To explain my broader goals and where my ideas fit into the existing scholarship, I should first describe what I see as the calling for my generation of dispute resolution scholars.
The general duty of the first generation of dispute resolution thinkers was to create effective alternatives to formal, adversarial processes. In this endeavor, they succeeded wonderfully, mastering methods of facilitating negotiation and legitimizing mediation in the eyes of the law. As they continue this mission, however, it seems that they have hit a wall--people know about mediation and no one questions its legality, but people are not flocking to it as ADR advocates believed they would.
Simply assembling an army of mediation-trained professionals and releasing them into society may not be enough to change the system. Decisions and disputes remain at the hands of adversarial forums and unstructured negotiations. This is where the second generation of ADR scholars needs to step in. While the first generation created effective dispute resolution methods, the second generation must figure what to do with them (the DR skills, not the first generation).
Mediation is the most basic application of facilitation skills--one actor applies these techniques in a voluntary negotiation that parallels or supplements traditional processes. While mediation provides structure to the negotiation, the process itself enjoys no outside structural support (other than the enforcement of agreements as contracts) or internal protection (other than neutrality). And in the broader system, conflict is only brought to facilitated negotiation under the threat or force of litigation or another adversarial process, and mediation usually stands apart as a parallel, overlapping track to these forums. Because mediation is at the apex of dispute resolution, the movement is therefore a free-floating skill instead of a structure.
While this may be a reason that mediation remains underused, it also holds the potential for its revolutionary expansion--as a skill set, facilitated negotiation may be plugged into other systems to improve interactive processes. The failings of an "if you build it, they will come" strategy for mainstreaming mediation indicates the needs for more creative, integrated uses of this skill set. We therefore need to invent new processes and systems that integrate facilitated negotiation into standard decision-making and dispute resolution.
Allow me to be so presumptuous as to use myself as an example (because that phrase is presumptuous enough). To address corruption and inefficiency in Congress, I suggested a system in which interest groups would be subject to mediation based on a certain level of lobbying expenditures (see 23 Ohio St. J. on Disp. Resol. 373). The basic effect of this device is that Congress would be able to tell conflicting interest groups to negotiate under facilitation before bogging down their system with an overwhelming amount of indirect influence in lobbying (a real and increasing problem in legislatures nation-wide). While lobbying disclosure laws (the only regulation of lobbying ) have not reigned in these excesses, allowing Congress to pull specific conflicts to a process that will produce mutually-acceptable policies may decrease inefficient, improper lobbying. The implications for the ADR movement are that this idea involves mediation as an enforcement mechanism for a problem that is not connected to litigation.
For another example, consider the brilliant idea of my friend, Emily MacBeath. She proposed using mediation on couples that experience turbulence in getting engaged. Her system of Facilitated Engagement Planning will bring couples to discuss their individual dreams and conflicting interests so that they may negotiate their shared future as husband and wife. This idea may seem silly to older generations that were taught to value family, but today's younger generation was raised to value individualism (your life is not fulfilled unless you contribute something or backpack through Europe). When two such individuals attempt to meld their lives together (and inevitably sacrifice personal aspirations), they often experience tension no matter how much they love each other. To combat this conflict, Emily's mediator would encourage the parties to share their expectations and discuss difficult choices in a safe, facilitated environment. The implications to ADR scholarship are that there are no legal rights at play--most people would see this situation as being devoid of conflict (yeah right) and therefore impossible to mediate.
These ideas illustrate the capability of mediation to be applied and integrated into untested systems and situations. Facilitation skills, created and cultivated by the first generation of dispute resolution thinkers, have the potential to transform a wide range of human dynamics. Now that mediation is well-accepted and underused, the new scholars in our field will recognize its potential for new applications or will develop new processes as an attempt to break into steady, fulfilling ADR employment.
9.24.2008
Special Thanks to...
I must start out by thanking the few crucial people that had a significant impact on the development of co-resolution.
