**Conflict Management in a Changing Workplace**

**A BLM National Training Center Telecast**

**March 19, 1998**

This transcript is from the closed-captioning file produced during the
telecast. It may contain errors and omissions in transcription.

Announcer: the Bureau of Land Management Satellite Network Presents Live
from the BLM National Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona, Managing
Conflict in a Changing Workplace. An Interactive Teleconference on
Survival Skills for Success. And Now, the Host of Your Program, Tanna
Chattin.

Chattin: Good Morning. The Subject of this Broadcast Is Alternative
Dispute Resolution. Alternative Dispute Resolution Is Commonly Referred
to by the Acronym ADR. This Is an Umbrella Term for a Wide Range of
Problem‑solving Methods That Offer an Alternative to the Oftentimes
Consuming and Costly Process of Litigating in Court. Some Forms of ADR,
Particularly Mediation, Can Be Applied Readily to the Everyday Work
Environment. Mediation Is a Way of Resolving Interpersonal Conflict,
That Is, Conflict Between Individuals, Early and on an Informal Basis.
It Helps People in Conflict to Arrive at Solutions That Are Mutually
Agreeable to Both Parties. By Being Mutually Agreeable, These Solutions
Are More Likely To Bring Permanent Closure to The Conflict. Last Year,
to Demonstrate Support of ADR, by Both the Department of Interior and
BLM, A Broadcast, Much like This, Was Offered to Supervisors and
Managers. Today\'s Broadcast Is Intended For All BLM Employees and Will
Focus More on Actually Managing Conflict than on Policy. Today\'s
Program Is Sponsored by The Washington Office Equal Employment
Opportunity Group. Eeo Practitioners from Several State and Center
Offices, and The National Training Center. It Concerns Conflict and the
Workplace. During the First Segment Our Program We Will Approach ADR by
Discussing Some of the Evolving Changes Now Taking Place in Our Work
Environment since Continuing Change May Create an Atmosphere Where We
Become Involved Willingly or Unwillingly in Interpersonal Conflict,
We\'ll Talk about What We Can Do about It. During the Second Segment, We
Will Take a Look at Conflict Resolution Methodologies and See A
Demonstration of Mediation. Also, We\'ll Clarify the Intended Purposes
and Proper Usage of the Bloom\'s Two Traditional Administrative Redress
Systems ‑‑ Equal Employment Opportunity Complaints and Administrative
Grievances. In Developing this Presentation, We Have Not Relied on the
Participation of Outside Experts. Our Panel Members and Speakers Are
Your Fellow BLM Employees Who Are Subject Matter Specialists in the
Various Issues Discussed They Are Interested in Issues Affecting The
Workplace and They Are Interested in Working with Others to Maintain a
Supportive Work Environment for All of Us. Let\'s Meet Them Now. Joining
Me this Morning Is Gloria Inniss, Who as Manager of The Washington
Office Equal Employment Opportunity Group Is The BLM\'s Eeo Officer.
Good Morning, Gloria, and I must Say That I Saw Your Suitcase Outside.
Are You So Anxious to Get out of Phoenix?

Inniss: Not Really Anxious. I Love the Weather, as You Know. But Duty
Calls. So I Will Be Leaving.

Chattin: Fran Cherry, the Montana State Associate Director Is Also with
Us Here this Morning. Fran, Thanks for Coming down to Phoenix to Be on
this Program.

Cherry: It\'s Always a Pleasure. Do You Remember Get out of Montana in
the Winter. You Know, Tanna, Life in These Days Is like a Grammar
Lesson. The past Is Perfect, and the Present Is Tense.

Chattin: You Got That Right.

Cherry: I Hope Today We Can Talk a Little Bit about Relieving Some of
Those Tensions Or at Least Understanding Where The Tensions Are Coming
from.

Chattin: If Can You Relieve Tensions on this Set, We Are Being on the
Air Live ‑‑ Also With Us from Montana Is Carol Schriver, Eeo Manager for
the Montana State Office. Welcome to Our Show, Carol.

Schriver: Thanks, Tanna. It\'s Always Nice to Come to Phoenix. We\'re
All Snowbirds in Montana And this Good of Year Is a Good Time to My
Great to Phoenix.

Chattin: That\'s Good. Good Migration. And Completing Our First Panel
Today Is Linda Run Del, District Manager from Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Linda, We Appreciate You Being Here Today.

Rundell: Buenos Diaz, Tanna.

Chattin: Before We Get Started, I Would Also like to Mention That You
Will Need a Viewer Packet in Order to Participate in this Program. Use
it to Jot down Notes as Each Speaker Makes His or Her Presentation. Note
That Warren Johnson, Who Is Listed on the Agenda, Unfortunately Is Not
Able to Participate in Today\'s Broadcast Due to Other Commitments. I
Would Also like to Remind All BLM Satellite Downlink Coordinators to
Have All Viewers Sign in Using the Standard Satellite Attendance Roster.
Please Fax Those Back to the NTC Immediately after Today\'s Show. BLM
Director Pat Shea Is a Strong Proponent of Alternative Dispute
Resolution. He Has Prepared a Videotaped Message for Us in Order to
Offer His Thoughts on ADR for Our Consideration as We Move Through Our
Broadcast Today.

Dir. Shea: Thank You for Coming to the Broadcast Today. I Want to
Introduce the Alternative Dispute Resolution Broadcast by Relating My
Own Experience with Alternative Dispute Resolution. Nearly 10 Years Ago
the Federal Senior Judge in Utah, David Winner, Invited 20 of Us Who
Were Senior Lawyers, Even Though I Was under 50 at the Time and Having
Passed That Mark Now, I Have Passed into the Senior Status and His Idea
Was to Find A Way to Unblock the Litigation Calendars That Seemed to Be
Blossoming in Each of the Federal Courts There. So He Invited Us to Be
Trained, To Be Mediators and Arbitrators. What I Found Was the
Intervention of ADR into the Litigation Process Made for a Healthier
Organization, Made for A Healthier Environment with the People Who Got
Involved in Mediation or Arbitration. It Is a Structured Solution to
Problem Solving. It Is an Intervention by a Trained Third Party to
Resolve a Dispute by Getting it Back into The Hands of the People Who
Are In the Dispute, Not Having a Judge or a Jury and Lawyers Necessarily
Taking Charge of It. We Found That it Reduced Complaints. It Avoided
Litigation. Now, Gwen Has Told Me I Should Tell You a Lawyer Joke at
this Point, but I Gave up Lawyer Jokes for Lent and Would Suggest Do You
the Same. Today\'s Broadcast Is Going To, I Hope, Raise Your Awareness
of Opportunities for You Within the BLM to Use ADR and Specifically
Mediation to Successfully Resolve Conflicts. We\'ve Used it with the
Resource Advisory Committees. I\'ve Been Heavily Involved in an Effort
in Spokane, Washington, With the Midnight Mine Where We Are Not ‑‑ We
Haven\'t Formalized It Yet, but We Are Using the Fundamental Tools of
Discussion, Exploring Resolution as a Means Of Resolving a Long‑standing
Dispute There with the Midnight Mind. If You Apply the Principles That
You Will Be Learning from the Broadcast Today to Your Own Work
Environment, I Think You Will Find Three Very Important Elements. Number
One, You Will Find That There Is an Enhanced Degree of Civility in the
Way You Interact And the Way People in Your Work Environment Interact.
Second, and of Equal Importance, I Think ADR Is a Way of Facilitating
Cooperation, Both Inside BLM and the Customers We Serve. And, Finally
and Probably Most Important to You, the Productivity That You Will Feel
And Others in the Organization Will Feel, Will Be Enhanced by Using
Alternative Dispute Resolution. So Please Learn the Lessons That Are on
the Videotape Today. Find Ways of Applying it in Your Own Work
Environment. And Let\'s Move Forward to Making A Healthy Work
Environment as Part of Our Effort to Make the BLM Move into the 21st
Century. Thank You Very Much.

Chattin: We Would like to Thank Director Shea for Taking The Time to
Prepare Those Remarks for Us. As I Mentioned Previously, the Issue of
Change Is a Subject of This Broadcast. Indeed, the BLM Has Been Subject
To Great Change over the past Several Years. We Can Think of Operational
Change Through Reorganization And the Redescription of the Bureau\'s
Programmatic Objectives. A Change in the Makeup of the Work Force, via
Retirements and Early‑outs. And Developing Social Change in Accordance
with the Shifting Demographics of Our Country. Change Often Brings
Discomfort And Discomfort Often Leads to Conflict. Therefore, Before We
Focus on Alternative Dispute Resolution, We\'re Going to Look at Some
Factors That Might Contribute to A Work Environment in Which Conflict
Might Arise. Fran, You\'re, of Course, Active In the Field Committee and
You Have Also Been Involved in Numerous Study Groups That Have Addressed
the Bureau\'s Future, Short, mid and Long‑term Goals. What Can We Expect
Relative to Continuing Change?

Cherry: of Course, Tanna, I Think We\'re Going to See Change Increasing
at an Ever‑faster Pace. But There Are a Lot of Things That Are Affecting
the Bureau Directly. You Know, Trends That Begin in The Private Sector
Always Seem To Reach the Government. Currently, Calls for a Balanced
Federal Budget Have Led to Either Cutbacks in the Level of Appropriated
Funds or Flat Funding. Flat or Level Fund Something Really Funding
That\'s Reduced Because as Normal Operating Expenses Increase, the
Overall Budget Does Not Increase in Proportion. Computerization Has Also
Significantly Increased Productivity of Individuals. But While
Individuals May Now Accomplish More Work, Employers Seem to Demand Even
More Production, and Diversification Is Taking Place Across the Entire
Spectrum of American Society. BLM Is a Part of a Larger Worldwide
Transition That Is Taking Us along for the Ride. Further, an Environment
of Rolling Change Is Going to Continue at an Increasing Rate. If You
Begin to Think That All This Means a Future Inform Creased Work and
Competition for All of Us, You Are Probably Right. Let\'s Take a Look at
How Our Future Is Likely to Be Shaped. The BLM, like Other
Organizations, Will Keep Reshaping Itself on a More Frequent Basis,
Flexing and Shift to Go Survive. How Will We Deal with These Agents of
Change in the Future? Look for the BLM to Restructure, Outsource,
Downsize, Subcontract And Form New Partnerships with Other
Organizations. If You Don\'t Think this Is True, Just Look Around for a
Few Minutes. You\'ll Find That All of These Events Have Already Taken
Place Are or Currently Taking Place Within Our Organizations. Employees
must Also Expect Considerable Flexibility in the Ways That Work Is
Managed. Duties Will Constantly Be Realigned and Short‑lived Assignments
Will Become More Common. In the Face of Change, a Strong Commitment to
the Job Will Be Required of All of Us. The BLM Will Expect More from
You. The Reason? Much More Is Being Demanded upon ‑‑ from the Bureau
than Ever Before. Our Clients and Customers Want Better Quality and More
Top‑notch Service and They Want It Faster than Ever. Speed Is Essential
Because People Have Gotten Used to Instant Everything. The Only Way the
Bureau Can Effectively Compete Is to Employ High‑performance People. In
the Past, When Faced with Demands of this Type, the Answer From the
Government Was to Hire More People, Spend More Money. Well, BLM Can\'t
Afford That Approach Anymore. Instead of More Dollars, less Will Be
Coming. We must Do More and Do it Faster And Better with less.
Performance in this Environment Calls for Highly Committed People.
We\'ll Have to Speed up Also. It Doesn\'t Take a Hard Searching Look
Anymore to See That Slow Kills Companies and Organizations in Today\'s
World. To Survive and Gain Any Competitive Advantage at All, We Must
Travel Light and Cover Ground Quicker. This Is What Drives Decisions to
Decentralize and to Delegate Decision Making Power, to Erase Boundaries
Between Different Parts of the Organization. Work Needs to Flow Swiftly
and Seamlessly. The Changes You See Going on These Days Are Designed to
Help Organizations Build Speed. These Are Not Random Acts Dreamed up by
Bored Top Executives. We must Continue to Accelerate Or We\'ll Simply Be
Left Behind. You Know, We must Also Accept Ambiguity and Uncertainty.
Pinning Our Jobs down During Periods of Change Will Be a Lot Like Trying
to Nail Jell‑o to The Wall. New Expectations, Different Reporting
Relationships, Assignment Changes All Contribute to More Questions Than
Answers. When We must Hold Ourselves Personally Accountable. BLM like
Other Organizations Will Be Insisting on New Levels Of Accountability
from Managers And Employees. Responsibility and Authority Are Being
Pushed down to the Lowest Levels. We\'ll Have to Stand Accountable For
Our Work, Holding Ourselves Personally Accountable for Outcomes Requires
a New Way of Thinking. Are We Working Across Boundary Lines, Avoiding
Turf Battles? Are We Combining Our Efforts With That of Others
Synergistically? Are We Help to Go Direct this Agency Towards the
Outcomes That Will Have the Most Payoff for All of Us? We must Add Value
to Our Work Products. We Will Have to Contribute More than We Cost. We
Have Assumed Because We Do Good Work and Have Been Responsible That We
Will Always Keep Our Jobs. Some of Us Even Think That Because We\'ve
Been Around for a Long Time We\'re Worth More to The Organization. But
Maybe Not. It\'s What We\'re Doing Something That Adds Value to the
Mission Of the Bureau? We Should See Ourselves as a Service Center. Our
Job Security Will Depend on How Valuable We Are to Our Customers. The
Better We Serve Them, the Better We Protect Our Careers. What Do Our
Customers Do? And How Do We Fit into the Picture? What Are Their Needs?
What Does it Take to Please Them? How Can We Contribute to Their
Success? Keep in Mind There Are Both Internal and External Customers. We
May Deal Directly with Each Type. But Let\'s Not Forget to Focus on
Those Whom We\'re Supposed to Serve Inside the Organization Also. Maybe
We\'ve Always Thought of Them as Co‑workers or as People You Work with
Rather than for. But Make No Mistake, These Are Also Our Clients and
Customers. In the Final Analysis, Customers Are Our Job Security. You
Know, We\'re Going to Also Have to Manage or Own Morale. Somehow over
the Years We\'ve Been Led to Believe That Higher Management Is
Accountable for Employee Morale. In the Future, We\'ll Be Far Better off
If We Assign Ourselves Personal Responsibility for Attitude Control. We
Cannot Let Low Morale Drain Away Precious Energy, Destroy Our
Self‑confidence or Damage Our Attractiveness as a Job Candidate. More
and More Organizations Will Want Employees Who Can Cope with Change
Without Breaking Stride. We Have to Be Fixers. Not Finger Pointers. The
Most Valuable Employees Will Be Those with Reputations as Problem
Solvers. Organizations Need People on Who Can Take Care of Problems Not
Merely Point Them out. Finally, We must Alter Our Expectations.
Organizations Can\'t Stop the World from Changing. The Best That They
Can Do Is Adapt. The Smart Ones Change Before They Have To. The Same
Goes for People. People Need to Accept the Way Things Are and
Restructure Their Expectations Accordingly. The Bottom Line Is this\...
We\'re Probably Not Going to like Some of this. Probably None of Us Will
like All of the Changes in Our Job Environment. But the Question Is ‑‑
Will We Get on with the Program Anyway? Keep in Mind this Basic Fact\...
Resistance to Change Is Almost Always a Dead‑end Street. Opportunity
Comes to Those Who Change Their Views to Meet the New Organizational
Needs and Realities. Organizations Want People Who Adapt and Adapt Fast.
They Don\'t Want People Who Resist or Tune out. The Subject of this
Program, Conflict Management, Is All About Control. While We Cannot
Always Control The Circumstances That Surround Us, We Can Often Control
Our Reaction to These Circumstances. If We Can Learn to Do That, We\'ll
All Flourish in the Workplace of the Future.

Chattin: a Clear Message, Fran. Thank You. All of this Seems like it
Could Be an Overwhelming Prospect for Many of Us.

Cherry: That\'s Really, True, Tanna. None of this Can Be Taken Lightly.
After Many Years of Relative Quiet and Stability in the Civil Service,
the Status Quo Is Being Altered Drastically. There Is a Saying That
Perhaps Has Been Characteristic of American Society During this Century
‑‑ You Are What You Do. Meaning, of Course, That Our Identities and Our
Feelings of Self‑worth Are Often Derived From Our Life\'s Work. That Our
Jobs Are Important to Us for Reasons Other than Simply The Income They
Generate. But over the Years, I\'ve Seen This Affirmation Throughout the
Department. It\'s a Necessary Ingredient of Employee Excellence. It Can
Be Seen Especially among Those in the Department Who Steward the Public
Lands. In My Experience, Natural Resource Management Folks Are
Characteristically Devoted to Their Professions and Dedicated To the
Public Trust.

Chattin: Well, Let Me Ask You This, Fran: in this Rush to Adapt to a
Leaner and More Cost Effective Organization, Will Employees, Say like
Myself, Be Left Behind?

Cherry: I Don\'t Think So. The Ones That Will Be Left Behind Will Be
Left Behind Because Maybe of Their Own Choice. But, of Course, People
Will Have To Adapt. Also a Period of Time Will Be Required as the
Department of The Interior and Other Federal Employees Adjust to the
Transformation That\'s Taken Place over the Last Four Years. Under the
Provisions of the Government Performance and Results Act, the BLM Has
Developed a Strategic Plan That Will Guide its Program Operations
Throughout the Immediate Future. The Plan Establishes Goals, Describes
Strategies, Defines Tools for Measuring Progress, Clarifies Performance
Standards And Links Prudent Program Management with Evaluation and
Funding. You Know, It\'s Important That All of Our Employees Learn
What\'s the Strategic Plan Within The Government Performance Review Act
for Us and How it Affects Us and Also It\'s a Subsequent Strategic Plan
That Each of the States Will Be Developing. It\'s Important for
Self‑survival And Getting up to Speed with the Rest of the Bureau and
Where the Bureau Is Going. Of Course, the Field Committee, Which Is
Composed of the Assistant Director and the BLM\'s Associate State
Directors, Has Established a Human Resources Management Subcommittee.
The Primary Role of the Subcommittee Is to Monitor the Utilization of
Personnel Resources. The Human Resources Management Program Is
Represented in the BLM\'s Strategic Plan. Initially, as Indicated in the
Strategy, and under the Umbrella Goal of Defining Critical Skills Of the
Future, We Will Be Taking A Comprehensive Look at the Present and Future
Skills Utilization in the Bureau. Including a Fresh Look at Career
Ladders, Subsequently We Will Be Considering a Wide Range of Other
Issues Related to the Adaptation of BLM\'s Workers to The Evolving
Environment. The BLM\'s Human Resources Community Is Made up of Equal
Opportunity ‑‑ Equal Employment Opportunity and Personnel Management
Practitioners at the Washington Office and in Each of The State and
National Center Offices. I\'m Sure That I\'m Speaking for Both Warren
Johnson, BLM\'s Assistant Director for Human Resources Management and
Gloria Inniss, the BLM\'s Eeo Officer When I Say That the Hrm Community
Will Be Working with You to Adapt the BLM\'s Work Force to the New
Operating Environment of the 21st Century.

