As mediators, we are commonly faced with competing parties who have very different perspectives about the law, the facts, the current situation, the future possibilities, and the intentions and motivations of the other side.  How do we reconcile these competing perspectives?  Must we find common ground?  Must we force each of the parties to “compromise” and give up part of their perspectives and beliefs?  Must the parties agree on a “rational” or “fair” or “just’” solution?  Must the mediator control the process and shape the solution? How do we deal with firmly held beliefs and seeming irreconcilable differences?  Is a good settlement, unhappy parties on both sides?

As with any human activity, there are many approaches for different situations.  

This webinar will explore the power of stories.  How stories we tell ourselves, tell others, and think silently to ourselves affects what we see and hear and understand.  How stories can completely change our perspective.  How small-talk at the beginning of a mediation may be the most important opportunity to bring parties together.  How we can collaborate and agree even if the stories we are telling ourselves are completely different.  Why understanding the stories in each of the participants' heads is critical to reaching an agreed path forward.  Why curiosity, humility, respect, and a scout mentality are critical to understanding the parties stories, perspectives, and a mutually agreeable path forward.  And how a single word can keep us on track to resolving a dispute. 

About Sidney Kanazawa, Esq. 

Sid Kanazawa is a full-time mediator/arbitrator with ARC (Alternative Resolution Centers LLC) https://www.arc4adr.com/sidney_kanazawa.php. He is a graduate of the University of Hawaii (B.Ed.), University of Southern California (J.D.), and the negotiation and mediation programs at Harvard University (Program on Negotiation), Pepperdine University (Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution), Los Angeles Superior Court, Edelman Children’s Court, and the United States District Court for the Central District of California. He is known for creative, quick, and satisfactory dispute resolutions. In the largest oil spill in the Port of Los Angeles, Sid turned an angry mob into collaborators, settled 600 claims in two weeks (all 2,000+ in 3 months), and directed hundreds in a record three-month clean-up of seven miles of contaminated shoreline. In a subsequent trial, he recovered 93% of the clean-up and claims costs from another shipowner (ultimately recovering more than 100% with other settlements) and reduced the felony charges against his clients to administrative fines. Sid successfully tried jury and court trials, many thought he could not win, while at McGuireWoods, Pillsbury, and LillickMcHose and recovered thousands for individual lawyers as lead class counsel in the $49 million Bar/Bri class action lawsuit. Sid is a prolific author/speaker/teacher, is admitted to practice in Hawaii and California, and has been a National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA) instructor and program director for more than 30 years. He is a Litigation Council of American Senior Fellow, a member of the Southern California Mediation Association Board, a past leader in various local and national bar associations, including the former State Bar of California.