Those who join the “Dummies” ranks, are no dummies.
Vivian Scott’s “Conflict Resolution at Work for Dummies” is circulated by Wiley Publishing. It’s one of the black-and-yellow instructional guide books that all have “Dummies” in the titles.
Scott is a certified mediator with a private practice in Snohomish. She also helps the Volunteers of America Dispute Resolution Center of Snohomish and Island counties. She helps folks find solutions to conflict in the office and with family, consumer, landlord and tenant disputes.
She’s dealt with some doozies of disputes. Scott helped waterfront neighbors fighting over a 9-square-foot piece of beach.
A couple married for nearly 20 years, who hadn’t lived together for 18 years, needed help dealing with divorce details.
“The one that moved me the most was a teenage girl who had spent more than half her life in foster care,” Scott said. “While mediating with her birth mother about the possibility of a visitation, the mother tearfully said she didn’t know her daughter and said, ‘I don’t even know your favorite color.’ I can’t tell you how the session ended but as the teenager was leaving the room she turned around and simply said, ‘Pink.’ That still brings me to tears.”
One divorcing couple were fighting over two pairs of snow skis.
“At the end of the session, they finally came to the realization that maybe the husband should take the man’s skis and the wife would take the woman’s skis.”
Scott partnered with folks at the Dispute Resolution Center to create the book, said Matt Phillips, director of the VOA Dispute Resolution Center of Snohomish, Island and Skagit counties.
“This book provides our center the opportunity to reach even more folks outside of Western Washington who may be struggling and looking for some practical, easy-to-use tips on managing conflicts,” Phillips said.
He said the collaboration resulted in a dynamic body of work that incorporates the best of what mediation and the dispute resolution center has to offer.
Scott, 52, said the book is richer for the DRC collaboration. She lives in Snohomish with her partner of 11 years, Brent. Her daughter, Vanessa, is studying law and is getting a certification in mediation.
“I am one of seven siblings, and perhaps that’s where I really got my start with negotiating and mediating,” Scott said. “Listening to what someone wants, knowing what I want, and finding that intersection is what has made me successful.”
After leaving a career in marketing, she earned a liberal arts degree with a concentration in American studies from the University of Washington.
She learned about dispute resolution centers and found a new calling in mediation. But how did she crack into the “Dummies” realm?
She sent Wiley an e-mail.
“Ignorance is bliss because I didn’t know at the time that they only deal with literary agents and rarely if ever take ideas from us ‘regular folks,’ ” Scott said. “Months went by and I would send the occasional e-mail letting them know I was still alive, interested and ready to share what I knew.”
She said the publisher has strict guidelines.
“The staff at the DRC and I went to work frantically putting ideas together and between the crew here and the encouraging team at Wiley, we started putting the book together, adding the finishing touches on it in the first part of October,” Scott said.
“It wasn’t easy taking everything we knew and making it fit their format, but we knew by doing so we were going to help a lot of people with our collective insights into conflict.
“We’re very proud of the accomplishment,” she said.
Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451, oharran@heraldnet.com.
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