by jcooper131 | Feb 10, 2014 | Houston Mediation and Arbitration
Whether you turn on the television, log on to the internet, or open a newspaper ethical failures are being reported. These ethical failures infect both business and government, and they encompasses a range of issues. What is surprising is that these failures in ethical behavior occur despite the existence of written policies and procedures, codes, and corporate statements of Values. Many of these entities have corporate cultures that call for ethical behavior within a company structure and towards external clients and suppliers/vendors.
Ethical lapses can have serious consequences that impact a company’s reputation, its relationship with stakeholders, and even with various governmental entities. Why then are there ethical failures by supervisors and employees up and down the chain of command? What leads individuals to take shortcuts, or make decision that are not in the best interest of the organization or the company? These and other equally valid questions point to what I believe to be a major weakness in many corporate initiatives related to ethics. It stems from a focus that is almost entirely directed at compliance to legal standards.
As stated by Dr. Leonard J. Brooks in his book Business and Professional Ethics, a sound basis or strategy to comply with state and federal laws governing ethics is an absolute requirement in today’s environment. The penalties laid out in the statues are severe. Policies and procedures designed to assure compliance to statutes are a necessary requirement. Yet, where many companies fail is in structuring all of their training toward prevention. All of the checks and balances focus on surveillance mechanisms, procedures and standards emphasize control and the limiting of authority, and they institute monitoring processes and audits to assure compliance.
This focus on compliance to the exclusion of everything else is designed to prevent bad behavior from occurring. This emphasis on preventing negative outcomes will always fall short of its objective if the other side of the coin is missing. That is training managers, supervisors, and employees to work positively inside an ethical framework. Good behavior has to be discussed, sometimes even taught, and reinforced on a regular basis.
When I am asked to give talks on ethics I make clear to those listening that ethics has to be treated as a discipline, and much like safety programs discussed on a regular basis. Leaders and managers and all levels need to engage in practical exercises to help employees understand what constitutes a conflict of interest, where it can arise, and why it is different from the concept of improper behavior, sometimes called impropriety. That they can intersect and become one and the same is true, but they don’t mean the same thing. There are many other practical exercises that should be examined and discussions that should be undertaken on a regular basis to aid employees up and down the chain of command to stay within the four corners of what is ethical.
by jcooper131 | Jan 17, 2014 | Houston Mediation and Arbitration
Mediators can use various mediation models to aid parties in conflict achieve a positive outcome. The Transformative Model is one of the more useful approaches in that it does not try to override the interests of the parties in dispute. At the heart of most disputes is the basic truth that the parties have differing goals and objectives; their interests are incompatible and thus are the core of the conflict.
The transformative model respects the individual differences held by the parties, but allows the parties to take control of the process and change the dynamic from negative or destruction actions and language to actions or language that is constructive. The interest-based discussions are taken over by the parties in dispute and they are then empowered to examine other ways and means of resolving the dispute, and to finally crafting a solution or set of solutions.
In this model the mediator’s role is to support the parties as they shift from a defensive posture to a relationship approach where the parties recognize they have the power to affect the outcome where the process itself is positive and the potential outcome is positive. Once the mediator initiates the mediation process on the basis of the transformative model, he/she must exercise patience and restraint because the process within the transformative model where the parties take control of the interaction is neither smooth nor seamless. In this new and tentative relationship, the interaction of the parties will advance toward potential alternatives and retreat back to defending their previous point of view. Yet, because of the environment nurtured by the mediator, the parties advance more frequently than they retreat.
The mediator cannot lose sight of the goal which is to get the parties to take ownership of both the process and the outcome, and to do so in a positive way that brings resolution to the dispute. In the modern business lexicon the word Empowerment is over used and often misused, but in the context of this type of mediation it is accurate description of what must take place in order for the parties to successfully construct a lasting resolution to their conflict.
Whenever I am tempted to steer the parties toward a more constructive dialogue I remind myself of what a man by the name of Andy Hickman wrote in his book, Stuff That Really Matters, about what he called the Bonzai Principle. In this story Mr. Hickman reminds his readers that the Bonzai tree, beautiful as it may be, was not designed to be six inches tall. It stays that way through the actions of individuals. So whenever I start thinking I know best, I remind myself that I may be doing the opposite of what is best.
by jcooper131 | Jan 4, 2014 | Houston Mediation and Arbitration
A common misconception is that careful adherence to and management of a contract will prevent contract disputes. Experience has shown us that even well managed contractual relationships experience unresolved issues that develop into contract claims. Some are minor and are quickly resolved, but others, like an untended field taken over by weeds and thickets, will be consumed by wasteful conflict and arguments. High risk contracts, such as those with aggressive milestones and demanding scheduling requirements, are particularly vulnerable to unresolved claim conditions.
It is a given, an axiom if you will, that disputes such as these are resolved with more success when the parties directly involved with the dispute negotiate a compromise where both parties derives a benefit that is deemed acceptable and of sufficient value to allow the work to progress and the relationship to be preserved.
