This blend of positive findings, intriguing ironies, and demonstrable role stresses and ambiguities amounts to a rich opportunity for researchers and practitioners, especially those of the reflective variety, who can approach the conundrums and debates of the field in the same tolerant, focused, and inquisitive manner that characterizes the constructive mediation process itself. My broad overview also suggests a seminal role for the friends and supporters of mediation. By familiarizing themselves with mediation and encouraging its use, managers, parents, and leaders (of a community, an institution, a group) can transform mediation from a frequently untapped resource to a familiar and common instrument for resolving the disputes of everyday life.
Note
1. The research findings and evidence about mediation mentioned in this chapter are presented in greater detail in Carnevale and Pruitt (1992), Kressel and Pruitt (1985, 1989), Kressel and Wall (2012), “Conflict Resolution in the Field,” 2004, and Wall and Dunne (2012).
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CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
TEACHING CONFLICT RESOLUTION SKILLS IN A WORKSHOPa
Susan W. Coleman
Yaron Prywes
This chapter describes the Coleman Raider model, used to teach negotiation and mediation skills to adult learners. By making explicit our teaching philosophy, course objectives, and methods, we hope to stimulate discussion and research about how conflict resolution is taught. Although organizations around the world have invested significant financial resources on this topic, there has been little systematic research over the past decade on the pedagogy of conflict resolution or on the models and methods used to teach these skills (Movius, 2008; Raider, 1995). We first share six pedagogical insights derived from our practice that have come to underpin our training design. Then we discuss the objectives of the course as a whole and the learning activities in each of our seven training modules. We follow with some recommendations for social science researchers and theorists. We conclude with a postscript to the earlier editions that shares three recent examples in which modules from this conflict resolution training have been used in other interventions: intact team building, a collaborative inquiry, and an organizational mediation with leadership coaching.
INSIGHTS FROM PRACTICE
The first pedagogical insight is that each learner has a unique and implicit “theory of practice” for resolving conflicts. Each individual’s theory of practice has been developed over a lifetime, influenced by many factors, such as various individual differences, skills, and competencies (see part 3, Personal Differences, in this Handbook), as well as salient cultural and identity groups’ norms and values, and situational roles and hierarchies (see part 5, Culture and Conflict, in this Handbook).
Second, learners need both support and challenge to examine their own theory of practice. Intellectual and experiential comparison of competitive and collaborative processes can create challenging internal conflict for most learners. From our experience, learners experience two types of internal conflicts. The first is felt by those who embrace collaboration as an ideal and yet experience dissonance as they discover through course exercises how much of their own behavior is viewed by others and themselves as competitive, accommodating, or compromising. The second is felt by those who resist or reject collaboration and then struggle when collaborative approaches appear to have some merit. Although the first group is typically larger, because most participants in our training are volunteers, the trainers must create a learning community where all feel safe enough to try on new skills and attitudes.
The third insight is that experiential exercises shift the responsibility for learning from the trainer to the participant. For many adult learners, role playing and subsequent public debriefing are powerful learning tools as well as unfreezing devices for behavioral and attitudinal change. The excitement, fun, and support of mutual self-discovery counteract the potential embarrassment of being less than perfect in front of the others.
Fourth, self-reflection based on video or audio feedback gives many learners motivation to modify problematic behavior. Videotaping or audiotaping the role-play exercise for later review enables each learner to observe and reflect on his or her own behavior in terms of general knowledge about the collaborative conflict resolution process presented by the trainers.
Fifth, user-friendly models and a common vocabulary enable a group of learners to talk about their shared in-program experience. Conceptual frames, like the ones taught in modules 2 through 7 (discussed in the next section), are broad enough to illuminate the underlying structure of a collaborative process across many contexts and cultures because they leave room for variation. The trainer needs to be contextually sensitive to explain and illustrate the heuristic frames in ways that are culturally and situationally relevant.
The final insight is that learners need follow-up and support after workshop training to internalize new concepts and skills. As in other areas of skills training, most participants need additional coaching in a supportive environment for behavioral change to occur (Raider, 1995). A three- to six-day workshop in conflict resolution can make the learner aware of what she does not know, thereby beginning the learning process, but more work is needed if a collaborative process is to become the preferred response to mixed-motive conflicts. This humbling but valid observation needs serious consideration by the conflict resolution field—by trainers as well as organizations that sponsor trainings.
OVERVIEW OF THE COLEMAN RAIDER WORKSHOP DESIGN
Developed by Ellen Raider and Susan Coleman, Conflict Resolution: Strategies for Collaborative Problem Solving is a highly interactive workshop typically conducted in a three- or six-day format. (It is based on Raider’s 1987 training manual, A Guide to International Negotiation.) The three-day format is for groups requesting training in collaborative negotiation. The longer format includes an extensive three-day module on mediation. All participants receive a training manual, which is divided into sections corresponding to the seven course modules:
Module 1 presents an overview of conflict resolution, with an emphasis on distinguishing between competitive and collaborative resolution strategies.
Module 2 introduces a structural model, the elements of negotiation. In this module, we focus on the difference between positions and needs or interests, as well as the skill of reframing and the use of a prenegotiation planning tool.
Module 3 describes five communications behaviors or tactics that are typically used during negotiations, and it emphasizes the difference between the intent and the impact of any communication.
Module 4, combining the learning from the previous modules, gives the learner a sense of the flow of a collaborative negotiation by introducing a stage model.
Module 5 describes how cultural differences affect the conflict resolution process.
Module 6 helps participants understand and deal with emotions, which typically arise during interpersonal and intercultural conflict.
Module 7 in its short form introduces mediation as an alternative if negotiation breaks down. The longer form teaches participants the general skill and practice of mediation.
Although the information contained in these seven modules is the foundation for every workshop, the material presented is customized to meet the needs of each client. This is accomplished through selecting or creating case simulations, including previously recorded video examples of negotiations or mediations from our library, and prior assessments of the trainee group.
This precourse assessment and customization is an important part of our work. During the assessment, the training team builds rapport with the client and discovers many of the conflicting issues currently in the client’s system. This information enables the team to anticipate, recognize, and then incorporate relevant teachable moments during the training, that is, to link the training material to real concerns of the learners as they emerge. In this way, we have been able to teach this course to such diverse groups as schoolteachers in New York, Dallas, and Skopje; corporate executives in Buenos Aires, Paris, and Tokyo; grassroots community groups dealing with tenant organizing and environmental justice; diplomats from the Association of South-East Asian Nations and the European Union; and United Nations staff throughout the world. The course has been taught over the past twelve years to over ten thousand people. The materials have been translated into French, Spanish, Arabic, and Macedonian, and a book based on our manual has been published in Japanese.
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