Chattin: the 21st Century Is Right Around the Corner. Thank You, Fran.
It Appears That the Future Will Require That We All Keep on Our Toes as
Much as We Ever Have Over the past Couple of Years. One Aspect of Our
Working Life That Is a Point of Considerable Discussion Today Is
Diversity. Many People Think That the Term \"Diversity\" Is a New
Concept, Something That Has Just Recently Arrived at the Federal
Government\'s Doorstep. But, in Fact, It\'s Not. Both American Society
and the BLM Work Force Have Reflected a Wide‑spread Diversity in Racial,
Ethnic and Cultural Makeup for Many, Many Years. However, as Our Country
Grows Smaller, and as Globalization of The Economy Affects the
Fundamental Processes in Which We Work, the Actual and Potential Impacts
of Diversification Become More Vivid. Gloria Inniss, BLM\'s Equal
Employment Opportunity Officer, Is Our Resident Expert on Diversity.
Gloria, Tell Us about the Current Push Toward Diversity in The Bureau of
Land Management.

Inniss: Well, Thank You for The Resident Expert. I like That, Especially
on the Subject When We Have So Many Experts on this. The Push for
Diversification in The Bureau of Land Management Is Really Driven by Our
Director, Pat Shea, and by the Top Management of the Bureau of Land
Management. It Is Also Driven by the Office Of the Secretary. In 1997,
the Department of the Interior under the Leadership of The Deputy
Secretary Took Significant Action To Promote Diversification Throughout
the Bureaus and Offices. The Position of Deputy Assistant Director for
‑‑ Was Established And it Was Filled. The Incumbent of That Position,
Dave Montoya, Will Be Providing Leadership for Diversity Initiatives
from the Secretarial Level. The Departmental Diversity Council Which Was
Created in the Early \'90s, Has Been Strengthened. The Council Is
Composed of Representatives from Each of the Bureaus in the Department.
Finally, the Department Recently Issued its Diversity Strategic Plan
Which Establishes the Secretary\'s Goals and Objectives On Diversity.
Now, in the Bureau of Land Management, of Course, We Have ‑‑ the Bureau
Formulated the Diversity Plan in 1996. In 1997, We Revised Our Work
Force Diversity Plan. The Initial Plan We Used to Call It Affirmative
Employment Diversity Plan. Now in 1997, We Have Revised That Plan to
Make it Conform With a Department Strategic Plan And Now Ours Is Similar
to the Department. Our Plan Has Been Approved by The Department, and in
the Meantime, the Washington Office Director Others and State and
National Center Offices Has Moved Ahead to Develop Their Own
Implementation Plans. At this Moment this Is Happening, the Equal
Employment Opportunity Community Is Working Together with Human
Resources Management Officials to Develop A Continuing Program of
Information on Diversity and Diversity Related Initiatives. So I Guess
in a Nutshell, That\'s The ‑‑ What\'s Happening Now.

Chattin: Gloria, Do You Believe That the Enhancement of Diversity in the
Bureau of Land Management Can or Will Create Conflict in the Workplace?

Inniss: Well, We Have to Be Realistic about These Things, Tanna. We All
Have Biases and Assumptions about People Who Are Different from Us. Not
Only Different in Race and Sex, but Different in Age or in The Place
Where They Come From, And Many Other Factors. Those Biases and
Assumptions Influence Our Interactions. Group Differences If Not
Addressed Can Key Crate Conflict And Have a Devastating Effect on
Communication, Teamwork, Morale And Even on the Quality of Work Of Our
Employees. Of Course, Those Are the Very Factors That as Fran Just
Mentioned, Organizations Need Need in Order to Succeed in a Rapidly
Changing Global Economy. Of Course, Changing These Attitudes Is the
First Step Towards Creating a Workplace in Which Everyone Has the
Opportunity to Succeed.

Chattin: Gloria, Fran Also Mentioned That a Number of Things ‑‑ There
Are a Number of Things We Need to Change. Now, You\'re Talking to Us
about Diversity. Isn\'t this Too Much Change for Employees All at Once?

Inniss: Yes, I Think it Is. I Agree. The Realities Really Are That The
Federal Government\'s Emphasis on Diversity Comes at a Time When Other
Forces Are Impacting Often What We Have Viewed as the Normal and
Comfortable Work Environment. Diversity May Bring Us Together With
Co‑workers from Unfamiliar Backgrounds and at the Same Time Downsizing,
Reorganization and Diversity Programs May All Seem To Have the Net
Result of Limiting Our Career Options by Increasing Competition for a
Diminishing Pool of Opportunities for Desired Assignments and Even for
Promotions. The Way We Are Dealing in the Bureau of Land Management with
Conflict Is in an Increasingly Diverse Work Force by Teaching The
Concept of Valuing Diversity. Of Course, by Having a Program For
Managing Diversity.

Chattin: Gloria, I Noticed You Have Been Talking about Diversity. We
Also Have an Affirmative Employment Program in the Bureau. What Is the
Difference Between These Programs? I Know by My Own Experience That
Managers and Employees Are Nervous about These Programs.

Inniss: Yes, I Agree with You, Tanna. I Do Sense That Nervousness. I
Have Also Experienced That When People Understand the Programs and Learn
More about The Programs and Know How They Work, it Is ‑‑ it Eases Some
of That Discomfort. Let Me Share with You about These Concepts of
Affirmative Employment, Valuing Diversity And Managing Diversity.
Affirmative Employment Is Founded in the Law. It Seeks to Address the
Underemployment of Minorities And Women. Its Focus Is on Achieving
Equality of Opportunity in the Workplace by Changing Organizational
Demographics. It Seeks to Equalize the Employment of Members of the
Equal Employment Opportunity Groups with a Representation of Members of
Those Groups in the Civilian Labor Force. In Other Words, Affirmative
Employment Programs Are Driven By Statistical Analysis and Numerical
Goals. Now, When We Talk about Valuing Diversity, We Are Talking about
The Appreciation of the Differences and Creating an Environment in Which
Everyone Feels Valued and Accepted. Let Me Give You a Very Simple
Example of this. I Work with My Co‑workers on a Day‑to‑day Basis. I Know
in the Workplace I Will Speak in English, and I Will Be Valued by Work,
and Then at Lunch Time I Will Go with My Puerto Rican Friends That Speak
In Spanish and We Will Talk in Spanish in the Cafeteria, and That Will
Be Accepted, Too. That\'s a Way of Valuing Diversity and That\'s What We
Are Practicing in the Bureau of Land Management.

Chattin: I like the Way You Put That, Gloria. I Think We Can All
Appreciate How You\'ve Pinned down the Subject.

Inniss: Thank You. Now, We Also ‑‑ I Also Mentioned Managing Diversity.
When We Talk about Managing Diversity, We Are Talking about An
Organizational Business Strategy. We Are Talking about Building Specific
Skills and Creating Policies That Solicit the Best Performance from
Every Employee. In the Private Sector, Managing Diversity Is a Business
Decision. Of Course, We Operate on a Global Economy, So in the Business
Sectors, There Is a Need to Be Able to Relate to All Different Kinds of
People to Be Profitable And, of Course, to Remain in Existence. Now,
Managing Diversity in Accordance with Trends in the Private Sector Is
Becoming the Focus of Interest in Federal Agencies.

Chattin: Well, Gloria, What You Say Sounds Well and Good, But Doesn\'t
this Sacrifice Individuality to Some Extent?

Inniss: Well, We Have to Be Honest about These Things. While Differences
in Backgrounds May Exist, to Our Relationships With Others, it Is Human
Nature To Tend to Associate with Those Who Share Things in Common. The
Bureau of Land Management Programs Are Aimed at Understanding Social
Realities Like These and Fostering Open And Honest Communication. The
Objective Is to Make Sure That Everyone Is Appreciated and That We Are
Appreciating the Individuality of Our Employees. The More We Talk, the
More We Will Create ‑‑ the More We Will Realize That along with Our
Differences We Have Lots in Common. Worrisome Issues, Ranging from The
Advancement on the Job to Dealing with Crabby Supervisors, Those Are
Universals. These Are Issues That Are Not Specific to Any Gender or to
Any Color. And in the Bureau of Land Management, We Will Make Sure That
We Address These Global Issues and at the Same Time I Think We Do
Respect the Individuality of Our Employees.

Chattin: So We Do Have Lots In Common as Well. Well, Thank You, Gloria.
Up to this Point in Our Program, We Have Talked about Some Elements of
Today\'s Worklife That May Create than Certainty. And If the Truth Be
Known, Anxiety. For Many of Us, Work Loads Seem To Have Increased and
Resources Diminished. Computers, Those Supposedly Labor‑saving Devices,
Are Actually Creating Demands for More and More Production. There Never
Seems to Be Enough Hours in the Day to Get Everything Done. The Result
May Be Stress. Stress Arises When You Are Faced With a Threat for Which
There Is No Immediate Response. Let Me Illustrate. In Prehistoric Times,
When a Cave Person Came Face to Face or Toe to Toe with a Tyrannosaurus
Rex, the Fight or Flight Reaction Kicked in to Help Eliminate the
Effects of Stress From the Body. Of Course, the Person May Have Also
Been Eliminated, Depending Upon His or Her Decision. Today, However, the
Modern T‑rex May Be a Short Deadline, a Last‑minute Project, Bumper to
Bumper Traffic or a Strange Noise in Your Car\'s Transmission. These Are
Things That Are Difficult to Deal With, Raise Our Anxieties and for
Which We Have No Immediate Response Other Than to Grin and Bear It.
Unlike the Cave People, We Generally Can\'t Drop Everything And Go out
Jogging to Get Back Into Kilter. Carol Schriver, Eeo Manager for The
Montana State Office, Is Not Only a Resident of the State in Which the
Fossilized Remains Every on Very Large T‑rex Have Been Found, but She
Also Teaches Stress Management. Carol Is with Us Today to Talk About How
to Deal with the Anxieties That Seem to Have Become a Part of Modern
Life. I Can Tell You, Carol, I\'m Going To Pay Close Attention to this
One.

Schriver: Thank You, Tanna. Stress Means Different Things to Different
People. Each of Us Handles Stress Differently. Some of Us Are
Butterflies Who Break Easily under Stress. And Some of Us Are Horses Who
Carry Stress Quite Well. And Some of Us Are in Between. But We Are All
Different and Diverse in the Ways That We Handle Stress. Some of Us Say
We\'re Stressed When We Are Worried about Losing Our Jobs or Worried
about Having Enough Money to Pay Bills or Worried about Getting a
Project Done on Time. In Fact, to Most of Us, Stress Is Synonymous with
Worry. If it Is Something That Makes You Worry, Then it Is
Stress‑inducing. So Let\'s Look at Some Stressors. Which of These Is
Stress? You Receive a Promotion at Work. Your Car Has a Flat Tire. You
Go to a Week‑long Training Session in Phoenix. Your Dog Gets Sick. Your
New Furniture Is Being Delivered Today. Your Best Friend and His Wife
Come to Stay at Your House for a Week. You Get a Bad Case of Hay Fever.
Or All of the above. If You Answered All of the Above, You Are Correct.
Stress Is Created by Many Different Kinds of Things. They Can Be Happy
Things, Sad Things, Allergic Things, Physical Things. Many People Carry
Enormous Stress Loads and They Don\'t Even Realize It. Your Body Has a
Broad Definition Of Stress. To Your Body, Stress Can Be Synonymous with
Change. Anything That Causes a Change in Your Life Can Cause Stress. It
Doesn\'t Matter If It\'s a Good Change or a Bad Change. Both Can Create
Stress. When You Get That Promotion and Start Your First Day, That Can
Be Stress. If You Are Trying to Decide What Is Politically Correct, That
Can Be Stress. If You\'re Sitting in Front of The Entire BLM Giving a
Presentation Live from Phoenix, Believe Me, That Is Stress! Good or Bad,
If an Event Creates A Change in Your Life, it Can Be Stressful as Far as
Your Body Is Concerned. Even Imagined Change Can Create Stress. This Is
Called Worrying. Anything That Causes Change in Your Daily Routine or
Change in Your Bodily Health Can Be Stressful. Imagine Changes ‑‑
Imagined Changes Can Be Just as Stressful As Real Changes. How Do We
Know We\'re Being Stressed? The First Thing We Need to Do Is A Stress
Symptoms Profile. Refer to the Blue Worksheet, the Stress Symptoms Check
List, on Page 7 and 8 in Your Viewer Packet. Hopefully You Had a Chance
to Complete it Before Tuning in Today. If Not, I Encourage You to Fill
It out after the Broadcast. The Symptoms Check List Is a Self‑evaluation
Instrument That Will Give You an Indication of The Amount of Stress That
You May Have in Your Life. If You Have Marked Several Symptoms in the
Range of Moderately to Extremely, Then You May Be Overstressed. Over
Time, Overstress Will Make You Sick. Carrying a Heavy Stress Load Is
Like Running Your Car Engine Past the Red Line or Leaving Your Toaster
Stuck on the \"On\" Position or Running a New Clear Reactor past Maximum
Permissible Power. Sooner or Later, Something Will Break, Burn up or
Melt down. What Breaks Depends on Where the Weak Links Are in Your
Physical Body. This Is Largely an Inherited Characteristic. Here Are the
Common Weak Links And the Symptoms of Their Malfunction. As You Can See
from the Chart on Page 9, Overstress Affects the Brain, Creating a Wide
Variety Of Symptoms That Range from Fatigue and Pain to Anxiety and
Sleeplessness. It Can Affect the Gastrointestinal Tract, Producing a
Wide Range of Gastric Disturbances. Stress Can Produce Changes in The
Glandular System, the Thyroid Gland in Particular. Cardiovascular System
Symptoms Are Well‑known. They Include High Blood Pressure, Be a Normal
Heartbeat, Heart Attack and Stroke. Rashes Are Common Skin Effects, And
a Stressed Immune System Makes Us Vulnerable to Disease. Again, Stress
Is Not All Bad. We Need Stress to Some Extent Just to Keep Us Alive. For
the Most Part, These Stresses Help Us to Grow and Keep Our Hearts
Pounding. It\'s Not the Stress Itself That\'s Harmful. It\'s Our
Reaction to it That Affects Us. When We Don\'t Take Action on Life
Issues as They Are Presented, Stress Can Be Created. Unresolved Stress
Can Drain Our Energy, Can Prevent Us from Moving Forward and Can Stifle
Our Creativity. Stress Can Cause Dis‑ease. When We Are Overstressed, We
Don\'t Feel Well. When We Don\'t Feel Well, We Normally Try to Do
Something to Make Ourselves Feel Better. There Are Lots of Pick‑me‑ups
Which Will Temporarily Help Restore Balance to Your Overstressed Brain
by Providing A Sudden Rise in Blood Sugar You Are Which Leads to an
Immediate Boost in Energy. Sugar Is the Most Popular Pick‑me‑up.
Caffeine Is Another. Caffeine Is Not Only Found in Coffee but in Sodas
and Many Teas. My Personal Favorite Is Chocolate, Which Gives Me a Bonus
Round of Two Pick‑me‑ups At Once, Sugar and Caffeine. Alcohol, Tobacco
and High‑risk, High‑excitement Sports and Gambling Are Other Forms of
Pick‑me‑ups. Some People Use Adrenalin Release as a Pick‑me‑up. A Common
Instance of Adrenalin Release May Be Seen in the Workaholic. The
Workaholic Is Terribly Overstressed. Instead of Trying to Reduce His
Stress Load, However, His or Her Solution Is to Work 16 to 20 Hours a
Day, Thus Keeping Himself High on His Body\'s Own Adrenalin Release. We
Can Never Accurately Rebalance Your Brain Chemistry With Pick‑me‑ups.
Pick‑me‑ups Can Quickly Make Us Feel Well, but When the Pick‑me‑up Wears
Off, We Will Feel Sick Just as Quickly. Thereafter, it Takes
Increasingly Amounts of Pick‑me‑ups to Achieve the Desired Effect. When
We Don\'t Feel Well, We Are More Likely to Pick up Negative Habits and
Behaviors. We Can Become Involved in Gripe Sessions and Sit Around
Talking About What Management Should or Should Not Do, or Talk
Negatively about Our Co‑workers. We Tend to View Our Perception As the
Only Way. Perceptions Become Our Realities. It Doesn\'t Necessarily Mean
Our Perception on Any Given Subject Is Correct. Perceptions Are Only a
Small Piece of the Big Picture. We Need to Be Able to Look at All Sides
of an Issue and Not Judge It. Have You Ever Walked into a Workplace and
Noticed a Group of Unhappy People? The Workers Were Not Smiling, The Air
Felt Thick, People Were Not Getting along with Each Other. This Is a
Sign of a Hazardous, High‑stress Area. Maybe We Should Have the Health
And Safety People Post Warning Signs in Areas like this Which State
\"Danger ‑‑ High‑stress Area, Enter at Your Own Risk.\" These
High‑stress Areas Are Dangerous Because If Stress Is Not Managed, it
Will Affect Our Bodies, Our Minds and Our Spirits. Stress Affects Your
Relationship With Others. When We Are Stressed, Our Minds Do Not
Function on Full Power. We Can Start Losing the Faith And Trust in Other
People. We Can Begin to View Others as Different than Ourselves. Hate,
Anger, Cynicism Can Grow. And the Good Feelings in Our Lives Become less
and less. Then You Can Start Losing Confidence in Your Ability to Solve
Your Own Problems or Create Your Own Future. When You Stop Believing in
Yourself, You Stop Growing, and The Capacity for Personal Growth Is What
We All Need in Today\'s Work Environment. There Are Two Ways in Which
You May Deal with Stress. The First Is Preventative. We Increase Our
Ability to Cope With Stressful Situations. This Is Done with Awareness
to Your Health, Making Sure You Eat Well‑balanced Meals, Get Plenty Of
Rest, Take Time for Fun and Make Who You Humor a Part of Your Life. The
Second Is Remedial. We Eliminate Stress from the Body. Exercise Is by
Far the Most Beneficial Means of Eliminating The Effects of Stress from
Our Lives. In Order to ‑‑ for it to Be the Most Beneficial, it must Be
Sustained for a Period of at Least 30 Minutes. Note That the Heartbeat
Should Not Exceed the Level Prescribed By a Physician. To Be Effective,
Exercise must Be Performed a Minimum of Three Times Each Week. A Second
Technique Is the Relaxation Response. Select a Quiet Place, Assume a
Comfortable Sitting Position, Close the Eyes, and Let the Body Go Limp.
Push Busy Thoughts out and Quiet The Mind. Breathe Regularly and While
Exhaling Repeat a Single‑syllable Number Such as One. There Are Many
Good References In the Library on Stress Reduction Techniques. There
Have Been an Increasing Number of Workers Filing Complaints Stating That
Stress Has Caused Them a Disability. They Are Demanding That Companies
Move Them to a New Position or Work Site. Some People Are Claiming That
a Mean Boss Causes Them Too Much Anxiety and Stress, and as a Result,
They Are Disabled. At this Time, the Courts Have Ruled That Stress Does
Not Constitute a Disability. So the Choice Is up to Each of Us to Decide
How We Are Going to Address the Stressors in Our Lives. Think about the
Changes You Want To Make in Your Life and Where You Need to Make
Improvements on Your Stress Reduction. To Evaluate How You Are
Addressing Your Stress Levels, Ask Yourself the Following Questions: Are
You Drinking a Great Amount of Caffeine or Alcohol? Or Do You Drink
Water? At Least Six to Eight Glasses of Water a Day. Do You Try to
Forget about Your Problems by Gambling or Avoidance? Or Do You Walk,
Work out or Jog To Release Your Tension? Do You Spend Your Time Griping
Or Complaining? Or Do You Read Something Educational or Uplifting to
Make A Difference in Your Attitude? Do You Stay up All Night Watching Tv
Rather than Getting Your Rest? Or Do You Get Eight or More Hours of
Sleep Each Night? Do You Eat Junk Foods and Fast‑foods? Or Do You Eat a
Well‑balanced Diet Which Includes Fruits, Vegetables and Whole Grains?
These Questions Are Important For You to Do an Evaluation on Yourself.
We Are All in this Together. We Are All Affected by Each Other\'s
Actions and Attitudes. Approaching Stress Reduction in A Positive and
Consistent Fashion Will Make the Difference In Your Life. By Taking Care
of Yourself and Taking Control of Your Life, You Can Create a Better
Working Environment for Not Only You, But for Others as Well.

