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Free report from Harvard Law -- Team-Building Strategies: Building a Winning Team for Your Organization

The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law is offering a free report. From the Web page:

In Team-Building Strategies: Building a Winning Team for Your Organization, you’ll discover:

• How to “unfreeze” old thought processes so that real change can happen.
• How to structure negotiation training so that it actually delivers results. (Simply reciting interesting concepts and retelling war stories is not a model for success.)
• How to be certain you understand the key concepts and practical applications of a negotiation simulation.
• What to do when making decisions based on faulty intuition threatens your self-esteem.
• How delegating responsibility without adequate authority can stymie negotiations. (The all-important organizational changes required to help negotiators succeed.)
• Measuring responsibility, accountability and dollar impact. (The essential factors for establishing a well-formed outcome, justifying criteria for success, and rewarding performance objectively.)
• A simple exercise for reducing contentiousness and competition. (Simply adopting this mindset can improve the negotiation outcome.)

Go here to download your copy of the report.

Music may cause an attitude: A clue about conflict resolution?

As those of you who read Brains on Purpose™ know, I have been researching the use of music in conflict resolution. A study at Kansas State about which I read today may be a small piece of the puzzle. Obviously much more research will need to be done to verify the priming effects of any kind of music.

From "Patriotic Music May Close Minds, Children's Music May Open Them" (Science Daily):

The words to "Itsy Bitsy Spider" tell a simple story about an arachnid and a spout, but simply recalling the lines could initiate an unintentional attitude.

...

[Eduardo] Alvarado is working with Donald Saucier, associate professor of psychology at K-State to study the effects priming can have on behavior by looking at the positive and negative responses stimulated from music lyrics from a variety of song categories, including patriotic and Christmas songs. Priming, he said, is when someone is exposed to a certain environment and their subconscious is activated, and then they tend to act in accordance with that environment without deliberate intent. Priming can manipulate behavior; if someone witnesses violent behavior, they would likely behave more violently.

...

Alvarado said the researchers wanted to see if certain musical lyrics activated a pro-social response, which is a positive feeling like empathy, or an anti-social response, which is a negative feeling like aggression. ...

...

...He said the preliminary findings showed that the patriotic songs had a negative effect on the participants, as shown through their responses to the survey's questions about other cultures and diversity. The patriotic songs made the participants close-minded and prejudiced.
"Once they were in a patriotic point of view, they were less empathetic," Alvarado said. "They didn't put themselves in other people's perspective."

Though songs like "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" were meant to be neutral primes, the researchers found that they stimulated a pro-social response.

I think an assumption made by the researchers was incorrect: "Alvarado said the researchers assume people act similarly to primes ... ." It is likely that the more self-aware a person is, the more he or she

Obtaining Successful Results in Mediation: Seattle seminar in September

This upcoming conference will include these programs:

• How and When to Mediate: Practical Tips for Successful Dispute Resolution
• The Path to Success in Mediation Starts Early: Mediation Preparation Techniques for the Litigator
• Neuroscience, Negotiation & Persuasion: Applications and Implications in Dispute Resolution
• How to Best Utilize Formal Mediation ~ Panel Discussion
• How Ethical Rules Support the Lawyer’s Complex Role in Mediation: Lawyer as Advocate, Negotiator, and Advisor

The program is being sponsored by The Seminar Group. Learn more in the brochure [PDF].

Blog Glob: "Troops Use ‘Samurai’ Meditation to Soothe PTSD"

Excerpt:

It wasn’t all that long ago that if you told U.S. troops to meditate, you ran the risk of being called a kook — or worse, a hippie. Today, it’s becoming increasingly-common advice, for soldiers and marines looking to deal with battlefield stress, and prep for war.

At Camp Lejeune, "Warrior Mind Training," supposedly based on ancient samurai techniques, are being offered to marines with mental health issues.

"This is a way to turn off your thoughts and get razor-sharp attention. We kind of work out the muscles, before our troops ever see action, so that they have the mental skill set to stay focused in the heat of battle - and to be able to leave the horrors of war behind when it’s time to come home," instructor Sarah Ernst tells the AP. "Our motto is, ‘Take the war to the enemy, but leave the battle on the battlefield.’"

Click to read the rest of "Troops Use ‘Samurai’ Meditation to Soothe PTSD" (Wired).

To read a book or not? Apply The Page 99 Test

Ford Madox Ford put forth a method for deciding if you want to read a book. He recommended: "Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you."

Marshal Zeringue has created a blog where the Test is applied to new books—by each book's author. Yesterday Todd Kashdan looked at page 99 of his new book Curious?.

I am pointing out this particular Page 99 Test because I recommend Kashdan's book and agree with him about the importance of curiosity. In fact, in my CARVE Disputes Model™, "C" stands for curiosity.

