The services that any organization may request of it’s supervisory
personnel can be quite varied. Often times Supervisors/Commanders
are called upon to assist in an on-going conflict within the work
place. These conflicts can take various forms including conflicts
between two coworkers, - a coworker and a supervisor, and on
occasion a coworker and a citizen. The use of Supervisory
individuals to resolve these conflicts appears a logical decision
many times by the appropriate management authority, however it can
lead to a good supervisory individual very quickly “getting in
over their head”. This requires the Supervisory employee to
appreciate the basic difference between mediating a conflict and
providing support services to employees effected by a conflict.
One is primarily a counselor role, that of helping people deal
with their thoughts and feelings about a conflict and attempting
to minimize the emotional dysfunction that can be a product of a
workplace conflict. The other role is that of mediator.
The mediator’s role is to create a process whereby the conflict is
eliminated and the effected parties learn functional conflict
resolution skills in addition to solving the present problem at
hand. Although the role of both counselor and mediator have
similar appearance at first glance they are essentially different
processes with different outcomes and means to obtain their
respective goals.
Supervisors/Commanders must clearly appreciate the differences and
at all times be quite certain of which “hat they are wearing”. It
is also imperative that the supervisory person wears only “one
hat”. An individual cannot begin a relationship with an individual
as a counselor-type, discover a conflict and begin assuming the
role of a mediator. A mediator has no vested interest in the
benefit to either party in a conflict. A mediator’s role is for
the benefit of both individuals by creating conflict resolution.
The mediator is neither negotiator, which would be attempting to
benefit one side in a resolution, nor arbitrator, which is to
weight the evidence by both sides and impose a solution. The
mediator creates a setting whereby the parties resolve their own
conflict with a mutually agreed upon solution.
Studies have demonstrated that the majority of Americans feel that
the number one ranked source of emotional stress in their life is
created by conflicts in their individual workplace. Providing a
process whereby these conflicts are handled appropriately and
effectively not only creates significantly more productive
workplaces, but if the studies on stress are accurate, it produces
personal lives that are more fulfilled and less reflective of
strain and distress carried home from the work environment. The
organization and all individual parties concerned benefit from
conflict mediation.
Supervisors/Commanders functioning as a mediator need to realize
that conflict within a work group in and of itself is not
necessarily destructive or dysfunctional. Conflict if handled
correctly can be quite constructive. It can signify a need for
healthy change and can be the empetus for growth of the
organization. It can be an opportunity for the parties involved to
directly and truthfully communicate expectations they hold for
each other which in the past often times had not been directly
expressed. This non-direct or less than candid communication
between parties in the workplace is often times the source of many
conflicts that grow far beyond the initiating cause. Competent
mediation of conflict can assist in the creation of a positive
work environment where creative problem solving can take place and
emotional investment in the unit productivity can be emotionally
safe. Conflict that goes unaddressed or is poorly managed can
rapidly create an environment of distrust, covert conflict, clique
development, and a generalized air of passive hostility that can
destroy the working atmosphere. Dysfunctional conflict can have a
work unit feeling at risk emotionally, producing only minimal
output and on occasion exploding into uncontrollable emotional or
physical rage. When coworkers are aware of an unaddressed conflict
in the workplace they can be forced to “take sides” in the issue
or spend critical work time attempting to avoid the conflict; time
that should be spent attempting to increase the functioning of the
work organization.
The mediator needs to remember that conflict between people is in
itself inevitable. It is not good or bad. The question is whether
or not the conflict is competently mediated to become a functional
situation or left to remain a dysfunctional entity within the
workplace. ”Good “ workplaces like “Good” relationships or
marriages are not determined by the presence or absence of
conflicts, but by the presence or absence of good conflict
resolution and problem solving skills.
Supervisors/Commanders would need to remember that the goal of
conflict mediation is quite different than the goal of other
crisis intervention types of procedures. In crisis intervention
the goal typically is to resolve an emotional issue by permitting
ventilation of emotions and expression of perceptions. In conflict
mediation, although some of the same goals appear to exist, the
major goal is to resolve the conflict by having the conflicting
parties engage in a process whereby each party hears the
perception of the other party in clear, uninterrupted, behavioral
terms. Unlike the counselor or crisis intervention role of the
supervisor, the mediator role requires a structured authority
based format. The mediator must create the setting where the
conflict can be resolved by each party being “Structured” to hear
the perceptions of the individuals with whom they are having the
dispute.
Many times, conflicting parties, once they reach the point in the
conflict of being more focused on the conflict than the workplace
goals, lack the necessary communication tools to take the conflict
one step further and bring it to resolution without assistance.