Chattin: Thank You, Carol. I Was Sitting Here Thinking, One, One, One,
One\... We Have One More Presentation in This Segment Before We Take
Your Questions or Comments by Telephone or Fax. After That, We\'ll Have
a Brief Intermission and Then We\'ll Look Closely at Alternative Dispute
Resolution Methodology. Two of Our Traditional Conflict Resolution
Systems. After All this Talk about Change And Stress, You\'re Probably
Asking Yourself, What in the World Can I Do to Maximize My Professional
Standing and Increase My Value as an Employee? Well, We\'re Going to
Address That Very Issue. Linda Run Del Is Manager of the Las Cruces
Field Office in New Mexico. As a Field Supervisor, Linda Is Vitally
Concerned with the Work Environment and the Potential Effects of Change
and Interpersonal Conflict on Productivity. Linda, What\'s Your Reading
on Everything We\'ve Talked about This Morning?

Rundell: Well, Tanna, in the First Place, I\'m Happy to Find Out That
the Only Thing I Have To Do to Justify My Chocolate Habit Now Is Add
More Stress to My Life. You Know, All Those Things That Cause a
Stressful Environment Can Be Faced Much More Easily If We Feel like We
Have Alternatives. In Fact, the More Alternatives You Have, the less
Likely it Is That You Will Be Faced with a Single and Perhaps
Unsatisfactory Outcome. The United States Government Is At its Lowest
Employment Level In 30 Years. Reductions in Force, Early Retirements and
Buy‑outs Have Become Commonplace. While No One Can Predict the Future,
There Is Absolutely No Justification for Any of Us to Be Complacent
about Our Careers. We All Know That BLM Has Undergone Dramatic
Organizational Change in the Last Four to Five Years. BLM Is Changing
Because the World Is Changing. \"Fortune\" Magazine Reports That There
Are over a Half Million Fewer Secretaries in the United States Today
than There Were Just 10 Years Ago. You and I Are Responsible for That
Change Because We Increased Our Personally Fission See in The Work Force
with Technological Advances, We Eliminated the Need for a Lot of People.
Today\'s New Tools and Equipment Do Enable Us to Work in Ways That
Eliminate the Need for as Many People. Look at Your Own Organization at
The Number of Positions Which Have Been Abolished in the Last Few Years.
Has the Organization Survived? Of Course it Has. Have the Positions Been
Missed? In Some Cases, a Little. In Other Cases, Maybe Not a Lot. Last
Fall I Participated in an Evaluation of the Two‑tier System in Northern
California. In Norcal, the Position of District Manager Had Been
Abolished as Part of a Comprehensive Restructuring Effort. At the
Close‑out Session, the State Director, Ed Hastey, Made The Observation
That Based on Feedback from the Public and Employees, the Position of
District Manager Had Not Seemed To Add Any Real Value to the Norcal
Organization. Ed Asked Me What I as a Current District Manager in
Another State Thought about That. He Asked. So I Told Him. You Know,
It\'s Miles\' Law, Where You Stand Depends upon Where You Sit. The Point
Is No One Is Exempt These Days from Organizational Turbulence. Managers
Aren\'t Being Spared. Administrative Support Isn\'t Being Spared.
Technical Specialists Are Being Spared. And at Some Point, You or I May
Not Be Spared. So How Do You Develop Alternatives for Yourself? One Way
to Get Started Is to Try And Figure out How Your Job Is Changing and How
Tomorrow\'s Tools and Methodologies Will Alter the Way in Which You
Work. Then Develop a Plan. Do You Need to Attend Training? Do You Need
to Take Classes at The Local University? Do You Need to Lateral into
Another Position or Perhaps Relocate to Another Area? What New Skills Do
You Need to Acquire? Even If it Means Acquiring Them On Your Own Time.
Fran Talked Earlier about Increasing Your Value to the Organization. How
Do You Do That? Look for Opportunities to Take Details to Other Jobs,
Either in Your Office or in Other Offices. Ask to Head up a Study Group
or To Participate as a Member on a Specially Valuation Team. Attend
Training. Sit down and Have a Serious Talk With Your Supervisor about
Your BLM Future. But Don\'t Waste His or Her Time If You Aren\'t
Committed to Your Own Personal Future. Remember, Today Your Future Is
Your Responsibility. It\'s Not Your Supervisor\'s, and It\'s Not the
Agency\'s. Understand That the More Constraints You Impose upon Yourself
and Your Self‑development, the Fewer Opportunities for Career
Enhancement You May Have. It\'s a Personal Choice and One Which You and
You Alone Can Make. There Are Two Concepts Which I\'d Like to Briefly
Talk about Which Illustrate How We Can Deal with The Changing Demands of
the Future. The First Concept Is That of Life‑long Learning. You Know,
it Used to Be That We Would Go to High School and Then Maybe on to
College to Finish Our Education. Today We Can No Longer Think of
Finishing Our Education. The Need for Education Will Continue Throughout
Our Adult Lives. No Longer Can We Finish a Course Of Instruction,
Perhaps Earn a Degree, and Then Work up to the Full Performance Level in
Our Jobs and Expect That Expertise To Last Us for 20 or 30 Years.
Life‑long Learning Means That We Will Be Students for the Rest of Our
Lives, That Technological Advances and Shifts in Jobs Will Require Us to
Return to School To Update Our Skills Periodically. The Second Concept
Is That of Distance Learning. This Program Is an Example of Distance
Learning. We Are Bringing Dialogue and Instruction to You, the Student.
College Degrees Can Now Be Earned Through Distance Learning With Minimal
Time Spent on Residence. I Am Going to Pause Briefly Now So Tanna Can
Share a Message With You.

Chattin: Yes, Thank You. We Have a Commercial Coming up Here Right Now
for Distance Interaction. I\'d like to Mention to Our Viewers That at
the Conclusion Of Linda\'s Presentation in a Few Minutes, We\'ll Be
Moving into Our First Question and Answer Segment. So If You Have a
Question or Comment for Our Panel, Please Giver Us a Call or Send Us a
Fax. Thank You for this Commercial Interruption, Linda.

Rundell: We Were Talking Earlier about Developing Alternatives So That
You Can Generate More Career Choices for Yourself. One Opportunity That
Is Easily Overlooked Is the Idea of Volunteering. Offering Your Unpaid
Services to An Organization in Which You Have an Interest Is a Viable
Means of Gaining Additional Experience. Not Only Does Volunteering
Provide You with Additional Experience, but it Can Also Provide You with
Valuable Job References. Finally, Don\'t Forget about Networking.
Networking Is the Establishment Of Contacts in Areas in Which You Have
an Interest. Many of Us Are Content to Keep To Ourselves, but When it
Comes Time to Go Job Hunting, We Search Franticly for Anyone Who Can
Help Us. Networking Isn\'t about Hitting Up Your Contacts for a Job. In
Fact, Putting the Squeeze on Your Contacts Is a Networking No‑no.
Networking with the Establishment of Yourself in a Community of Persons
with Whom You Share Common Professional Interests. Hopefully Membership
in That Community Will Pay off with Referrals or Solid Leads on Job
Opportunities When You Need Them. Research Done by Alvin and Heidi
Toffler Suggests That the United States Will Generate 10,000 New Jobs a
Day over the next Decade. Many of Those Jobs Will Be Filled by Employees
Who Have Been Right‑sized, Downsized, Restructured, or Reorganized out
Of a Job Which Is No Longer of Great Value to Their Employer. I Have
Been a BLMer for a Lot of Years. I\'m Proud of the Organization. I like
the Organization. And I\'m Proud of the Accomplishments That I Have
Contributed to Our Programs. Nevertheless, I Understand That My Own
Career Depends on My Flexibility, My Stewardship and Whatever Value I
Can Continue to Add to the Agency. There Are 10,000 New Alternatives
Being Generated Every Day. That\'s a Whole Lot of Career Choices If
We\'re Smart about Developing Our Alternatives. Having Career Choices
Gives You The Ability to Have Some Control Over Your Future. There Are
Many Aspects in Your Life over Which You May Have Little or No Control,
but Your Career Shouldn\'t Be One of Them.

Chattin: Good Recommend Egg, Linda. Thank You. Those You Are
Recommendations I\'m Going to Keep on the Notes I Took Here. At this
Point, We\'d like to Begin Our First Question and Answer Segment. So If
You Have a Question or Comment to Our First Panel Here, Please Get Those
Fingers Dialing. We Look Forward to Hearing from You, and We Will Take
as Many of Your Questions as We Can Before We Go to Our Program Break.
First, I Would like to Start off With the Question for You, Fran. We\'ve
Talked about Change ‑‑ You Have Talked about Change and More Changes,
and I Think There Are a Lot of Us Asking, \"Well, When Will it All Stop?
When Can We Just Get Back to Our Jobs and Just Do Our Jobs?\"

Cherry: You Know, Tanna, When I Started with this Agency, I Primarily
Went to Work for BLM Because I Wanted to Work out of Doors and I Didn\'t
Want to Work With People. Look What I\'m Doing! But in Reality, People
Don\'t Fear Change. They Fear Loss. That\'s the Real Issue That We\'re
Talking about Here. Having Said That, Though, We Must Realize That
We\'re Part of A Global Transition. Everything Is Changing, Not Just The
Bureau. The Changes That We\'re Experiencing Here in BLM Are Going to
Increase. They\'re Going to Come at a Faster Rate. We\'re Going to
Rereorganize Again. It\'s the Nature of the World. We Will Never See the
Old BLM as Much as We Long for It, as Much As I Would like to Go Back to
Working Outdoors Again, Those Days Are past Us. We\'ve Got to Simply
Adjust, All Of Us, and Face the New Realities. That\'s Being Driven Well
Outside The Bureau and the Bureau So Is Just Coping.

Chattin: Boy, Talk about Going Back to the Old BLM, I Think Linda Can
Speak to the Loss of One of Our Tiers of BLM. How Is the Movement to a
Two‑tier Organization Going to Affect Career Paths, Linda, for
Employees?

Rundell: I Think the Whole Notion of Career Paths Is Going To Remain.
What I Believe Is Going to Change by Going to a Two‑tier Organization Is
the Notion of Career Ladders. You Know, it Used to Be That We Had a
Pretty Good Idea What Rungs on the Career Ladder We Had to Climb to Get
to Wherever We Wanted to Be. Some of Those Rungs Have Now Been Removed.
But If You Think about a Career Path as Something Similar, for Instance,
to a Path in a Garden, We May Need to Meander a Bit Where the Shortest
Point to Get From a to B May No Longer Be a Straight Line for Us. We May
Have to Make Some Shifts In Our Jobs That We Had Not Planned to Make 20
Years Ago or Even 10 Years Ago. There\'s Still Going to Be Opportunities
out There. We Just Need to Expand How We Look at Our Careers in the
Future.

Chattin: Well, and Here Comes Gloria on Top of That Talking About
Diversity. I\'d like to Ask You, Gloria, How Are Managers Held
Accountable For Diversity?

Inniss: at the Department Level, it Is Required That Senior Executive
Service Employees, That the Performance Plan Includes, Really, Diversity
As Part of the Human Resources Requirements for Managers and
Supervisors. At the Bureau Level Also this Has Been Included in the
Performance Plan for Managers And Supervisors, and I\'m Glad You Asked
Me That Because One Concern That Has Been Expressed To Me by Some
Supervisors Is, Well, What about If I Never Have An Opportunity to Hire
Anybody? Or How about If I Don\'t Have Anybody in My Area That I Could
Hire in Order to Bring More Affirmative Employment into the Bureau? And
the Reality Is That this Is A Very Broad Definition When We\'re Talking
about Diversity. There Are a Lot of Other Thing That Could Be Done.
We\'re Talking about Employee Development. We Are Talking about Training
Employees on Valuing Diversity. We Are Talking about Involvement With a
Diverse Community. So It\'s a Number of Factors. But this Time it Is
Part of the Performance Plan for Our Managers and Supervisors and This
Is What Makes it New, Because Now We Have Accountability.

Chattin: Gloria, Thank You. We Have a Call, and this Is from Michelle in
Washington, and I Believe She\'s Going to Have a Question for Fran.
Michelle, Welcome. Can You Hear Me? Ok. We Lost Her There for a Minute,
But We\'ll Get Back to Her as Soon as We Can. Carol, If Someone Is
Really Stressed at Work, Does the BLM Have Any Way to Intervene to Help
a Person? Are We Supposed to Respect Their Privacy?

Schriver: Well, Tanna, We\'re Really Fortunate Working for the Bureau of
Land Management Because We Do Have Options in That Area. One of the
Options We Have Is The Employee Assistance Program. There May Come Times
When You Just Need to Talk to Somebody or Understand What You\'re
Feeling, And the Bureau Offers a Program Called the Employment
Assistance Program, and If You\'re Not Aware Of this Program, it Should
Be Posted in Your Office ‑‑ the Information Should Be Posted in Your
Office on the Bulletin Boards, but You Can Also Find Out about it from
Your Personnel Or Eeo Person, and They\'ll Guide You in That Direction.

Chattin: Good. We\'ve Got Michelle Back. Michelle Is in Washington.
Welcome, Michelle. Can You Hear Me?

Caller: Yes, I Can, Tanna. How Are You?

Chattin: Just Fine. Thank You. And Your Question?

Caller: Tanna, We\'re Here at The L Street Office and I Have Two
Employees That Have Questions That They Would like Answered. The First
Question Is to Fran. Fran, an Employee Would like to Know about the
BLM\'s Strategic Plan That You Mentioned. They Want to Know, Has this
Plan Been Made Available to All BLM Employees, and If Not, Why Not? And
If it Has, Where Can an Employee Get a Copy If They Haven\'t Obtained
One Yet? That\'s the First Question.

Cherry: Let Me Take That One First Because I Get Confused With Too Many
Questions. Yes, the Strategic Plan Has Been Made Available. You Should
Be Able to Get a Copy Of it from Your Supervisor. Obviously It\'s
Undergone a Great Many Revisions but the Strategic Plan and the
Government Performance Plan That We\'re Calling Our Performance Measures
Also Have Been Published, Have Been Forwarded to the Department And onto
Omb. Again, Get a Copy from Your Manager or Your Supervisor. There Are
Plenty Available in Washington. I Have Seen Them There in Washington My
Last Trip There. It Will Be an Alternate Experience for Your Career If
You Take the Points That Are in There and Fit Them into Your Lives and
Figure out How You Can Conform to What\'s in That Strategic Plan.

Caller: Ok. Thanks, Fran. And the next Question Is an Employee Would
like to Know When Will the Tape of this Broadcast Be Available for
Employees Who Were Not Able to Attend? Now, We Understand That Someone
Here in Washington Is Supposed To Be Taping It, but Just in Case That
Didn\'t Happen Here in Washington, When Can We Obtain a Copy, Maybe from
the Phoenix Training Center?

Chattin: Those Tapes Should Be Available Immediately, Michelle. Not to
Worry. We\'ll Get Tapes out Just as Quickly as Possible. And I Have ‑‑
If ‑‑ Does That Answer Your Question?

Caller: Yes. Ok. One More Question. I Just Got this One In. Norma Is
Going to Ask You this One, Ok?

Caller: Hello. One of Our Participants Has an Article and it Says Stress
Related Illnesses Cost the United States an Estimated \$200 Billion Each
Year. And She Wants to Know What Is BLM Doing to Cut the Cost of Stress
for Their Employees?

Chattin: Carol?

Schriver: Well, Again, as I Said Earlier, We Do Have a Program Called
the Employment Assistance Program, and We\'re Also Offering Training
Courses, And I\'ve Just ‑‑ One of the Thing That I\'ve Noticed in Our
Office Is That When Somebody Is Under Stress and It\'s Very Evident, Our
Managers Are Real Good about Guiding Them and Helping Them and Taking
the Time To Guide Them in the Right Direction. I\'m Not Sure of Any
Specific Programs That Are Available.

Chattin: Michelle, I Think We Spent Quite a Bit of Time about
Self‑responsibility and I Know The Department of Interior in Washington,
D.c. Has a Very Well‑equipped Gym. People Go Walking Outside the
Building During Their Lunch Breaks, and Even Coffee Breaks. Michelle, I
Thank You for Your Question. We\'re Going to Move On. Keep All Those
Good Suggestions In Mind. I Do Have a Fax That Came into Us That Is
Poignant, at Least to Me. Frank from the New Mexico Office Asked the
Question: What Does All of this Mean to Supervisors? What Advice Can the
Group Offer To Supervisors in Our Effort to Help Their Co‑workers?

Cherry: Let Me Take a Stab at That for a Starter. One of the Things I
Mentioned When I Was Talking about Changing Things We Can Do Is Become a
Problem Solver, Not a Finger Pointer. I Think That\'s Particularly
Critical to Supervisors. The Bureau with the Lean Times That We\'re in
Really Does Have a Shortage of Experienced Supervisors and Those
Supervisors Need to Be Working On the Cutting Edge Problems. What\'s
Facing Us? What\'s Coming Up? How Do We React to Those Problems? And
Those Kind of Supervisors Certainly Won\'t Have to Worry About Any Job
Security in the Future. They\'re the Kind of People the Bureau Wants to
Keep On. They\'re ‑‑ They Want to Expand Those Roles. We Need People
That Move Fast, Adapt to Change, Get Ready on Solving Problems. They
Also Need to Be Sensitive, Is the Second Half of That Question Points
Out, Is How Is This Affecting Employees That They Work with and Those
That They Supervised? Probable Eat Best Thing I Could Ever Advise
Someone to Do Is Keep the Employees Fully Informed and Fully Engaged.
This Is Not the Time for Secrets, for Saying, I Don\'t Know. It\'s the
Time for Supervisors To Get Answers, Share Everything They Know. Go out
of Their Way to Explain Things.

