Christopher Honeyman

This article was originally published in the Summer, 1998 issue of Mediation Quarterly, as the “anchor” piece for a special issue on the relationship between theory and practice.
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“You see, in this world, there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons.” —Jean Renoir

Does it matter if researchers and practitioners of dispute resolution talk past each other?

Readers who pay up for a subscription to this or another specialized journal might be expected to answer “of course!” And I have been privileged to overhear some scathing commentary among committed academics who feel that one scholarly colleague or another is ignoring the real world. I have also been privy to many conversations among practitioners concerned about a certain lack of intellectual integrity in some practice models.

But the customary practices of researchers, and the dominant ideas of practitioners, imply that the depth of mutual desire for a better cross-fertilization is neither all that deep nor all that broadly shared. Many practitioners of conflict resolution dismiss the contributions of theorists and researchers almost reflexively—particularly ideas which challenge their own opinions or methods. And research designs, not to speak of the language of the reports, often seem, to practitioners and policy-makers, indifferent to what they need to know.

So we have, on the one hand, a great deal of new information which practitioners seldom read, and on the other a great deal of practical experience which scholars fail to draw from effectively.

The “quality” issue provides a good example of how these processes operate in tandem to frustrate developments which—in theory—most people want. Most mediation programs contain within them some variation in quality of performance; often, a rather wide variation. (See f.i. Honeyman, 1988.) But a typical program director doesn’t have available a generally accepted, economical set of tools for ensuring quality. And there are now plenty of texts written by people whose perspective is minimally demanding of talent on the part of the mediator. Without such a toolset, to engage in a serious internal effort to upgrade quality of mediation invites an internal battle over “what is the mediator supposed to do?” as well as objections concerning the time and resources to be consumed in an effort that is suspected to be futile if not divisive. Am I the only one to draw the conclusion that we have seen far more talk about quality than action largely because academics (who claim to be rigorous) haven’t pressed to get access to the sensitive data involved, while practitioners (who claim to be acting in the interests of parties)

haven’t asked for that rigor to be applied to them? Even in such distinguished efforts as the 1996 RAND report on the results of dispute resolution programs in the federal courts (Kakalik et al, 1996) conclusions reached about mediation in the aggregate thus prevail over the elusive but enlightening particular.

I don’t intend to belabor the “quality” issue; it serves here merely as a familiar proxy for a whole range of other subject matter that has not yet been addressed effectively because of the difficulties of getting functional scholar/practitioner partnerships going.

An effort at mutual understanding
This issue of Mediation Quarterly represents a deliberate juxtaposition of researchers’ and practitioners’ thinking. The present occasion lends itself unusually well to a discussion of some attitudes which turn out to be sharply different between people inclined toward practice and those more drawn to scholarship. I now believe, for example, that the difficulties of the theory/practice relationship are due, as much as anything else, to a difference in what typical scholars and practitioners see as the “origin of wisdom.” But since I am myself a practitioner, I cannot hope to prove this assertion; I write here merely as an essayist, and leave the reader to judge for yourself whether this “makes sense” (if you’re a practitioner) or “fits with the known data” (if you’re a researcher.)

A revelation of character
Even a cursory review of the papers which make up this special issue suggests that people do not make a choice between a scholarly and a practical career lightly. This goes back to first principles: For highly talented people, who have more options than most (and who are, in this field, almost by definition not greedy) that choice is likely to have a lot to do with what kind of work they think is important, and answers both a personal and a societal need.

Of course, there isn’t a perfect dichotomy between academics and practitioners, in this special issue or anywhere else. Those represented here actually cover a spectrum, from solo practitioner (e.g. Coates) through program manager (e.g. Smith) and administrator of a large system (Press), to people who are as close to pure scholarship as is likely to be found in this field. But as first the scholarly papers and then the commentaries came in, I was struck by the consistency with which one might identify where the writer fit on the scholar-practitioner spectrum by the way he or she addressed the issues—and in the case of the commentators, by which, of a variety of issues raised by each paper, drew her interest.

