Schools, Systems, and Stories…

Baker Hughes, the S&P 100 oilfield services company based in Houston, will create an Organizational Ombuds Office to serve its employees throughout the U.S., Canada, and Trinidad/Tobago. The primary job duty of the new positions is to, "Offer exceptional organizational ombuds services in accordance with the International Ombudsman Association's Standards of Practice and Code of Ethics, o3 [Organizational Ombuds Office] Charter, o3 Policy and o3 Handbook."

Baker Hughes has opened…

Schools, Systems, and Stories…

Joe Folger was the guest blogger this week!  He writes about the application of transformative conflict theory to our own conflicts.  Read the full article here.

Renowned Attorney Martin Blake, Esq. Joins JAMS

April 26, 2012

San Francisco – JAMS, the largest private provider of mediation and arbitration services worldwide, today announced the addition of Martin Blake, Esq. to its panel. Mr. Blake will be based in the JAMS San Francisco Resolution Center. He will serve as an arbitrator, mediator and special master in a variety of disputes including Aviation, Business/Commercial, Employment,…

Intertwined with the notion of resilience and moving past the feelings and thoughts that emerge from our disputes is whether we can actually forget about what occurred. Or, do we store the emotional impact and the impressions we make about the other person and ourselves? It has been suggested in a previous blog that unless we unpack what happened for us in our interpersonal disputes we will carry the luggage around with us. This week the ConflictMastery™ Quest(ions) blog is more on this…

Considering my research area is based on primarily nonverbal communication and mediation, when I am presenting and offering workshops and trainings, it is not just words I rely on to try and help others understand the value and important role nonverbal communication has on our daily interactions.  This includes both our professional and social interactions.

Sketchnoting and infographics are two examples of how information can be shared and retained when you are at a workshop,…

I'm so excited about starting my new show tomorrow evening (Thursday April 26th at 7:30pm(EST) blogtalkradio.com/bathabile)!  Last month I updated the theme.  Now I have updated the show's name to Sangoma.  Click here to read about why I've chosen that name and what it means: http://untangledresolutions.blogspot.com/.  I hope you join in - and I'd love to have you as a guest sometime.

Continuing its commitment to internal ADR processes, FEMA has created a Reservist Ombudsman Office to serve the agency’s intermittent, disaster workforce. The FEMA Reservist Ombuds is a new function located within the ADR Division of the Office of Chief Counsel. The Ombuds will complement the existing work of FEMA's ADR Advisors by serving as an upward feedback channel for issues and concerns related to FEMA policies, and practices raised by Reservists.  FEMA employs about ADR Advisors, who…

Research and pragmatism can help resolve conflicts

Sudan and South Sudan teeter on the brink of war. There's a political standoff between Iraq's Kurds and the government. And then there's Syria, where there's no real ceasefire, only…

Listen to Stephen Kotev speak with Barbara Raye by selecting the player below.

Barbara Raye will talk about the Restorative Justice practice of Victim Offender Mediation. VOM engages those who have been harmed by crime or other actions, those who have offended or harmed others, and the communities they live in. Its goals…

During the last two years, I have truly enjoyed writing my This Week in Conflict reports, but alas, the time has come for me to take an extended, and perhaps permanent, break from it.

My goal for the reports was to learn more about what was going on in some of the more obscure conflicts on our planet and try to share that news in the most concise way. The real challenge I found was trying to get at the reality of the situation via news reports, to verify the content. One thing I found…

Listen by clicking on the player below.

The growing practice of arresting students for disruptive behavior in school has led to the so-called "School to Prison Pipeline." The larger issue is that our criminal justice system is focused on punishment instead of accountability, and it is biased based on race and income. For 14years the…

So often we get wrapped up in an interpersonal conflict and lose track of what’s actually happening to us. We seem to let go of our grasp on the situation. Our emotional responses reflect the chaos and confusion going on in our hearts and minds. At these times, we may tend to misinterpret messages, attribute motives to the other person, lose our focus and lose perspective about what’s going on for us and what warrants clarification.

Before engaging the other person in a discussion to…

Compared to the settlement conferencing often done in litigated cases, transformative mediation reminds people of therapy.  Read my latest blog post for a discussion of how transformative mediation isn't therapy but is therapeutic.

Preparing to respond to another person’s initiation of a conflict conversation can be an art and science, just as it is when we are the initiator. You may not have thought of conflict conversations as being either an art or science. The reality is we all are involved on a regular basis in communications that are and that have the potential for being difficult, emotional, inflammatory and so on.

It is up to us to choose whether we want to engage in difficult communications…

Listen by clicking on the player below.

If our current legal system was effectively delivering justice, why is crime and violence continuing to spiral out of control all around the Globe? What are the demands of justice? What does justice feel like? When is justice satisfied? In order to find answers to these questions we need to reframe the debate about what…

Even when an interpersonal dispute appears to be resolved, there are times that some of us continue to feel unresolved in our hearts and mind. Why is that? There are lots of reasons this phenomenon occurs. These include lingering feelings of hurt, anger and other remaining negative emotions. Or, it could be the realization that we regret our unspoken words and sentiments. Or, we regret saying things we know we cannot take back now. A tendency to accommodate the other person’s needs more than…

In its latest issue, the peer-reviewed journal of the International Ombudsman Association takes up one of the central ethical standards for Organizational Ombuds: Informality.  Journal Editor David Miller explains,

In my experience as an Organizational Ombudsman, Informality is the hardest [Standard of Practice] to grasp operationally, unless it is explicated as a contrast with related professions, or in terms of our non-engagement with formal processes. But, of course,…