The story of co-resolution through its supporting cast members starts with Carly Lane. She unintentionally inspired the idea by complaining about certain aspects of mediation (these events are described in the "Ah-ha moment" blog entry). Her pessimism identified the problem, and my optimism in the innovative potential of ADR took over from there. She then provided indirect emotional support by laughing at my jokes for the next two dateless years as I poured over this dispute resolution process. While she was pursuing her own ADR specialty and often paralleling my efforts, as to co-resolution she took a back seat--not driving, but along for the ride. That is, until the creation of this website--she designed and constructed everything you see here, and I would have been tangled up in the world wide web without her.
My gratitude next extends to Sarah Cole. I came up with the basic idea for co-resolution while in her mediation practicum. The process was embryonic at this point, so her major contribution at the time was not squishing it and sending me to a hospital for the unethically-insane (as others would threaten to do). And because she was always available and helpful, her research suggestions early on probably had disproportionally strong influence on the direction I took. Later, she became the primary supporter of my efforts, inviting me to speak about co-resolution to students and faculty members and helping me organize a simulation of the process.
The next person to impact the co-resolution idea was Nancy Rogers. While Prof. Cole was nurturing to the student that was going to fall on either side of the thin line between innovation and insanity, Nancy Rogers constantly challenged that student. Using her unmatched knowledge of dispute resolution, she forced me to confront the ethical issues I had created and pointed me to extremely useful, yet completely obscure articles. Furthermore, it was her flat-out rejection of the process's original name that led me to dub the process "co-resolution." In the end, my drive to impress her caused me, without a second thought, to turn a 20-page assignment into a 70-page omnibus paper that addressed aspects of co-resolution that I have yet to express anywhere else. I am therefore grateful for her sincere efforts to force me to succeed (also, she deserves thanks for merely reading through 70 pages of my nearly-unedited hypothesizing).
After the big three brought me to conceive, pursue, and develop the co-resolution process, I received crucial support from other members of the ADR community. Christopher Fairman, another professor and a master of the visual aid, met with me once and said something (I do not know what) that inspired me to create the chart that adorns this website and all other descriptions of co-resolution. Next, I am greatly indebted to Susan Raines for allowing me the huge opportunity to submit an article on co-resolution to Conflict Resolution Quarterly. I had been told by others that the journals would not waste their time on student submissions, and the response I received from her readers was a real turning point in my quest for legitimacy (they probably didn't know that I was a student). Credit is also due to Bernie Mayer and John Lande--both big names in ADR who took the time to aid and support me based on near-chance personal contacts. I accidentally ran into Dr. Mayer at a conference in Columbus and I volunteered to drive Prof. Lande to the airport after a symposium, but both were receptive to me as a random person who jumped out and assaulted them with an entirely made-up ADR concept.
Overall, considering the abrasive uniqueness of my idea and the tendency of people to resist change, nearly everyone in the ADR community was willing to listen and politely supportive, if not actually convinced, of my position. My experience, confirmed by my research on the subject, is that everyone claims to value innovation, but is repulsed when actually confronted with it. However, the ADR community (whether dangerously stable or dangerously insecure, depending on your perspective) proved to be a hospitable environment for new ideas.
The story of co-resolution through its supporting cast members starts with Carly Lane. She unintentionally inspired the idea by complaining about certain aspects of mediation (these events are described in the "Ah-ha moment" blog entry). Her pessimism identified the problem, and my optimism in the innovative potential of ADR took over from there. She then provided indirect emotional support by laughing at my jokes for the next two dateless years as I poured over this dispute resolution process. While she was pursuing her own ADR specialty and often paralleling my efforts, as to co-resolution she took a back seat--not driving, but along for the ride. That is, until the creation of this website--she designed and constructed everything you see here, and I would have been tangled up in the world wide web without her.
My gratitude next extends to Sarah Cole. I came up with the basic idea for co-resolution while in her mediation practicum. The process was embryonic at this point, so her major contribution at the time was not squishing it and sending me to a hospital for the unethically-insane (as others would threaten to do). And because she was always available and helpful, her research suggestions early on probably had disproportionally strong influence on the direction I took. Later, she became the primary supporter of my efforts, inviting me to speak about co-resolution to students and faculty members and helping me organize a simulation of the process.
