Were We Raised For Conflict?The Difference Between Effective & Ineffective Mediation (Jessica Menasce)

Were we bred to battle? Matthew Brickman sits down again to speak with Jessica Menasce, an experienced conflict resolution/transformation, negotiation, and leadership specialist with a decade of expertise in program development, facilitation, and training. She has spent the past few years convening parties in conflict, who are very unlikely to ever meet, much less speak. 

Her goal is to carve a path to curiosity and, ultimately, a desire to want to work together in shared challenges. She works to foster collaboration among diverse stakeholders within complex environments and have particularly proven success in designing impactful training programs and guiding cross-cultural teams through challenging processes, focusing on sustainable relationship-building.

Connect with Jessica: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicamenasce/

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If you have a matter, disagreement, or dispute you need professional help with then visit iMediate.com - Email mbrickman@ichatmediation or Call (877) 822-1479

Matthew Brickman is a Florida Supreme Court certified family and appellate mediator who has worked in the 15th and 19th Judicial Circuit Courts since 2009 and 2006 respectively. But what makes him qualified to speak on the subject of conflict resolution is his own personal experience with divorce.

Download Matthew's book on iTunes for FREE:
You're Not the Only One - The Agony of Divorce: The Joy of Peaceful Resolution

Matthew Brickman
President iMediate Inc.
Mediator 20836CFA
iMediateInc.com

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ABOUT MATTHEW BRICKMAN:
Matthew Brickman is a Supreme Court of Florida certified county civil family mediator who has worked in the 15th and 19th Judicial Circuit Courts since 2009 and 2006 respectively. He is also an appellate certified mediator who mediates a variety of small claims, civil, and family cases. Mr. Brickman recently graduated both the Harvard Business School Negotiation Mastery Program and the Negotiation Master Class at Harvard Law School. 

Transcript

Hi, I'm Matthew Brickman, Florida Supreme Court mediator.
Welcome to the MediateThis! podcast where we discuss everything mediation and conflict resolution.

