How to beat adversarial behaviours to win for all
IWAS at the Manchester Lecture. We had already heard from Andy Burnham, Steve Cooper, the Honourable Mrs Justice O’Farrell DBE, and Simon Navin.
Post-lunch Jane Gunn stepped up to talk about alternative dispute resolution (ADR) as immediate past president of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb). She picked up very neatly on the missing part of many conference discussions.
This galvanised a discussion I had just had, minutes earlier, with Genna Rourke, who followed Jane, about conferences and details. (Genna’s talk on Women in Construction was equally if not more powerful, but I need to bring this back on track.)
In the end, from a presentation point of view, nobody knows what you’re going to say, but, more importantly, if you pitch it wrong, additionally, nobody even understands what you’re going to say, or indeed said.
Experts are ‘always’ guilty of telling the ‘wrong’ story. It isn’t ever the ‘wrong’ story, but it is often pitched to the ‘wrong’ audience. What Jane focused on was ‘people’ first.
Until this point in the day’s proceedings people had been hinted towards, but as Jane made clear, ‘people’, when framed in terms of mediation, are the most important thing.
I’ve mentioned this in a previous President’s Column. But it’s worth saying again. People, process, technology – in that order. As civil engineering surveyors we do technology and process well.
However, do we do people with the right amount of attention to meet the expectations of our royal charter?
#Discuss.
Andy Evans FCInstCES, President