If You’re in the Process, You’re Making Progress

{4:00 minutes to read} This past December, the New York State Council on Divorce Mediation (NYSCDM) held its downstate 1-day symposium. Those dedicated mediators who attend these conferences (including the annual 3-day conference every May) find the events rich with excellent presenters on significant topics that go to the heart of the work we do in mediation. They also engage in the heartfelt collegiality we all feel towards each other and the resources we share to help an otherwise difficult situation (divorce) be a more dignified process.

At this symposium, the opening speaker was Lt. Jack Cambria, who recently retired as the chief hostage negotiator for the NYPD. You might well ask, what does a hostage negotiation have to do with divorce and family mediation? In fact – a lot! Of course, the situations we deal with are not quite as dire as someone holding a gun on another, but for those of us working in tense situations where one party is pulling leverage on the other in order to get what they want, the core concepts are the same. Lt. Cambria’s presentation was enthralling to say the least and oh, so relevant to the work we mediators do with our couples, day in and day out.

One of my colleagues and fellow mediators, Kathy Seiden wrote an excellent article on his presentation immediately after the symposium. Her article, What Do a Hostage Negotiator and a Divorce Mediator Have in Common, summed it up beautifully. Thank you, Kathy.

In addition to what she described as the “take away” from his talk, I would expand on the last item, which has to do with, as Kathy articulated it, “trust the negotiation process. Do not attempt to rush results as each situation needs to evolve on its own timeline or the desired outcome won’t stick.”

One of the things Lt. Cambria emphasized is that, as long as they are still in the process, they are making progress. That’s a biggie! No matter that the parties may not necessarily see it at the moment. The fact that they are still talking, negotiating, arguing, debating . . . means the process is moving forward. They haven’t given up.

Lt. Cambria described a particularly difficult hostage negotiation he was involved in that had been going on for many, many hours. Everyone was beginning to lose their patience (except for him) and he got word from one of his superiors that he was going to take him off the case and bring in another negotiator because Lt. Cambia wasn’t, according to him, making progress. I guess what he meant by that was that Cambria had not yet succeeded in bringing the gunman in.

Lt. Cambria’s response was: “(The hostage taker) has come out of the building toward us – we didn’t have to storm the building and thus put the innocent victims in danger; he is still talking to me and most importantly, he hasn’t harmed anyone including himself. We ARE making progress!” They left him on the case. The situation was ultimately defused, and the hostage-taker gave himself up.

Lessons learned for all of us: keep talking; keep working. If you’re still in the process, you’re making progress.