Chattin: We Know Frank Is That Kind of Person. For the Callers That Have
Called In and Are Still on Hold, Please Call Back, Because We\'ve Run
out Of Time in this First Segment. So at this Point We Are Going to Take
a 15‑minute Break. When We Come Back, We\'re Going To Talk about
Alternative Dispute Resolution, Eeo Complaints, and Administrative
Grievances. And We\'ll Have a Video Presentation on the Mediation
Process. So Don\'t Go Too Far. We\'ll See You in a Few Minutes.
Specially.

Inniss:.

Chattin: Welcome Back to Our Program on Managing Conflict in A Changing
Workplace. In the First Segment We Talked About Things That Can
Complicate Our Working Lives and Our Relationships with Others in the
Workplace. Of Course, There Are Hundreds of Other Occurrences That Take
Place Outside of the Office That Can Impact upon Our Attitudes at Work
and the Way That We React On the Job. We Saw That Although Many of Those
Procedures Develop from Circumstances That Are Beyond Our Control, Many
Are, in Fact, Resolvable. They Are Resolvable When They Are Redefined in
Terms That We Can Deal With, and When They Are Approached with a
Positive, Problem‑solving Attitude. We Also Learned That the More
Options or Choices That We Have In a Given Situation, the Better That
We\'re Able to Deal with Related Problems. The Choices Is the Subject of
This Second Segment. The Choices That We Have for Resolving Conflict
with Others. In this Segment of the Program, We\'ll Look at Alternative
Dispute Resolution, Consider its Methodologies and See a Demonstration
of How Mediation Works in Practice. Later We\'ll Discuss Two of the
Federal Government\'s Traditional Administrative Processes ‑‑ the Equal
Employment Opportunity Complaint System and the Administrative Grievance
System. Joining Gloria and I for this Segment Are Jesse Hicks, Eeo
Specialist with the Washington Office E. O Group. Welcome, Jesse.

Hicks: Thank You, Tanna. Phoenix Is Very Attractive for. People this
Time of the Year, But May I Say on Behalf of the Washington Office Staff
I\'m Happy to Be Here Today to Talk About a Subject That Is Very
Important to the Director, Pat Shea and to Many Other People Throughout
the Department of the Interior.

Chattin: Angie Lara, Eeo Manager for the New Mexico State Office Is
Here. Angie, We\'re Looking Forward to Hearing from You since New Mexico
Has Been at the Forefront Of Training Employees in Mediation.

Lara: Great. Thank You I\'m Really He Can Excited to Be Here. As You
Mentioned, We Have Been In the Forefront of Training and Many of Our
Managers and Supervisors, Including Our State Director, and All of Our
Eeo Counselors Have Completed 40 Hours of Classroom Training in
Mediation, and We\'re Really Excited to Get Started.

Chattin: and We\'re Bringing It All Together Here. Completing Our Panel
Is Diane Friez, Personnel Officer with The Montana State Office. Diane,
Thanks for Coming down to Phoenix Today to Participate in Our Program.

Friez: Thank You, Tanna. I\'m Happy to Be Here. As Fran and Carol
Mentioned Earlier, It\'s Nice to Get out of Montana in the Wintertime
and I\'m Pleased to Be Here to Discuss this Important Topic Today.

Chattin: as a Matter of Fact, Then, Jesse, Let\'s Begin with You. What
Is ADR and What Is it Al Alternative To?

Hicks: as You Know, Tanna, Alternative Dispute Resolution Is Actually an
Umbrella Term That Refers to a Wide Range of Problem‑solving Methods.
The Term Alternative Means it Provides an Option to Litigating A Dispute
in Court. I Would like to Discuss Some Conflict Resolution Methods for
The Purpose of this Discussion I Have Identified, Six Methods, And Will
Address Them in Order From the Simplest to the Complex. The Methods
Listed Starting from Number One, Increasing Complexity, Time
Requirements And Ultimately Costs. Conversely, the Amount of Time, The
Amount of Direct Control an Individual Has over the Outcome Of the
Dispute, Diminishes Successively with Each Method. The First Method Is
Informal Problem Solving. This Is Essentially What We Refer to as
Brainstorming. Although Informal Problem Solving May Be ‑‑ May Not Be a
Toe to Toe Process, the Real Issues Are Not Always Brought Out.
Therefore, Attempts at Closure May Fail and the Adversarial Nature of
the Dispute May Be Increased. A Second Method Is Negotiation.
Negotiation Is a Back and Forth Type of Process Where One Attempts to
Influence the Other Side to Accept Their Point of View. Again, the
Underlying Issue and Dispute May Not Surface and the Polarization
Between the Parties May Increase. Mediation Is the Third Method on Our
Scale. Mediation Is a Process in Which An Impartial Third Party Is
Utilize to Do Facilitate Communication Between the Parties in Conflict.
The Mediator Remains Neutral and Serves to Guide the Process, Clarify
Issues and Assist in the Search for Solutions to the Problems. The
Mediation Process Itself Is Driven by the Disputants and They Alone
Determine If and How The Conflict Is Resolved. Another Method Is
Adjudication. In Adjudication, as an Impartial Third Party Actually
Decides the Outcome of the Dispute. The Adjudicators Decision Can Be In
the Form of a Recommendation Or it Mate Be Mandatory. It Is Conducted
like an Informal Hearing, Allowing Witnesses, Exhibits and Relaxed Rules
of Evidence. Arbitration Is a Good Example of The Adjudication Process.
Note That in Our Ascending Scale Of Dispute Resolution Methodologies, We
Have Now Moved To a Process Where Settlement of The Problem Has Moved
Clearly Out of the Control of the Principals. A Fifth Method Is Judicial
Action. Judicial Action Means Going to Court. Literally, You Tell it to
the Judge. In this Case, an Impartial Judge Or Jury Decides the Merits
of The Argument. It Is an Informal Process. Rules of Evidence Apply.
Unless You Are Representing Yourself, an Attorney must Represent You.
Again, the Court Will Decide the Matter. Whether or Not the Solution Is
To the Liking of the Parties or Whether Their Values or Feelings Are
Considered. Appeals Can Further Delay the Settlement of this Issue. The
Final Dispute Resolution Alternative on Our Scale Is Legislative Action.
This Is the There Ought to Be a Law Approach to Problem Solving. If an
Employee Is Playing the Radio Too Loud in the next Cubicle, Can You Try
to Get an Elected Representative Decide Its Illegal. These Are Six
Methods of ADR. There Are Other Methods. There Are Mini Trials and
Private Judges, Conciliations And the Use of an Omsbudsperson. But the
Overriding Principle Is The Same. The Further You Move Away from The
Informal Problem Solving, The More Involved the Problem Becomes.
Involvement May Mean More People, Including Legal Representatives, More
Time Is Required to Process the Matter And Bring to it a Closure, and
There\'s More Expense. But Most Important of All, for Most Important, Is
the Fact That The Warring Parties Lose the Capability of Personal
Involvement and Any Degree of Control Whatsoever over the Eventual
Outcome.

Chattin: Well, That Really Puts Things in Perspective. It Seems Clear to
Me That in Dealing with Day‑to‑day Problems, Telling it to the Judge May
Not Be the Best Approach. It Seems That There Are Clear And Compelling
Reasons for Attempting to Handle Conflict Yourself, at Least at First.
How Can We Deal with Conflicts In Our Lives and Stay Closer to The
Informal Problem Solving End Of the Scale?

Lara: One of the Main Ideals Is to Find a Lasting Solution. It Settles
the Conflict, and re Presents the Conflict from Recurring. How Do We Do
That? There\'s Lots of Books and Other Information Sources on the Theory
of Conflict and the Practice of Conflict Resolution. We Only Have Time
Today to Talk About Two Theories Before We Take a Look at One Particular
Practice, the Practice of Mediation. Jesse and I Would like to Speak
About Two Characteristics of Human Behavior Which May Influence the Way
That We Deal With Conflict. One Is the Way That We Look at Others, in
Other Words, Our Perceptions of Others, and the Second Element Is the
Way That We Interact with Others When We\'re in a Conflict Situation.
Many of Our Social Interactions Are Based on Our Perceptions of Other
People and Events. Perceptions Are the Understandings That People Have
Of the World Around Them. There Is a Famous Quote That Says \"We See
Things as We Are, Not as They Are.\"

Hicks: Right, Angie and We Form Our Perceptions in a Three‑stage
Process. First, There Is Selection, Where An Individual Tends to Notice
or For Some Reason Focus on Only a Particular Feature of an Individual
or Any Given Situation. For Example, Perhaps You\'ve Noticed That Angie
Is Wearing a Green Outfit Today. The Second Is Organization. Here People
Categorize Whatever They Have Focused On. Such Categorizations May Be
Favorable or Nonfavorable, Flattering or Unflattering or Positive or
Negative or Neutral. Perhaps You Believe Angie\'s Outfit Looks Smart,
but You Also Note That the Traditional Day For Wearing Green Was Two
Days Ago. Finally, There Is Interpretation. The Forming of Judgments
about The Features That We Select. Now, I Know That Many of Us in The
BLM Have Had Training on Dealing with Others, and We Recall That
Judgments Are Often Made Solely on the Basis of Our Past Experiences.
Some Motivational Speakers Call The Effects of Our past Experiences
Personal Baggages That We Carry Around. But as You Can See, People Are
Prone to Dealing with Situations And with Others in Complex and Often
Subconscious Ways. Perhaps, Therefore, You Think That since the Day for
Wearing Green Has Passed, That Angie\'s Personal Plan Is in a State of
Disarray. Well, the Truth of the Matter Is That Angie Is Competing,
Telecompeting, If You Will, in a Contest Today in New Mexico.

Lara: That\'s Right, Jesse. It\'s the Green Spring Fling Thing Contest
and There\'s Three Categories. The Green Is This, the Green Is That, and
the Green Is Dessert. I\'m Competing for the Green Is That Category.

Hicks: Good Luck, Angie. Our Views of Others Are Often Further
Influenced by Another Factor, Distortion. Stereotyping Is One Such
Distortion. It Is a Process Whereby We Attribute Behaviors or Attitudes
To a Person Based on Their Membership in a Group. A Second Distortion Is
the So‑called Halo Effect. In the Halo Effect You Take a General Trait
and Use it to Evaluate Other\'s Expectations of An Individual. The Halo
Effect Can Reflect Either a Positive or a Negative Application.

Lara: So an Example of the Halo Effect Might Be Assuming That an
Employee Who Is a Good Technician Would Also Be a Good Supervisor.

Hicks: Right, Angie. Expectancy Is a Third Type of Distortion and That
Is Where You Expect a Certain Type of Behavior from Another Person,
Based on Your Perception of That Person. This Is the Self‑fulfilling
Prophecy School of Human Relations.

Lara: like a Person Who Dresses for Success Where It\'s Assume They Will
Be Successful On the Job Just Because of the Way That They Dress.

Hicks: That\'s an Excellent Example Also. This Entire Process Is
Governed by the Experiences That We All Have in Our Lives. They May
Emanate from Our Ideals Or past Experiences. They May Reflect Our
Self‑concept or Be Based on Our Obligations. They May Mirror Our
Objectives In Life or Derive from Our Sentiments. When We See Things
That Are Unfamiliar, We Label Them in Accordance with What We Know.
Unfortunately, this Often Leads To Misperceptions about Others. So We
Can See That this Dealing With Others, a Number of Factors Come into
Play. Many of Which Are Subjective and Based on Our Own Personal
Experiences. It Is Important, Therefore, to Be Aware of Our Own
Perceptions And the Underlying Biases. To Interact Successfully with
Others, We must Be Open to New Information That Might Change Our
Perceptions, Accept the Validity of the New Information And Understand
its Implications And Accept the Need to Change Our Attitudes and Our
Behavior.

Chattin: Well, What Does All Of this Have to Do with Conflict?

Hicks: Well, Actually a Lot. It Makes Us Aware of the Potential Impact
of Our Personal Feelings and Our Experiences When We Attempt to Deal
with Others. While There Is No Direct Correlation Here, Let\'s Move on
And Take a Quick Look at the Five Representative Ways in Which Human
Beings Tend to React To Conflict. Over the Years, Social Scientists Have
Been Able to Identify These Patterns. First, There Is Collaborating
Where the Individual Will Work Others to Fully Meet the Needs Of Both
Sides. Competing, the Second Conflict Style, Is Where the Individual
Simply Insists on Having Their Needs Met, Regardless of What The Other
Party Wants. Tan.

Lara: Then There Is Compromising Where the Individual Is Willing to
Accept Less than They Wanted. The Fourth Style Is Accommodating. Here
the Individual Just Gives Into the Other Party. And Last There Is
Avoiding. As the Term Suggests, the Individual Retreats from Engaging in
the Conflict. Actually, There Is No Good or Bad Connotation Associated
with Any of These Conflict Styles. You May See Them Reflected in The
People Around You, and the Style You Use Will Change Depending upon the
Situation You\'re In.

Chattin: So it Sounds to Me Like the Way That We, as Individuals, Deal
with Others And with Conflict Is Often Based On a Number of Factors That
We May Not Even Be Aware Of.

Hicks: That\'s Right, Tanna. That\'s Why Conflict Resolution Systems Are
So Important. They Provide a Means of Clarifying Issues, Focusing on
What Is Important and Helping People to Get Beyond the Limitations
Imposed by Their Perceptions of People or Their Tendencies in Dealing
with Conflict. Our Method of Choice for this Program Is Mediation. That
Is for a Number of Reasons. First, Mediation Allows the Parties to a
Dispute to Remain ‑‑ Retain Maximum Control over The Outcome. The
Responsibility for Deciding The Issue Is Not Handed over to A Third
Party. Second, It\'s Nonthreatening. It Levels the Playing Field for
Everyone. It Doesn\'t Matter If You Are Not Particularly Great at
Thinking On Your Feet. The Process Allows You to Be Heard and Understood
and Focuses On the Outcome and Not on the Traits of the Parties. Third,
Mediation Seeks a Resolution That Will Be Satisfactory to Both Sides of
The Issue. This Means That the Dispute Can Be Dispensed with and Will
Not Recur to Zap the Energies of the Participants. This Is Important
Because We Are All Members of the Same Organization and We Need to Work
Together in the Future. Fourth, of Course, Is the Fact That it Can Be a
Timely Process, And it Can Be Done Relatively Inexpensively. In the
First Segment You Heard a Lot about Characteristics of Today\'s World
and Today\'s Workplace That Can Complicate Our Lives. Clearly from a
Personal Standpoint, BLMers Don\'t Need The Added Burden of Being
Embroiled in Protracted Conflict. Organizationally, it Is Also Clear
That the BLM Needs to Have All of its People on the Job and Productive.

Lara: There Are a Number of Factors That Might Be Barriers To the
Settlement of Problems Between People. For Example, Perhaps the Parties
Do Not Have All the Information Needed to Resolve the Problem. Then
There May Be a Basic Disagreement over the Facts Surrounding the Matter.
Sometimes There Is Too Much Posturing by Disputants. Or There Is an
Obvious Lack of Trust or Perhaps Proposed Solutions Are Subject to Too
Many Layers of Review and this Completely Overshadows the Resolution
Effort. Assuming That the Parties Want To Find a Satisfactory Solution
To the Conflict, There Are Numerous Advantages That a Mediator Acting
Can Bring to a Problem‑solving Process. First and Foremost, a Mediator
Can Foster Open Communication And Dialogue. This Is an Obvious Initial
Step Towards Solving Any Problem. Secondly, the Mediator Can Ensure That
the Parties Gain a Clear Understanding of Each Other\'s Views and
Priorities. Another Important Role of the Mediator Is to Assist the
Parties in Generating Objective Solutions. It Is True That We Sometimes
Get So Caught up in Disputes That We May Lose Sight of What Solution Is
Really in Our Best Interest. Being Removed from the Dispute, And after
Hearing Both Sides of The Issue, a Mediator Is Often in a Position ‑‑ a
Mediator Is Often in a Position To Offer Alternatives That Might Not
Have Been Considered. Fourth, the Mediator Can Help to Define the
Standards for the Negotiation, Including a Common Understanding of
Negotiating Restraints. This Is Important Because it Really Establishes
the Ground Rules for the Whole Process. The Mediator Can Also Help the
Parties to Gain a Clear Understanding of Possible Alternatives to
Resolve a Dispute. This Is a Type of Reality Check Whereby Both Parties
Understand What Path Continuing the Dispute Will Take If the Mediation
Fails. Such Alternatives Might Be Processes That Jesse Mentioned
Earlier, Such as Court Action, Polarization, Increased Costs or The
Further Deterioration of the Relationship Between the Parties. Finally,
Through All of These Advantages, a Mediator Can Help Bring Closure to
the Dispute in A Legally‑binding, Written Agreement. As a Practical
Matter, There Are Other less Tangible Influences That the Mediator Can
Bring to The Problem‑solving Process. The Mediator Can Compensate for
Differences in Verbal Ability by Ensuring That Each Side Is Heard And
Understood and Can Neutralize Attempts by One Party To Dominate the
Proceedings. And the Use of a Mediator Literally Demonstrates the
Disputants\' Willingness to Search for a Mutually Agreeable Solution to
the Dispute.

Hicks: the Mediation Process Follows a Straight‑forward and Logical
Progression Designed to Elicit Information from the Disputants, Define
the Conflict So it May Be Dealt With, Produce Ideas for Solution,
Describe the Remedy in Writing and Test its Feasibility, and Close the
Proceedings. Let\'s Run Through These Stages To Get an Overall Process.
The First Step Is the Introduction. The Mediator Sets the Stage for The
Mediation Through Introductions, Ground Rules and Assuring Acceptance of
the Parties as Mediator.

Lara: the Introduction Is Followed by an Initial Statements Period. Here
Each Party Gets Uninterrupted Time to Explain The Circumstances
Surrounding The Matter in Dispute from Their Perspective. At this Stage,
it Mate Be the First Time That the Parties Have Even Had the Had the
Opportunity To Verbally Express Their Problems or Frustrations. No One
Is Allowed to Interrupt This Process, but the Mediator Will Summarize
the Statements of Each Party When They Have Finished Speaking.

Hicks: the Third Step Is Information Gathering, Which Begins a Two‑way
Exchange Between the Parties. During this Phase, Mediation Shifts to a
Two‑way Exchange Between the Participants with The Proceedings Being
Moderated By the Mediator. The Mediator Will Practice Reflective and
Active Listening, Summarizing and Feeding Back Into the Dialogue the
Statements Of the Parties. The Mediator May Ask Questions Intended to
Clarify the Issues In Dispute.

