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.

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)

One of my favourite themes is the connection between art and mediation. It is the artist that works to convey so much in a short space of time or ‘canvas’ and as mediators, we work hard to achieve the same.

This came via a recommendation of someone to follow on Twitter and my curiosity to see what they were saying. Hodge Allen Jones recently held an exhibition of paintings by Jo Gilbert. This is a video of the artist ‘painting peace’. Lovely. Hope you agree.

Disappearing Bust of Voltaire by Salvador Dali 1941 - may need to squint to see the ambiguity

Apparently, God did indeed bless the Irish not least with a love of ambiguity which is seen as key to future innovation, according to a recently published research on siliconrepublic.com. Hat tip to @3keyscoach for the link via Twitter this week.

Results from a sample of 117 Irish executives and entrepreneurs indicated a substantial bias towards right-brained cognition when compared with international norms.

Right-brained thinking, towards which the sample showed a preference, includes attributes such as intuition, the ability to make seemingly unrelated connections and tolerance of ambiguity. Ambiguity and the ability to hold incongruent ideas without stress is regarded as inherent to entrepreneurial activity because start-up businesses are often original, innovative ideas that require people who can think laterally and see the bigger picture.

These attributes also appeared frequently in my research into the profile of an effective mediator.

It also reminds me of a story from my very early career. I had just left university and was working in my family’s business. I was given the “deadly” job of credit control. There was a large amount outstanding from a household name and no one had been able to get to the bottom of it and so I saw this as a way to impress my father who was decidedly difficult to impress.

I did hours of research and number crunching and finally, I found where the error was. Rather pleased, I rang the accounts department of said household name company which was in Ireland. I went through the steps with the accounts lady that I had carefully prepared and which I thought would lead her to the same realization. And then they would send me a cheque.

It took about 20 minutes and at the end she said to me in a very calm and sincere tone

Is this money we owe you or money you owe us?

That was not quite the end of the conversation but very nearly. I was floored. When I told my father he simply roared with laughter and retold the story many times. So I guess I got to impress him if not in the way I had intended! I thought that I had not explained myself very well but perhaps it was the Irish love of ambiguity.

For more on entrepreneurship, innovation and creative business skills, check out the Mediation Business Summit

Photo by Darwin Bell

In the latest episode of Cafe Mediate, Tammy Lenski, Jeff Thompson and I discuss the nature of isolation in our practice of mediation and dispute resolution.

It is apparent from the laughter we share and the descriptions of “isolation” that any isolation we experience is more solitude as part of independence than loneliness.  A solitude that comes from a conscious choice for our independent practice in matters that are confidential.

Solitude is the state of being alone without being lonely. It is a positive and constructive state of engagement with oneself. Solitude is desirable, a state of being alone where you provide yourself wonderful and sufficient company.

Solitude is a time that can be used for reflection, inner searching or growth or enjoyment of some kind. Deep reading requires solitude, so does experiencing the beauty of nature. Thinking and creativity usually do too.

Solitude suggests peacefulness stemming from a state of inner richness. It is a means of enjoying the quiet and whatever it brings that is satisfying and from which we draw sustenance. It is something we cultivate. Solitude is refreshing; an opportunity to renew ourselves. In other words, it replenishes us. Psychology Today

Our work involves being with people (often large groups) who need us to be totally focused on them , very calm with lots of energy to manage long days. Solitude is a positive part of the way we work and it seems we all have strategies for making sure that the balance is right and that we have peers and close colleagues to share important conversations.

I am sure some of our speakers at the Mediation Business Summit will be addressing the nature of isolation in being an entrepreneur.