Twitter is great for getting a wide selection of information on many topics from all over the world. If I don’t have time to read the articles, I send a DM to my Evernote account so I can catch up later. Here are a few items which really caught my eye and are worth sharing.

Small business, entrepreneur advice:
Six Dimensions that Characterize Small Business Owners. Possessing many or most of these factor may predict success in establishing, maintaining and growing small enterprise. Read the report here

Collaborative

Self-fulfilled

Future-focused

Curious

Tech-savvy

Action oriented

It won’t be long before conflict resolution skills are on the list! They are already on mine, of course.
The article came to me via @iamlucid and @triveraguy and is featured on http://www.inc.com

Interesting business books
The Shibumi Strategy by Matthew May is a new book I have on my list for reading over the holiday period. I discovered it through an interview with the author on Carol Roth’s website. Carol is a great resource for spot on business advice and has a great eye. Her own book is due out next year and is now on pre-order. The forward is written by our Mediation Summit Keynote Speaker, Michael Port. Don’t miss it

Danger + Opportunity

And it’s the setbacks, really, that harbor the power to transform our lives. The economy seemed the perfect crisis around which to weave a story, based in reality.  The word

for crisis in Japanese has two sets of characters: one for danger, and one for opportunity. A sudden, unexpected crisis is an opportunity, and if we view it that way, which admittedly is not easy when you’re simply trying to survive, like Andy is, but it can lead us in new directions,new  directions we perhaps should have taken anyway.

Eastern philosophy has interested me for over 30 years and influenced my work and life. I love Chinese and Japanese characters (as you can probably tell from the illustrations on this blog). I was introduced to the structure and meaning of the Japanese characters for crisis by Julian Gresser in the mid nineties and the illustration already appears on this web site. I am also fascinated by the tension of paradox in the work I do as a mediator. Looks like an interesting book.

Brainstorming: “Yes, and” Like an Improviser: Guest post by Liz Caradonna, an associate at Zócalo Group and a life… http://bit.ly/b2yPB7
This is a great post for conflict resolution skills. On of the most effective and successful shifts that participants make when they are doing their foundation mediation skills training is the one where they replace BUT with AND. It has incredible power for conveying understanding.

In improv, “yes, and” is shorthand for the state of being completely open, accepting and uncritical toward the contributions of your scene partner. So accepting, in fact, that you’re able to embrace and extend your partner’s ideas as if they were your own. Someone on stage just called you “Grandpa”? Accept and further that. Yes, you are their Grandpa. And… perhaps Grandpa has some riveting stories to share from his time serving overseas. Read more

Not so long ago we were encouraging everybody to mediate in every case. We “educated” people on how to look at cases from the “why not mediate” point of view. We wanted people to understand how relevant mediation is for all types of cases.

I thought about the appropriateness of this approach again last week as I read a report in The Independent on an Employment Tribunal involving a senior hospital consultant who was suspended “after repeatedly raising concerns about the health and safety of patients”. He was strongly opposed to the reduction of nursing staff and specialist facilities at his hospital and warned the trust that delayed review of cancer patients meant they had a “very good case of negligence against the trust.”

The safety of patients is a matter of increasing concern as budgets are cut and costs are revisited. The pressure on consultants is enormous in dealing with the conflict between clinical practice and financial management. For the hospital trusts, there is a conflict between the expectations of the public that the best treatment should be available for everyone and providing the treatment with the funding available. Consultants carry great personal risks from the consequences of a “mistake or delay” and they do so with their reputations and ability to earn a living.

In the case reported in The Independent, and from the details given, it would appear that this was a case like many others I have mediated. The outcome of the Employment Tribunal is of real public interest and the existence of a judgment will no doubt have an impact on similar cases in the future.

So the question is: should we take account of the public interest and judge that some cases must be heard in a tribunal or court? Or does every individual and organisation, whoever they may be, have a right to choose private dispute resolution?

If this consultant had said to me that he didn’t want to try mediation because he wanted the matter to be made public, I would have replied that if that was important to him then there was nothing to stop him from including that in his negotiations. The fact that a mediation is confidential does not prevent the parties from agreeing to make a public statement and that public statement can include anything that they agree upon.

There are real benefits to mediating even matters of public interest which cannot be achieved at tribunal or trial and they have to do with the particular needs of the parties in relation to the specific matter and the circumstances surrounding that matter. I have often assisted parties in drafting agreed changes to policy and indeed joint press releases on outcomes.

I can see the potential for achieving a rapid change in practice when there is a judgment to refer to. There may be some out there who are very thankful to have such a judgment and will wave it in front of reluctant managers as a warning.

What do you think? Are there some cases which should not be mediated as opposed to cannot be mediated?

It takes less effort to include people than it does to exclude them – in the long run. As Deepak Chopra said in a recent article ‘I know it’s tempting to tune out difficult people, but that’s the main reason they keep being difficult.’ I know exactly what he meant.