The workers involved in a dysfunctional conflict begin going to
great lengths to avoid the individuals with whom they have the
conflict. This avoidance between the conflicting parties can grow
to extreme isolation between the parties and facilitate the rapid
development of an atmosphere of distrust and blame. The parties
avoiding each other many times will take their perceived grievance
to coworkers that are uninvolved in the dispute in a hope to
create allies or receive support for their respective position in
the conflict. Parties in dysfunctional conflicts are highly
motivated to have coworkers perceive them as the reasonable
individual who is basically a “victim” of the unreasonableness of
the other disputant. Unaddressed, this type of conflict can leave
coworkers feeling like they have to choose sides in a conflict
situation. Although the conflict does not impact the uninvolved
coworkers initially, as a dysfunctional conflict grows, the
division in a work force can destroy the morale of a unit and
increase feeling of burn-out, detachment, and overall apathy to
the unit goals. Conflicts that have gone unresolved in a workplace
have created situations that have ranged from economic destruction
of a company or enterprise to the tragedy of episodes of workplace
violence.
Workers many times lack the necessary communication skills to
address emotional issues in the workplace. Reacting emotionally to
work issues can be seen as inappropriate for the work place.
Workers and supervisors can both believe than any emotional
interaction at work is inappropriate. “That’s a personal issue,
keep it out of the workplace”, this thinking does not permit the
situation many times to be self-resolving and subsequently
suppressed feelings can lead to a continuum of emotionally driven
conflict behaviors. The goal of the mediator is the creation of a
setting, whereby each party hears the other conflicting party in
it’s entirety and at the same time has the opportunity to express
their own beliefs, thoughts, and perceptions about the conflict
situation.
The mediator’s ultimate goal however, is to have the parties
involved generate a mutually agreed solution to the problem. The
solution is one generated by the conflicting parties and not one
suggested or imposed upon the disputing parties by the mediator.
The solution is created by the conflicting parties, the
environment that permits the solution to be generated by the
conflicting parties is created by the mediator. The mediation
process is different at this point from other interventions with
which the supervisors/commanders might be familiar. It is not the
mediator’s role to make suggestions, provide emotional
interpretations, or generally to “Solve the Problem”. The mediator
is basically a structurer of a situation and an instructor in
providing the disputants a problem-solving format, which is
potentially available for future conflict situations.
Mediation intervention basically revolves around a two-staged
process. In the first stage the mediator has to obtain a thorough
understanding of the issues and positions involved in the
conflict. The second stage is the creation of a mutually agreed
upon solution by the conflicting parties and the implementation of
the agreed upon strategy for resolution.
In attempting to obtain a thorough understanding of the conflict,
the mediator needs to know not only what is taking place, but the
degree of emotional intensity and subsequent dysfunctional
behaviors that are being generated as a function of the conflict.
To someone not personally involved in a long-term dysfunctional
conflict in the workplace, the issues may seem petty, however the
emotional energy invested in such a conflict can have major
implications. The mediator must obtain as much information
concerning the situation as possible. The mediator at this point
can be at an extreme disadvantage. Where can the mediator obtain
information about the conflict? How does the mediator know if the
“independent or neutral” sources of the information about the
conflict are themselves not involved or influenced by the conflict
or by their own beliefs about the conflict? The mediator that
forms preconceived beliefs or projects his/her own values into a
conflict situation places in jeopardy their effectiveness as
neutral uninvolved facilitators of conflict resolution.
Contamination by background information can impact a mediator
through many sources. The mediator needs to remember in many
organizations the informal pipeline or the formal chain or command
both can be impacted by a conflict situation and have already
chosen sides in the conflict. The information provided by these
“Independent” parties may really only be an attempt consciously or
unconsciously to communicate to the mediator the beliefs
supporting their chosen side in the conflict. If a conflict
situation is of a magnitude significant enough to require the
services of a mediator, the chances are quite good the agency head
requesting the mediation has already drawn some conclusions
concerning the conflict and quite possible is providing a biased
background appraisal of the situation.
The best source of information about a conflict is obtained
directly from the conflicting parties. Hearing the beliefs,
thoughts, and perceptions about a conflict can best be understood
when the mediator hears them directly from the individual or
individuals that hold the beliefs. The idea of speaking to the
involved parties themselves is generally agreed with by the agency
requesting the mediation with one caveat; “as long as they are
seen separately”. This is a time for extreme caution by the
mediator. The mediator must create a setting, whereby each party
can express their entire “side of the story” without being
interrupted or drawn into a debate with their disputing coworker
about the accuracy of any given point. The mediator has a choice
to make at this point in the information gathering stage of an
intervention. How does the mediator hear the complete “Side of the
story” from each party? Commonsense would dictate that if the
ultimate goal of the mediator were only to obtain the information
about a conflict, the least difficult course of action would be to
interview each party separately. This decision, although easiest
in the short-term, usually creates an atmosphere destructive to
the ultimate goal of the mediation. It is here that the mediator
needs to appreciate that the ultimate goal of the intervention is
the creation by the conflicting parties of a mutually agreed upon
solution to the conflict. The mediator is not merely an
investigator of the facts and beliefs, but an architect of the
setting that permits the conflicting parties to resolve the
conflict.
