In his classic book, “On Leadership,” author John Gardner addresses the subject of conflicts.

He wrote that we’ve become a combative species with an infinite capacity for contention within families, tribes, nations, races, politics, classes and religions, neighbors and businesses. While disagreements, “are part of the necessary noisiness of a free society,” protracted conflicts must be dealt with.

 Anyone with an interest in dispute resolution in any setting knows the importance of listening. I’ve written many times about limitations to our listening, including thinking about what we’re going to say rather than listen to what is being said, and assuming we understand what another means by thinking about how we would be reacting to the situation the person is describing.

 My guidelines for more effective listening include:

• Controlling the environment to minimize distractions

• Being totally present in the moment (don’t be thinking about other things)

• Not interrupting

• Asking for help to understand words and concepts, which the listener is not familiar

• Asking questions to clarify what was said, to gain additional information, and encourage the party to continue speaking

• Don’t engage in fact-finding, interrogation style questions. They put anyone on the defensive.

• Don’t assume we can know what another is feeling by thinking about what we would be feeling in the situation they are describing. Listen to understand the other person in order to understand what they are feeling—not what we would be feeling if we were in their position

• Finally, summarize what we heard

 I don’t know how many management seminars I’ve attended where attendees are given lists of ways to improve listening. Quite frankly, most don’t adhere to the list because they assume they can be a good listener since they’ve been listening their entire lives.

The point is that they may not have been listening effectively.

I’m often asked if parties during meditation sessions ever intentionally lie.

Before I answer that, let’s first consider the bigger picture. Deception not only includes omission or concealing critical information and commission or misleading someone by making a false statement, but also paltering or intentionally making a truthful statement to mislead someone. For example, assume you are attempting to sell your car that you’ve owned for a year. Two times in the past year it wouldn’t start and you had to have a mechanic make repairs. Other than that it worked fine. A potential buyer says, “This car seems like it works perfectly. I expect it hasn’t had any mechanical problems.” If you reply by saying, “The car drives great. Last month when the temperature was near zero it started with no problem.” You would have engaged in paltering, meaning, you didn’t make a false statement, but you used a truth to mislead.

Two decades ago social psychologist Bella DePaulo asked adults to record every instance they tried to mislead someone. The average was once or twice a day. Human beings have a talent for deceiving one another. Studies have shown that the majority of our lies are to promote and/or protect ourselves and that the age group who lies the most are teenagers, 13 to 17 years-old. The age group least likely to lie are 60 years-old and above.

In the arena of professional negotiation, studies have shown that from one-third to half of professional negotiators intentionally used deception during their sessions . So to answer the question as to whether parties in mediation lie, well, my answer is, “probably.”

But the mediators role is not to determine the truth. The mediators role is to help the parties decide what they would like to do to resolve the issues—not argue about who is right. I tell people learning to be mediators that if they ask a party in private who is right and who is wrong, they’ll answer that they to be in the right. And if they were to ask the other party the same question, they’d get the same answer.

Mediators don’t focus on the past; mediators help people focus on the future regardless of who is telling the truth.