Sometimes those two objectives require the assistance of an impartial third party to mediate the dispute. The emphasis needs to be on mediation rather than arbitration or litigation, as neither of these will accomplish the dual goals of assuring progress of the work and preserving the relationship.
by jcooper131 | Dec 4, 2013 | Conflict, Disputes, Mediate Conflicts, Mediation, Solving Conflicts, Third Party Mediator, Workplace Conflicts
Conflict is a necessary part of the competitive process between and among organizations and individuals, but this is not the generally held view. When a conflict manifests itself/ rises up among individuals in a group, management sees this as a bad thing, and reacts accordingly. It is seen by many as a crisis to be addressed quickly. This view and the approaches taken to address conflict based on this view can create an environment that makes solving the conflict more difficult.
A crisis mentality impedes rather than accelerates the dialogue necessary to breakdown the disagreements that produced the conflict. In an effort to move the parties past the perceived reasons for the conflict/dispute, management often tries to referee the issues, and these types of efforts rarely succeed for the simple reason that one party or the other in the dispute will perceive that management is taking sides. The manager may believe he or she is trying to sort the issues out, but the manner in which the questions are asked of do the opposite. Ms. Sonja Carberry makes a similar point in a recent article in the Investor’s Business Daily. In her article she recommends that, when attempting to unravel the reasons for the conflict, the questions should be presented with a soft touch to avoid being perceived as interrogating the party being questioned.
The reality is that conflicts in the workplace are resolved more successfully when the parties are allowed to work through their differences in an open and honest dialogue that is free from the heavy hand of management. Yet when the conflict does begin to affect the work place environment or the status of the work, the use of an impartial third party to facilitate or mediate the conflict is almost a necessity. A conflict in the workplace that is impacting the work process cannot be resolve by management without coming down on the side of one party or the other, and the only way to address such conflicts in a way that minimizes the negative impact on the work processes is to use a third party mediator.
by jcooper131 | Nov 16, 2013 | Compromise, Conflict, Disputes, Intervention, Mediate Conflicts, Mediation, Negotiation, Solving Conflicts, Third Party Mediator, Workplace Conflicts
Good negotiators do not negotiate extemporaneously, but almost always work from a script or plan. Like moves a chess player makes, negotiators execute a series of actions designed to overcome differences between parties in dispute and thereby bring an end to the conflict. Each move or action in a negotiation is structured in a manner that encourages the parties to discuss, and to ultimately select alternative outcomes consistent with the needs and requirements of the parties.
Mediation is much like negotiation in the sense that mediators also initiate actions. The key difference is that in a mediation the actions are based on a series of questions and comments constructed in a way that encourage the disputing parties to select positive outcomes, which in turn allow the parties to step back from entrenched positions, and explore alternatives. In this environment the mediator is not the negotiator and does not drive the conversation in a particular direction or toward a particular goal. While he or she may be an experienced negotiator, and may used techniques common in negotiation, the mediator should only use those techniques sparingly as a means of facilitating and fostering dialogue between the disputing parties.
In a negotiation, the negotiator is an integral part of the problem solving process, and is key to how the actions and moves play out between the parties. It is a problem solving dynamic that attempts to dismantle/disarm previously intractable concerns, and compromises are reached in stages as each aspect of the dispute is broken down and resolved.
Where a mediation is clearly different is that here the parties in dispute negotiate with each other, and the mediator is not a direct participant in the negotiations. His or her role is to facilitate the negotiators in their efforts to resolve the dispute, and should only intervene in the process for specific reasons. Some of those reasons include establishing a pause to collect data/clarify information, so that the parties can assess where they are at and document any agreements reached, to gain entry at a point the parties are approaching impasse, assist in assessing options, promote dialogue over argument, and verify each parties understanding of remaining actions. It must be emphasized that it is the mediators responsibility to control the environment, that responsibility must be executed with a light touch.
by jcooper131 | Nov 9, 2013 | Ethics
In an era of information overload from the internet, radio, and television, it is important that people take time to think about what they hear, and what they read. As a result of many reports about misconduct, and improper behavior across many agencies in the federal government, it is important to understand something about Ethics. Being ethical is not the same thing as following the law. Laws can deviate from what is ethical; (examples: tax laws allow variance from equal treatment principle//also, in some countries girls denied the right to an education.)
More than 3,000 years of history teaches us that ethics is not what a society finds acceptable. It is a given that in a society, most people conform to standards that are ethical. Yet societies often confront issues on which there is no consensus. Without getting into the pros and cons, no one living in America can argue that consensus does not exist on the issue of abortion.
No discussion of the subject can sustain itself unless we acknowledge that what we call ethics has evolved over several millennia, and to ignore that is to engage in intellectual dishonesty. We owe our modern day understanding of Ethics principally to philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato. It is Aristotle, however, that wrote one of the first recorded treatise on Ethics under a series of essays we know as the Nicomachean Ethics.
His essays, many of which survived, and can be studied today, provide some of the earliest examination of moral philosophy and he did this by developing a systematic and carefully constructed series of arguments.
At the core of Aristotle’s essays are questions of character or personality — what does it take for an individual human being to be a good person? Every activity has a final cause, the good at which it aims. Therefore true happiness can therefore be attained only through the cultivation of the virtues that make a human life complete.
Ethics is not an academic exercise found within the pages of a textbook. Ethics examines behavior and the values that underpin behavior. Because the central premise of ethics is to examine how humans are disposed to act in certain ways in response to similar situations, the habits of behaving in a certain way. The essential point is that ethics is a practical discipline that encourages individuals to construct good habits by repeated action and correction within a formalized process that can measure and provide constructive feedback.