The frames of reference of the commentators are instructively different. For example Christine Coates, a solo practitioner, has strong national/institutional affiliations—yet it is clear she writes as an individual, with individual concerns and with a strong connection to her experience base. Sharon Press, by contrast, who administers the largest dispute resolution system in any jurisdiction I am aware of, takes a much more birds-eye view. Coates uses as the grounding of her comments her personal experience with cases, even though she has held significant responsibility in the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts and other organizations; Press speaks in terms of policy and aggregate case handling, even though she is an able mediator as an individual. The other papers here also show, beyond their separate subject matter, how someone who knows more about the subject than most chooses how to react, what to react to and what to ignore, based on criteria that relate as much to who she is professionally as to any abstract conception of “logic.” Our daily frames of reference follow us on to the printed page.

In many social and political settings, the extremes are thinly populated, and it’s the shifts at the center that make the difference. But here, it’s the contrast at the extremes that matters; the middle ground, though strongly represented in this special issue, is atypical of working professionals both in practice settings and in the academy. Admittedly, many practitioners teach part-time, and many more earn part of their living as trainers. But from my (undisciplined) observation, though those courses have their strengths, a visible relationship between to the best in new scholarship isn’t normally one of them. At the same time, the number of academics who regard themselves as practitioners is much larger than the number among them who are regarded as effective practitioners by practitioners. In both instances, most of those concerned seem to carry the precepts of their main occupation with them in their forays “across the boundary.” Those who truly amalgamate lessons from both domains into their daily work are much rarer.

Quite apart from their merits as individual works—which I think are considerable—reading these papers and commentaries has provided an important clue to the puzzle that faces the Theory to Practice project. If typical scholars see “truth” as deriving from careful comparison of many pieces of data, whether collected personally or not, typical practitioners are unlikely to interest them much as sources of wisdom; what the practitioner has to offer is direct and singular experience, and that, in the lexicon of the scholar, seems to make you a “subject,” not a partner.

By the same token, if the practitioner’s definition of “truth” is derived primarily from personal action and direct observation, and wisdom constitutes the aggregate of a long series of such truths, the academic’s whole structure of wisdom—derived, as it must be, at best from observation but mostly from other means—is inherently likely to be seen as pallid and unpersuasive. To me-as-practitioner, in other words, my own accumulated cases (though the messages I draw from them may conflict) are seen as a 100% reliable source of knowledge and inspiration—because I was there. My closest colleagues’ anecdotal reports oftheir cases, meanwhile, are hearsay…. Even if I am relatively open to their experiences, and am willing to give them as much as a 40% “validity rating” (many mediator-mentors would say that those apprenticed to them seemed willing to accept far less), beyond those close colleagues the inverse square rule is likely to apply. Truly secondary sources, such as articles in this (practitioner-oriented) journal, are yet further removed from this concept of “truth.” By this reckoning, the typical academic study must cross a something of a psychological galaxy to make an impression. At such distance, no wonder few academic stars shine all that brightly to our typical practitioner colleagues.

Getting past “Why bother?”
I don’t propose for a minute to ignore the career and economic disincentives to effective academic/practitioner collaboration, as noted above (Honeyman, 1998.) But the focus right now is on thepsychological disincentives. These, at least, could potentially be addressed by making better use ofatypical individuals or of atypical situations. That is what we have tried to do in this special issue.

The process of discussion which led to this issue may therefore be worth noting. It started with something of an accident; perhaps, for real practitioner/scholar collaboration to occur, it will be essential for all involved to be open to such serendipity and see value in it. Let me “paint the scene” a bit.

A pub, in Glasgow, the summer of 1996. A group of academics, and I, are having a quick one following two back to back presentations at the Law & Society Association conference there. All of those present had given presentations or papers on mediation, most of them papers summarizing ethnographic or linguistic studies. One scholar asks—would the assembled group be interested in combining forces for purposes of a book, or maybe a special issue of a journal? They would. Turns are taken around the room as each person is invited to describe what his or her chapter might look like. Eventually it gets to me. But I’m a practitioner; I do not perform ethnographic or linguistic studies, and my paper had been on an unrelated matter. Yet the opportunity seems ripe to raise another issue of personal concern—the relationship between practitioners, researchers and theorists of dispute resolution, and what might be done to improve it. Presently, we come to an agreement that incorporates a wrap-up paper in the series, on the general theme of “So who cares about ethnographic and linguistic studies of mediation, anyway?”

