Just to build slightly on this week's other post, the concept that we always need to be learners is a powerful one.  "As soon as you think you're ripe, you're rotten" holds a lot of weight. When people are in conflict, it is this kind of thinking that forces people into entrenched positions. As mediators and as people who sometimes find ourselves in conflict, we should always be asking ourselves, "what else is there for me to know?"

Notice, it's not, "what are they not telling me?", or "what are they hiding?", but "what else is there for me to know?" The idea is to dig out, not only what we don't know, but what we don't know we don't know. For instance, I know I can mediate most conflict situations.  What I know I can't do is perform surgery on someone.  I've never been trained as a surgeon and have no medical knowledge or experience that would allow me to perform such a task, this I know. It is information that I know I don't know. However, my sister recently became a body builder. She constantly monitors her caloric, carbohydrate and salt intake. She carefully mixes cardio workouts with her regular strength-building routines. Before she eats or exercises, she considers several different factors and how each might impact her. I never knew that bodybuilders had to be so conscious of every little detail. I assumed they simply lifted weights frequently and tried to avoid hurting themselves. So my sister has gained, and now shared, information that was so new to me, that I didn't even know it existed for me to learn it.

The information that we don't know we don't know makes up most of the information that exists in the world. What we don't know we don't know about the other people in conflict is the information that drives the conflict. I know that I don't how bothered my boss when I turned that report in one day late.  What I don't know I don't know is that other co-workers have been consistently late with their reports and that our boss is starting to feel like her authority is being disrespected.

What we don't know we don't know is where conflict lies, and only through exploration, based in compassion and a desire to understand, will that information surface.

"As long as you think you're green you grow. As soon as you think you're ripe you're rotten."

That quote was echoed most recently by my professor, but I've heard it stated before. After some digging, it turns out that the original expression was, "When you're green, you're growing. When you're ripe, you rot", and was stated first by Ray Kroc, the found of McDonald's. At the heart of this quote is the idea that we must always remain open to learning. The moment we think we know everything there is to know, we shut ourselves down to learning. This concept has many applications, but there are two areas related to mediation where I think it can be helpful.

 1. Mediators must be open to learning and developing their skills as a mediator. The moment a mediator decides they are a "great" mediator, they close themselves off from other learning opportunities. I think every mediator should go through a basic, 40-hour mediation training once every five years. Over the past six years, I've sat through seven 40-hour trainings taught by either one of two trainers, and I learn so much more every time. Mediators need to push themselves to take continuing education courses, even if they don't sound interesting. I recently attended a workshop entitled "How to attract a great mentor". I didn't think it would provide any learning related to mediation, but some of the material got me thinking. When you are networking with potential mentors, the relationship must be reciprocal. You need to be engaged in their story, and want to know more about them personally, and not just view the relationship as a networking opportunity. So when I go on informational interviews with potential informal mentors, I ask a lot of questions about them, and how they go to where they are. It deepens my relationship with that person, and often takes the relations closer to friendship, rather than just a mentor/mentee relationship. In mediation, we can use this way of thinking to develop deeper connections with participants. If we develop our curiosity, it encourages us to ask. If we engage in their story, it keeps the process focused on what they want in mediation, and not what we want them to get.


2. Similarly, when we think we have heard all the facts, we are about to rot. In mediation, it's difficult to determine when it is time to move the process along. We may think we know all there is to know about a topic or the conflict, but the participants' energy is what should guide the process. Rather than determine whether you have all the facts, understand that there is always more to know, and more to learn. Ask questions. Explore. Let the participants let you know it's time to move on. When the same information comes up over and over again, and your questions are not uncovering anything new, then it is time to move on. As long as there is new information coming at you, the situation is still green and growing. Even when you do move the process along, be sure not to think that it might be ripe. Be open to exploring again if something new comes out. You may be in the middle of writing the agreement, but if new information is still coming out, be open to exploring it. Let the participants know that you can schedule additional time with them to visit those new topics.

Control

As I was meditating this morning, I was thinking about control. My attention was focused on the sensation of my breath moving past my nostrils, when cars outside my window would zoom by and my focus would shift to the noise outside. I wondered if I should move to the back bedroom where there is less noise from the street. Moving to another room would have been an attempt to create the perfect conditions in which to meditate. Surely, there is no point to meditate where there are no distractions. Or is there? Isn't that the point of meditating? Meditation is the practice of constantly bringing attention back to one focal point. Other noises are not ignored, and feelings that arise during meditation are not repressed, but they are acknowledged and let go. If I had moved to a quieter room, I would have been ignoring and denying the noise, rather than practice refocusing despite the noise. I was trying to control my environment in a way that made it easier to do what I wanted, rather than work toward being able to do what I wanted despite setbacks. I'm currently reading a fascinating book entitled, Mindset, by Carole Dweck. She identifies two types of mindsets, fixed and growth. The fixed mindset believes that talent is something we are born with, and that you either have it or you don't. Setbacks feel like failures to the person with the fixed mindset because it is an indictment. Setbacks say, "you don't have the talent, so why are you even trying?". The growth mindset is a bit different. The growth mindset believes that any person can, through effort, learn to do anything. Setbacks to a person in the growth are simply learning opportunities. I remember being a kid, sitting at the kitchen table across from sister, arguing with her about whether or not a person, with enough determination, could move a glass of water with their mind. We both eventually realized that we simply didn't have the talent to do such a thing. We tried, but after failing, assumed it wasn't possible. Although it isn't exactly what I had in mind as a child, someone has learned to do it, and did so through incredible effort and from learning from setbacks. I see many new mediators fall into the fixed mindset, and one early sign of it is their need to control the mediation. A mediator in the fixed mindset gets frustrated over the role-plays in a training and says things like, "a real case would never be like this". They also have difficulty facilitating real mediation sessions and may say something like, "we couldn't get to agreement because these participants were not mediating in good faith". These mediators try to create the perfect environment in which they can feel their efforts will be successful. Typically, they will avoid or dismiss feedback, because if it negative, it means to them that they don't have talent as a mediator, and then why bother trying? Mediators in the growth mindset learn from every opportunity. They have a difficult mediation and they to try learn how their behavior impacted the session. They learn what they could have done differently. They seek as much feedback as possible because they can only learn from it. I hope to explore this topic further as my own thoughts continue to develop around it. For now, I'll practice meditating on the couch by the window with all the noise. I'll also make sure I create time for feedback after every mediation session. It's easy to make excuses to avoid it, but we can only learn if we accept we are not perfect. Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Ballantine Books.

Emerging thoughts

So I only update this blog about once a year. I always intend to post more here, but get overwhelmed by life, and Mediate This! gets neglected again. Still, my mind is always on mediation, and in particular, how to improve a mediator's skill set. For a while, I have feared that mediation is something that some people have a natural talent for, and others do not. Thankfully, I have dispelled this myth from my own mind. I intend to explain my own struggle with this myth, and to explore many other topics on this blog. I have quite a bit more time on my hands these days, and a lot of emerging thoughts about mediation that I'd like to commit to written -typed, actually-text. One emerging question I have is, how does the field of mediation continue to learn from other fields of science, thought and research without allowing those fields to have any negative impact on mediation as well? I am a student of organizational development, itself a field that pulls from psychology, social psychology, and organizational behavior, and I hope to use theories and research from those fields to advance the field of mediation. My goal is to use theories from those fields in a way that only benefits mediation, therefore demonstrating how to pull from other fields without a negative impact on the field of mediation.