I felt I needed to then dive into the more into the work with people who are not necessarily
the peace builders or peace makers, not the civil society folks who are saying, okay,
let's meet and engage, but when you have people who may have a job and that's negotiation,
like you said, right? Someone who is a subject matter expert, they're working at
a ministry or they're working in a certain company, but day in and day out, they're negotiating
every single day. And the issue is that the ways that we are taught to negotiate is not usually
very effective, right? Like the difference between negotiation that is effective versus not
is that winning, losing mentality versus a more cooperative mindset, which is I think very
counterintuitive because then we feel like we're compromising and no one wants to feel like
they're compromising. But going back to your point, and maybe I don't actually don't think this
is an area where we disagree, it's just something that for me has been like something hard to accept
while living there and spending time. And I think it's true for the US and it's true for humans
absolutely everywhere, is that it's a hard invitation to ask someone to come into a room
to negotiate with whoever they perceive as their enemy, whatever an enemy on whatever level,
it could be at an existential level or it could be at the family level or it could be business
and say, you know, our commitment is to resolve this conflict and we're going to drop the
different parts of our identities at the door, right? Like how we were brought up, our religion,
our culture, our upbringing, my experience is that people walk into spaces and they bring all
of that with them. Sure. And I have become really interested and it's kind of a new field that is
developing because as much as I love the program on negotiation and those that have been my mentors
and I learned from negotiation in that school of thought has always been very, it's not that it's
transactional but it makes assumptions that people can leave certain things at the door
if they're committing to resolving the conflict or coming out with a deal. But now there's new
schools of thinking that are saying, okay, how do we negotiate so that we don't feel like we're
leaving everything behind, right? Well, and that's what I have to do every day.
Because, you know, because and and it's interesting because you're working at high level,
but you said something which is pretty interesting and I call it high level. I'm just talking to
talking like, yeah, and I don't think it's the work. So just to name, sometimes I work with
students that are in high school, sometimes college students, and sometimes yeah, it is with adults
that are in certain leadership positions. Yeah, but what's interesting, you said that you're staying
with families and whatnot, you're seeing the ins and out and the family unit is the core foundation
and it actually trickles up. It doesn't trickle down. It trickles up because because what we're
taught in our family unit, just like you, you were like, oh my gosh, I'm surrounded by conflict.
Well, instead of going, ooh, conflicts, bad run, avoid, you're like, let's embrace it. Let's
figure out how to work through it. So, you know, the family of origin trickles up because when
you get to these high level, the leadership, why are they making the decisions they are?
Probably trickles back to how they were brought up. What was their family system like?
Where was their culture? You're going all the way back. So sometimes I've sometimes I've had
conversations with people going, yeah, you're working high level. They're gone. Actually, if we
want to go high level, you're working at the foundation, which affects the high level. What you're
doing is setting the tone for the future generations that will be leading the world. And so,
depending on how we deal with that, will eventually affect the top level.
Yes. And so what I found was, you know, I have no regrets looking back on, do a hostage
negotiation? Go on, guess what? A husband and a wife with two kids getting divorced is a hostage
negotiation every single day. It is hostage negotiation. When we're holding the
monies, we're holding the kids, we're like, it's hostage negotiation. But then as you said too,
you know, getting around that mentality of, well, you know, because, you know, when you get into a
space, you know, am I giving up? I hear it all the time. Why am I the one losing? Why do they
always get everything they're looking for? And I'm like, and so, and so just this, this is how I
describe negotiation or foundation. And it all depends on the age of the person I'm talking to,
but almost everybody remembers this because it's a generational game. Do you remember the childhood
game, hungry, hungry hippo? Yes. Of course. So you've got four hippos and you said there and you
hit it to grab as many marbles as possible. And whoever got the most marbles is the winner.
That's that's negotiation. Tensions are high. Resources are scarce. Get everything you can. And
if you got the most you want. But here's the problem. Did you care about what you got? Did you
miss out on something you cared about more or was it just about getting everything? And again,
tensions are high. Resources are scarce. So we're going to get anything and everything we can.
That's negotiation opposed to as Roger Fisher and the program negotiation and they talk about
expanding the pie, not being a consumer, but expanding it. It's like, okay, how do we create like,
like you said, a win-win, not a win-lose? And it was interesting when I was a Columbia last year.
We had, I was 25 or 27 people from around the world. All C-suite high level. And it was interesting.
We had a phenomenal professor. And so day one, he said, I mean, this, this is what they did like
first couple of minutes of our week long program. He's like, he's like, look, I'm not going to tell
you guys that you don't know what you're doing because obviously you're good at your jobs with what
you do. Otherwise, you wouldn't, you would have been selected. You wouldn't be sitting here. But
I'm going to show you. So here's what we're going to do. We're divide the class down the middle.
We're going to give out scenario. You guys are get one. You guys get the other half. All right,
