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.

Wanting to have the toffee AND keep the penny

A recent article in The Daily Breeze (Ca. USA) brought to light the extraordinary story of a mediator who had to think for a very long time before she realised that she should recuse herself from a mediation which involved a party who had made contributions to her political fund. Of course press reports should be viewed with a certain amount of circumspection as they rarely present the whole story.

However, I was interested to read further comment in another local Californian newspaper Press-Telegram, Long Beach, CA which points out the risks of hesitating on this kind of matter. A conflict of interests is a conflict of interests only if it is perceived as one. It is not a conflict of facts…

As mediators, our currency is perception. The perception of trustworthiness and the perception of experience amongst other things. So to mess with any kind of perception is to mess with the only things we have of value. They are intangible value: real, rare and fragile all at the same time. Just like anything of worth having.

This evening I joined Tammy Lenski, Diane Levin and Jeff Thompson in the second of our Cafe Mediate conversations. We had a lively and fun debate round “what makes a great mediator?”

Thanks to all for some great insights and raising some interesting questions.You can find more of their thinking and ideas on their blogs.

For some further thoughts and perspectives on what makes a great mediator, I recommend IBA Survey Results posted at The Mediator Magazine penned by journalist Matt Rushton and my own research available from the archives on this blog Part 1 and Part 2.

I hope you enjoy the podcast. It lasts about 30 minutes. You will also find our first conversation Value-Based Billing which looks at how we might reconfigure the way we charge for mediation to reflect more closely and more clearly the value that mediation brings.

There is nothing like training new mediators to bring you out of autopilot and to bring alive the challenge we have in conveying what we practice. From the students’ point of view, they want to know exactly what is appropriate and what is not so that they can build their competence to a standard that will lead to accreditation. From the trainer’s point of view, the challenge of bringing a set of rules to a flexible process, is a very real one. So when a student asks “is is right to…? The answer is invariably  “it depends…”

Illustration: by Amanda

For people who come from a background of facts and evidence this is like catching jelly with an egg cup or trying to put handcuffs on an octopus! If you see mediation as a process and not an event and that you need to make the transition from judgment of others to judging appropriate action and interventions in yourself then it is not such a conundrum. Mediation is a process and “appropriate action (or inaction)” depends on what has gone before and where the parties want to get to. Our skills are in the moment-by-moment awareness of what will work and still keeping the big picture in mind.

Thanks to Jane Gunn for reminding me of a training course we did where one participant answered the question: “what is the most important thing you have learned on the course?” with “it depends!” It raised the roof with laughter!