Lara: and Once the Basic Facts Have Been Identified, the Clarification
and Problem Identification Phase Begins. Here the Attempt Is Made to
Clarify the Problem That Underlies the Dispute and to Summarize and
Prioritize the Issues That must Be Dealt with In Order to Resolve the
Problem. If the Underlying Problem Is Different than Originally Defined
by the Parties, a Reframing of the Issues in Dispute May Begin at this
Point. The Fifth Step in the Process Is Generating Options for Resolving
The Dispute. In this Stage, Beginning ‑‑ Excuse Me ‑‑ Bargaining and
Negotiation Take Place, Conducted Through the Mediator. If the Problem
at First Appears To Be Unresolvable, it May Be Subject to Further
Reframing in Order to Increase the Field of Possible Options.

Hicks: and If I Could Just Add a Couple of Thoughts, Angie\... Many
Problems Can Be Dealt with Easier If They Are Redefined or Reframed, If
You Will, to Address the Issues in a More Neutral Manner. For an
Example, a Supervisor\'s Criticism of a Work Product Could Be Looked at
as an Opportunity to Reevaluate and Improve the Work Process. Also, We
Should Keep in Mind the Concept of Interest‑based Negotiation. Here You
Focus on Your Best Interests in Solving the Conflict. In the Opposite
Position, Positional Bargaining, a Person Adheres to Personal Biases or
Emotions Regardless of the Practical Tease of the Matter. Once the
Issues Are Clarified, The Parties Will Truly Want to Settle a Dispute
and Will Probably Want to Look at the Solutions That Are in Their Own
Best Interest Rather than Simply Digging in Their Heels on Some
Arbitrary Basis.

Lara: That\'s Right, Jesse. And That Is One of the Main Advantages of
Using the Mediation Process. Now, Once Tentative Agreement Is Reached,
the Agreement Writing Phase Begins. This Involves Setting the Terms Of
Agreement to Paper. Inherent in this Phase Is Reality Testing Again,
Which Is A Close Examination of the Proposed Terms to Ensure They Are
Both Legal and Doable.

Hicks: the Final Step in the Mediation Process Is Closure Where the
Terms of the Agreement Are Signed by the Parties and The Dispute Is
Considered to Be Resolved. The Mediation Agreement Is Considered to Be a
Legal Contract Which Is Enforceable If Need Be Through a Court of Law.
But since the Avoidance of Litigation Is One Reason for Using Mediation,
We Would Hope That the Parties Would Honor the Written Agreement. Not
All Mediations Are Successful. What Can We Do Make Them Successful? We
Can Be Honest, Open and Listen and Ensure the Rights of The People Who
Are Participating. Be Willing to Share More than The Facts. And Be
Empathetic.

Chattin: That Was Very Interesting. It\'s Clear That Mediation Is a
Structured but Very Flexible Process, but I\'m Still Getting Flashes of
Perry Mason and the Other Courtroom Shows on Television Where You Always
Need A Lawyer Who Can Get a Courtroom Confession or Maybe You Get a
Judge Having a Bad Hair Day. I Wonder How Mediation Works in Real Life
Practice?

Lara: Well, It\'s Interesting That You Should Ask That, Tanna. We Have
Prerecorded a Sample Mediation a Videotape to Show You it Is an
Informal, Nonthreatening Process. Although Our Video Is Short, it Will
Give You an Idea of How a Mediation Is Done. For this Segment, Please
Use the Pink Worksheet, Page 13, in Your Viewer Packet, Titled
\"Mediation Process.\" This Video Highlights Some Key Points about the
Mediation Process. Since Mediation Can Take from a Couple of Hours to
Several Days, We Obviously Can\'t Show an Entire Process. However, We
Will Show You Enough So That You Can See How it Works And Some of the
Steps Involved. Remember That Mediation Can Be Used for Many Types of
Disputes. During the Video, Watch for Enhanced Communication, a
Structured Approach to Problem Solving And, of Course, the Effect of
Third Party Intervention. Also, Please Keep in Mind That, As Jesse Said,
Disputants must Come to Mediation with the Willingness to Resolve the
Conflict and a Willingness to Seek and Accept Compromise.

Hicks: as We Said Earlier, a Mediation Session Begins with The Mediator
Welcoming the Disputants and Explaining the Process and Ground Rules.
Next, the Mediator Will Ask Each Party, Usually Beginning with The
Complainant, to Describe the Events Surrounding the Conflict. The
Mediator Use Reflective Listening and Provides Feedback To the
Disputants to Ensure the Concerns of Each Party Are Clearly Defined and
Understood. In this Demonstration an Employee Filed an Eeo Complaint
Because His Supervisor Has Suspended Some of His Duties. Now Let\'s Join
the Mediation.

Hello. I\'m Rene\' Johnson and I\'m a Mediator. Since I Don\'t Know
Either of You, Can You Introduce Yourselves and Tell Me How You Would
like to Be Referred to During this Process?

I Am I Am Chris Rivers. I\'m the Lead Land Law Examiner In the Field
Office. Can You Just Call Me Chris.

Chris. Welcome. Good to See You Here.

I\'m Maria, and I\'m the Division Chief for Lands and Minerals in the
Field Office, And Just Call Me Maria.

Ok. Welcome, Maria. Good to Meet You. First of All, I Would like to Take
a Moment to Congratulate Both of You on Agree to Go Participate in
Mediation. Have Either of You Ever Gone to Through a Mediation Session?

No, I Haven\'t.

No, It\'s a First for Me.

Ok. I Guess about Now You\'re Feeling A Little Nervous, but Don\'t Worry
about It. I\'m Going to Be Guiding You Through this Process. Mediation
Works Best When the Two Parties Agree to Mediate. First of All, During
Mediation, You Have the Opportunity To, First, Define the Problem. Also,
to Reach Some Type of Resolution Which Both of You Believe You Can Live
With, and Also Which You Believe Is Workable. You Have the Control at
this Point to Define the Outcome of This Conflict. During Mediation,
We\'ll Have Certain Ground Rules. First of All, Both Parties Will Be
Allowed an Amount of Time to Present Their Side of the Story. This Will
Be Uninterrupted Time. For Example, Chris, When You\'re Talking, Maria,
You Will Not Be Able to Talk at That Time. I\'ll Ask You to Refrain from
Any Comments. Also, When Maria Is Talking, Chris, I\'ll Ask You to
Refrain From Making Any Comments. I Do Have Some Paper Here, and I\'m
Going to Be Taking a Lot of Notes. I\'d like to Encourage Both of You to
Do the Same Thing.

Thanks.

the Goal of Mediation Is to Try to Resolve Whatever the Conflict Is at
this Point in Time. We Are Going to Try to Find a Resolution That\'s
Going to Be Doable and Also Amenable to Both Parties. Do You All Have
Any Questions For Me at this Time?

No.

I Don\'t.

Ok. Am I Acceptable to Both of You To Serve as the Mediator?

That\'s Fine with Me.

That\'s Fine.

Ok. Chris, Let\'s Start with You. Can You Begin to Tell Us Your Side of
the Story?

I\'m an Injun. That\'s Why this Is Happening ‑‑

That Is Not the ‑‑

Maria, Remember Our Ground Rules. Chris, Continue.

You Know, I\'ve Been with the Government for over 20 Years. The Last 10
Years I\'ve Been Working as a Land Law Examiner. I\'ve Tried to Excel
and to Further My Career. About Two Years Ago I Finally Got a Promotion.
I Became Supervisor. Since Then, I Lost One Staff Position and I\'ve Had
to Maintain That Workload. Trying Hard to Keep Productivity And Quality
Control High as a Working Supervisor. At the Same Time, the Level of
Documentation Required for Even More Routine Cases Has Gotten Far More
Complex and Extensive. I Don\'t Get Any Assistance and Little Support
from this Organization. At the Same Time, They Can Remove Me at Will
Without Warning.

Ok. Chris, What I Hear You Saying Is That You\'ve Lost One Staff
Position, and You\'re Not Receiving Any Assistance or Support from the
Organization. Also What I Heard You Say Is That the Documentation
That\'s Required from You Is Very Extensive. Am I Getting this Right?

Very Much So.

Ok. Maria?

Well, First of All, I Want it To Be Made Clear, this Is Not a Matter of
Discrimination. I\'m the Division Chief Here in This Land Law Program,
and I\'m Responsible to Make Sure That The Job Gets Done Right and it
Gets Done on Time. There\'s Legal Issues. There\'s Hearings We Have to
Go To. There\'s All Kinds of Adversarial Meetings. I Need Quick
Turnaround on the Work, and There Has to Be Thorough Research Done.
Chris Just Doesn\'t Keep Me Informed on the Work Status. There Have Been
So Many Last‑minute Crises Getting Ready For Hearings. He Has Been a
Supervisor for Two Years, and Yet He\'s Not Able to Do Any of the
Technical Land Law Examiner Work Because He Spends All of His Time on
Supervision And Administrative Work. The Previous Supervisor Was Able To
Do Both Effectively. Secondly, I Don\'t Understand the Complaint at All.
I Made Sure That He Kept His Grade and He Kept His Pay. Actually, He\'s
Getting Paid the Same for Doing less Work Because Now He Doesn\'t Have
to Supervise Anybody. I\'m the One with More Work Because Now I\'m
Supervising Everyone. Chris Is Also the Best Lle That I Have. He Knows
the Most. He Can Handle the Most Difficult Cases. That\'s What I Need
Him for. I Need a Supervisor a Lot less Than I Need a Really Good Lle.

Maria, What I Hear You Saying Is That It\'s Very Important to You That
this Work Is Completed On Time Because You Have Meetings and Legal
Procedures or Legal Processes That You Have to Go Through and You Would
like to Have the Work Completed on Time.

That\'s Right. No Question.

You Also Raised Some Concern About Being Kept Informed of the Status of
Work Progress. Is That Correct?

That\'s Right. There\'s Things ‑‑ All of a Sudden There Is a Surprise
That We Aren\'t Ready for a Hearing And It\'s Going to Be Right Around
the Corner. Can\'t Live with That.

Ok. Chris, You Made a Comment That Your Duties Are Being Removed at
Will. Can You Explain That?

Well, I Come from a Long Line Of Tribal Leaders. We\'ve Always Served
the Community. I Was the First One in My Family To Attend College and to
Graduate. I Give Presentations at the Local Schools for Indian Kids as A
Role Model. I Was Proud to Be Considered an Expert and to Be Promoted to
Supervisor. But Now I\'m Rewarded with this Offer of Lowered Status
after 25 Years I\'ll Have No More Career Options. Some Leader\... What
about My Expertise?

Chris, What I Understand You As Saying Here Is That You\'re Very
Concerned with the ‑‑ Your Reputation in the Community. Also I Hear You
Saying That You Believe Your Career Goals Are Going to Be Limited. Is
That Right?

That\'s True. Very True.

Ok. Maria, Did You Want to Comment?

Well, It\'s Not ‑‑ You Know, I Understand Chris\' Concern with His
Career, but the Important Thing Is to Get the Work Done. None of Us Is
Going to Have a Career If We Don\'t Get These Hearings Properly, If We
Don\'t Get the Right Information to Them and Information Is Late. I
Mean, We Are under the Gun. We\'re Just Not Meeting What We\'re Supposed
to Be Doing. So That\'s My Concern. I Just Want it Done Right and I Want
it Done in Time.

Ok. Maria, You Seem to Be Very Concerned about Not Being Kept Informed
and Also about the Work Being Completed and to Know What\'s Actually
Being Done. I\'ve Heard from Both of You All, And I Think this Is Very
Common, That the Work Is Very Important To Both of You All. You Are Both
Taking Pride in What You Do. You Both Want to Do the Best Job That You
Can. Also I Hear You Both Saying That, Chris, You Have the Expertise to
Get the Job Done. You\'ve Elaborated on That And, Maria, You\'ve Also
Commented on The Same Thing. Now That We\'ve Found These Common Grounds
Here, I Think We\'re Ready to Explore Some Options for Resolving this
Conflict.

Hicks: Now, Let\'s Take a Moment to Review What We Just Saw. Rene\'
Welcomed Chris and Maria And Explained the Process and Her Role in It.
Both Chris and Maria Had an Opportunity to Explain Their Side of the
Story and Rene\' Listened, Asked Questions and Provided Feedback So That
Each Party Had a Clear Understanding Of the Issues at Stake. Did You
Notice How Intervention By a Third Party and the Use of The Structured
Approach Enhanced Communication and Helped to Level the Playing Field
Between Chris and Maria? Now Review How You Define the Conflict. Did
Your Definition Change as The Mediation Progressed? Oftentimes the
Situation Raised In an Eeo Complaint Is Not the Issue That Actually
Underlies The Conflict. The Mediation Process Is like Peeling an Onion
Where the Layers Are Removed until You Get To the Core of the Problem.
Once There, You Can Begin to Deal with it in a Creative and Beginning
Full Way.

Lara: as You Can See, Rene\' Is Responsible for Maintaining Control over
the Session and Facilitating Open and Honest Dialogue. Did You Notice
How Rene\' Arranged the Seating? This Is One Way That She Will Be Able
to Get Chris and Maria from Talking Only to Her to Talking Directly with
Each Other. This Improves Communication and Focuses the Process on Those
Who Own the Dispute and Who Have the Ability to Fix It, Namely, Chris
And Maria. Let\'s Return to the Demonstration Watch as Rene\' Works with
Chris and Maria to Search for Agreeable Solutions.

Let Me Just Make Sure We All Have the Same Understanding of What Just
Happened. First of All, We Identified Some Common Ground. We Identified
That Chris Is the Best Person to Do the More Difficult Work. And We Also
Agree That the Work Is Important to Both of You All. I Think We\'re Now
Ready to Examine Some Options on How We Can Resolve this Conflict. Do
You Agree?

Yes.

Yes.

Ok. Chris, Do You Have Any Options?

I\'m Good at the Technical Aspects of Our Work. I\'m an Effective
Administrator, Good with a Budget. I Very Carefully Accomplish My
Supervisory Tasks. I Have to Ensure That Our Productivity Is High and I
Have Very Precise Controls to Provide ‑‑ to Ensure That. Maybe If I
Review the High Volume of Routine Cases and Reassign the Few More
Complex Cases to Someone Else in My Unit I Won\'t Be Drowning in Case
Loads and Can Spend the Time I Need on Supervision and Administration.
How Would That Work?

That Won\'t Work, I Don\'t Think, Because I Need You to Do The Difficult
Work. We Don\'t Have Anybody Else in The Unit Who Is as Capable as You
Are, Who Has Anywhere near Your Expertise for Doing the Difficult Cases.
That\'s What I Need from You. I Need You to Do the Hard Cases, The
Complex Ones, the Ones That Are Really Controversial. So for You to Do
the Easy Work, I Can\'t Agree with That.

Well, Maybe What We Could Do Is Assign Those More Routine Cases to Other
Folks and I Would Only Do a Sample Review of Some Of Them, or I Could
Even Delegate Quality Control to Someone Else in the Unit and Spend None
of My Time Quality Controlling the Routine Cases.

Is There Anyone Else in the Unit That You Feel Comfortable With That
Would Be Able to Do That Kind of Quality Control? Even Though They\'re
the Simple Cases, They Still Have Legal Implications. So We Need to Make
Sure They\'re Right and They\'re Thorough.

I Think So and with Training For Sure We Can Meet Our Goals And Have
Folks That Can Perform That Work.

So What You\'re Saying to Me, Then, Is If We Train Some Other People to
Do the less ‑‑ the Easier Cases, That You Would Then Be Able to Do the
Difficult Cases as Well as Supervise Everyone in the Unit and That Would
Work out? I Mean, You Could Do the Supervision and You\'d Still Be Able
to Get the Complex Cases Done, Ready on Time, Thoroughly? You Don\'t See
That as a Problem?

I Think That Would Work.

Ok. Well, That\'s My Major Concern. I Need ‑‑ You Know, I\'m Concerned
about Getting ‑‑ Doing The Best Possible Job. There\'s One Other Thing I
Think That\'s ‑‑ That I\'m Still Worried About, and That\'s Keeping Me
Informed. That\'s Been a Problem in the Past. You Know, We\'ve Had Cases
Where It\'s Last Minute I Find out Everything Is Not Ready. Do You Have
Any Way That We Could Possibly Prevent That from Happening?

I Think We Need to Talk More Regularly, Whether It\'s in Staff Meetings,
Formally or Informally. Maybe We Need to Institute Some Sort of Tracking
as Well. Because I Need Information, Too, You Know. When You Get New
Deadlines, I Need to You Inform Me as Soon as You Know So That I Can
Help You And We Won\'t Have Any Surprises Either.

So You\'re Saying That I Haven\'t Been Keeping You Informed Enough to Do
Your Job? Is That ‑‑

Sometimes When We Have Our Conflicts, It\'s a Result of That, of Not
Knowing the New Deadlines and Not Letting You Know Where Our Workload
Stands. It Sounds like.

Ok. Maybe We Could Set up Either an Automated Tracking System of Some
Sort, in Addition to That, So We Could Have Something in Writing or
Something That We Could Look at on the Computer And Know Where the
Status of Something Is So That I Nope That That Particular Case Is Going
to Be Ready by the Time the Hearing Comes up and That Way I Wouldn\'t
Have to Go to You All the Time. It Would Be Something That\'s There,
Easily Accessible That Would Save Some of Your Time, Too, Because I
Wouldn\'t Have to Interrupt You. Would That ‑‑

That Would Be Good. I Still Want Us to Have Time to Talk at Least Once a
Week, Make Sure There\'s No Problems and to Institute this Tracking.
I\'ll Feel a Lot Better about Our Work.

I Think That\'s a Good Idea, And I Think That\'s Something That Would
Work.

Well, it Sounds like You Both Have Agreed upon Ideas to Resolve this
Conflict. Let Me Just Reiterate What I\'ve Heard So I Can Be Sure That
We\'re All on the Same Page. First of All, I\'ve Heard That Chris Will
Continue to Perform His Supervisory Duties, Is That Correct?

Yes.

Yes, That\'s Right.

Also That Chris Will Be Responsible for the More Difficult Cases but
Someone Else On the Staff Will Be Performing The ‑‑ or Completing the
Routine Cases. The First Thing I\'ve Heard Is That You\'re Going to
Develop a Tracking System Together So it Will Be a Mutually Agreed upon
Tracking System to Keep Each Other Abreast of Where Progress Is. The
Last Thing I Heard Is That You\'re Going to Have Staff Meetings or
Meetings, and You Said Regular. Is That Weekly? Monthly? How Do You Want
to Do That?

Probably Weekly. I Think That Would Be Good. At Least Once a Week to Get
Together.

I Think That Would Be Good If We Had a Regularly Scheduled Meeting and
Then an Open‑door Policy to Speak to Each Other When We Need To.

Ok. Open‑door Policy Ok with You.

Yes, That\'s the Way I like to Operate, Anyway.