The next person to impact the co-resolution idea was Nancy Rogers. While Prof. Cole was nurturing to the student that was going to fall on either side of the thin line between innovation and insanity, Nancy Rogers constantly challenged that student. Using her unmatched knowledge of dispute resolution, she forced me to confront the ethical issues I had created and pointed me to extremely useful, yet completely obscure articles. Furthermore, it was her flat-out rejection of the process's original name that led me to dub the process "co-resolution." In the end, my drive to impress her caused me, without a second thought, to turn a 20-page assignment into a 70-page omnibus paper that addressed aspects of co-resolution that I have yet to express anywhere else. I am therefore grateful for her sincere efforts to force me to succeed (also, she deserves thanks for merely reading through 70 pages of my nearly-unedited hypothesizing).
After the big three brought me to conceive, pursue, and develop the co-resolution process, I received crucial support from other members of the ADR community. Christopher Fairman, another professor and a master of the visual aid, met with me once and said something (I do not know what) that inspired me to create the chart that adorns this website and all other descriptions of co-resolution. Next, I am greatly indebted to Susan Raines for allowing me the huge opportunity to submit an article on co-resolution to Conflict Resolution Quarterly. I had been told by others that the journals would not waste their time on student submissions, and the response I received from her readers was a real turning point in my quest for legitimacy (they probably didn't know that I was a student). Credit is also due to Bernie Mayer and John Lande--both big names in ADR who took the time to aid and support me based on near-chance personal contacts. I accidentally ran into Dr. Mayer at a conference in Columbus and I volunteered to drive Prof. Lande to the airport after a symposium, but both were receptive to me as a random person who jumped out and assaulted them with an entirely made-up ADR concept.
Overall, considering the abrasive uniqueness of my idea and the tendency of people to resist change, nearly everyone in the ADR community was willing to listen and politely supportive, if not actually convinced, of my position. My experience, confirmed by my research on the subject, is that everyone claims to value innovation, but is repulsed when actually confronted with it. However, the ADR community (whether dangerously stable or dangerously insecure, depending on your perspective) proved to be a hospitable environment for new ideas.
The "Ah-ha" moment
I remember the scene vividly. I was walking out of a class on mediation with a friend and fellow dispute resolution scholar. As either a person with an internal equalizer or just an avid arguer, she tended to respond to pessimism with optimism and to optimism with pessimism. Therefore, after sitting through almost two hours of everyone high-fiving the mediation process, she felt the need to even things out (or just pick a fight with me, a fan of all things ADR). So she began to recount a mediation that she conducted in which one party became emotional and, when the other party offered the object of the dispute, turned off the emotion and snatched up the settlement. The moral of this story was, "What could the mediator do?" The parties had reached a settlement, and the mediator would lose their neutrality by calling out unfair negotiation tactics.
This scene became burned into my mind because it ignited something and sent my brain into overdrive. We just turned the corner when the moral of her story sank in, and it hit me. I stopped walking and, while fully taking in the art deco pattern on the adjacent wall, I thought, "Why not provide each party with a mediator to help them negotiate?" This question makes next to no sense to any expert on mediation and dispute resolution. But because I didn't know better, I was wrapping myself around all of the possibilities and benefits that this dynamic could spawn. This was my "Ah-ha" moment, a singular shift in my thinking from which everything else was to follow.
"What is it?" my friend asked. I was still frozen, staring at a wall. Embarrassed, I shook it off. "Uh. I just had an idea. It's nothing."
This scene became burned into my mind because it ignited something and sent my brain into overdrive. We just turned the corner when the moral of her story sank in, and it hit me. I stopped walking and, while fully taking in the art deco pattern on the adjacent wall, I thought, "Why not provide each party with a mediator to help them negotiate?" This question makes next to no sense to any expert on mediation and dispute resolution. But because I didn't know better, I was wrapping myself around all of the possibilities and benefits that this dynamic could spawn. This was my "Ah-ha" moment, a singular shift in my thinking from which everything else was to follow.
"What is it?" my friend asked. I was still frozen, staring at a wall. Embarrassed, I shook it off. "Uh. I just had an idea. It's nothing."
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