Posted: Wednesday 1 September 2010 14:45

Looking for leadership inspiration

by Graham Massie, Director of Consultancy and Mediator, CEDR

It may not be the most career-enhancing move to worry about leadership in conflict resolution just a couple of months after the boss [Karl Mackie] gets his well-deserved CBE, but I've been worrying about where the next generation of leaders are coming from.

This thought came to mind with the recent announcement that Archbishop Desmond Tutu is to withdraw from public life. No doubt, like Madiba [Nelson Mandela] before him, retirement will turn out to be rather more active than he intends, but his influence and impact will clearly be on the wane from now onwards.

So the question is: who do we look to next? There are academics like William Ury; senior officials such as Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon; and former politicians such as Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair; but these are the giants of the world stage, the politicos who move smoothly from one conference to another. Yet are they the best we've got? What I'm looking for is some inspiration - the ordinary men and women who are setting a public example we can admire and emulate; the baggage-free public figure with the compelling moral authority and oratorical brilliance to lighten the path.

Maybe Barack Obama will become such a figurehead when he escapes the trenches of presidential office - after all, he will still only be 54 when he stands down even if he does serve a second term. But who from the ranks of so-called ordinary people?

One such man might be Colin Parry, an ordinary HR specialist until 20 March 1993, the day he lost his 12-year old son, Tim, to an IRA bomb in Warrington. CEDR invited Colin to speak to the delegates at our first Certificate in Advanced Negotiation programme last year, and we heard an amazing story of compassion and reconciliation. For rather than fight for revenge, Colin and his wife Wendy threw their energies into trying to find out why their town was bombed. They never did get an answer, but they learned a lot about our culture of dysfunctional politics and adversarialism rather than dialogue or understanding.

Yet they didn't give up, and now the tangible evidence of their work is a £3million Peace Centre in Warrington, the home of The Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace, a national charity providing conflict transformation programmes to young people and adults. The Foundation believes that lives should not be lost or ruined because of man's inability to resolve their differences peacefully. Everyone has the right to live a long and happy life without fear of violent conflict. However, to live in peace we all have a responsibility to make it happen.

And maybe that should be the answer to my question - stop looking for a leader and instead take responsibility for making something happen. For this of all days is a reminder that our deeds can live on but a life lost is gone forever. Today, 1 September 2010 would have been Tim Parry's 30th birthday.

Posted: Tuesday 31 August 2010 14:16

Want you back for good?

by Graham Massie, Director of Consultancy and Mediator, CEDR

The recent completion of the reunion of Nineties teen idols Take That after their 1996 split is a poignant reminder of the value of long term relationships and how hard they can be to revive once we let them slip into disrepair.

Consider the comments of the key ‘players', Gary Barlow and Robbie Williams, whose final reconciliation hit the news last week. Robbie admitted that, the day they were due to meet up, he was so scared he could hardly leave his house. But a friend pushed him out door, and “we had a big chat and the most amazing thing happened at the end of it. We both said sorry to each other and we both meant it and that was all we needed. It just lifted so much off my shoulders that I didn't know was still there.

Unsurprisingly, the power of the apology is a big deal within mediation literature. Just check out a conflict management library such as that on www.mediate.com which lists over 50 articles by mediators on the topic, most extolling the virtues of the apology and specifying what elements are required to make it effective (recent hint from Vivian Scott, author of Conflict Resolution At Work for Dummies: “I'm sorry you're such a cry baby” doesn't cut it).

What's less well covered is the difficult question of how we wind ourselves up to make an apology in the first place. Parties in mediation get it easy here, as the mediator can lean on them (of course, I mean ‘help us realise what's in our own best interests'). But we might ask ourselves how many of our own unresolved conflicts are stalled because we're both waiting for the other person to pick up the phone - or worse, because it's been so long now that we don't even know what their number is any more, or even where they live. And what about those situations where we can't even remember whether there ever was a conflict - just a lingering embarrassment that it's been such a long time, and maybe it was my fault.

As conflict management professionals, we talk a lot about the power of dialogue, and the art of having Difficult Conversations, but how do we overcome the fear, uncertainty and doubt in initiating them? “Just do it!” says Nike, but that's a bit too simplistic for me. Gabriella Goddard says the solution is to Give Up Living Passively and her paperback “Gulp!” (geddit?) offers a strong dose of inner clarity, vision, commitment and self belief through a 7-day self-help programme, so maybe I'll try some of that.

And maybe Gary and Robbie can offer some reassurance. Because to clinch the deal they wrote a song together - as you do - but as a joint project it's a great reconciliation strategy. Check it out on Robbie's upcoming Greatest Hits album, “In and Out of Consciousness” - now that's what I call confidence - but here's a few snippets: “Well there's three versions of this story, mine, and yours and then the truth.... I wrote a letter in my mind but the words were so unkind about a man I can't remember....I don't recall the reasons why....I must have meant them at the time.... People spend a life time this way and that's how they stay....such a shame”.

