienced mediator: On arriving at the mediation venue and greeting the barrister for one of the parties, he was presented with a precisely timed agenda right down to the moment when the settlement would be reached. Thankfully, he took no notice!

So as a reminder why people need time to tell their stories, and that mediators, parties and their lawyers need to remember why it is important, here is a wonderful and favourite poem:

Salamander from The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry

A story is like water
that you heat for your bath.

It takes messages between the fire
and your skin, It lets them meet,
and it cleans you!

Very few can sit down
in the middle of the fire itself
like a salamander or Abraham.
We need intermediaries.

Jalāl ad-din Rumi (1207 – 1273)

This reminds me of the positive power of our actions when our intentions are ignited by our values and they are equally shared by many others. To find out if others share your views – you have to take action. In this case the use of social media brought almost instant results – again!

Some of the images in the video are distressing. Clip from ITV News at 10 18 April 2011.

Sometimes our intentions don’t quite have the effects that we expected. Nevertheless, our intentions do have an influence on the effects as in the visual illustrations below.

It is a conundrum: we can never have total control of the outcome: we only have possibility for consistent behaviour which builds trust and can be a key component of regaining trust if the effects turn out to be not quite what was intended.

When people are demonising each other in a heated dispute, they nearly always see the worst intentions in the other even if at the time of the event they bore the effects more compassionately.

It is one thing to explain your intentions and have them understood. It is another to accept that the effects were damaging for the other. It is not about blame.

Gunpowder + Intention = magical Photo: Amanda Bucklow

Gunpowder + Intention = destruction Photo: Tom Stoddart