SEMINARS

Conflict Resolution and Negotiations In Organizations
March – June 2000


Content

Mediation skills and Techniques

Dr. Andrew Rigby

This presentation will focus on mediation skills. I am going to present a model of a mediation session based on British practice. This model is particular to the British culture, but I think that you will be able to find parallel applications in your culture.

I would like to start by introducing what comes to mind when the word mediation is mentioned:

    • Third party
    • Facilitator
    • Middle person
    • Overview
    • Impartial

The role of the mediator is to create a safe space where people in conflict can undertake a process in which the conflict is transformed into a problem that can be solved.

Mediation can also be inappropriate, especially when both parties are determined not to reach a settlement. Conflict in itself is not bad; it is part of the struggle for justice. Mediation is not the only way to solve conflict.

As a mediator, you should try to do the following:

  1. Create a sympathetic and supportive environment that helps people relax and focus on issues.
  2. Try to develop rapport and trust with both parties involved.
  3. Let others speak and listen with attention.
  4. Try to convey an understanding of and respect for each person, regardless of their beliefs, words, or conduct.
  5. Be able to summarize concisely the essence of each party’s views.
  6. Be able to state clearly the basic problems and issues, rather than focus on personalities.

Many participants in conflicts try to dehumanize the other side. People resort to mediation because they want to resolve a conflict. They begin to see their adversaries as human beings.

Mediation Stages

Mediation is a process with various stages. The mediator chairs the session and runs it as follows:

Stage 1: Opening statement

Set the tone, welcome the people, thank them for coming (it is not easy to expose oneself to the uncertainties of mediation), explain the ground rules (no abuse, no violence), explain the procedure (uninterrupted time, exchange, agreement building).

Stage 2: Uninterrupted time

Each party gives its own view of the conflict without interruption; the other must listen, without interruption by the mediator except to remind them of time constraints, five minutes for each. After each party speaks, the mediator summarizes what they have said (one minute summary for each party). It is the mediator’s responsibility to time the session.

Stage 3: Exchange

Parties speak to each other for the purpose of responding to issues and accusations and releasing emotions (without abuse).

The mediator’s responsibilities include timing the session, making sure that one party does not dominate, beginning to identify the core issues and trying to create the will to settle; that is, moving people from accusations about what happened in the past towards what might be desirable in the future. If you think that you have achieved this will, move on to the next stage.

Stage 4: Building Agreement

Encourage the disputants to find their own solution, guide them to concentrate on the future rather than past ill feelings, incorporate the needs of both parties (check if a win-win outcome is possible), and agree on a course of action.

Stage 5: Formalization

Write and sign an agreement.

Role of A Mediator

The role of the mediator consists of the following:

  1. Prepare the room and the seating arrangements.
  2. Prepare the welcoming statement and agree on divisions of work.
  3. Take notes during the process and ensure uninterrupted time.
  4. Summarize and restate what was presented by the two parties.
  5. Encourage the parties to identify behavior/structure and introduce the changes they would like to happen.
    • It is their problem- after listening to the other side, ask if they have any solutions.
    • Suggest "what if" scenarios.
  6. Attempt to get parties to review advantages/disadvantages of any tentative agreement.
  7. Write out the agreement and obtain signatures. Make sure that the agreement is as specific as possible, allow for review or progress in the future, and identify points of disagreement still to be resolved.
  8. Prepare a closing statement

Exercise:

Organizational Conflict – Mediation Role Play

In the following exercise participants are asked to play the role of the mediator between the two parties involved in an organizational conflict. They are instructed to take notes while doing the job of all the above mentioned rules of mediation.

Instructions – (position of the parties involved):

  • Position of the manager:
  1. You are an experienced manager who has been appointed to take charge of a rural economic development agency that has been in existence for five years.
  2. Before your arrival the agency had been very loosely organized, with no clear lines of management, accountability or divisions of labor. It was staffed by enthusiastic young people with good intentions but little practical experience of running an organization.
  3. There have been complaints by funding agencies and other important partners that they have found it difficult to get clear answers to queries and that they have suffered serious delays in decision making.
  4. Your task is to take this organization on to a new level of efficiency and competency, establishing a clear line of management and divisions of labor, and efficient decisions-making systems. If you fail in this, you fear the agency will degenerate into a nest of patronage, corruption and gross incompetence.
  • Position of the staff:
  1. You have been working for a rural economic development agency for five years. There is a group of you who has been with the agency since it started. Part of your job is to promote rural cooperatives and you believe in the values of bottom-up participation, which you have all practiced through joint decision-making and a free flow of information.
  2. The directors appointed a manager six month ago. He has experience of working in commercial organizations.
  3. He began to arrange high-level meetings and made important policy decisions without consulting the staff, and began to control the flow of information.
  4. You have begun to feel devalued and excluded. You feel that the new manager is arrogant and elitist. Your fear that, if something is not done, all the good will that has been established with the local people will be lost and all your work over the past five years will come to nothing.

[From this point the participants proceed to engage in role-playing mediation.]