What’s Right for Your Organization?
If mediation seems like a good choice for resolving conflicts within your organization, there are still the issues of:
- what form of it to use and
- who should be supplying the mediation services.
Is your organization looking to transform itself from a place where conflict is hidden most of the time and is secretly doing damage? Would you like to make resolving conflicts a collaborative instead of an adversarial process? If this is what your organization wants, then workplace mediation is for you.
Any organization of two or more persons can make use of an outside mediator to help persons having conflicts to get them resolved. If yours is an organization with approximately 1,000 people or more, you could consider creating an internal conflict resolution team of mediators who already know the organization well and who are trained to provide conflict resolution services from within.(See Workplace Community Mediators, below)
Outside Mediators
Something that you should know about outside mediators is that they approach their work in a variety of ways. These differences in approach are likely to result in differences of outcome for you or your organization. Every mediator brings to a mediation session:
- a unique blend of skills;
- specific subject matter knowledge;
- process style.
“Skills” means such things as communication skills, and that includes skills in communicating directly and also skills in helping the parties in conflict change for the better the ways in which they communicate.
“Subject matter knowledge” means such things as understanding building codes or school law or finance or domestic relations law. People in search of a mediator often choose to look for this type of knowledge, but they could serve themselves better if they went on to ask about “process style.”
“Process style” means how the mediator conducts the process. One way to look at process style is by imagining a continuum or line. At one end is the litigative style and at the other end is the community-based style.
PROCESS STYLE
Litigative Style Mediators
Litigative mediator style says that the main issue; for example, denial of promotion or race discrimination [you could also read this as the issue that would go to court if not resolved in mediation] is the most important. It says that the mediation should be oriented toward getting this issue resolved. It says that the mediation is either successful or not depending on whether this issue is resolved.
An important point to note is that the relationship of the parties tends not to be the main issue in litigative style mediation. The format for the mediation thus allows parties to be placed in separate rooms. The mediator acts like a “shuttle diplomat” traveling between rooms with offers and counter offers seeking to find common ground or a settlement figure in dollars. This process works well for matters like auto accident cases. That’s because parties didn’t know each other before the accident and don’t care to know each other after the case is settled.
Workplace communities, volunteer organizations, and other settings in which people must relate to one another on different issues over time are not particularly helped by a litigative approach. In these situations, the relationship between the parties, their ability to continue to work productively, are often as important if not more important than the particular issues that concern them at the moment. For these situations, a community-based approach to mediation can be essential to reaching a full resolution of the conflict.
Workplace Community Mediators
These mediators organize the process so that those in conflict stay in the room together longer. They get a better chance to understand each other more fully, and they find ways to improve the working relationship. Such issues as perceived discrimination or harassment often melt away as the underlying misunderstandings that resulted in such allegations being made are discovered and dealt with in a positive and collaborative way.
For example, it sometimes happens that claims of civil rights violations are ways of getting attention to a bad working relationship situation. In an adversarial framework, the claim is perceived as an attack on the organization, and what results are defenses, such as investigations and disciplinary actions or denial of wrongdoing. From there, a claim might move on to become an EEO complaint and then move further into arbitration or litigation. It’s sad and often avoidable.
If such a claim were flagged early and sent to mediation, the time, expense and emotional damage of pursuing a favorable result in an adversarial context could be avoided. Critical here is that the mediation style chosen be one which allows the people in conflict to explore each others’ understandings and motivations and not one which is just aimed at “settling the case”.
The challenge is to get into place mediators or a mediation program that will put the emphasis on resolving fully the conflict, and not just settling the presenting claim. That’s what our mediation practice has as it’s #1 priority.
Is yours a large organization? Would you like to consider an internal Workplace Mediation Team?
For a definition of mediation, try Mediation – What is it? What isn’t it?