you have to give a couple minutes to reach your scenario. Okay, stand up. Just find some.
We had just started class. Okay, one first few minutes. I said, okay, now find some with another
scenario. Go out into the pods and you're going to get recorded. You have, I don't remember,
how many minutes to then negotiate. And then when you come back, we'll, we'll talk about it. So
everyone does that. You recorded on the process. What's that? You were recorded. You, you, you,
you went back in the process. Yeah, everybody was recorded. So then, so then, then we all come
back in and they've got a big TV on the front of the room, a big TV on the side. And so he starts,
he starts putting in the names of teams like Matthew and Jessica. Okay. All right, Jessica,
how many points did you get? Matthew, how many points did you get? All right, collectively,
start, but then starts color coding. Everything, right? That's the rouette and goes, okay, so
it looks like three of you actually know what you're doing. Now, he wasn't going to tell us
that, oh, well, Jessica, you don't know what you're doing because you know what you're going to do.
You're going to get defensive now with you against me and whatnot. So it's like, look, we're
just going to go through the process and I'm just going to show you. And then all of a sudden,
everyone's mind is open. So what are on the classroom? It's like, okay, what were you trying to do?
It's like, well, this is what I was trying. It was win lose situation. It was either win lose or
got to the point of, well, if I can't have it, you can't either lose lose. Yeah. And the only
three teams that actually did it, I was one of them, was we went in with a win win mentality going,
all right, you know what, what do you need? All right, well, this is what I need. Well,
all right, I'll give you what you want if you give me what I want. All right, great. Next one.
All right, what do you want? Well, what do you want? Well, why do you want it? Well, I'm not
telling you. Well, then who cares why you want it? What do you want? All right, this is what I want.
And so we actually created a win win solution. And I don't want to assume, have you talked about
the like the ugly orange or any of that on the podcast before so that like folks know what the
win win is? All right, are we talking about the orange or why? I know about the lemon. Maybe it's
the same thing. It's the same. There's so many variations in it. Yeah. Okay, yes, one person needs
the peel, the other one, and then they're fighting off splitting the lemon, right? Like that's the
all right. So I use that all the time in aviation, right? Right? And so, and so what's interesting
is like, like you said, is okay, well, how do you negotiate when like, okay, can't and I tell
people it's all the time. Look, Jessica, I am not going to tell you to turn off your emotions.
Don't be emotional. Don't, you know, you know, don't do all that stuff, which is clouding the
negotiation. And I joke with them like, like, look, you know what? If you could just flip a switch
and just turn off your emotions so we can get through this negotiation, you'd be a sociopath and
we don't want that. Like, I'm just going to flip off my emotions. No, like, and so, and so I go to
the stove analogy and I'm like, look, we're not telling you to take your pot off the stove. We're
telling you to put it on the back burner and let logic and reason be part of the decision-making
process. We're not taking it out. We're just not going to let it make your decisions because
it was the problem. Today, you like it and tomorrow, you're like, oh, no, what did I do? But then
you're going to talk to somebody else and be like, wow, that's a great idea. That's a great solution.
You talk to someone else going, this is the stupidest solution in the world. Why? Well, because
they're emotional, maybe they thought it was stupid because they got burned and that's emotional.
But, but I tell everybody, I'm like, look, the only agreement that I'm going to give you
and let you even get into is not one that's good or bad, right or wrong, fair or unfair. None
of those because those are perspectives and your perspective is 100% valid. But so is the other
side. Exactly. What I'm going to give you and even allow you to sign is something that you can
simply look at and say, I don't love it, but I don't hate it, but I can live with it. If you can
live with it, I will let you sign something now. I get, Jessica, I get people that I tell people
all the time mediation. I get, I get asked all the time at the end of a negotiation when we're
signing the agreement. So Matthew, you signed this agreement, right? And I'm like, now,
they're like, what? We just negotiated for six hours. So this is the agreement that I'm signing.
You let me sign it? I said, no, I wouldn't sign it. It's not I wouldn't sign it at all. They're like,
why? I said, because you know what? You really, really wanted this. Well, for me, I don't know,
I could care less about that. And you didn't care about this to me. I care about that. And I'll
tell you, in fact, looking in hindsight to my own divorce decree, I wouldn't sign it, knowing
what I know now, because you know what, a 51, there's different things that I care about that I
did. Exactly. Exactly. You know what? I signed it at the time because I could live with it. And I
can still live with it. Now, would I do it all over again, exactly the same? No, because I have
different information. I have different desires and whatnot. But so, so would I sign yours? No,
because you know what? We have different religious beliefs, political beliefs. I was raised
differently. I don't care about a painting art person. I'm not an art person. I love the pet. You
didn't care about the pet at all. You know what? I don't care about the house. I have my own house,
but you know what I care about? I care about a retirement. But I didn't care about a retirement
when I was your age, but I do now at 50. Well, there's not a perfect, there's not a perfect agreement.
But can you live with this? Because this is your life. And they're like, well, yeah, I could live
with it. I said, that's what matter. Doesn't matter if I like it or not. Doesn't matter if your