I Guess the Fourth Term Would Read That You\'re Going to Have Weekly
Staff Meetings with an Open‑door Policy. I Think We\'ve Pretty Much
Outlined the Terms of Resolution. Let\'s Write up the Agreement, And If
the Terms Are Satisfactory To You Both, Then We Can Sign It. To Maintain
the Confidentiality, We\'ll Destroy All of Our Notes That We\'re Taking
During this Session. Since We Have Reached the Resolution to Your
Problem, Let Me Be the First Congratulate You Both on a Successful
Mediation Session.

Thank You.

Ok. Let\'s Start Writing.

Lara: Now, During this Segment We Saw Chris and Maria Search for
Mutually Agreeable Solutions, Some Reality Testing On Those Ideas and
the Development and Signing of a Written Agreement. Also, to Preserve
Confidentiality, the Parties Destroyed Their Notes. Were You Able to
Pick up on Ideas That Were Useful in Creating a Resolution? If You Ever
Participate in a Mediation, Learning to Listen For These Ideas, Feelings
or Thoughts Will Be Had a Very Useful Tool. Do You Feel That Chris and
Maria Are Satisfied with the Results? In Thinking about Your Answer to
This Question, Remember Who Owns And Has the Responsibility for Solving
the Conflict. Let\'s See How Our Participants Felt about the Process. I
Think They\'re Getting Ready to Come out Now. Hi, Maria.

Hi, Angie.

Lara: Let Me Ask You, this Is Your First Time as a Supervisor
Participating in the Mediation Process. What Did You Think?

I Thought it Went Really Well. I Really Appreciated the Opportunity to
Talk to Chris and Get to Understand Him and Learn A Little Bit More
about What He Was Like, and this Way We Don\'t Have to Go Through the
Adversarial Process. In the Beginning, I Was Nervous. I Was Really Kind
of Angry and Upset. But the Mediator Controlled the Process. So it Made
it Run Really Smoothly. I Think Overall We Reached a Good Agreement and
the Agency And Chris and I Are Both Going To Benefit from These Improved
Communications.

Lara: Great. Thank You.

Thank You.

Lara: Well, Let\'s See What Chris Has to Say. Hi, Chris.

Hi.

Lara: Let Me Ask You, Were You Pleased with the Process and The Results?

I\'m Happy with the Results. I Was Nervous and Concerned About the
Process at First, but As We Went Through This, I Became a Lot More
Comfortable. I Know These Sorts of Personnel Conflicts Can Go on
Forever, So I\'m Real Happy to Settle this And Move on and Have Some
Control over the Outcome of the Decision Myself Rather than Turning it
over to Others to Decide. And I Really Think That Maria And I Have No
Room for Misunderstandings Anymore and I Think It\'s Going to Work.

Lara: Great. Thank You.

Thanks.

Lara: Here Comes Our Mediator, Rene\'. Hi, Rene\'.

Hi.

Lara: this Mediation Seemed To Go Pretty Well. Can You Tell Me, Is this
a Pretty Typical of a Mediation Session?

Yes, it Really Was. You Know, Generally What You Have in a Mediation
Session Are Two Parties That Realize They\'re Have Gone a Conflict and
These Two Parties Want it Resolved as Soon as Possible. I Found That
Listening Is a Very Critical Tool to Use During Mediation Because
What\'s Generally Defined as the Problem In the Beginning Is Not the
Underlying Concern.

Lara: Great. And Congratulation Oz Your Success.

Thank You.

Lara: Well, as Weaver\' Just Seen, Both Chris and Maria Were Very Happy
with the Mediation Process. Rene\' Even Taught Them Better Ways to
Communicate in the Future, and They Both Looked Forward to Return to Go
Work With These Newly‑gained Skills And a Better Understanding of One
Another.

Hicks: Angie, Are You Ok?

Lara: Yes, I Was So Nervous That I Couldn\'t Eat this Morning And I
Thought the Whole Bureau Was Listening to My Stomach Growl. So I\'m
Sorry.

Hicks: the Video That We Have Seen Only Highlighted the Mediation
Process. However, If You Were to Participate in an Actual Mediation, it
Would Thoroughly Closely Follow What You\'ve Seen. There Are a Few
Exceptions Worth Discussing. For Example, There Might Have Been a Time
When Rene\' Asked Either Chris or Maria to Leave The Room for a Moment
to Have a Private Discussion with One or The Other of Them. This Is
Called a Caucus, and it Is a Tool the Mediator Uses to Clarify Issues,
Allow Participants Time to Cool off or Test Proposed Solutions. Also, If
There Were Legal or Regulatory Matters Involved, Rene\' May Have Had to
Bring in a Subject Matter Specialist. This Is Done to Clarify Technical
Issues or to Ensure That Agreements Are Legal And, Therefore, Doable.
For an Example, a Personnel Management Specialist Might Be Called in to
Answer Questions About Proposal for a Time and Attendance Issue.
Sometimes There May Be Two Mediators, a Process Referred to As
Co‑mediation. Co‑mediation May Be Used When There Are Multiple
Disputants or Complex Disputes or for Mediator Training Purposes.
Lastly, Although this Video Did Not Show It, Because this Agreement
Settled an Eeo Complaint, it Requires Review And Signature of the
Involved Eeo Manager, the Assistant Director or State or Center
Director.

Chattin: Well, Thank You Angie and Jesse. This Mediation Process Sure
Seems Far More Comfortable to Me Now. It Cleared up a Lot of Questions I
Had. And it Seems Easy to Use. While Mediation May Be New to Us, the
Government\'s Two Traditional Administrative Redress Systems Are
Probably Not. I Suspect That All of Us Have Heard of the Eeo Complaints
and Administrative Grievance Systems. We\'re Going to Look at These Two
Methods to See How They May Compare with Mediation in Terms Of Problem
Solving Potential. Gloria, Please Tell Us a Little About the Eeo
Complaints Process.

Inniss: the Eeo Complaints Process Is the Program That We Have in Place
for Processing Complaints of Discrimination. These Complaints May Be
Presented by Employees or Applicants for Employment with The Bureau Who
Believe That They Have Been Subjected to Illegal Discrimination. Now,
the Word \"Discriminate\" Means to Differentiate Between People, Things,
Events, and All Of Us Distinguish or Discriminate in Everyday Life.
Illegal Discrimination, on the Other Hand, Is Disparate Treatment in
Employment Based on A Person\'s Race or Color, Sex, Religion, National
Origin, Age. In the Case of Age, We\'re Referring to Employees Age 40 or
Over, Which Are the Ones That Are Covered, or Mental or Physical
Handicaps. Also Covered under These Regulations Are Reprisals for Having
Participated Previously In an Eeo Action. The Complaints Process Has
Three Distinct and Mandatory Stages ‑‑ Counseling, Fact Finding and
Adjudication. First, Counseling Is an Attempt To Resolve the Allegations
of Discrimination Informally. Normally this Is Conducted by an Equal
Employment Opportunity Counselor. Counselors Are Employees of the Bureau
That Perform this Function on a Collateral Basis. We Also Have Two
Full‑time Eeo Counselors in the Bureau. If Counseling Fails, the
Employee or Applicant May File a Formal Complaint of Discrimination. The
Formal Complaint, after it Is Accepted, Is Investigated and After the
Investigation, the Employee Also Has the Right to Request to Have a
Hearing, Which Is Conducted by an Administrative Judge from the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission. That Investigation and That Hearing
Is What We Refer to as The Fact‑finding Phase of the Complaint. After
That Enact‑finding ‑‑ Fact Finding Phase Is Completed, Then The
Complaint Is Adjudication And That Adjudication Is What We Call the
Final Agency Decision. The Employee or Applicant for Employment Who
Files a Complaint Then Has to Write to Appeal to The Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission and Later Files Suit In Federal District Court.
Subject to Certain Time Constraints, this Process must Be Followed in
its Sequence. In the Bureau of Land Management, While the Equal
Employment Opportunity Office May Receive and Arrange for the
Investigation of a Complaint, The Actual Adjudication of the Complaint
Is Done by the Office For Equal Opportunity in the Office of the
Secretary. Only Two Persons in the Department of the Interior Can Issue
Final Decisions in Complaints of Discrimination. That Is the Director of
Equal Employment Opportunity or the Secretary. That Review at the
Department Level Covers Both the Adequacy Of the Process as Well as the
Merits of the Case. Therefore, Strict Objectivity in The BLM Processing
of Complaints Is Assured and Further Oversight Is Afforded to the
Individual\'s Right to Appeal the Agency\'s Decision to the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission. Our Program, Our Complaints Program,
Has Two Broad Objectives ‑‑ the First Objective Is to Prevent Complaints
and to Settle Complaints That Are Filed and Restore the Harmony and
Productivity to the Workplace. The Second Objective, If Illegal
Discrimination Is Found, Is to Make the Individual Whole and to Make
Whole Is to Restore the Individual to the Situation That Employee Would
Have Been in If The Act of Illegal Discrimination Had Not Occurred. The
Remedies in These Cases Are Derived from the Specific Circumstances
Surrounding the Complaint. In Connection with Personal Actions, for
Example, They Might Include Retroactive Promotion If The Issue Is
Promotion, Backpay, Reassignment, Training and So On. Now, the Equal
Opportunity Offices That the Bureau Has Throughout the Whole United
States Have Additionally Provided a Sounding Board for Employees, and I
Am Sure That Our Servicing Equal Opportunity Staff Will Continue to
Assist Employees in this Respect. However, There Are Certain Things That
These Employees Cannot Do. The Equal Employment Opportunity Office
Cannot Tell You If You Have a Valid Complaint, Nor Can They Tell You If
Your Complaint Will Be Successful. Your Equal Opportunity Staff Cannot
Advise You on How to Present Your Complaint, Nor Represent You or Serve
as Your Spokesperson. The Equal Employment Opportunity Counselor Will
Serve as a Go‑between, a Facilitator, If You Will, in Initially Defining
Your Concerns and Presenting Them to Management for Early Resolution.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Investigator Will Examine the Facts and
the Circumstances Surrounding Your Allegations of Discrimination.
However, Neither One of These Persons Will Serve as Your Advocate or
Attempt to Make Your Case for You. The Burden Rests with the Person
Bringing the Complaint to Provide Information That They Believe Will
Substantiate the Allegation of Illegal Discrimination. I Think It\'s
Very Important That Our Employees Understand That When You File a
Complaint of Discrimination, the Burden of Proof Is on the Employee That
Brings the Allegation of Discrimination to the Attention Of the Agency.
I Am Not a Person That Is Much For Statistics but I Would like To Share
Some Numbers with You So You Have Perspective of the Possibilities That
You Have When You Bring a Complaint of Discrimination. In 1997, the
Department of the Interior Issued 248 Final Agency Decisions. These Are
Decisions on the Merits of Complaints, of Course. Many Other Complaints
May Have Been Resolved or May Have Been Dismissed. I\'m Talking about
Decisions on The Merits Following an Investigation. Of That Total, 11
Complaints, This Is 4.5%, Were Closed with a Finding of Discrimination.
That Percentage of Findings Approximates the Department\'s Traditional
Level of Findings Over the past Decade. In the Bureau of Land Management
In 1997, 35 Complaints Were Closed with Final Agency Decisions. There
Were Two Findings of Discrimination, Representing, I Guess, Somewhat
less than 6%, Which Is Somewhat Higher than The Departmental Average for
the Year. So My Message Is Simply That Your Complaints Are Serious
Matters. They Should Be Contemplated Only After Careful Consideration of
The Years and They May or May Not Be an Appropriate Means of Dealing
with Your Particular Conflict. Such Consideration Should Center On an
Objective Look at the Nature of the Dispute, Your Reasons for Pursuing
That Dispute, Your Realistic Expectations for Settling it And, Last, but
Certainly Not Least, a Reasonable Method for Processing It, and I Think
from What We Have Heard about Mediation Earlier on Today, I Hope That
You Will Seriously Consider Mediation as a Reasonable Method for
Conflict In the Workplace and for Dealing With this. On That Line,
Finally, I Would Like to Share with You That the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission Is Now Considering New Regulations ‑‑ Actually
They Are Regulations That Already Are Almost in Final Draft, and These
Regulations Will Make Mediation An Integral Part of the Government‑wide
Complaints Processing Program. In the Bureau of Land Management, We Have
Had a Mediation Program in Place for The Last Two Years. I Will Hope
That Now with the Emphasis That the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission Will Put on Mediation That That Will Further Strengthen and
Motivate Our Employees and Our Managers to Use this Mediation System.

Chattin: So There Is Going to Be More People Coming into this Field of
Mediation and Getting More Training and Becoming More Expert. Well,
Thank You, Gloria. Now Let\'s Contrast the Eeo System with the
Administrative Grievance Process. Diane Friez Is the Personnel Officer
for the Montana State Office and a Specialist in Administrative
Grievances. She\'s Going to Summarize the Grievance Process for Us. But
Before She Starts, I\'d like To Mention That at the Conclusion of
Diane\'s Presentation, We Will Be Conducting Our Last Question and
Answer Segment. So If You Have a Question or a Comment for Our Second
Panel, Please Give Us a Call or Send Us A Fax Now. Diane, I\'d like to
Hear What You Ever to Say.

Friez: Thank You, Tanna. There Are Two Grievance Processes in the Bureau
of Land Management. The Administrative Grievance Process and the
Negotiated Grievance Process. If You Have a Union in Your Organization,
You May Be Covered By the Grievance Procedures Negotiated by Your Union.
Because These Negotiations Vary From Location to Location, You Should
Review the Union Contract With Your Local Personnel Office For the
Specific Information. Today I Will Focus on the Administrative Grievance
Process And Explain the Different Steps That Are Available to You. At an
Employee\'s Request, a BLM Representative in Connection With an Employee
Relations Specialist in the Human Resources or the Personnel Office Will
Conduct a Confidential Review into Matters Of Concern or Dissatisfaction
That Are Subject to the Control Of Management. The Grievance Procedure
Has Two Different Stages, an Informal Stage and a Formal Stage. A
Grievance Concerning a Continuing Practice or Condition May Be Presented
at Any Time. However, a Grievance Concerning A Particular Incident must
Be Presented Within 15 Days of the Date of the Event or the Date That
the Employee Became Aware Of It. The Informal Grievance Is Generally
Presented to the Employee\'s First‑line Supervisor And May Be Presented
Either Orally or in Writing. The Supervisor Then Has Seven Days from the
Date on Which the Grievance Is Presented to Formulate and Process a
Resolution. If the First‑line Supervisor Is A Subject of the Grievance,
it May Be Referred to the next Higher Level. If Resolution Cannot Be
Accomplished, the Employee Is Then Advised of the Right to Request
Further Consideration Under Formal Procedures. The Formal Grievance
Stage Is Available for Employees Who Are Not Satisfied with the Outcome
Of the Informal Process. The Formal Grievance must Be Submitted in
Writing to the Personnel Officer Within Five Days of the Date on Which
the Informal Resolution Was Received. A Deciding Official, Who Is
Generally the next Higher Level Supervisor or Manager, Will Then Be
Appointed to Review the File And Gather Any Additional Information Need
to Do Make a Decision. The Decision must Be Issued Within 20 Days. If
the Employee Is Not Satisfied With the Decision on the Formal Grievance,
They May Request Further Review from the Office Of Hearings and Appeals,
Which Is Located Within ‑‑ Which Is Located in Washington, D.c.. A
Personnel Appeals Examiner Will Be Appointed to Make a Recommended
Decision in the Matter. If All Information Necessary to Make a
Recommended Decision Is Submitted, and If the Issue Is Relatively
Simple, the Examiner May Then Make a Ruling Based on The Review of the
File. More Elaborate Procedures, Including Formal Hearings Are Conducted
to Resolve More Complex Issues. Throughout the Grievance Procedure, the
Personnel Office Is Available to Provide Employees with Advice and
Assistance Regarding the Process As Well as Factual Material Regarding
the Grievance. Remember Also That You Cannot File Both an Administrative
Grievance and an Eeo Complaint At the Same Time. The Eeo Complaint Will
Always Take Precedence. Last Year the Director Asked That All BLM
Offices Incorporate ADR into the Administrative Grievance Process. He
Stated That in the past Two Years 13 Formal Grievances Had Been
Submitted to the Washington Office for Resolution. Many of These Issues
Might Have Been Resolved at the Local Level Through Mediation. So, We
Have the Director\'s Request, and We Know the Department Is Looking at
Revising the Grievance Process To Include ADR. Based on This, it Seems
like ADR Will Be Around for a Long Time To Come.

Chattin: Thanks, Diane. At this Point We Are Going to Move into Our Last
Question and Answer Segment. We Want to Hear from You. So If You Have a
Question or Comment for Our Panel, or If You Have an Experience Would
You Like to Share with Everyone, Please Give Us a Call, or Send Us a
Fax. We\'ll Take as Many of Your Questions as We Can in the Time
Remaining. I Do Have a Fax That I Got So Intrigued with as it Came
Aboard Here That I Want to Read This, Because it Is Real Comment and I
Think You\'re Going to Be Maybe Not Surprised. This Comes from Salt Lake
City, And I Guess Dan Web Doesn\'t Really Mind Me Mentioning His Name
Here. I Have a Number of Statements And He Has a Question. I Am Enjoying
and Learning from Today\'s Training. I Just Counted 170 People on Our
Utah State Office Phone List. There Are Eight People Today Watching this
Program in His Office. This Is Not Unusual. The Few Healthy Employees
Attend. The Busy, Stressed Others Do Not Attend. The Health of the
Organization Suffers as a Whole by this Nonparticipation. Do You Have
Any Recommendations, Any Comments? I Can Only Take Care of Myself And
Will Get this Information to Those That I Work with. And He\'s Hoping
We\'ll Send the Video out Soon. But You Can Lead a Horse to Water, but
How Do You Get People To Know That They Have to Pay Attention to Their
Health to Resolve Conflicts?

Inniss: That Could Be Many Factors. You Could Have People on Travel. You
Could Have People in the Field. So I Don\'t ‑‑ I Don\'t Think We Could
Differentiate That We Have Healthy Un and Healthy People, And the
Healthy Don\'t Watch the Program. When We Started to Plan in Program,
One Consideration That Was Made Was Shouldn\'t We Make This Mandatory?
Shouldn\'t this Be Made Mandatory? That May Be a Consideration That We
Have to Take More Seriously In the Future If These Trainings Shouldn\'t
Be Mandatory, Because We Need to Educate Our Employees In Order That
They Could Function Effectively in the Type Of Organization That We Are
Running Nowadays. I Believe Also That the State Directors, Center
Directors and The Human Resources Community Need to Take a Very
Aggressive Role in Publicizing These Kinds Of Seminars Involving the
Participation of Everybody, and That Is Something That I Guess Dis ‑‑
Distance Learning Is Something New to Most of Us, and I Guess with Time
We Will Develop the Acceptance of this Way of Learning and Then Also The
Persons That Are Responsible For Making Sure We Attend These Kind of
Sessions Will See That It Happens.