In virtually every case the mediator makes a serious mistake by
interviewing the conflicting parties separately. Usually the
decision to “Interview” the conflicting parties separately is
rationalized using the logic of the crisis interventionist, who
has different goals than the mediator of a conflict. The decision
for separate interviewing is often times made for reasons, such
as, it creates a less threatening environment, it permits each
party a chance to speak their mind without fear of attack, it lets
the interventionist create rapport with each party thus ultimately
leading to a facilitated resolution. These beliefs, in support of
the decision for separate interviewing of the conflicting parties,
might very well be valid and accurate for the investigator trying
to capture independent recollections and statements of a conflict,
but actually can spell disaster to the mediator. The course of
action for the mediator in almost every situation is to bring the
conflicting parties together and to conduct all mediation relevant
business in the presence of all involved principals. Structuring
the mediation such that both parties must come together runs
against the logic or game plan of most dysfunctional interactions.
Those involved in a conflict many times would prefer to “speak
about” the other party, as opposed to “speak with” the other
party.
The decision to interview the conflicting parties at the same time
and in each other’s presence creates the most significant initial
challenge to the mediator and is in reality the central difference
between mediational information gathering and that of an
investigator or crisis interventionist.
The mediator, in bringing the parties together, takes the “path of
most resistance” initially, but is establishing a setting, whereby
the ultimate resolution can occur. The decision to bring the
parties together at the same time is based on an understanding of
the dynamics behind dysfunctional conflict. The conflicting
parties have been, in all likelihood, speaking about the conflict
to everybody, but the party with whom they are having the
conflict. The conflicting parties possibly have become proficient
in portraying themselves as the “victims “ of the behavior of
their adversary in the conflict. If the conflicting parties had
the communication skills to approach each other and respectfully
articulate their individual concerns while simultaneously
respectfully listening to the concerns of the other party, by
definition dysfunctional conflict would not exist. Respectful
disagreement might possibly be present, but each party would speak
and listen to the other party utilizing communication skills. That
environment is self-correcting of disagreements and possesses none
of the traits of the long-term dysfunctional conflict typified by
avoidance, distrust, and solicitation of coworkers as allies to
one respective side of the conflict or the other.
By interviewing the conflicting parties separately the mediator
permits the conflicting parties to continue to potentially engage
in the dysfunctional behavior of trying to “win over” the mediator
to their “side” of the conflict. Independent interviewing also
ignores the fact that the conflicting parties distrust each other,
possibly intensely, and are left to draw the conclusion that the
mediator is “taking sides” particularly by the party not
interviewed first. Separate interviewing or speaking with one
party in a dispute without the other present puts the mediator at
significant risk of being perceived as compromised in terms of
neutrality. It also permits the parties to continue utilizing the
dysfunctional communication style that permitted the conflict to
be created and maintained without previous resolution. Creating an
environment of direct and truthful communication that permits
resolution is the goal of the mediator.
Each party can “assume” that everyone must have a position in the
conflict. If a conflict is quite intense, parties can become so
emotionally invested in their respective position that isolation
from communication with the opposite party can assume paranoid
degrees of distrust. The mediator by bringing the parties together
possibly is creating the setting, whereby the conflict is being
discussed directly between the parties involved for the first
time.
The mediator must not be naïve in terms of the appreciating the
potential demands created by bringing the parties together. Often
times, it can be these very demands that cause an inexperienced
individual attempting a mediation to speak with each party
separately. It truly is emotionally safer and less challenging,
but infinitely less effective. Interviewing the parties separately
also permits the belief to be created from the initial
intervention that somehow the mediator is going to “Solve” the
problem. The “Solution” comes from the disputants not from the
mediator.
By bringing the parties together from the onset of the
intervention a stage can be created that permits the conflicting
parties to begin actively practicing the behaviors that will
ultimately lead to resolution, as opposed to passively waiting for
the mediator to solve the problem. The mediator, by definition,
cannot solve the problem. Unless the “Solution” is generated and
agreed upon by both parties, whatever the mediator might have
suggested would only be rejected, sabotaged, and undermined by the
conflicting parties and not embraced as their own solution. It is
at this point a mediator must continue to appreciate it is not
their role to assume responsibility to solve the problem. It is
the responsibility of the conflicting parties to solve the
problem. The mediator is creating and structuring an environment
and facilitating the utilization of functional communication
skills that permit the parties to move past their dysfunctional
communication styles and work towards mutual solution. The
mediator cannot assume responsibility to solve the problem. The
mediator cannot solve the problem, regardless of their skill or
wisdom. Only the involved parties can generate a mutually agreed
upon solution, support it, and implement it.
