City’s fix for feuding staffers: Go Native
Agency offers ‘talking circle’
The only thing missing is a peace pipe.
New York City is drawing on an ancient Native American custom — the talking circle — to help feuding city employees mend fences, The Post has learned.
The city’s Center for Creative Conflict Resolution offers a new “circle process” for staffers to talk over their squabbles.
Like tribe members around a campfire, a group of workers sit cross-legged on the floor or on couches placed in a circle. In the middle is a “centerpiece” with objects brought by participants. It may include colorful cut-outs and drawings of things like hearts and lips, photos, and cards scribbled with words such as “love,” “humility” and “fairness,” like one on the center’s Web site (above) from a staff training session at Columbia University.
In the circle — a trend in the “restorative justice” movement — employees take turns sharing their views. The speaker holds a “talking piece,” such as a long feather tied to a stick, based on the centuries-old belief that it lends courage, wisdom and truth.
Besides the circle — used four times so far — the center offers mediators to help resolve employee disputes in hopes of nipping misunderstandings — or worse — in the bud.
“The purpose is to get to the heart of conflicts before they escalate,” said Marisa Senigo, a spokeswoman for the city’s Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, or OATH, which has a $603,000 budget to run the center.
“We draw from various indigenous practices around the world, including Canada’s First Nation’s People, the Maori people in New Zealand and the Navajo peacemaking traditions of the North Americas,” the center said.
One ex-city employee who was terminated after clashing with colleagues didn’t think the circle process would have helped.
“For this to work, parties have to be open to listen and willing to understand the other side. The complainant in my case only wanted to silence me for an opposing view,” the employee said.
Another skeptic scoffed, “It’s just crazy — who wants to sit across from their bully and listen to how he feels?”
Participation is voluntary, Senigo said. The center has completed 118 mediations since June 2015 and claims an 83 percent agreement or resolution rate. She would not give examples of beefs, saying employees are promised confidentiality.
“It’s meant to save the city time and money and help it run more efficiently,” Senigo said. “When there’s conflict in the workplace, productivity suffers.”
It’s just crazy — who wants to sit across from f their bully and listen to how he feels? — a skeptic of the city’s new Native American-inspired staff training