attorney likes it or not. Doesn't matter if your parents like it or not. Can you live with it?
Yeah. You're the one making the decision for your life. Can you live with it? And they're like,
yeah, I'm like, great. Sign it if you want. Totally.
You know, and that's how I approach it with because look, we're dealing. Sometimes I remember one,
I remember one mediation in particular when you're talking about, you know, even talking about
creating like a family type system for like, you know, at a higher level. I had a mediation once
where we're going, I mean, like, I'm trying to help these two people. And we're just, I mean,
it's just going nowhere. And what process do you use? By the way, like, what are your two,
like, do you use specific tools in between, like, to go back up? Like, I'm curious about process
around community because so much happens in process, right? That then dictates what happened. So
just to share it, like, as a quick, like, side point, like, when we do trainings, because we don't
do a mediation, right? Like, none of the people that I work with, we're doing a lot of trainings.
And you and I talked about curriculum design. A lot of it is just the reason why, for example,
real estate is used between people, you know, to teach this stuff to people who don't do business
and why it's effective is because it gets people out of the mindset of what they're doing day to day.
So it actually allows them to look at it from a new perspective and then apply it. It's like,
you're the subject matter expert, but you just learned this new tool and framework. Can you apply it
to what you do every day? And people, like, by that I get it's like, wow, I've never thought about
organizing information this way. So we find extremely valuable that people will come out of like
three, two day workshops saying, you know, just a seven elements of negotiation as a compass,
as a tool, they're just using it to actually prepare. And they're like, you know what? I never
prepared before. I never prepared for meetings. So I went in and the reason why I got emotional
was because I didn't even know what my own interests were. I didn't know the interests of the
other side. I didn't know what would constitute a fair agree. I hadn't done my research. I don't know
what I could commit to. Right. So just that's exactly what the program on negotiation did for me.
Was I walked out of there with new tools. Right. For your process. I can apply to a family program.
But seeing things from a different point of view, and but taking the curriculum that you create
and being able to take that and then apply. So yeah, even though I, I mean, I told you I was
in over my head. Right. I was in over my head because it wasn't family. But once I figured out,
wait a second, these are new tools that now I can take back and apply to family absolutely.
I mean, 100%. Now what's interesting. So, so you asked me like process tools or whatnot.
What's different though? Here's what's different is there are not.
There's no. There's no prepping. There's no. I'm in the middle helping everybody. And rarely,
rarely do I have any information before I before we start. I walk in going. All right. It's a divorce.
And we've got a kid and we've got property. That's all I know. I don't know anything else.
And I'm like, all right, give it to me. And it's like backing up a dump truck and just dumping
information. And then it's like, all right, organization. Here we go. So there is now for the parties.
I think what you're talking about is this is what the parties need prior to entering into a
negotiation. The lawyers, you're actually touching on something really interesting that my colleague
is like how law, legal education in America should be reformed because it's very adversarial
rather than like, you know, like, and it's very win lose. Yeah. But, but I will tell you though.
So, I mean, let me just give you a, let me just give you a, a current headcount. At the moment,
I have worked with 930 attorneys in 18 years. Okay. In family law. And I will tell you,
there's about five or six that I will never, ever work for. I will not mediate for them. They
are the scum of the earth. They are the poster children of why people hate attorneys. They're
horrible human beings. Adversarial horrible human beings. And unfortunately, Jessica, four out of five
of them are in Miami. They're in Miami day. I mean, just, but yeah, I'll be, but just adversarial
horrible human beings. What's interesting is in family law. And this is sad. A lot of it, a lot of
a lot of attorneys that I've worked with through the years have ended up getting divorced
themselves. And you know what? They become better attorneys. They become better attorneys
because they're not coming in and going, no, no, no, no, you can't have this and projecting
their own life. Now they're going, oh my gosh, I've gone through it. And just like you said, like
your difficult, you know, complicated, you know, childhood found you into this space of
negotiation. Look, I got divorced. And we, I was fighting with my ex and the judge ordered
us to mediation. And I'm like, I don't know, I do what mediation is. And I'm sitting in mediation
with my attorney and mediator and going, this is the coolest process. I could do this. That was,
that, that's how I became a mediator. I was fighting. I'm not laughing at you. It was crazy.
Look, I mean, I was in the conflict going, wow, this is a cool space. Like I could do this.
And so, and so some of the attorneys have then become even better family law attorneys because
they had to go through it themselves, right? But I'll tell you, most of the 930 attorneys in
family law are not adversarial. They are, they are not like a lot of people like to care. Yeah, a
lot of a lot of people with the attorneys, they get that poster picture of like the shark, the,
you know, the one on TV or ripping movies. And you know what? That is most other areas of law.
When you get to the ambulance chasers, personal, personal injury, even when you can get to some
real estate, some business, yes, those are some of your cutthroat attorneys, family law.
Most of them are really, really good human beings, good attorneys. And so, I'll give you a statistic.