Chattin: Those Are Really Good Points. We Have a Couple of Technical
Questions, And, Angie, You Probably Would like to Answer This. I\'m
Going to Give Them One at a Time. There Is about Three Here. Who Else
Needs to Approve or Sign the Agreement That We Saw On the Tape?

Lara: Ok. That Would Probably Depend on Whether or Not it Were an Eeo
Complaint That Was Being Mediated, Because Not Every Mediation, of
Course, Has to Do With Eeo. So it Depends, First of All, on What the
Issue Even Is. Then it Would Depend, Perhaps, On If it Were an Eeo
Complaint Where it Might Be in the Process. For Example, If it Were
Pending Hearing, Then the Attorney Representing the Agency Would Be
Signing it and Maybe Not Necessarily the Eeo Manager.

Chattin: Does it Matter If It\'s Written? Can it Be Handwritten or Does
it Have to Be Typed? Kind Of, You Know ‑‑.

Lara: I Have Never Seen That Question Before. It\'s Really Interesting
and Got Me to Thinking about It, and I Guess If That Were to Happen in
My Organization, it Wouldn\'t Matter to Me If it Was Typed or
Handwritten. The Main Thing Is Going to Be Are the Terms Mutually
Agreeable To the Parties? Is it Legal? Is it Doable? And Does it Have
the Appropriate Approvals on It?

Chattin: and If They Will Sign That in Their Own Hand Writing, It\'s
Valid for You.

Lara: Right.

Chattin: Suppose the Complainant Had an Attorney, What Is the Role of
the Attorney In this?

Hicks: Well, the Attorney Would Be There to Advise the Disputant. The
Attorney\'s Role Is Simply to Be an Advisor. He Is Not to Speak for the
Disputant, Only to Advise, and In the Instance of If it Was a Time for
Disputant to Sign the Agreement, it Would Be the Disputant and Not the
Attorney, Except for in a Case That Angie Just Described.

Chattin: If the Attorney Sits Beside Someone and the Attorney Can ‑‑.

Hicks: Advise the Disputant. They Don\'t Actually Speak for The
Disputant.

Chattin: Ok. Well, There\'s an Employee Here Who Would like to Remain
Nameless, but He Asks a Very Good Question: We Have to Work Harder and
Faster, as We\'ve Learned in the First Segment, But There Are Still
Numerous Deadlines, E‑mail, Reduced Personnel, More Projects and All Of
this Affects Our Ability and Adds to the Stress. So That\'s Sort of a
Question of What Do We Do about That? These Are Things, Again, out of
Our Control. Diane, Do You Want to Take a Shot at That.

.

Friez: Sure. I Think We Can All Relate to Deadlines and Stress and
Workload, and Throughout this Program Today, Carol, Fran and Linda All
Gave Some Suggestions On Ways to Deal with Some of Those Kinds of
Issues, Ways to Educate Ourselves, and Also this Training Session
Provides an Opportunity for All Employees, Although as the Previous
Message Indicated, Maybe There Aren\'t as Many Watching as We\'d Hoped.
But this Is an Attempt to Help People Learn How to Deal with The
Different Issues and the Different Stresses That We Have In Our Everyday
Life.

Chattin: and the Tape Will Soon Be Available, So People Will Have an
Opportunity to Get Some Good Advice. Gloria, How Is it Determined When
There Is a Conflict in the Workplace and When That Needs to Be Mediated
and Who Is Assigned To Mediate the Situation?

Inniss: Well, the Way We Determine If There Is a Conflict Is Because it
Is Usually Brought To Our Attention, Either by the Parties Involved in
the Conflict Or by Third Parties. In Most of the Instances in Which We
Have Used Mediation Is Because the Parties Involved Have Asked for the
Mediation. As a Rule, We Advise Complainants of the Availability Of
Mediation as a Way to Deal With the Conflict. The Second Question Was
How it Is Determined to Use Mediation?

Chattin: Yes, Who Does It? Who Steps In?

Inniss: in Most Instances, to Be Honest with You, the Possibility of
Using Mediation Is There. We Offer It. The Equal Opportunity Officer in
The Field Offers It. In Some Instances the Employee Goes Through
Counseling and After the Counseling Is Completed and a Formal Complaint
Is Filed with the Equal Opportunity Officer Sees the Complaints, He
Realizes That Is That a Conflict That Could Be Addressed Through
Mediation, and The Equal Opportunity Officer Will Call the Employee and
the Manager and Educate Them about Mediation, Give Them Some Literature
on the Subject and Offer That Service. So, Really, the Advice Comes From
the Equal Opportunity ‑‑ If It\'s a Complaint, If It\'s a Personnel
Issue, it Will Come From the Personnel Officer. If it Comes from the
Human Resources Officer Involving the Program. The Ultimate Decision Is
Made by The Parties. Because in the Bureau of Land Management, Mediation
Is Not Mandatory. In the Department of the Interior, it Is Not
Mandatory, As a Matter of Fact. And Even the Regulations That The
Commission Is Coming up with Will Not Make it Mandatory.

Chattin: Well, Then, Common Sense Would Also Tell Us That, Say a
Supervisor Sees Two Employees Who Have Some Difficulties with Each Other
Who Can\'t Seem to Resolve it among Themselves, the Supervisor Would Be
Free, Would He Not, in Suggesting this as an Alternative to this
Continuing Conflict?

Inniss: Yes. Definitely. When I Say the Party, it Could Be the Employee,
it Could Be the Supervisor. In Some Instances, We Know That There Is a
Lot of Disagreement In an Office Between Peers, That We Know That
Eventually One of Them Is Going to File a Complaint, Ok? We Use it as a
Prevention Technique. We Tell the Supervisor, Listen, Why Don\'t We Have
These Two People Come and Meet Here and We Have Mediation. It\'s Very
Effective to Prevent Complaints.

Chattin: I like That. I Have Another One That\'s Open To the Panel. In
Such a Competitive Environment, How Can We Keep From a Dog Eat Dog
Attitude? Or Feeling That If You Give but ‑‑ If You Give but Don\'t Give
a A Hundred Percent That You Will Be Left Behind. Then the Comment: We
Need to Acknowledge Individual Limitations. The Question Here Is the
Intense Competition, and That Is Definitely a Conflict in the Workplace.

Friez: I Think There Definitely Is Intense Competition and We All Have
to Do Our Best to Do Our Jobs, but We Also Have to Live Our Lives, Too.
So It\'s Just It\'s Some of the Techniques Maybe That Were Raised Today
on Ways to Deal With Those Kinds of Issues.

Hicks: I Think Also It\'s Important to Set Goals and Whenever You Set a
Goal, it must Be Reachable, Obtainable and Realistic. So I Think That
Would Help You To Work Within Certain Parameters and Not Go Overboard Or
Stress Yourself out.

Chattin: and Maybe That Would Relax the Paranoia, Perhaps and Observing
Too Much That\'s Going On Around You. If You\'re Just Doing Your Own
Job, and You Know That You\'re Doing it Well, Why Worry about What
Others Are Doing? Is That Kind of What You\'re Saying in a Way, Too?

Hicks: Yes, I Agree with That.

Chattin: this Is a Very Good Question ‑‑ What Role Do Unions Play in the
ADR Process?

Friez: Unions Are Involved. We Didn\'t Really Cover the Negotiated
Grievance Procedure Because Those Contracts Were Negotiated Based on
Location, And They Vary. Mediation Is Used in the Grievance Process, and
it Just Varies Depending on Where Your Location Is. So the Best Thing
Would Be to Talk to Your Local Personnel Office and Review the Specifics
In the Contract.

Chattin: Is There Ever a Time When the Union ‑‑ I Know You Have Got to
Read the Specific Contract, but this Is a Generic Question. Do Unions
Normally Feel They Have the Right to Step into Anybody\'s Process ‑‑ If
the Two People ‑‑ or Even a Couple of People, If They Are in Mediation
And They\'ve Made That Decision To Do it Themselves, but They\'re Also
Union Members, but They Haven\'t Involved the Union, Does The Union Have
the Right to Step In and Say, \"Well, According to This Contract\...\"
Have You Ever Run into That?

Friez: I Haven\'t. To Be Perfectly Honest, I Don\'t Have a Lot of
Experience with Unions. Maybe Is Somebody Else Does.

Inniss: in Complaints and Pie Would Think It\'s the Same in Personnel
Processes, the Employees Have the Right to a Representative of Their Own
Choosing, and in Many Instances, It Could Be a Union Person Where You
Have a Strong Union, They Tend to Either Get a Union Person, and in Some
Instances The Union May Hire an Attorney To Represent the Employee.
We\'ve Seen That Happen. But the Ultimate Decision about Who Will
Represent Him or Her in The Whole Process, Including Mediation, Is Made
by the Employee. That Is Very Clear. And That Is in the Law. The
Employee Decides Who Will Represent Him or Her in the Mediation. Of
Course, We All Know That in The Federal Government, We Have Laws and We
Are Pushing for Working with the Unions and Where the Unions Get
Involved Is When the Collective Bargaining Agreement Is Being Negotiated
And Procedures Being Negotiated And How Much Involvement That We\'ll
Have in Policy Development Having to Do with ADR or with Mediation, That
Kind of Involvement Will Be There. In the Bureau of Land Management, the
Same as it Is in In Federal Agency. But When You Talk about a Specific
Individual Case, the Employee Has the Choice of Who Will Represent Him
or Her, and It Could Be a Union Person or it Could Be Just an Attorney
That ‑‑ or Anybody That ‑‑ I Have Seen Instances in Which Husbands Have
Represented Wives and Vice Versa. It Could Be Anybody.

Chattin: Well, We Have a Fax From Ralph in the Washington Office, and
Ralph Wants to Know How an Individual Can Get an Objective Idea of How
They Relate to Others and How They May React in a Conflict Situation.
Jesse Do You Have Any Idea What This Is Referring To?

Hicks: Could You Repeat That Again?

Chattin: Wants to Know How an Individual Can Get an Objective Idea of
How They Relate to Others And, Therefore, I Think, How They Would React
in Conflict Situations. I Think the Person May Be Wanting to Know, Going
Back to Our Early Lessons of How We Perceive Each Other and this Person
May Be Saying, How Am I Perceived? How Am I Going to Relate to Others?

Hicks: I\'m Aware of Two Instruments He Can Use to Determine That. One
Is the Myers‑briggs Type Indicator. The Other Is the Thomas‑killman
Conflict Mode Indicator. I Think These Are Available Usually at Your
Local Community Colleges. If a Community College Is Not Accessible, If
He Could Contact The Local Eeo Office and Officer, They Would Work with
Him to Get a Copy of One of These Indicators. I Understand the Cost Is
Around \$25.

Lara: I Would like to Talk About That a Little Bit Also. There\'s
Another Instrument. It\'s Called Disc, and this Measures Personality
Traits, and The Eeo Officers Can Arrange, The Washington Office Will
Help Us Obtain These Different Tools For Helping to Assess Our
Personality and How We Deal with Conflict. I\'d Also like to Mention
That There\'s a Very Good Book out. It\'s Called \"Getting to Yes\"
Written by Roger Fisher, and This Was the First Definitive Discussion of
Mediation as We Know it Today. So I Would Recommend That as Well.

Chattin: You Know, That\'s a Thought. I Hadn\'t Thought about it until
You Mentioned It, Jesse and Angie, but with Us Going into Mediation, I
Guess It\'s Going to Be ‑‑ Maybe Not Mandatory, but It\'s Going to Be
More Comfortable for Us Personally If We All Know Our Personality Types.
Is this Kind of Going to Be a Trend Where We\'re Going to Do More
Personality Profiles in the Bureau of Land Management?

Inniss: I Don\'t Know about in The Bureau of Land Management, But I Know
in the Federal Government There Is a Lot of Training on Supervision and
on Communication, Conflict Management Where a Lot of This Material Is
Covered, How to Communicate, How to Relate to Others, What Kind of
Personality Do You Have. Most of the Supervisory Trainings I Have Attend
Ed Through My Life Include a Segment on That. So That\'s a Common
Practice in The Federal Government.

Chattin: I ‑‑

Inniss: Excuse Me. I Would Also like to Add That The Department of the
Interior, I See Regularly Advertised Trainings on Communication. Other
Where People Could Learn Techniques Would That Help Them In this Kind of
Mediation Typesetting.

Chattin: Well, Speaking of ‑‑ Ok, Personality Profiles, Then, What about
a Personality Profile For the Bureau of Land Management? I\'m Reading
from Here from California, the Question Actually Is: What Is the Bureau
Of Land Management Doing about Organizational Health? But Maybe to Know
That Answer, Maybe We Need to Know Their Health Right Now.

Inniss: I Want to Congratulate the Person Who Sent In the Questions.
They Really Are a Challenge. We Need Carol Here to Talk about Stress a
Little More. The Question Is What the Bureau Doing about the Health of
the Organization. I Think this Is One of the Concerns of Our Director,
Really. He Has Stated Repeatedly the Health of the Organization, and It
Takes a Number of Factors to Have a Healthy Organization. I Think this
Kind of Training And Dialogue We\'re Having Today, The Dialogue That Our
Director Has with the Employees When He Ghosts to the Field and Meets
With Them, They Chat with Pat, All of this Contributes to the Health of
the Organization, Having a Strategic Plan That All Of Our Employees Will
Be Able to See and Relate To, Having a Diversity Plan. At this Point in
the Bureau, We Are Working on Development of Employee Development
Policies And Programs. All of Those Are Things That I Believe Will
Contribute to the Health of the Organization. I Also Believe That It\'s
Extremely Important, like Fran Said Earlier on Today, That Our Employees
Take Control of Their Health Individually as Employees, Because There Is
but So Much an Organization Can Do Really for its Employees. They Also
in These Type of World That We Live in Now, You Have to Take Control of
Your Own Needs And of Your Own Development as An Employee, Really.

Chattin: There\'s a Second Question to This, to this Fax From
California. Are Managers Trained to Recognize Stress Symptoms That They
May Manifest ‑‑ That May Manifest into the Workplace Violence? Are
Managers Trained ‑‑ for Myself, I Think I Can Say I\'m Probably Not.

Inniss: Well, I Don\'t Know in The Bureau of Land Management, But I Know
Around 1996 All ‑‑ All Federal Agencies Had Training on Violence, How to
Deal with Violence in the Workplace, and Part of That Training That
Managers Received Gave Us Tools to Identify Potential Situations That
Would Have Potential to Create Violence in the Workplace, and I Don\'t
Doubt That in the Bureau Of Land Management We must Have Had. I Could
Not Talk Really with Certainty on This, but I Don\'t Doubt That We must
Have Had Training on How to Prevent Violence in the Workplace and Also
How to Recognize Symptoms Of Possible Violent Behavior. I Don\'t Know If
Those Who Have Been with the Bureau Longer Could Address this. How about
You, Linda, Do You Know If the in the Community We Have Any Training on
Violence? I Know We Have a Policy about Violence in the Workplace
Because All Federal Agencies Have It.

Friez: I Know in Montana We Have Had Some Training Available On Violence
in the Workplace, And Some of Our Supervisors and Managers Have Attended
That. So Hopefully That\'s Increased Their Awareness.

Inniss: That\'s Something Good To Look into. I\'m Glad to Realize this
Came up And I Think this Is Something That Needs to Be Followed Up,
Definitely.

Chattin: Well, We\'re Trained To Recognize Threats Coming into The BLM,
and We Have Procedures Of What We Should Do about Incoming Threats, but
That\'s a Really Good Question. How Do We Recognize, Maybe, a Simmering
Feeling of Something In an Employee That That Maybe Is There and Maybe
There Is Not Demonstrable Symptoms Coming out From Him. Good Question.

Lara: I Have Something I Would like to Add, There Are Some Ways, Maybe
Not on an Individual Basis, but on a Organizational Basis, That You Can
Test the Stress Levels, and Some of Those Are by Examining The Issues
and Bases That Are Raised in Grievances, Appeals And Eeo Complaints. And
So Keeping in Touch with Your Eeo Manager Would Be a Good Way, Also, to
Find What Other Kinds ‑‑ What Are the Kinds of Concerns People Are
Bringing Forward.

Chattin: We Don\'t Want to Belabor That Particular Subject Because We
Have a Question Here. This Wasn\'t Quite Answered. We Kind of Skipped
Around It. How Do You Decide Who Will Be The Mediator? This Was Not
Exactly Answered. But Who Will Be the Mediator? Can We Choose Anybody We
Want?

Hicks: Well, in the Past, at One Time ‑‑ I\'m Sure We Probably Follow
this Same Procedure. We Offered Them a List of Mediators, You Know, Two
or Three on a List, and Gave the Disputants an Opportunity to Review
Their Background and to Elect One. I Don\'t Know If We\'re Going to
Continue to Do That or Not. But That\'s How We\'ve Done it in The past.

Chattin: Following Up, We Have Another Fax: Will the Washington Office
or the Bureau Recruit Co‑lateral Duty Mediators in the Future? And If
So, When?

Inniss: We Have Trained a Number of Employees, Most of Them Are People
That Are Employees That Are in the Human Resources Field on Mediation.
All of These Employees Have Received as a Minimum 40 Hours Of Mediation.
The Plan Is That These Employees Will Serve as Co‑mediators in The
Workplace and out in the Community and Will Eventually Be Certified as
Mediators. Also, in Most Instances, What We Are Doing Is We Are
Contracting Out with Vendors, Mediators, Outside Mediators, to Come and
Mediate the Cases and When We Do That, We Ask the Mediator to Allow Our
Employees That Are Being Trained to Co‑mediate. This Has Been Run
Different in Different Places. For Example, I Know That in Denver, There
Is a Group of Federal Agencies There, and I Forgot the Term for That
Organization, I Think They Call It Federal Board and They Have a
Mediation Program There, and the Federal Agencies There in Denver, They
Use Mediators from That Service. In the Washington Office Right Now, the
Office of Surface Mining, Mineral Management Service and Bureau of Land
Management, We Are Working Together on a Proposal to Have a Mediation
Program for the Three Bureaus under the Assistant Secretary for Land and
Minerals For Mediation Where Two or Three Persons Will Be Trained and
Certified from Each One of the Bureaus and That Way Employees From ‑‑
Mediators from One Bureau Could Be Provide Mediation Trainings in Cases
Involving the Other Bureau Because Our Employees Don\'t Want Our Own
Employees to Mediate Their Cases, at Least Not the Ones That Are in the
Same Geographic Location. I Don\'t Know How You Are Handling it in
California. Maybe You Could Give Us Specific Examples, Angie. But I
Think It\'s Been Handled Different, Depending on the Locality, Because
in Some Localities We Already Have Programs in Place, Federal Programs.
In Some Localities We Don\'t Have That Opportunity. So We Are Training
Our Own People. And in Some Localities We Just Contract with Vendors,
Really, And I\'ll Let ‑‑ Give this Back To You. Now, it Is Important to
Understand That Once We Identify A Mediator, Both Parties Have to Agree
to the Mediator. We Don\'t Impose Any Mediator on Our Employees or
Either One of The Two Parties. They Will Have the Opportunity To Decide
If They Want to Go With That Mediator, Because There Has to Be Some
Level of Trust There for the Process to Work. You Want to Talk about How
You Do it in New Mexico, Angie?