So Robbie and Gary will walk off into the sunset together, at least for the next world tour. And me? Well, I'm still struggling with picking up the phone, but I'll get there soon. What about you?

Posted: Friday 27 August 2010 15:55

One of the world's largest dispute resolution schemes is now underway

By Andy Rogers, Associate Director & Mediator, CEDR

Unlike the appalling floods devastating Pakistan, the environmental disaster in the Gulf does have an organisation taking responsibility for it, BP. Which is why Mediator, Kenneth Feinberg, now controls a $20 billion fund, established by BP to manage the compensation for damage caused by the Deepwater Horizon explosion on 20 April 2010.

No doubt the administration of the fund by the new dispute resolution entity, The Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF), will be challenged by scale of their undertaking. On August 23rd BP said it had made 127,000 payments, totalling $399 million, to meet claims (and will continue to handle claims put in by government), however, from this week the GCCF will takeover dealing with claims. This includes 27,000 existing claimants that have filed paperwork but not been paid, whose claims the GCCF will review, evaluate and determine.

Ken Feinberg is no stranger to difficult claims having worked on the September 11th victims' compensation fund. He is also an experienced Lawyer, with a name made on a number of difficult cases. However, in virtually all the current press coverage it only calls him an “Attorney” or “Lawyer”, ignoring his reputation in Alternative Dispute Resolution and his career as a Mediator! This is perhaps understandable given that most journalists do not fully appreciate the concept of commercial mediation. Yet in not appreciating this fact people may miss a big part of the story.

As one would expect of a good Mediator, Ken Feinberg stresses the value of negotiation over litigation, telling press that he plans to be more generous than any court would be in determining payments. However if claimants don't like the offer made and believe they can do better, they can file suit -- although he doesn't advise it: "It is not in your interest to tie up you and the courts in years of uncertain, protracted litigation when there is an alternative that has been created", CNN reports.

There will, in fact, be strong financial incentives, in terms of the settlement received, to reject the litigation process. This has upset some in the legal community but, yet again as one might expect of a mediator, these incentives have been made voluntary.

The claims will not play out in the typical style one might expect your average insurance dispute, they will be fast (so that local businesses do not suffer), they will be independent of the government and BP, and they will attempt to be firm but fair (businesses a long way from the coast may not be eligible).

Commercial mediators around the world will therefore be watching with interest to see how this claim scheme, with its strong ADR influences, performs.

Posted: Monday 23 August 2010 10:56

Was the Hutton enquiry flawed?

By Andy Rogers, Associate Director & Mediator, CEDR

The sad death of Dr David Kelly in 2003 and the following Hutton Inquiry still has many people asking questions; therefore did the process used achieve the objective of a public inquiry - to find satisfactory answers for the public?

Lord Hutton is a respected and experienced senior judge, so in theory it might be surprising that his inquiry still has a number of people, including experts in their fields, asking questions. Yet when looking at the system used, most likely this public inquiry, as most are, was set up within the tradition of the British justice system, without considering the alternative methods or innovative process elements available.

An alternative would have been to hold a public inquiry with an agenda set, in part, through a negotiated consultation with relevant interested parties, that also might be checked prior to conclusion that see if the agreed public agenda would be met. Had such an innovation been made the answers the inquiry produced might have been satisfactory to a wider audience.

With interest in this sad incident still extensive seven years after the event, one might argue that using the current public inquiry process to find satisfactory answers is not sufficiently achieving its objective.

Posted: Friday 13 August 2010 14:06

Strike! - Negotiate!

by Fiona Colquhoun, Director, CEDR

Another strike, this time with BAA, appears to be on its way. This strike is about pay and annual pay demands, not the other hot potato of the moment - pensions, which is what the impending BBC staff action due for 9 September is about.

The BAA and BBC strikes, along with BA, Royal Mail, the railways, etc, are all recent but appear anachronistic for our time - with “them and us” adversarial positioning regarding strike action - the ultimate threat of withdrawal of labour. In 2010, in an economic downturn, can such a standoff between union and management really be the most effective way to move a negotiation forward?

From one point of view you might say yes, as Bernie Mayer argues in his 2004 book “Beyond Neutrality”, putting your case forcefully has the potential to educate the other side more quickly and completely. However this is an age when two parliamentary parties have been able to create a coalition, many people (largely in the private sector) have already compromised on their pensions in line with economic and demographic realities and whilst over 6.5 million employees are members of unions, many more in work are not. So something about going through the same motions of calling a strike, when there are so many sophisticated and successful negotiation processes in modern business life, seems out of touch.