As part of my preparation for a recent mediation, I was speaking to the claimants’ legal advisers. During that conversation we talked about who should attend and she and her colleague were adamant that I should agree to preventing someone from the defendant’s group from attending. I had an idea that there would probably something very important that that person could contribute. I was curious to find out how that person might add value and why they should not be ‘tuned out’.  It also made me aware that there was something important going on for the people who had asked me to exclude him in the first place. I discovered that the man in question had a lot of knowledge about the dispute from the beginning, in fact he was unique in that regard. We agreed that he could attend.

On the first day of the mediation and during the opening meeting, I asked the ‘excluded person’ if they had anything to add to what a considerable number of people had already said. He started to speak and as soon as he did the advisors waved frantically at me across the table saying that he shouldn’t be allowed to speak. There aren’t many times when a mediator gets to decide things but making sure everyone is heard is one of those times. The session continued with the contribution and without falling apart. One the contrary, I believe it gave others at the table a strong sense of even-handedness and inclusion and many more felt able to tell me things throughout the mediation.

During the course of the following two days, the person they wanted to exclude turned out to be a most valuable ‘knowledge bank’.  He just needed to be heard, his knowledge and expertise appreciated and given encouragement and guidance on how he could add value to the process of reaching agreement without running away with the time available.

I learned the value of what so called ‘complainers’ can bring to productivity and problem solving many years ago when I put together a project team comprised entirely of ‘complainers’ and ‘cynics’. They were, without doubt, a most effective group who achieved the implementation of a complex nationwide IT system within 12 weeks from concept to working order and at a cost which was pennies compared with similar projects that came after that one.

People were amazed at the software, impressed with the delivery timescales and astonished at the cost. They wanted to know the ‘trick’. I told them. The project team was made up of people who were known to be difficult, argumentative, critical, outspoken and knowledgeable. I told them they had been some fire-filled project meetings but that we had made time to help people express their concerns and reservations and we had used that information to improve the processes. In the end if we could generate commitment within this group doing the same nationwide would be much easier.

If anyone likes the idea of a quick trip to Florence then this seminar might be just the reason to go.

Click image to download programme.

A report in the British press this week tells the story of a law student, Riam Dean, who won an Employment Tribunal claim against her employer, US firm Abercrobie and Fitch for unfair dismissal and harassment on the grounds of her disability. The case raises some interesting questions about the conflict between the employer’s right to choose how they present themselves (branding) and the rights of employees as enshrined in employment law. Disability discrimination is a key area for disputes at the moment.

The account describes how a young woman, born without her left forearm, was banished to the stockroom because she wore a cardigan to cover the join on her arm and in doing so her “look” breached a rigid policy on presentation, a policy which by accounts ran to 45 pages.

Screen Grab from the Abercrombie & Fitch Web Site

On the Abercrombie & Fitch website you will find a very clear statement on diversity. Any young person reading this might reasonably think that there is a policy of inclusion. On the other hand a critical mind might see the discrepancy between that and the overwhelmingly clear message communicated on every other page of the web site that only perfect bodies “need apply”. Employees are even encouraged to enter a modeling competition to feature in the company’s 2010 calendar. (see above)

The diversity statement boasts training activities and clear policy guidelines which ensure that all staff are aware of the need to include people who have disabilities or who are challenged in some way. They tick the boxes and with well crafted words.

This conflict was experienced first hand by the supervisor that banished this young woman to the storeroom. Instinctively, she made the choice between the professed policy of inclusion and the more compelling policy of looks. In my view her actions were the more “truthful” and authentic if wrongheaded.

So I wonder why a law student would apply for a job here? Was it optimism or something else?

And I wonder why the interviewer gave her the job knowing the existence of the policy on looks, unless it was out of fear that not to do so would expose the company to a claim of disability discrimination?

There was a claim for disability discrimination which in the end failed as the tribunal found that she was not treated any differently from any other employee. She did get home on the harassment claim and unfair dismissal which cost the company a few thousand pounds but who knows how much in lost reputation.

Personally, I am a strong supporter of diversity and I believe that organisations should make adjustments to allow disabled people to participate fully. We are a diverse society and the richness of that society and how we treat people is a demonstration of our civility.

On the other hand, as an employer and business owner, I understand that employers should have the freedom to say how the company should be presented and how staff should represent the brand. I do not subscribe to the perfect body/perfect look idea and that most probably has something to do with me not being a size 00! I am, however, struggling to argue against the right to employ people who are a good fit with the brand and the target market or to argue for enforcing a diversity policy which is clearly incompatible with the company ethos when it is so extreme.

The cynic in me says: a law student with a disability has done herself no harm in the job market by pursuing a claim for disability discrimination and winning (although not well as it happens).

The business owner in me says: a company has a right to decide how their brand is portrayed.

The human being in me says:  the pursuit of perfect looks to the exclusion of everyone else is deeply unpleasant and even dangerous.

The marketing director in me says: A&F: this is a PR disaster and the cost to you will be much more than £9000 plus legal expenses – you should have mediated the dispute! And given similar problems in the US, you really do need to do some work on your recruitment procedures and sort out how you include people who are disabled.

The mediator in me says: Amanda you don’t know all the facts and you certainly don’t know all the circumstances! And the burning question is: why did the supervisor want her off the shop floor and in the storeroom? Was it because she was wearing a cardigan and breaching the dress code or something else?