The Mediator's Handbook: Revised & Expanded fourth edition

by Jennifer E. Beer, Caroline C. Packard, Eileen Stief (With)

Overview

The popular The Mediator's Handbook presents a time-tested, adaptable model for helping people work through conflict. Extensively revised to incorporate recent practice and thinking, the accessible manual format lays out a clear structure for new and occasional mediators while offering a detailed, nuanced resource for professionals.

Starting with a new chapter on assessing conflict and bringing people to the table, the first section explains the process step by step, from opening conversations and exploring the situation through the phases of finding resolution—deciding on topics, reviewing options, and testing agreements.

The "Toolbox" section details the concepts and skills a mediator needs in order to:

• Understand the conflict
• Support the people
• Facilitate the process
• Guide decision-making

Throughout the book, the emphasis is on what the mediator can do or say now, and on the underlying principles and core methods that can help the mediator make wise choices.

Long a popular course textbook for high schools, universities, and training programs, The Mediator's Handbook is also a valued desk reference for professional mediators and a practical guide for managers, organizers, teachers, and anyone working with clients, customers, volunteers, committees, or teams.

Jennifer E. Beer, PhD, mediates organizational conflicts, facilitates meetings, and offers related workshops, regularly teaching a negotiation course at Wharton (University of Pennsylvania).

Caroline C. Packard, JD led Friends Conflict Resolution Programs for fifteen years and is an organizational conflict response specialist and mediator based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Eileen Stief developed the mediation process presented in the Handbook, training a generation of mediators to work with community, multi-party, and environmental disputes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781550925166
Publisher:	New Society Publishers
Publication date:	11/13/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Dr. Jennifer E. Beer, PhD, combines mediation experience with her cultural anthropology background to lead courses and workshops in mediation, conflict resolution, and cross-cultural communication. She regularly teaches a negotiation course at Wharton (University of Pennsylvania). Author of The Mediator's Handbook and of Peacemaking in Your Neighborhood, she has mediated conflicts and facilitated meetings for communities and organizations for 30 years.

Caroline C Packard, JD, is an organizational change and conflict response specialist and mediator with 30 years' experience in the field. She led Friends Conflict Resolution Programs for 15 years, and has trained hundreds of mediators. A cum laude graduate of Yale College and NYU School of Law, and a former corporate litigator with extensive formal training in individual and group psychology, Caroline has a special interest in the evolutionary psychology of group conflict and cooperation. She provides mediation and conflict-resolution services and training to organizations, families, and family businesses.

Eileen Stief developed the mediation process and principles documented in The Mediator's Handbook, and trained a generation of mediators to work with community, multi-party, and environmental disputes. Now retired, she led the Friends Conflict Resolution Program's experiment in community dispute settlement and later specialized in environmental mediation.

Elizabeth Elwood Gates provided the delightful cartoon illustrations in honor of her aunt, Ann Richan, who was a passionate champion of community mediation.

Table of Contents

Mediator Handbook 4th edition: Contents

1. Overview Preface iii
What is mediation? 11
The mediator’s role 16
The anatomy of the mediation process 18
Process-centered mediation 19
Guiding principles 21
Mediation terms

2. Getting them to the
Table Can mediation help this situation?
How people find a mediator 35
Voluntary or mandatory?
Initial conversations 37
Do they want to participate?
Approaching the other parties 41
Should I be the mediator? 43
Pre-mediation agreements and review 44
Choosing a location 45

3. The Mediation Session Part I: Exploring the Situation
Preparing, Setting up 49
Opening: Welcome, warm up, logistics, goals, roles 51
Listening to each perspective: Go-Round 58
The Exchange 61
Facilitating the Exchange 62
The Exchange: Tasks&flow 63
Start with and clarify Information 65
Checkout interpretations 67
Listen for their concerns 68
Example + impact
Interests: restating, other relevant interests
Encouraging empathy and reconciliation
Transition to Reaching Resolution 72
Separate Conversations 58