Many discussions later, this special issue is the result of that incident. As it has turned out, it was providential that the original papers were on a wide range of subjects and that they were produced by a grab-bag of scholars from different fields, different countries and different strains of experience. Luck, again, resulted in the addition of one paper produced by a group of practitioners, at Mediation Center in Minneapolis: Ethnographic studies produced by practitioners in mediation are few and far between, and this one I believe to be significant. And luck once more: The casual last-minute addition of Nancy Welsh to a “let’s get this done” discussion between Robert Dingwall, Michael Lang and me, in Pittsburgh a year later, led to Nancy’s idea to get a practitioner to comment on each academic piece, and to get an academic to comment on the one practitioner piece. Now we had a structure that was truly something new. The scholars involved got interested in this idea, and subsequently undertook unusual efforts to write for a practitioner audience. Several of the papers were extensively reworked (no equations here, not too much jargon.) Others were drastically shortened. And the volume of footnotes is down.

But still, to return to my thesis, the scholars share a perspective distinct from the general orientation of the practitioners commenting on their work. That perspective I’ll call “detached analysis.” I’ve noted above how the scholars’ typical focus differs from that of the typical commentator in this issue. But the difference in perspective is also quite apparent if you compare the Dingwall–Greatbatch–Ruggierone paper, or the Long–Fabricius–Musheno–Palumbo contribution, with the approach and visible concerns of Welsh–Lewis. Mediation Center, a practitioner group, has to think about the practical implications for its business of the discoveries they have made concerning preferred conflict resolution styles in the three ethnically diverse communities they studied. For a practitioner group to produce such a paper at all is highly unusual; for one to take such a degree of detachment that it can afford to defer worrying about where the chips land is impossible. They cannot simply study and report what is; they must therefore also ask what it means for mediators and ADR programs. A direct series of consequences in case management, party contacts, mediator selection and training, and marketing are too obviously at stake. This remains true despite the high level of intellectual integrity which I find in their work—evidenced, more than anything, by the palpably uncomfortable conclusions they reach. Thus, although the Mediation Center paper points out some problems in the standard lore of mediation, their programmatic responsibilities lead the authors to be quick to propose alternatives.

How rare must it be?
This issue of MQ stands for something else, too: It unfortunately demonstrates just how much work it is to create a product requiring collaboration among disparate kinds of people. Two years have elapsed since the idea of some kind of joint publication of these papers was first broached. The process was far from smooth going. Those involved think (I think) that the effort was worth it. And perhaps the necessary level of effort could be somewhat reduced with experience. Yet it’s unlikely that so complex a structure can ever be produced as easily as an unrelated group of papers that do not require extensive coordination.

“Coordination,” in fact, seems to be the operative word for any effort that draws together academics and practitioners—because, for the reasons discussed, it seems to be psychologically unnatural to most members of either group to make the effort at working with the other without such labors. That, of course, raises the question of whether there exists anybody to whom it is professionally natural to work in that breach, and to help to narrow it.

A manifesto for the bridge people
I believe there is, in fact, a small population of professionals—some employed in academia, some not—who see this kind of work as close to their professional core. One reason why I believe that is that I keep running into them; in fact, the initial design for the Researcher’s Guide to Dispute Resolution Practitioners, a directory of 78 expert practitioners who have committed to responding fast to requests for advice from scholars, seemed incomplete until a section was added explicitly consisting of “bridge” people.

They have been, in my view, a long-suffering and under-appreciated group. Perhaps this is partly because their orientation seems fey to many full-time practitioners, and unscientific to many full-time researchers; neither fish nor fowl, their reputations grow among a small group of cognoscenti even as their sources of financing, their scope of work, and sometimes their careers suffer from the incomprehension of their immediate colleagues.

