Radio Shows on Peacemaking

If you haven't been listening to Fix Your Conflicts! in November and December, I have had some great guests, including Bill Saa, a peacebuilder in war-torn Liberia, Gladis Benavides on cross-cultural conflict, the Resolutionary himself Stewart Levine, Barbara Raye, executive director of the Victim Offender Mediation Association, Michael Maloney on common sense and communication, Max Factor III, Esq. on social justice and mediation, and Mark Tombach on teaching values to teenagers. These have been great conversations--even the network engineer didn't want the shows to end!

This Monday its Nan Burnett's turn to talk about staying centered as a mediator and about her new book. Nan is a high conflict mediator in Denver and hosts the annual Rocky Mountain Retreat around mediation, inner work, and spirituality.

You can access and download the archived shows at http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001eUYSOg60wv0ltMKfVT7fYeDQTc7RUcFagoyyEADxRFkWeUR9PsC9QoUHaY1TAedjt5HDZm4WWOYR2UMNrozmkHDDsmqBpp493mA8MEiy8GOHbQvAeuFMTYn0e3mopQswa6SPHnYsrq4= and listen live on Mondays 11 am Pacific at worldtalkradio.com. Check it out!

Another Radio Show!

I was approached by another network to do another radio show and, after listening to the pitch, decided what the heck! On Thursday December 6, 2007, I debuted on wsradio.com on The Doug Noll Show. Unlike Fix Your Conflicts!, The Doug Noll Show will be pure call-in. I am inviting guests for the next month or so as we ramp up, but by mid-January, its all advice, all the time. The Doug Noll Show airs Thursday evenings 8 pm Pacific at wsradio.com. The shows will also be archived at http://www.lawyertopeacemaker.com/radio-archives.html so you can pick them up there as MP3 files for your iPOD.

My goal is to spread the word about how mediation and peacemaking can transform our everyday lives. Thanks for making this goal come true by listening in and supporting the shows.

It's Not About "Show Me the Money!"

So many disputes and conflicts, especially in the business world, seem to be about money. If a debt is owed, then it probably is about the money. In just about every other dispute, money may be important, but it is not driving the conflict.

Last week, I mediated a case that demonstrated this in a classic way. John (not his real name) claimed he was owed $48,000 on a contract. Bill (not his real name either), said , "No way!" They had a written contract with an attorney's fee clause. In California, that means that if you win, you have the right to ask a judge to award you your attorney's fees. By the time the case came to me for mediation, John had spent $38,000 in attorney's fees and Bill had spent $55,000 in attorney's fees. The combined fees nearly doubled the amount they were fighting over!

John demanded his full contract amount plus his attorney's fees. He was not going to "rollover" for Bill. He was owed the money fair and square, and by God, he was going to fight for every last dime. Bill, of course, believed that he didn't owe John anything and had many technical defenses to John's lawsuit. Bill wanted to be paid his attorney's fees to settle the case.

This one didn't settle. Both men were more interested in protecting their own sense of self-esteem than about the money. On a cognitive rational level, they each knew they would spend far more money with their lawyers than they would ever recover. On an emotional level, however, conceding to the other guy's demand would be an unacceptable blow to ego. Since emotions are far more powerful than cognitive rational processing, the fight was not about the money. It was about the need to be right and prove the other guy wrong.

This is a classic conflict pattern found in family disputes as well as in international conflicts. The need to protect face and boost self-esteem is fundamental in all of us. I have observed that people with a strong sense of identity and self-esteem tend not to be enmeshed in conflicts as much as others. On the other hand, those with a lesser sense of identity and lower self-esteem fight when they feel their identities are being threated.

What's really interesting is that giving someone respect costs nothing financially. Yet that can be the hardest thing to do when you feel like you are being disrespected.