4. The Mediation Session Part II: Reaching Resolution Reaching Resolution 80
Topic Lis, criteria, wording 83
Options: come up with ideas 87
Gut-interests-workability
Reality Testing
Decisions: reviewing the agreement 92
Decisions: emotions, hesitations 93
Writing the agreement 95
Wording the agreement 97
Closing 81
Afterwards: wrapping up 82
Multiple sessions 83

5. Understanding
Conflict Understanding conflict 25
The Conflict Core: fear, opportunity, love 26
Common effects of conflict 28
The pleasures of conflict 29
The Conflict Triangle: People, Process, Problem: 32
Your mediator's toolbox 105

6.Supporting the
People Supporting the people: main skills
Setting the tone 109
Choosing your words 111
Giving your full attention 107
Acknowledging 110
Adversarial mode ? cooperative mode
Avoid this Kettle of Fish 112
Handling judgmental remarks 175
Protecting 12
Attending to comfort and accessibility 119
Language and hearing difficulties
Working with people in all their variety… 121
Emotionally difficult situations 129

Mediators Handbook 4th edition draft 1/2012

7. Facilitating the
Process Confidentiality in practice 139
Impartial facilitation
Structuring the discussion 140
Facilitating the session: Key points 136
Don’t we need some rules here? 137
When you can be directive 141
When to consult 142
Staying on track 145
Crafting questions: basics, cautions, positive 146
Clarifying: follow-up questions 149
Kinds of rewording 150
Reflecting 152
Summarizing 153
Working visually 155
Is this discussion productive? 156
Intervening when things heat up 157
Is it time to quit? 159
Facilitation challenges 161

8. Solving the Problem Participants’ starting point: Power&rights 166
Changing the “positions” mindset 167
Interests: layers, why interests matter 168
Finding space for solutions 171
Reframing
Checking out (mis)interpretations 173
Lies, perceptions, deceptions 17
Plain description of facts and needs
Flip it! ? outcome-focused interests 178
Tactful wording of interests and topics
Summarizing interests
Topic List examples 180

8. Solving the Problem
(continued) Eliciting ideas: brainstorming, opening up possibilities
Can mediators suggest options? 184
Visual aids for making decisions 185
Types of resolution
Efficient decisions: templates, formulas
“What ifs” 186
Fall Backs: Contingencies, uncertainties 190
Step-down agreements: smaller scope 187
When there’s no agreement 188
Final review: Workability 191
Final review: Future 192
Sample agreements 195
When no resolution is in sight 196

9. Going Further Going further
Adapting the process 203
Mediating with children&teens 122
Mediating across generations, family conflicts 124
Mediating employee conflicts 126
Participant evaluation 126
Mediator evaluations: session, self
The Handbook “soup pot” 207
Authors&contributors 209
Organizational support 208

Cheat Sheet final page or inside cover209Diagram of mediation process

viii The Mediator’s Handbook © 2012 Jennifer Beer&Caroline Packard

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Can you really make the classic book in its field even better? In this book, authors Jennifer Beer and Caroline Packard prove that, when it comes to mediation, the answer is a resounding "Yes!" This new edition of The Mediator's Handbook provides new tools, new scripts, and new frameworks that will assist experienced practitioners and novices alike. Based on up-to-date research foundations from anthropology, psychology, and behavioral neuroscience, the authors take us by the hand and lead us step-by-step through the mediation process, suggesting concrete strategies to help people in conflict work through difficult emotions to actionable ideas for resolving their disputes. Bravo!"
— G. Richard Shell, Thomas Gerrity Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at the Wharton School of Business and author of Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People

"The fourth edition of The Mediator's Handbook continues to improve upon everything that made the original edition a success: user-friendly explanations for every step of the mediation process, starting with what mediation is, to dealing with the most difficult situations that can arise in the course of a dispute. While the Handbook presents itself as being for mediators, those who should have a copy of the Handbook on their shelf include lawyers representing clients in litigation, human resources executives, managers of complex international infrastructure projects, or school counselors dealing with difficult teenagers. In short, The Mediator's Handbook is a comprehensive and practical guide for anyone who regularly deals with conflict."
— Michael McIlwrath, co-author of International Arbitration and Mediation:A Practical Guide, and host of the podcast "International Dispute Negotiation"

