CALENDAR OF EVENTS

 Ezell Center

             Last month I was privileged to be invited to address the North Carolina State Bar’s Dispute Resolution Section in Greensboro. I was specifically requested to speak on the growth and expansion of mediation as a commercial and community development instrument outside the litigated case. What I discovered was that North Carolina mediation practitioners are as creative and innovative as our colleagues in Tennessee. In addition to meeting “old friends” like Andy Little and Straus Professor Tony Miller who were also on the program, I met many new friends who are working hard to improve their skills and build their practices. Roughly half the attendees were lawyers and the others were not.

                What we all have in common is the growing awareness that mediation is a practice that has applicability in board rooms and back rooms as well as court rooms. The role of the mediator is growing and with it the opportunity to build a career and assist our communities grows as well.

                Coaches, facilitators, organizational system designers and ombudsmen are but a few of the mediative-type applications professionals in our field perform for their clients and employers. The tent is wide indeed that covers the work our colleagues do in this discipline we call mediation.

                Among some of the more creative applications of mediation skills of which I am aware include personal coaching of physicians to improve their “conflict capacity quotient”. Many of our colleagues are trainers and facilitators of difficult conversations. Biomedical ethics is a growing field for the application of mediation skills. From police departments to public schools to hospitals and churches, mediators are finding numerous applications for the problem solving skills that people and the organizations to which they belong crave.

                TAPM exists to serve all these varied applications and the professionals who provide them. As central as court annexed mediation will always be to our field, the more creative we can be in generating interest in the many forms of managing conflict in our businesses, communities and families the greater the value our “profession” will provide to society. We will be very interested in hearing from TAPM members about the various forms they have seen mediation take. As my term as TAPM president proceeds, I would like to feature your experiences with “outside the box” mediation approaches to problem solving that you have participated in. Please let me know of those experiences.

                In the meantime, count on the fact that the Tennessee Association of Professional Mediators will seek to serve the interests of the mediation community in whatever roles its members choose to perform in furtherance of a peaceful and effective social order.

 

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