Greetings!  

    'Tis the season to be wary... 

     Did the Mayans actually know the upcoming end of the world would be prompted by our falling off the so-called "fiscal cliff" (or as Jon Stewart reports, the dreaded  "Cliffpocalypse- mageddonocaust"), or was that just a lucky guess?

    Although I'm not sure there's anything I can do to refute Mayan prophecy, I do think (seriously) a good mediator could help in the process of finding an agreement to solve the challenge of $16 trillion in national debt.  After all, the current public positions of both Speaker Boehner and President Obama are not that dissimilar from positions often held by plaintiffs and defendants in civil litigation.  (Granted, there are a lot more zeroes in the figures being debated in D.C., and the players are a lot more famous, but the conflicts -- How much?  Who pays?  When? -- are in many ways the same.)     

Maybe Erskine Bowles could be the go-between to mediate an agreement to avoid "the fiscal cliff."

     There are several ways that a good mediator  (Erskine Bowles is one name that comes to mind) moves the parties closer to a workable resolution.  In my experience, here are the top five:

     Identifying the issues.   Where do the parties (be they Plaintiffs and Defendants or Republicans and Democrats) agree?  Where to they most strongly disagree?  Disputes often can be narrowed down to a small handful of disagreements.

     Clarifying the REAL issues.  In just about every mediation I have ever done, the sides eventually have to confront not only the "issues" of dollars and cents, or theories of liability, or conflicting evidence, but also the "real issues" of how one side feels disrespected or abused or neglected by the other.  Who knows how much the personal relationship between Obama and Boehner is a real hindrance?  As I've written before, human beings are not the always rational.  Mr. Spock, we ain't.

     Provide reminders for optimism.  It is oh-so-easy for conflicted parties to dig deep in their own holes, and fail to see how far they have come and how close they are to a final deal.  In football terms, I sometimes remind folks that at the beginning of the mediation they were deep in their own territory:  "You are in the red zone now...don't punt!"

     Speak frankly about the "or else."  The risk of uncertainty is often a prime motivator for an agreement to do something "bad" in order to avoid the probability of something "worse."

     Being the cock-eyed optimist that I am, I do think that there will be deal done to avert national cliff diving.  Getting a good mediator would just make it a lot easier.

     With every good wish for a blessed and safe holiday,