We know these are not straightforward conversations. At the BBC those who have worked for decades in the knowledge that their retirement would be funded at an agreed level may understandably feel threatened and betrayed, yet on the other hand you have a publicly funded corporation realising, albeit late in the day when compared with the private sector, that the licence payer will not fund its £2 billion pension deficit. These are tricky and important negotiations, with much at stake.

So should those responsible for resolving disputes explore new approaches to negotiating industrial relations rather than having to relive the same scenarios played out year after year and decade after decade? Can we look for new solutions to help in the BAA and BBC disputes? Having helped many individuals and organisations in dispute find their own resolutions, CEDR thinks, probably not alone, that we can.

Posted: Friday 6 August 2010 10:26

Building relationships – you and your new breakfast partner

By Andy Rogers, Associate Director & Mediator, CEDR

So BBC Radio 2 DJ, Chris Evans, has lost 1 million listeners to his breakfast show in three months. It was announced this week that the show had 8.48 million listeners a week, down from last quarter's record 9.53 million. Chris Evan's got off to a great start when he replaced the nation's breakfast favourite, Sir Terry Wogan, earlier this year. Hard to believe that anyone could be more loved than Wogan but initially on the surface Evans seemed to manage it. So what went wrong in the DJ-listener relationship?

I would, in a not particularly sophisticated way, compare Chris Evan and his large audience to Bruce Truckman's 1965 model of Group Development. With this in mind, one might observer that what one has witnessed so far with the breakfast show is the first stage of forming, new listeners were attracted (possibly through curiosity) to join the group, and then storming, when some of those old and new listener's had a chance to evaluate, over time, their feelings toward (or enjoyment) of the show. To continue with Truckman's model it might be anticipated that the next stage of conforming, which may have happened already, would be the audience accepting Chris Evans and how they feel about him in Sir Terry's slot and then performing with steady audience figures of satisfied listeners.

So is there lesson to be learnt? Not really, other than don't throw a stone into a pond without expecting some waves.

Posted: Friday 30 July 2010 13:17

Negotiating your way into a coalition government

By James South, CEDR Director of Training

For those interested in negotiation, the forming of the recent coalition government in the United Kingdom is an excellent case study. Last night's documentary on the BBC - ‘Five days that changed Britain' - offers a fascinating insight into what makes for effective negotiations and what does not.

The first learning point for effective negotiation to come out of last night's programme, was the importance of attitude and approach in changing what could have been a very adversarial negotiation into a much more collaborative one. Evidence David Cameron's first speech on the day after the election:
“I want to make a big, open and comprehensive offer to the Liberal democrats. I believe that we in the Conservative party can give ground, both in the national interest, and in the interest in forging an open and trusting partnership with the Liberal Democrats.”

In an interview on this Cameron later added:
“I didn't think we did coalitions in Britain, but waking up on the morning after the election, with the numbers as they were, the situation as bleak as it was for the country, it seemed to me this was the right thing to do.”

Interestingly, most of the Labour team saw this as a political mistake by the Conservatives, however it proved to be the approach which signalled the start of a collaborative negotiation process that resulted in a Lib-Con Coalition government.

Finally, in terms of attitude and negotiation approach, Nick Clegg added at the end of the programme:
“I remember having a conversation with David Cameron, an important conversation, where we said we either go the whole hog and make the big compromises or frankly it wasn't worth it. We separately came to the conclusion that you can't half do this, you do it properly or don't do it at all.”

This clearly demonstrated that both leaders realised that approaching this negotiation as they might a debate in the commons was not going to work. They instinctively realised that for the Coalition Government to be formed and for it to survive, strong and effective working relationships based on trust would need to be developed. This therefore lead to both parties adopting a more collaborate approach with each other.

This leads on to the second learning point for effective negotiation, the importance of developing rapport in order to build strong working relationships between the negotiators and the principals. Both David Cameron and Nick Clegg commented on the fact that they personally got on well together and during their discussions over the five days of coalition negotiations, they realised quite quickly that they could work together.

Conversely the relationship between Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg was not a strong one.

The first telephone call between the two men following the election did not go well, with Nick Clegg diplomatically saying: “he spoke more than I did. He wanted to make sure his side of the story was heard.”

Peter Mandelson was less circumspect when he said that Clegg probably found Brown a bit ‘Gordonish' and that Brown: “could have given Nick the opportunity to speak rather than to be spoken to. There should have been a little more come to me rather than tell you were to go.”

When the two men met in person, others at the meeting commented on how bad the body language was, a sure sign that there was little rapport.

The fact that the two leaders of the negotiating parties found it difficult to work together did not lay a strong foundation for effective future negotiations.

The importance of rapport and a good working relationship was also demonstrated as between the negotiating teams themselves. It was clear that the relationship between the Conservative and Liberal democrat negotiating teams was much more constructive in tone and approach than that between the Labour team and their Liberal counterparts, with both teams describing the other at their second meeting as “arrogant”.

