What makes a SuperMed?

What makes a mediation super-hero?

And who qualifies?

Is it technique or style? Ask Ken Cloke and he will say you are the technique.

Is it acquired or does it come from within?

Is it art or is it a science?

Why does she get all the work when he gets none?

How come the most unlikely people have superb practices? To meet them outside the mediation room they are too flaky/too egotistical/couldn't listen to their own grandmother without interrupting.

Yet keep get them inside a mediation room and they are the closers - the market likes them and the rest of us know it.

Here are 3 good resources in this genre;

[the first two articles can each be accessed for $29.00 - the third is free]

The Secrets of Successful Mediators (July 05)
by Stephen Goldberg

A survey of thirty experienced mediators showed that three-quarters of them regarded achieving rapport with the parties as central to their success in bringing about settlements. This article discusses how mediators achieve and make use of that rapport.

The Secrets of Successful (and Unsuccessful) Mediators Continued: Studies Two and Three (Oct 07)
by Stephen Goldberg and Margaret Shaw

In a survey of 216 advocates in mediation, the successful mediator's ability to gain the confidence of the parties was cited as important to his or her success more frequently than were any of the skills used by the mediator to bring about agreement. This article discusses the means by which mediators gain the confidence of disputing parties. The article also discusses the different skill and attribute profiles of different successful mediators and the advocates' views of the reasons for mediator failure.

MATA's brilliant Advanced Mediator Skills Project (July 02)

Through personal interviews and direct observation of mediators, the project draws out some of the techniques that have been developed with experience and which go beyond foundation skills training. In addition, the report identifies personal mediator attributes.

If you only want to pay for one of the Goldberg articles, I'd suggest the first one but to be honest I think the free MATA document is the best of the lot.