Optimizing Mediation: Coaching – Seeing the Whole Field

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Coaching – Seeing the Whole Field

Following four years at Stanford, I took a position as an “intern” at a small private high school in Marin County, California, then called Katherine Branson – Mt. Tamalpais High School.  The “Katherine Branson” part was the girls’ half of the school and the “Mt. Tamalpais” part was the boys half of the school. My understanding is that the school is currently simply called “Branson.”  I was hired to teach history and photography, but mostly I think I was hired to coach two of the school’s soccer teams.

There is no question that coaching a soccer team, having the “meta” perspective on the whole of the team and play, is related to one’s ability to have the meta (overall) perspective on people who are in conflict in mediation.  It is only by “seeing the whole” that one can most capably assist a team or set of disputants to “be at their best” in seeking to achieve their goals.

The Mt. Tam boys team was really exceptional.  While the entire school, boys and girls, only had about 400 students, the boys’ varsity team finished 4^th in all of Northern California.  We were playing schools 10x our size in the state tournament and more than held our own.

On the young women’s side of things, I coached the junior varsity team, which was also exceptional. In fact, there is no question that coaching young women as well as young men greatly expanded my skills at communicating with both women and men generally (helpful downstream in mediation). Here is a pic of the women’s soccer team’s party at the end of season.

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Jim Melamed

Jim Melamed co-founded Mediate.com in 1996 along with John Helie and served as CEO of Mediate.com through June 2020 (25 years).  Jim is currently General Counsel for Mediate.com and ODR.com. During Jim's 25-year tenure, Mediate.com received the American Bar Association's 2010 Institutional Problem Solver Award.  Before Mediate.com, Jim founded The… MORE