The OED is a fabulous source of etymological information, a diachronic dictionary worthy of more than a casual browsing. it offers not only definitions but also a history of usages. Under "style," I was drawn to a usage chosen from the 1879 Oxford & Cambridge undergraduate Journal, 13 Mar. 291/2: "If his staying powers can be trusted he is perhaps the best man in the boat, his style being very good." In each mediation, the mediator is in a different boat, staying a course and steering it carefully toward the safe harbor of a settlement, or, if impassed, hopefully an anchorage close offshore. But what does it mean to say that it depends on his style being very good?

Note that OED's definition speaks of an adopted manner of discourse, and a manner of executing a task or performing an action or operation. I add the emphases for a reason. Style should be the manner or tone adopted in and adapted to a particular mediation. It is indeed and should be"a manner of executing a task." This is not to say insincere. Style is not a matter of sincerity or insincerity. it is a matter of behavior that, in the case of mediation, best achieves the ultimate goal of dispute resolution.

We are trained to recognize the conflict styles of the participants in a mediation, using all the popular epithets: Cutthroat competitors, give-and take compromisers, collaborative strategists, conciliatory appeasers, head-in-the-sand passivist. Knowing who and what kinds of personalities we are trying to accommodate, be they those of lawyers, adjusters, business people.e, or Joe and Jane Bluecollar, helps us to help them reach an accord, if that is anywhere within the realm of possibility. Each action demands an appropriate mediator reaction, if the mediator is to continue to steer the ship on a straight course and maintain impartiality.

The challenge for the mediator is to avoid letting "style" become so inflexible that it interferes with the accommodation he or she hopes to achieve, the very service mediation provides. Better that the mediator, from the start, be on constant alert for the evolving personalities involved in the conflict and let style move with the flow, adapt to the circumstance of the moment, and fit the emotional tenor of the party or parties and their counsel.

What is style? "At its best, it is much like style in a car, a gown, a Greek temple--the ordinary materials of this world so poised and perfected as to stand out from the landscape and compel a second look..."2 On the other hand, "[t]he stylistic approach is the practical approach: you learn some things to do and not to do, as you would learn strokes in tennis. Your ultimate game is up to you..." 3

In mediation, as in tennis, our eyes should focus on the other sided of the net as we determine the style we should maintain.

Few of us have the occasion or the time to observe our associates repeatedly. What we may have seen as a rousing success and attributed to a superb style may have bee a serendipitous outcome. And the next mediation with that "superb style" may have fallen flat on its face.

It is not uncommon for a mediator to hear comments from attorneys about their experiences with other mediators. i believe mediators would prefer to close their ears to such comments, but occasionally they do bear out the troublesome nature of rigid styles. For example, I have had attorney complain about the forcefulness of another mediator, complimenting me on what she described as a passive("don't tell me what to do") approach. On the other hand, I have had feedback to the effect that I should have been more coercive in a particular mediation. Sometimes, you can't win. But most of the time it is simply a matter of better judging the parties and attorney with whom you are dealing.

Frankly, I rear a label. I do not want to be known as a particular "type" of mediator. I would prefer to be known as on who knows the process, is sensitive to the parties' interests and concerns, and is effective in any adversary situation, whether placid or choleric or somewhere in between.

We should not confuse style with personality. We are who we are, and we dare not toy with our essential beings, other than to recognize our faults and to make whatever adjustments are appropriate. Robert Fronst Said: "The style is the man," but he quickly caught himself by adding, "Rather say the style is the way the man takes himself."4 And I would further add: At the moment and for the occasion.

In my spare time, I make a pretense of being a freelance writer. Short stories, articles, essays. In the area of writing, style takes on a wholly different and more harmless character. your audience, the world at large (you would hope), is unseen, unpredictably diverse, and has the discretion of reading you or not. There is little question about at the recognizable styles of Hemingway, Steinbeck or Maugham, and they maintained those tyles throughout most of their lives. Mediators, on the other hand, are or should be able to know their audiences, and therefore, they face a different challenge.

Even in the field of creative writing, it has bee said "[s]tyle is the result of strategy, the language that makes the strategy work... [It] may be good or bad--good if the choices are appropriate..., bad it they are not...Style is flexible, capable of almost endless variation."5

In mediation, your audience is fixed, and part of the mediator's role is to get to know the parties--who they are, what their interests may be, where their concerns lay, and what personality dynamics they bring to dispute resolution.

The mediator's astute awareness and flexibility of style should be, must be, the order of the day.