"Plenty of mediation books will give you the kind of language ordinary mediators use - the same language we are used to hearing from other helping professions, such as lawyers, and therapists. What these authors let us in on - is the secret language of outstanding mediators. They generously share hundreds of examples of carefully chosen phrases mediators can use at every step that make the difference between knowing what needs to happen next in mediation, and being able to make it happen."
— Hideaki Irei, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Kyushu University

"The upgrades done to the 4th edition make it a VERY usable manual and I will most definitely recommend it to anyone looking for this kind of manual. When I run my course next year this will be THE manual I have students buy."
— Jonathon Rudy, Elizabethtown College, Global Peacemaking Scholar-in-Residence

"The Mediator's Handbook is the basic primer for anyone who is seriously interested in resolving conflicts constructively. I have used it in my classroom for the last twenty years.This new edition gives us even more insights and practical suggestions for how to deal with the complexity of disputes in many different kinds of situations. Beer, Packard and Stief are masters in the mediation field and have much to offer us. An essential addition to the current scholarship and practice."
— Susan Sgorbati, Jones Chair for Social Activism, and former Dean of Faculty, Bennington College

"The Mediator's Handbook continues to be solid, and speaks to the needs of the participants."
— Mohammed Abu-Nimer, Ph.D., International Peace and Conflict Resolution, School of International Service, American University

Editorial Reviews

Can you really make the classic book in its field even better? In this book, authors Jennifer Beer and Caroline Packard prove that, when it comes to mediation, the answer is a resounding “Yes!” This new edition of The Mediator’s Handbook provides new tools, new scripts, and new frameworks that will assist experienced practitioners and novices alike. Based on up-to-date research foundations from anthropology, psychology, and behavioral neuroscience, the authors take us by the hand and lead us step-by-step through the mediation process, suggesting concrete strategies to help people in conflict work through difficult emotions to actionable ideas for resolving their disputes. Bravo!
— G. Richard Shell, Thomas Gerrity Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at the Wharton School of Business and author of Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People

The fourth edition of The Mediator’s Handbook continues to improve upon everything that made the original edition a success: user-friendly explanations for every step of the mediation process, starting with what mediation is, to dealing with the most difficult situations that can arise in the course of a dispute. While the Handbook presents itself as being for mediators, those who should have a copy of the Handbook on their shelf include lawyers representing clients in litigation, human resources executives, managers of complex international infrastructure projects, or school counselors dealing with difficult teenagers. In short, The Mediator’s Handbook is a comprehensive and practical guide for anyone who regularly deals with conflict.
— Michael McIlwrath, co-author of International Arbitration and Mediation:A Practical Guide, and host of the podcast “International Dispute Negotiation”

Plenty of mediation books will give you the kind of language ordinary mediators use – the same language we are used to hearing from other helping professions, such as lawyers, and therapists. What these authors let us in on – is the secret language of outstanding mediators. They generously share hundreds of examples of carefully chosen phrases mediators can use at every step that make the difference between knowing what needs to happen next in mediation, and being able to make it happen.
— Hideaki Irei, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Kyushu University

The upgrades done to the 4th edition make it a VERY usable manual and I will most definitely recommend it to anyone looking for this kind of manual. When I run my course next year this will be THE manual I have students buy. — Jonathon Rudy, Elizabethtown College, Global Peacemaking Scholar-in-Residence

The Mediator’s Handbook is the basic primer for anyone who is seriously interested in resolving conflicts constructively. I have used it in my classroom for the last twenty years. This new edition gives us even more insights and practical suggestions for how to deal with the complexity of disputes in many different kinds of situations. Beer, Packard and Stief are masters in the mediation field and have much to offer us. An essential addition to the current scholarship and practice.
— Susan Sgorbati, Jones Chair for Social Activism, and former Dean of Faculty, Bennington College

The Mediator’s Handbook continues to be solid, and speaks to the needs of the participants.
— Mohammed Abu-Nimer, Ph.D., International Peace and Conflict Resolution, School of International Service, American University

From the Publisher