As Sulynn says in her book review, the seventh chapter is reason enough to buy Curious?:

[T]he chapter that’s worth buying the book for, is Chapter 7: The Anxious Mind and the Curious Spirit. This chapter is effective through the metaphor of the twin control dials labeled Curiosity-Explore and Anxiety, borrowing from Stephen Hayes’ Two Systems (curiosity and anxiety) in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Anxiety destroys our capacity to tolerate ambiguity and complexity ... and our obsession with managing Anxiety preoccupies our mind, leaving space for little else. We try in vain to control the unyielding Anxiety settings and the more we try, the worse it gets. When Anxiety is at a maximum 10 and Explore is at 0, our openness to accepting our experience or considering novelty is zilch. The trick is to focus on the less obtrusive Explore dial which incidentally is more responsive to manipulation. Kashdan swears on it that when we turn Explore up high, Anxiety stops being stubbornly high even though it may fluctuate over time and situation. Mindfulness is the key here. ... Readers will find strategies to harness the spirit of curiosity to lift the anxious mind - mindset shift, defusion of negative thoughts, or choosing a life of meaning and purpose.

After you read the book, let me know what you think, please. I am curious.

64% of physicians using smartphones, many for serving patients: How are lawyers using smartphones?

An article in the Washington Post this morning explains how doctors are using smartphones for interviewing, diagnosing and treating patients. Looks like this may be the wave of the future: Georgetown's medical school requires students to use them. From "New Tool in the MD's Bag: A Smartphone":

Georgetown's medical school recently required students, after their first year, to use an iPhone or iPod Touch, which is essentially an iPhone without phone capabilities. The school receives a bulk discount on the devices and builds the cost into students' tuition. Students had pushed for such a requirement, according to Schwartz, and they use the devices to look up information during clinical rotations, to study medical vocabulary and to take quizzes.

...

"I predict that in a couple years, all medical schools will be using them," [Catherine] Lucey said of the devices.

Are law schools using smartphones for education? If so, how?

And how are lawyers using the devices to better serve and relate to clients? In ADR? In negotiations with opposing clients? How might they?

A cautionary note in the article applies to any professional using a smartphone to access information while with

Fundraiser on May 30 for Mediators Beyond Borders

From the Mediators Beyond Borders fundraiser flyer [pdf]:

Dear Friend, Please join us for conversation on global conflicts, and assist us with your ideas, expertise, donations and support, in building conflict resolution capacity around the world.

May 30, 2009
2 PM - 5 PM
At the home of Ken Cloke and Joan Goldsmith
2411 18th Street
Santa Monica, CA 90405
310-396-4664
...
RSVP to kenclokembb@gmail.com
[For more information on MBB, go to our website at
www.mediatorsbeyondborders.org

Active listening: Is it helpful? Insulting? What?

When people find out that I sometimes teach listening to lawyers and mediators, they often ask if that means active listening (where the listener paraphrases or reflects back what the other has said — "What I hear you saying is ...") and "I" messages (stating what one wants or feels rather than concentrating on the other’s faults — "I would like some quiet" rather than "You are too noisy"). I say an emphatic "no."

Although I learned these techniques in the various counseling courses I have taken, I have never used them (except in the classes) or taught them. I agree with Stephen Covey when he says in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People that active listening or reflective listening is “mimicking what another person says. That kind of listening is skill-based, truncated from character and relationships, and often insults those ‘listened’ to in such a way.”

John Gottman and his colleagues had long recommended active listening to couples seeking counseling. They studied 130 couples for six years to find ways to predict marital success and failure. This study did not support the efficacy of active listening in resolving conflict or improving relationships. They write, “We need to convey how shocked and surprised we were by these results for the active listening model.” After learning that active listening occurred infrequently in the resolution of marital conflict, they studied tapes and transcripts of stable, happy couples.

They found that these couples “were not paraphrasing their spouses very often. [They] also found that

Mediate.com interviews Diane Levin, a true leader of mediator bloggers

If you are interested in mediation (after reading this article, I hesitate to say the "field" or "profession" of mediation), you will want to read this interview of Diane Levin.

2009 Intnl. Association of Holistic Lawyers conference will include a tribute to Steve Keeva

From the press release [pdf]:

Holistic Lawyers gather in Chicago

17th annual conference of the International Alliance of Holistic Lawyers will
take place in Chicago June 11 - 14, 2009

WHAT: Lawyers, Judges, Law Professors and Students will learn how practicing holistically
has been done with success AND satisfaction. Workshops will allow for exploration and
development of their own 'voice' in these new models of practice.

WHY: The world is changing and the practice of law must transform itself to continue to
contribute. People with problems now seek healing, not simply solutions. Holistic lawyering
emphasizes peacemaking over prevailing.

WHERE: Hilton Garden Inn, 10 E. Grand St. Chicago, IL

WHEN: Conference - June 11, 6:00 p.m. through June 14, 3:00 p.m. PreConference
Collaborative Law Training - June 10-11, 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

HOW: IAHL is gathering many of the luminaries who have taken the idea and ideals of law
practice as a healing, holistic undertaking and put them into concrete application as, e.g.,
Collaborative Law, Therapeutic Jurisprudence, Restorative Justice, Humanizing Legal Education
and others. At this conference they will share that doing good and doing well can indeed coexist.

WHO: A major player in IAHL and in the efforts to transform the way law is viewed and practiced is
author Steven Keeva who will be honored at the Saturday dinner on the 10th anniversary of
the publication of his book Transforming Practices.

More about the conference here.