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Bringing Peace Into the Room

I'm re-reading this collection of essays (edited by Bowling and Hoffman) about the qualities of successful mediators. I read it some years ago before I became Faculty Ombudsperson, while I was chairing our university's Curriculum Committee. It was a position with some negative power in that I could (inadvertently) delay passage of curricular changes if I wasn't competent; on the positive side when there were conflicts between affected parties on campus I could on a good day help mediate them.

Among the qualities that I aspired to based on the description in the book were active listening and a good sense of humor. It is amazing the power that active listening has on people; many go through their professional lives for long stretches without really, really being heard, partly because of their difficulty in articulating what is pent up inside them. If you can listen attentively, accumulating questions or hooks to come back to and follow up, you can watch someone's barriers start to crumble and really communicate.

A good sense of humor was essential to finding joy in work that often started with negative emotions on the part of the opposed parties (AKA combatants).

Now that I am Faculty Ombudsperson I am using these skills on a regular basis to some degree of success. I know that I work on them daily.

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