Lara: Well, All of Our Eeo Counselors Are Trained Mediators. So
Sometimes They\'ll Do the Mediation. But Normally Not in the Location
Where They Work. We\'ll Get Someone from Another Field Office or the
State Office, You Know, a Different Location, to Do It. We\'ve Also Used
a Contract Mediator, and We\'ve Also Used a Combination of Bureau
Employee And a Contract Mediator. So We\'ve Tried it All Different Ways,
and it Really Depends upon The Parties Who Are Disputing, What They Want
and like You Said, the Mediator\'s Acceptability to Them.

Chattin: Good. We Have More Questions. I Want to Take Some Time Here to
Mention That the Faxes Are Coming in So Quickly and So Fast That I\'ve
Not Read Your Names And I Apologize for That If That Was Important. Once
in a While I Catch a Glimpse of the State. But We Do Appreciate the
Faxes And I\'m Skipping over the Names, As You\'ve Noticed. Please
Explain BLM\'s Upward Mobility Program, If One Does Exist and What
Grades or Career Fields Are Affected. Diane?

Friez: There Is an Upward Mobility Program. It\'s Limited to One Grade
Interval Series Positions. So There\'s a Variety of Positions That Can
Be Covered Under the Program. It\'s Open to Positions, I Believe, Within
the Department ‑‑ Employees Within the Department of Interior to Compete
for Upward Mobility Positions. I\'m Not Sure ‑‑

Chattin: I Need to Take Another Pause Here and Mention That the
Broadcast Evaluation, Somebody Did Send in a Fax about That, They Should
Be Sent to the National Training Center. I Know it Doesn\'t Say That in
Your Training Packet, but Send Those to the Attention of Lorraine
Farley, Send Them in Here to the National Training Center. Let\'s Go to
Another Fax and Try To Get as Many of These as Possible. A Dispute
Resolution Is ‑‑ Is Dispute Resolution Simply a Function of Purse ‑‑ Let
Me Do That. There Is More Questions. Let\'s Get That One Answered.

I Would Say Absolutely Not. It Involves Eeo and I Think as Gloria
Mentioned Earlier, Weaver Talked at Least in this Group, There Are
Resource Issues That Can Be Resolved Using ADR. So It\'s Definitely Just
a Personnel System. Procurement.

Chattin: That Pertains to Dispute. The Other Side of That, Is it
Available to Help Us to Do Our Jobs in Other Ways? Is the Dispute ‑‑ Is
the Dispute Resolution Available to Help Us? Maybe It\'s Not a
Particular Mediation Problem, or it May Be Even a Real Dispute Problem,
but Can it Help Us Do Our Job in Other Ways?

Inniss: I Think ‑‑ Let\'s Talk About ‑‑ Let\'s Say Facilitation.
Nowadays We Use Facilitators. When You Have Communication Conflict in a
Unit, Sometimes Group a and Group B Don\'t Get Along Together, We Could
Bring a Facilitator to Have a Meeting of That Group, and That Is a Form
‑‑ and Maybe Negotiate. How Are We Going to Work Together as a Group and
Be Effective? That\'s a Form of Alternative Dispute Resolution That We
Are Using That\'s Not in a Complaint Or Personnel Dispute.

Chattin: So this Would Work With Interest Groups?

Inniss: Oh, Yes, You\'re Talking about Outside Groups?

Chattin: it Could Be. Let\'s Ask.

Inniss: in the Bureau of Land Management, the ADR Program Is Organized
in Such a Manner That We Have the Human Resources ADR Program, Which Is
the One That I Manage, and Then We Have the Natural Resources ADR
Program And Angie Could Talk a Little More about this. We Do
Communicate. We Share. But They Handle Situations Where We Are Going to
Use ADR in Issues Involving Outside Customers or in Issues Involving
Other Programmatic Issues Other Than Human Resources Issues. Maybe Angie
Could Expand on This.

Lara: Well, What I Was Thinking about Is the Resource Advisory
Committees, and Certainly a Lot ‑‑ and Most People Throughout the Bureau
Have Heard about Them at Least, And a Lot of Those Meetings Are
Facilitated. So That Was, I Thought, a Good Example of What Gloria Was
Talking About, and They Are Certainly an Outside and Inside Group with
Different, You Know, Diverse People Attending and Differing Views of
Opinion.

Chattin: We Shouldn\'t Forget Facilitation Is ‑‑.

Lara: Is a Form of ADR.

Chattin: We Have Another Fax. ADR, It\'s Informal Problem Solving. Well,
What Happens If the Conflict Resolution, the Signed Resolution, Fails
During Implementation? Can the Parties Go Back to Mediation? What If
There\'s a Breach of That Good Faith?

Lara: Well, I Guess it Might Indicate That Not So Much That There Was a
Breach of Good Faith But Maybe There Just Wasn\'t a Real Clear
Understanding of What The Terms Really Meant, and That\'s a Real
Important Part of The Writing Phase. That\'s the Reality Testing That
Has to Occur So That We Can Make Sure That the Resolution Is Going to Be
Doable, et Cetera. However, If it Is Breached, Yes, They Can Go Back
into Mediation And Try to Fix That Particular Issue That Came Up.

Chattin: So It\'s Not ‑‑ it Just Doesn\'t End Because It\'s Been Signed?

Lara: Right. It Doesn\'t Mean You Have to Jump Into Court.

Chattin: They Can Go Back and Patch Things Up.

Lara: Right.

Inniss: I Would like to Expand Briefly on That. If There Is a Problem
with Implementation of the Agreement, We\'re Going to Go Back to
Mediation, or We Might Negotiate. We Might Not Need to Go and Sit And
Have a Mediation Session Because it May Be That There Is Some
Misunderstanding, like Angie Said, Regarding the Remedies in the
Agreement. So it Might Be Possible That the Parties Get Together and
Negotiate a Remedy. Or it May Be That We Have Realized We Cannot Meet
the Terms of the Agreement. We Might Negotiate a Similar Remedy That Is
Acceptable to Both Parties. It Is Important That the Employees
Understand, Though, That If You File a Complaint of Discrimination and
We Go Through Mediation and We Resolve the Complaint Through Mediation,
There Will Be a Provision There In That Agreement That If the Terms of
the Agreements Are Not Met That You Have the Right to Have Your Initial
Complaint Reopened. So Let\'s Say That We Go Through Mediation
Immediately after the Investigation and Then Years Later That Agreement
We Find Has Been Implemented Is Violated by The Bureau of Land
Management, The Employee Could Request, Then, That the Initial Complaint
Be Processed, and in That Instance We Would Have to Do That. This
Doesn\'t Happen Often Because, of Course, It\'s Not in The Best
Interests of the Organization. We Make Every Effort Possible to
Accommodate the Employee in this Situation, but in the Event That It Did
Happen, the Employee Should Not Be Afraid That by Going into Mediation
They Might Lose Rights That Otherwise They Would Have If They Had Not
Gone Through this Process.

Chattin: Thank You for That, Gloria. I Do Have a Real Interesting
Question That I\'m Not Familiar With, and I\'m Hoping Jesse and Carol,
If You\'re Memory Kicks In. At One Time BLM Had a Program Dealing With,
and I Can\'t Read The Word ‑‑ It\'s Something ‑‑ But the Wellness
Program. The Program Was Killed Because Of Alleged Abuse. Does the BLM
Have Plans to Bring This Program Back, to Rejuvenate The Program? Have
You Ever Heard of That, the Wellness Program?

Hicks: I\'ve Heard ‑‑

Chattin: I Can Read it Now. It Was a Stress Program. I Think I\'ve Heard
of It. Sort of Vaguely. But it Was Sort of ‑‑ it Operated along the
Lines That Carol Talked About, but it Was Concerned with the Physical
Well‑being of a Person.

Lara: I Remember the Program And Several Offices Had Time Where
Employees Could Take and Walk or Exercise, and Some Offices Had Little
Mini Gyms in Them and Things like That, and Even Though I Think it Was
Officially Killed, it May Still Exist in Little Pockets Around BLM, but
I Don\'t Know of Any Efforts to Rejuvenate it Throughout the Bureau.

Chattin: But, Again, They We Still Get Back to Our Self‑responsibility,
Because We Are Ultimately Responsible for Our Own Health and Well‑being.

Hicks: Also If I May Interject Here, I Think, You Know, with Flexi Time
That Sort Of Replaced the Wellness Thing. Can You Adjust Your Work
Schedule So You Can Have Time to Walk or Go to a Gym Now.

Chattin: We\'re Going to Go Back ‑‑ this Is a Lengthy Comment, and I
Want to You Listen Carefully, Panel, Because This Is Coming up over and
over Again. The Pain, and Maybe Even the Misery, Involved in Our
Worklife. Resources Within the Team and Bureau in General Have Been
Diminishing to the Point That Not Enough Hours Are Available To Handle
the Work, Not to Mention the Rough Problems That We Have Made at Work.
Our Air Area of Responsibility Has Changed So Much That 30 People Have
Left for the Private Sector, Retired, Moved, Transferred or They\'re
Working In Other Groups. I\'m Hearing Choices Such as Training,
Networking, Being Detailed. However, Management and Supervision Has Not
Been and Is Not Now Receptive to Such Change For the Better. I must Do
More Better, Fix Problems, Find Answers with Much Less Resources. But
How Far down must We Go Before Moving Up? What Are the Options? Where Is
Management in this? As You Can See, There Is Great Pain in Our Workplace
as We Transition.

Lara: Wow. All of Us Are Experiencing the Same. As One Person Said, \"I
Feel Your Pain.\" We\'re All Experiencing the Same Things, and it Does
Go Back to That ‑‑ a Lot of That Goes Back To the Choices That You Make.
Obviously Those People Who Left Made a Choice That this Was Going to Be
Healthier, Smarter Or Better for Them, Either in Their Professional or
Their Personal Lives. That\'s Really the Things That We Keep Bringing
Up, the Choices, The Goals. Now, Where Management Is, Management, I
Think, from What I\'ve Seen, They\'re Going Through The Same Things.
They\'re Feeling the Same Things. They\'re Also Having to Do More With
less and Try to Do it Better and Try to Do it Faster, And So We\'re All
in this Together, and I Think Different Organizations Throughout the
Bureau Are Doing Different Things. You Hear Things about Family Friendly
Programs, You Know. In New Mexico Weaver Our Peer Group and Employee
Associations. All of Those Are Organizations That Can Maybe Help You
Deal With Some of Those Things, and Carol Mentioned the Employee
Assistance Program. So It\'s up to Us to Decide Which Is Going to Be the
Best One for Us to Do, and If You\'re Interested in Doing Those Things,
Why Not See about Starting it up Where You Are.

Chattin: That\'s a Good Answer. I Would like to Mention, Too, How I\'m
Dealing with It, Angie, Is I\'m Trying to Prioritize Work Now. What Are
the Real Important Things? I Have a Two‑page List of Things That I Do
Weekly or Daily to Serve My Customer, and Many Times That\'s in
Washington, D.c., but I\'m Going to Have to Actually Talk to My
Management, Who Serves Me That I\'m the Customer, and Say What Is the
Most Important? What Do You Want Me to Do First And in What Order? Does
That Make Sense?

Hicks: Also in My Work Area, The Supervisor Has Pushed Us to Read Books
like \"First Things First,\" or as Angie Suggested, \"Don\'t Sweat the
Small Stuff.\" These Are Things Supervisors Can Do, Is Refer and
Recommend Certain Books to Them That May Help Them to Cope with Stress
With the Workplace.

Lara: I\'m Going to Buy Those Books for Sure.

Inniss: I Think Also the First Step in Any Program Is Acknowledging the
Assistance of The Problem and It\'s Comforting To See That Our Employees
Are Sending These Kinds of Comments And That Our Managers Are Able To
Listen to this and They See How the People Are Hurting, and It\'s Coming
from Everywhere. You Won\'t Believe It, but It\'s Amazing the Amount of
Comments That Tanna Has Here, Which I Guess Most Will Be Addressed Later
and Distributed, but the Point Is, at Least We Are Taking A First Step
in this Organization. It\'s Wonderful That We Have this Opportunity to
Broadcast It, to Start Listening to the Problems, And You Could Duty
Same Thing at Your Level. Start Discussing the Problems.

Chattin: I Think We Have an Opportunity Now to Listen to Joe In
California in His Own Words. Good Morning, Joe.

Caller: Hi. How You Doing?

Chattin: Just Fine. We Can Hear You. We Would like You Ask You What Your
Question Is to this Panel This Morning.

Caller: Yes, My Question Is: If There Is a Conflict That I Have with an
Individual, a Peer, Maybe a Supervisor or Someone Else and I Am Afraid
to Address That Conflict Because of the Fear of Confrontation, What
Could You Recommend to Me That I Could Do to Address That?

Chattin: Good Question. We Hadn\'t Really Covered If Somebody Wants
Remedy, but How Do You Take That First Step?

Inniss: If Two Persons Has a Conflict and One of the Persons Cannot
Share Having That Conflict, It\'s ‑‑ I Don\'t See How We Could Address
It, Really. The First Step to Deal with Conflict Is to Communicate the
Conflict That You\'re Feeling to The Other Person. In Discrimination
Complaints, First Contact the Counselor, and During Counseling You Could
Remain Anonymous. My Experience Has Been That If The Employee Remains
Anonymous, We Cannot Resolve the Complaint. It Takes Two Parties to
Resolve The Complaint.

Chattin: Joe, Could You Give Us an Example?

Caller:, Well, Let\'s Say for Example, I Am Offended or Hurt By
Something Someone Does in the Office to Me. And Because I Am Afraid to
Address it to That Individual, I Avoid the Conflict. I Begin to Have
Perceptions or Thoughts about the Other Person That Might Build into
Anger or Resentment. Now, Obviously the Clean Way to Deal with it Is to
Address It. But If I\'m Caught up in the Fear Of the Conflict and
Avoiding It, How Can I Overcome That?

Chattin: Joe, You\'ve Got ‑‑ I Think You\'ve Got Your Tv on and The
Microphone on at the Same Time. Can You Step Back a Little Bit. We Were
Getting Feedback on Your Question.

Caller: Ok. Again, I\'ll Repeat That. If I\'ve Got a Conflict with
Somebody in the Office Because They\'ve Done Something to Me That I\'ve
Been Offended or Hurt By and I Start to Become Bitter Owe Resentful or
Angry Toward That Individual and I\'m Unwilling to Confront it Because
I\'m Afraid of the Confrontation, What Are the Steps I Can Use to
Overcome My Fear of Addressing The Conflict with That Individual?

Chattin: Ok. We Understood That, Joe. Anybody?

Lara: as Gloria Mentioned, One of the First Things You Need To Do Is
Acknowledge It, Which It Sounds like in Your Sample That\'s Happened.
But Then There Are Lots of Different Things Can You Do. You Can Talk To,
Again ‑‑ Some Of the Things We\'ve Heard Earlier, You Can Talk to the
E.a.p. Program Counselor about It. Can You Talk to Friends and Family
about Your Situation at Work. Mediation Would Be Another Alternative for
You, Though, Because You Can Also Have That Opportunity During Mediation
That Jesse Talked about a Little Bit Where You Can Initially Describe
General Concerns, and If You Have Things You\'re Not Quite Ready Yet to
Share with The Other Party, You Can Ask to Speak to the Mediator Alone
and They Will Meet with You and Only Share with the Other Person Those
Things Which You Give Them Permission to Share. Then You Have this
Neutral Third Party There. They Have No Interest in the Outcome of Your
Dispute. And They Can Help to Control the Environment There So That
You\'re Not Going to Have a Confrontation like the Kind That You\'re
Describing.

Caller: Thank You.

Lara: Does That Help?

Caller: Yes, it Does.

Chattin: Ok, Joe. Thank You. We\'re Going to Say Good‑bye to You And,
Again, Thank You for That Call. Well, We\'ve Received More Questions and
Faxes than We Have Time to Answer. The Washington Office Eeo Group Is
Going to Get These Questions And They\'re Going to Answer Them After the
Broadcast, and We\'ll Just Get Them out to All of the BLM Offices. They
Should Be Distributed Within the next Few Days. Obviously We Did Hit
Some Tender Spots Where People Do Need Some Answers, and We\'re Going to
Get That. Well, We\'ve Covered a Lot of Ground this Morning. We\'ve
Talked about Change and Diversity and ADR Theory, Mediation and
Complaints and Grievances. Hopefully this Program Has Raised Your
Awareness of Factors That Might Lead to Disputes in The Workplace, as
Well as Considerations Regarding Dealing With Others and Ways of Dealing
With Conflict That Will Keep Us Productive and Support Our Career
Aspirations. We Hope That this Program Has Been Useful. If it Has,
Please Tell Us. And If it Hasn\'t, Well, Tell Us That, Too. In Addition,
We\'d like to Know What Topics Related to Diversity, Equal Employment
Opportunity, Human Resources Management That You Would like To See
Addressed in Future Broadcasts. All of this Can Be Done with a Form of
One‑stop Shopping. That\'s the Broadcast Evaluation Form That Is
Included in Your Viewer\'s Packet. Please Fill it in and Send it In. And
Please Note That the Drawing Coupon on the Back of the Form. We\'ll Be
Holding a Random Drawing for Five Copies of the New Publication \"Beyond
the National Parks\" That Will Be Personally Inscribed by Director Pat
Shea. Only One Entry per Employee, Please. And an Attached and Completed
Broadcast Evaluation Is Required For That Book. Remember, You Can\'t Win
it If You Don\'t Play. I\'d Also like to Remind All Downlink
Coordinators to Have Everyone Sign the Attendance Roster and Fax it Back
to the National Training Center Immediately. And Thanks Again for Being
with Us Today. We Appreciated You Being Here.

Announcer: Here\'s a Look at Some Upcoming Broadcasts on the BLM
Satellite Network. On March 26th, a Training Seminar Which Provides a
Management Overview of the Wild Horse and Burro Program Will Be
Broadcast. On April 8th, the National Wildfire Coordinating Group Will
Present an Interagency Telecast On the New Fire Policy. An Irm and Almrs
Forum Scheduled For April 22nd Will Take an on The Ground Look at the
Deployment of Almrs in New Mexico. And the Road to Successful Weed
Management for BLM Managers Will Be the Focus of a Telecast on May 21st.
To Help Your Office Participate In Future Telecasts, See the BLM
Satellite Downlink Guide and Visit the NTC Home Page on the World Wide
Web. NTC\'s Internet Address Is www.ntc.blm.gov. Transcripts of this
Program and Other NTC Broadcasts Are Available on the Home Page. For
More Information on Upcoming Distance Learning Events, as Well as
Traditional Courses, Call the Training Center at 602‑906‑5500. Or Visit
the Home Page. This Broadcast Has Been a Production of the BLM National
Training Center.→