And this, this will tell you why it sort of work, mediation work. So in Florida,
in, and this is this is a few years outdated, but 2018, 2019, there were just under four million
cases filed in Florida. And everything has to go to mediation. It's, it's by statute and judicial
order. Yeah. What percentage do you think settled in their first mediation? In their first? Yeah.
Less than 20% right 82% oh wow 82% settled in their first mediation. So 18% 18% said we
can't figure it out. We're going to try to let a judge figure it out. So of the 18% that were on
their way to trial, 15 of the 18% settled before they actually had a trial, only 3% ever went to
trial to have a judge figure it out. Now, granted, we're still talking almost a quarter million
cases, right? Yes. But out of four million. Of course, the numbers, right? Absolutely. Yeah.
Yeah. And so, and so mediation is working, negotiation is working, plus it keeps the tax payer
dollars down because who's having to pay for it? Not taxpayers for a judge and a judicial system
to figure it out, but the people, the people are actually then financially on the hook. So
they're more interested in a settlement, right? But here's the other thing. If you have a hand
and actually crafting your own settlement agreement rather than a third party coming in and telling
you what you're going to do, you're more apt to follow it. So you've got less motions for contempt,
less violations, less future problems. It's a win-win situation. I mean, agency in autonomy,
agency is a big part of what contributes to the process. Yeah. And so it's, I mean, mediation's
working. And if we can get it, you know, on the foundational family level, it trickles up,
and now we're changing, we're now changing future generations using this tool in this process.
So again, it was a mediator, you know, people used to ask me, you know, Matthew, what's your
style of mediation? Are you this style or that style? And I'm like, just, I'll tell you when
when I was learning negotiation, that just confused me. Because you want to go back to conflict
resolution or conflict, which is a containment transformation transformation. So, so I look at
the different styles. Like, are you this style? Look, when you're in, when you're in a negotiation,
you better be floating, you better be moving. If you are one particular style, one style with you
may work with you, but one style with me may be different. And so, you know, it's for me, I,
it's limiting. I'm not differently, right? With from people. I can't answer that question.
And what is my style? My style is, you know what? I'm going to empower you to take control of your
life. I'm going to give you creative suggestions. And I'm going to ensure that the only agreement
that you sign is one that you can live with. That's what I can guarantee. And then I just go to work.
Yeah. And I just go to work. You know, in hearing you, Matthew, like two things come to mind,
you know, I like my mind is kind of just not in, it's not comparing contrast, but just, yeah,
naturally comparing, like international negotiation processes and mediation processes to family
level. And one thing that comes to mind that I hear a lot. So, I was exposed to adaptive
leadership through the curriculum that I've designed and worked on for the past few years.
And what does that change my life? Like we can have a whole other episode and conversation about
it, but it's changed my life because it's actually also originated at the Harvard Kennedy School.
So not the program on negotiation, but the Kennedy School of Government. That's where it was
born out of. And it was that the founders are it's Ronald Typhus and Marty Linsky, one's a psychiatrist
and the other one's a lawyer. But it was also really influenced by two other people. One of them is
Maxine Fern, who's one of my mentors and she's a family systems therapist. And they introduced the
systems of print lens, but it's really about adaptive leadership is that the notion that leadership
is a verb. It's not a role. And we as humans tend to conflate role and authority, right? So just
because someone is in a position of authority, they're a leader. And the folks in adaptive leadership
say, there's no such thing as the leader. There's just exercising leadership. So it's how people in
positions of leadership can introduce change into systems or how they can also make peace or
make agreements with enemies and parties and others and stakeholders. And bringing it into the
Northern Ireland context, what a lot of the leaders, which why would be not a lot to say according
to my colleagues, but whatever, the leaders of certain parties and stakeholders said is,
I ultimately, you know, I'm quoting, like, putting kind of like a quote, I got to a point that I
got to an agreement or I knew that I would have to make this agreement with my enemy. And I could
live with it. The hard part is convincing my base, right? My followers. And I think that I'm
often imagining a vis-a-vis process. Again, what can be done and we work on this a lot so that
people who are going to make these hard decisions on behalf of others can show their base, right?
Or their supporters and the society that this is the path forward. And that's where you get those
words like spoilers. We can call them spoilers all that we want. But in the end, these are people
who have a different perspective or who are not, they feel they can't live, right? With that
agreement. And so they're going to put on it and they may, they may do like an act of violence
that then derails a whole process. That's one thing. And in the family context, that can be, you know,
new spouses, significant others, grandparents of the kid. I imagine people with the children
who are in the house, certain ages, steps, whatever it is, I've witnessed that in my family
through an uncle. So when they're of a certain age, right? Like a stepchild who's older in
like their 30s or something.

For more information about my services or to schedule your mediation with me, either in person or using my iChatMediation Virtual Platform built by Cisco Communications. Visit me online at www.iMediateInc.com. Call me at 561-262-9121, Toll-Free at 877-822-1479 or email me at MBrickman@iChatMediation.com.