I had the opportunity to hear Joseph `Josh’ Stulberg speak at a mediation conference that I was also speaking at this spring. I purchased The Middle Voice: Mediating Conflict Successfully by Joseph B. Stulberg and Lela P. Love at the conference, and now after reading it, am glad that I did. It is a very good book on the basic mediation process and the skills needed to mediation conflict and find resolution. The book is appropriate for those who mediate professionally or for community dispute centers, as well as for those who have to mediation conflict in work, family, or community settings.
The first couple of chapters address a few basics regarding conflict, such as who can use mediation skills, intervener models, and patterns of conflict. Chapter four gets into particulars regarding being a mediator and what it entails.
Next come the chapters that actually walk the reader through the mediation process. Chapter five looks at things a mediator should do before the mediation even starts. This chapter address looking at the parties, resources, issues, options for process, rules of behavior, time frame, and outcomes in relation to even setting a mediation session date.
Part two of the book, starting with chapter six, covers what the authors call BADGER. This is the model they use to describe the components of the mediator’s role during the process. The six components are: Begin the discussions, Accumulate information, Develop the discussion strategy, Generate movement, Elect separate sessions, and Reach closure. Each of these components is described very well in the separate chapters, and there are ample examples to help the reader understand, as well as practice tips to assist the mediator with these phases of mediation.
Part three of the book focuses on lessons from experience with a chapter on practical challenges and ethical dilemmas and a short conclusion. The book also contains some recommended reading and Model Standards of Conduct for Mediators.
I really liked the book. It is not as long as some of my mediation texts, but I found it to be easy to read and practical. It is a good for anyone wanting to study the mediation process and become a better mediator. I’d have liked to have seen the lessons from experience portion of the book be a bit longer and more in depth, but the questions and answers that were presented were good advice and make you think about important aspect of mediation that you may face when trying to be the middle voice of conflict.
It’s a concise guide to mediation that covers the basics, but as I teach my students, basics are the most important skills to master, because they are what everything else is built upon. Obviously, people new to mediation will gain more from this book than experienced mediators, but I still think it is good for those of us with experience to read basic texts as well. I found it a good resource for some of the mediation teaching I do.
Without hesitation, I recommend this book to anyone who wants to better understand the mediation process and sharpen their mediation skills.
AUG
Christopher,Your musings on the sucbejt of mediating construction claims are right on the money-figuratively and literally! Construction professionals live with risk management decisions every day. There is the risk of underbidding a job, design errors, construction site accidents, labor disputes, and the list goes on and on. When a construction dispute goes to trial, the risk continues, but there is a distinct difference between litigation risks and those risks that are common to the construction industry: control. When you submit your dispute to a judge, jury or an arbitrator, you lose control, and you give it to people who have little to no understanding of your problems, and several weeks of trial ( and lots of money spent ) will not necessarily make them sympathetic to your point of view. As a result, mediation becomes a very important dispute resolution tool for construction professionals. With the assistance of seasoned contruction lawyers, parties to a construction dispute can evalauate the facts and analyze the law, and in most instances reasonably project the likelihood of success(or failure) if the case goes to trial. Construction lawyers are adept at performing decision tree analyses that include the costs of litigation that help their clients understand the success and failure ratio of a case (meaning, how much you have to spend to get the case through trial and even an appeal and what are your chances of a jury voting in your favor). With this advanced preparation, parties can participate in a mediation where they retain control of the outcome. If the dispute is resolved, it is because the parties decide it is in their respective best interest to do so. In short, mediation allows construction professionals do what they do for every other aspect of a project: control and manage risk. It should be in everyone’s toolbox.