ARB Mediation Services

ARB Mediation Services answers the need for a knowledgeable neutral who understands the unspoken messages and context inherent in communication. The business and legal communities of South Florida celebrate how diverse we are, and yet how similar, which is why you want someone with good relationship building skills who can quickly establish the trust necessary to achieve a resolution of the issues. Choosing a mediator, or any kind of arbiter of a dispute, is an important component of the settlement strategy. You want someone you can count on to treat your clients with respect, and maintain a level of dignity throughout the proceedings while still pursuing creative solutions.

Insights from a Good Listener: An Ongoing Blog

• 28Sep

  How to Tell a Compelling Story

  Listening, Negotiation, Presentation Skills, Speaking, Writing 68 Comments

  When you speak, you tell a story to your listeners. Every story needs to have a beginning, a middle and an end. A climax and a finish. That way, your listener is clued in to what is going on and the story reaches a logical conclusion. The listener isn’t left hanging, waiting for whatever comes next. The best way to do this is to follow three simple rules: Say it; say it again; say what you said. This translates into; 1) Tell people what you are going to talk about, i.e. three main points; 2) make the points, embellishing on them to make them interesting; 3) review and sum up what you told them, and personalize your message.

  Now, you’ve made it easy to follow along with your story, your logic, and your conclusion. Your beginning sets the stage, introduces the characters and tells us where we are in the story. You bring us current, give the story a location and provide the placement of it within our lives. You’ve just set the context within which we will hear what you tell us.

   As you make your points, add sufficient detail to supply brush strokes to the characters or the information, but not so much as to drown out the storyline. Everybody needs to know why they are being asked to do something, as when you are explaining an assignment. You create efficiency by supplying knowledge of the bigger picture, and the way to do that is to supply the story, the context in which each person has a role and a function.

   Once you’ve told your story, focus on the main message, and review it with your listener. If you were asking them to do something, sum up the request. If you were thanking them, do so again, using different words if possible. And then, just finish. Do not keep rambling on because you can’t think of how to stop. Just stop speaking, nod your head, and know that you have successfully made your point.

  Tags: Listening, negotiation, Speaking skills, strategy

• 18Sep

  Now that you’re Listening

  Listening, Mediation, Negotiation, Speaking 139 Comments

  The first step was deciding that you want to pay attention to what you are hearing [that is, you are willing to listen to what someone else is saying] and so you set a specific time to do so. Now, what do you do? The act of listening is not easy to do, but it is easy to learn. One of the most important tools in the arsenal of listening, is repeating. In other words, when somebody says a sentence to you, say it back to them. If you need to, start with, “I heard you say…..” and then say what you heard. You would be amazed at how difficult this is for some people to do. But you would also find the effect it has on people to be quite extraordinary. People actually lose their aggression and hostility when they think they’ve been heard, when they feel that someone paid attention to their words. And then, the more sentences you repeat, the more you start to hear the words, and more importantly, understand what the person is really trying to say.

  So much of conversation is perception, often wrong, about the nuances in tone, sentence structure and gesture. When we repeat back the sentences we heard, we hear them devoid of perceived tone. We, in turn, don’t overreact to what we thought we heard. The whole conversation becomes clearer.

   As both sides do this, the results magnify. Suddenly, disputes disappear and dialog takes its place. This works in workplace settings as well as in family or relationship disputes. If the parties can’t achieve this on their own, that’s why people like me exist, to help facilitate a dialogue that makes both sides feel validated. Validation is vindication, and then people can move on.

  Tags: Add new tag, Listening, Mediation, negotiation, Speaking skills

• 12Sep

  Know When to Call

  Listening, Mediation, Negotiation, Speaking 141 Comments

  It’s 5:30 on a Friday afternoon, and I just got off the phone with a woman lawyer who gives me a lot of business. The fact that I was able to reach her at this hour is because I know when to call. She likes to work late on Friday afternoons when everyone else has gone home and she can get caught up. It’s when she’s most relaxed and available. 

  She was the lawyer on one side of a very contentious mediation I handled, and I was able to settle it by knowing when to reach her. It wasn’t while she, a one-woman law firm, was conducting depositions at the Public Defender’s office, with announcements squawking in the background every other minute. No, I arranged that she would call me after she finished a big hearing, which she did while she was driving across the state on Alligator Alley (which, for anyone who hasn’t done it, means there are no cars and no distractions, just a ribbon of road through the Everglades.) She was calm, she was attentive, and she was willing to listen. Continue reading »

  Tags: Listening, Mediation, negotiation, Speaking skills

• 12Sep

  How to Present Your Ideas in a More Compelling Fashion

  Presentation Skills, Speaking, Writing 154 Comments

  Most of us impart information to others on a regular basis. We do so when making a speech, giving instructions, having a conversation. Politicians particularly need to make a compelling case with their words, and there’s some politics in almost every occupation. So how to make your words so compelling they inspire the listener into action?

  People experience things in one of three ways: visually, aurally, or through feelings. When speaking, it is important to take this into account, and 1) paint pictures with words; 2) speak with inflection and emotion; and 3) personalize the stories so that the listener can relate on an emotional level. It is always more meaningful to use an example about yourself or another person as a way of creating a bond with the audience.

  Continue reading »