These meetings between negotiating teams also demonstrates another key factor in effective negotiating - preparation. It was clear from watching the programme, that the Conservatives and Liberal democrats had prepared for potential hung parliament negotiations and further they prepared for every telephone call and meeting between leaders and their negotiating teams.

The same cannot be said for the Labour negotiating team, who for their first meeting with the Liberals, had not, it seemed, even discussed their strategy or prepared in any way with Ed Balls saying that he wasn't even sure that the team had met together before going into negotiations! No wonder things didn't go well for them.

These are only a few lessons in effective negotiation which came out of this programme on the background to the coalition negotiations, there are many more. Ultimately what is interesting to me is that the effective negotiation of the Conservative and Liberal teams triumphed over what should have been an easier negotiation with Labour on policy issues, because the Conservatives and Liberals paid attention to style, relationship and process and not just outcome.

Posted: Monday 19 July 2010 16:42

Smaller state – bigger society, where will the stresses be?

by Dr Karl Mackie CBE

Today, as the new Government says it wants to make society ‘bigger' and the state smaller, by giving over control of the facilities which matter locally to communities, many ears will still be ringing with the news that, as part of the move to reduce public expenditure, the NHS is to lose its top layer of bureaucracy.

Whilst on paper there may not be many similarities between taking control of a village library and winding down a Primary Care Trust, there are a number of parallels and common pitfalls that must be watched for. There will be tricky negotiations which will need to be held around the country and which, inevitably, politicians and civil servants will need to be part of.

Resistance to change can be a very natural human position, particularly when it involves the taking of power from a group and moving it elsewhere. It is to be expected that such a move, particularly if not sensitively handled, will in some instances cause resentment and possibly conflict, resistance and efforts to undermine any change.

From the thousands of disputes that CEDR has seen, we know that conflict can commonly arise from changing the people running an operation and its structure. New managers will naturally have different agendas and understandably will want to bring in their own ideas. New structures may create potential imbalances and new implementation and governance problems. The likelihood of conflict arising is dependant on the way in which these moves are made, the tone in which audiences are addressed and on the systems and capabilities laid down for effective conflict management.

With these new initiatives in the offing it is important that, if they are to succeed for the benefit of all, that they are not bogged down in disputes that might have been avoided had the initial discussions taken place differently or the potential for conflict been foreseen and effective mechanisms introduced nationally and locally.

Posted: Monday 12 July 2010 12:51

Mediation for Guantanamo Bay detainees

by Dr Karl Mackie CBE

David Cameron's announcement last week that the Government wanted to pursue mediation with six former British Guantanamo Bay detainees who had brought civil claims about their treatment has unsurprisingly generated much media coverage. I am concerned that mediation, which can be used successfully in sensitive and emotive claims of this nature, will come under unwarranted criticism, primarily because of the process' well-established principle of the confidentiality of discussions. I hope that for some, the desire to see the disclosure of MI5 and MI6 intelligence in an open forum, will not out weigh needs of the former detainees to be in a process with its full integrity.

Our dispute resolution service, CEDR Solve, has mediated a number of high profile claims in the past, such as the retained organs litigation (arising from the Alder Hey scandal) and the Kenyan Tribes People against the Ministry of Defence for injuries sustained from land mines. What was common to these, and other sensitive disputes we have worked on, has been the ability to build a process whereby those claiming have, in part through confidentiality, been treated with the appropriate understanding and consideration, allowing them to reach a satisfactory resolution.

Posted: Friday 2 July 2010 14:49

Cleaning up conversations

by Dr Karl Mackie CBE

There are challenging conversations which need to held after the Gulf oil leak and the environmental disaster that has beset that region and BP, with many examples of fraught communications in the unfolding events.

Over the years CEDR has been fortunate to work with many energy companies, including BP, and so we know, as do these organisations, how problematic dialogue with local stakeholders can be at the best of times.

BP is facing the challenge of negotiating the many claims that will be coming its way and for appropriate legitimate cases has of course communicated that it will have the funds to do this. Some good news then that a very experienced mediator we know, Ken Feinberg, as been appointed by the US administration to supervise a claims process. www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com

Notably BP has also faced the issue of its leadership dialogue, with its boss Tony Hayward, so roundly criticised for what was said (and unsaid) and how it was delivered. This in part may have led the appointment by BP of Bob Dudley, a native of Mississippi, to deal with the crisis. Speaking the same “language” as the affected community will undoubtedly bee seen as an advantage.

Today the way that an organisation communicates and negotiates, internally and externally, can have massive repercussions for doing business and failing to consider this can be ruinous. Being prepared for difficult conversations will not prevent disaster but may limit some of the collateral damage to relationships.

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