AUTHORITIES UNDER PILOT PROGRAM Region hosts Navy-wide resolution conference

For the second year, the Department of the Navy funded a two-day education and training conference for its active duty and civilian components of Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR). The program aims to assist the Navy in handling disputes at the lowest level, person to person, manager to supervisor, Department of the Navy to employee, etc. More than 100 Department of the Navy personnel from within the Continental U. S. came together for the conference June 19-20 at the Omni Hotel downtown Jacksonville.

Commander, Navy Region Southeast (CNRSE) sponsored the event, including making arrangements for the Civilian Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy Patricia Adams to attend as the guest speaker.

"I believe alternate dispute resolution is very important," said Adams. During her speech, she stressed the importance of employee engagement that matches talent to task and produces capable war fighters, which are constantly in high demand.

Joanna Jacobs, acting director of the Office of Dispute Resolution for the U.S. Department of Justice, shares insights from her April 2007 Report for the President on the Use and Results of Alternate Dispute Resolution in the Executive Branch of the Federal Government during the conference.

"Engagement is the extent to which employees commit to something or someone in their organization and how hard they work and how long they stay as a result of that commitment," she said. "Highly committed employees try 57 percent harder, perform 20 percent better and are 87 percent less likely to leave than employees with lower levels of commitment."

Using graphs and statistics, Adams illustrated the importance of successful managers in creating both rational and emotional commitments from their team and organization. Both types of commitments foster a high performing workplace, a goal that agrees with the efforts of ADR.

"Utilization of an alternate dispute resolution process usually reduces the time and cost involved in processing and/ or resolving workplace disputes and concerns," said CNRSE Deputy Equal Employment Opportunity Officer Junarion Hubbard.

Acting Director of Department of Justice, Office of Dispute Resolution Joanna Jacobs applauded the Navy's ADR Program both in her speech at the conference and in her Report for the President on The Use and Results of ADR in the Executive Branch of the Federal Government, saying it gave the American people better results and more value. In addition to keynote speakers, breakout groups offered topic-focused training and an opportunity for attendees to relate their experiences and share concerns.

Nikkita Kelson, human resource specialist for USMC, Albany, Ga., described his breakout session on cultural diversity as enjoyable and eye-opening. The session centered on common stereotypes that everyone has without realizing them. "It's about separating yourself from your viewpoint and seeing the picture in its reality," he said. "We have to be made aware of natural tendencies."

Other breakout sessions stressed mediating and convening, the process of drafting settlement agreements, trust and rapport, and advanced facilitation, to name a few. The National Security Personnel System, a relatively new management system designed to reduce hiring cycle times, lower labor costs, increase efficiency, and reward people

according to their performance was well-attended during both times it was offered as a session.

The wizard of them all was brought by Denise Patterson McKenney, commissioner for Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service in Washington, D.C., whose session highlighted the magic words in mediation.

"If someone was going to have a feast and you have all these great things why wouldn't everybody come? I mean, everyone would come right? You have to tell people what is in it for them - WIFM - what's in it for me?" McKenney said.

As for BATNA and WATNA, the "best and worst alternatives to a negotiated agreement," their magic motivation towards settlement exists when parties think about the future of what happens if the mediation doesn't settle.