In dispute resolution, as in older fields, we have encouraged the creation of a whole slew of institutions, structures and methods that implicitly value the contributions of scholars and practitioners quite separately, and thus devalue the efforts of those who try to work across both domains. I submit that it’s time to analyze those structures and address ways in which, by frustrating the ability of the “bridge” people to function at their best, they defeat our fundamental purposes. I hope that the series of papers presented here will be seen beyond the papers’ individual merits as an unexpected fusion, showing researchers’ and practitioners’ perspectives in a larger sense, and challenging each group to perceive more and to be more open to the potential contributions of the other. Our field does not have resources to waste; perhaps this series can strike a few sparks for others so that they, in turn, will think of more occasions for developing scholar-practitioner working relationships, more comprehensive ways of examining and improving their own researches and practices, and more opportunities to get better use out of their “opposite numbers.”

REFERENCES

Coates, C. (1998). Commentary on Dingwall et al. Mediation Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 4.

Dingwall, R., Greatbatch, D., and Ruggierone, L. “Divorce mediation: Micro-studies and macro-issues.”Mediation Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 4.

Herrman, M., Gale, J., Hollett, N., Goettler, D., Kogan, S., Fogarty, K., and Dismuke, K. (1998). “Interim report of the mediator skills project: Assessing and supporting effective mediation.” State Justice Institute.

Honeyman, C. (1998). “Not good for your career.” Negotiation Journal 14: 13-18.

Honeyman, C. (1997B). A researcher’s guide to dispute resolution practitioners. Dispute Resolution Institute of Hamline University School of Law, and Mediation Center (Minneapolis).

Honeyman, C. (1997A). “Theory v. practice in dispute resolution.” Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation, July-August 1997.

Honeyman, C. (1995). “Two out of three.” Negotiation Journal 11: 5-10.

Honeyman, C. (1988). “Five elements of mediation.” Negotiation Journal 4: 149-158.

Kakalik, J. S., Dunworth, T., Hill, L. A., McCaffrey, D., Oshiro, M., Pace, N. M., and Vaiana, M. E. (1996). Just, Speedy, and Inexpensive? An Evaluation of Judicial Case Management Under the Civil Justice Reform Act. Institute for Civil Justice, RAND Corp.

Press, S. (1998). Commentary on “The name of the game is movement: concession seeking in judicial mediation of large money damage cases,” by Stacy Burns. Mediation Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 4.

Test Design Project (1995). Performance-based assessment: a Methodology, for use in selecting, training and evaluating mediators. Washington, DC: National Institute for Dispute Resolution.

Welsh, N. and Lewis, D. “Adaptations to the civil mediation model: Suggestions from research into the approaches to conflict resolution used in the Twin Cities’ Cambodian community.” Mediation Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 4.

NOTES

1. 1. We have moved some small way toward that goal as a result of efforts by SPIDR’s Commission on Qualifications, the Academy of Family Mediators’ Certification Committee, the Test Design Project and others; but we are still a long way from universality, economy and reliability alike.
   2. It is not an accident that the University of Georgia’s Mediator Skills Project. (Herrman, M., Gale, J. et al, 1998), the major effort currently under way to improve on the work of the Test Design Project’s Methodology (1995) and earlier efforts in quality control, has required an elaborately constructed partnership between academics and practitioners.
   3. This issue’s construction is influenced by a project named “Theory to Practice,” of which I am principal investigator. The project has been funded by the Hewlett Foundation to look into the researcher/practitioner relationship throughout this field and to begin a process of improvement. I will not repeat here the general description of the project’s beginnings and directions; please see Honeyman, 1997A. Nor will I discuss the economic and career motivations which significantly impede efforts by both scholars and practitioners to make better use of each other’s knowledge; for that discussion, please see Honeyman, 1998.
   4. Since “Adaptations To the Civil Mediation Model” originated from a practitioner program, it’s worth noting that in this case, the character of those involved is entirely consistent with my thesis. Mediation Center not only hired Debra Lewis, a PhD-trained sociologist, for the express purpose of conducting much of the work which led to that paper, it has since then become closely affiliated with an academic institution (Hamline University Law School.) To top the argument off, the paper’s other author, Nancy Welsh, after ten years of running Mediation Center accepted employment beginning in 1998-99 as a full-time professor (at Pennsylvania State University/Dickinson School of Law.)
   5. The Researcher’s Guide (Honeyman, 1997B) was produced for the “Theory to Practice” project. It is published by the Dispute Resolution Institute, Hamline University School of Law, and is available to qualified researchers for the cost of printing and mailing.