With both parties together, the mediator must create a functional
problem solving setting. Failure to control the setting can create
a failed mediation from the outset.
The mediator must control the setting by advising the parties from
the outset what the “Ground Rules” are and what behavior is
expected during the mediation.
A mediator is wise to assume the authority role of an unbiased
party with interest in helping find the solution to the conflict
and no interest in declaring one party a winner over the other
party in the conflict. A mediator is wise to assume a somewhat
detached, formal authority status-based stature in the mediation
setting. It is not the mediator’s responsibility to appear
cordial, informal, warm or sociable. The somewhat emotionally
distant stature by the mediator facilitates the development of the
setting and maintaining the control needed to perform the
resolution intervention.
It is imperative for the mediator to advise both parties at the
outset what the rules are:
“I am going to ask each of you in turn to tell me your perspective
on this issue. I am going to speak with each of you beginning with
Party A and then I am going to speak with Party B. I will listen
to both parties and I am going to insist that while the other
party is speaking to me about their side of the issue that you not
interrupt or challenge what the other party is saying”
This “Ground Rule”, although easy to articulate, is an
ever-present challenge for the mediator to enforce during the
mediation process. Each party will in all likelihood continue to
practice the dysfunctional communication techniques that helped
create the conflict. The mediator can expect statements by one
party to be met with interrupted challenges to the accuracy,
intent and factual basis of the conflicting parties articulation
of their respective “Side of the story”. The mediator must be
prepared to immediately respond by regaining control of the
situation.
Control can be regained by restatement of the ground rules or by
the utilization of more subtle responses, such as ignoring the
statement of the interrupting party and continuing to interview
the appropriate party who is giving their respective “side”.
One example of a restatement of ground rules by the mediator can
be:
“I am listening to Party A right now I will listen to you when
they have finished”
The injection of structure is absolutely necessary to create a
resolution-generating environment. The conflicting parties have
the capacity to manipulate, distort, and undermine the mediation
process if the mediator fails to create and maintain structured
control of the setting. It is at this point the mediator must
fully appreciate the defined goal of providing the structured
situation. Many times disputing parties will challenge the format
and attempt almost rebelliously to not permit a rational
structured process to exist.
Each party in a dysfunctional conflict wants to be the “winner”
and see their opponent as the loser. It is the role of the
mediator to create a win-win situation by facilitating a mutually
agreed upon solution.
Something as simple as the room arrangement needs to be
considered. Some individuals attempting to create an intervention
may want the conflicting parties “face to face” to air their
differences. Typically this would not be an advisable strategy, as
much as the conflicting parties potentially can begin arguing “at”
each other, as opposed to, speaking “with” the mediator. It is
advisable for the mediator to arrange seating that takes proximity
and eye contact of the conflicting parties into consideration.
The parties in the mediation intervention are to speak to the
mediator not to each other.
This can be the most common loss of control by a mediator. The
parties fail to abide by the ground rules and the mediator lacks
assertiveness or skill to control the situation. Having the
mediator sit between the parties is often an advisable strategy
not across the table from each other. Obviously the setting also
would need to be private and free from intrusions.
The mediator must be ever vigilant to maintain the structure and
integrity of the ground rules and operating premises. A mediator
must be prepared for the more subtle manipulations or distractions
to the intervention. Ploys, such as parties involved in a
mediation asking questions of the mediator during the intervention
can put the mediation under the control of the conflicting party
by attempting to change the course of the process, as opposed to,
under the control of the mediator.
The mediator has no responsibility to abide by the expectations of
normal social conversation and to respond to questions politely.
The mediator can assert control and authority by either ignoring
questions directly or if needed by responding “I am asking you
what your thoughts about this are, my thoughts are not the issue
we are dealing with”. A rather direct detached professional
restructuring early on in an intervention can shape and maintain
the necessary setting for conflict resolution.
One of the first goals of the mediator is to understand
thoroughly, each disputant’s beliefs and perceptions concerning
the conflict situation. It is not the mediator’s role to determine
the accuracy of the beliefs. The mediator is not a fact-finder.
The mediator is the developer of a problem resolving setting with
the disputing parties generating the solution.
A thorough understanding of each parties’ beliefs does not signify
either agreement or disagreement with the beliefs by the mediator.
It is important for the mediator to remember in a great number of
conflicts the difficulties lie not in the facts of the situation,
but in the beliefs about the situation held and not directly
communicated by each party to the conflict. By creating a setting
that has each party hearing the conflicting party express their
individual beliefs about the conflict many times is an end in
itself.
The techniques of dysfunctional communication, such as, isolation
and avoidance many times have the disputing parties unaware of
what actually the other party believes. In creating a setting with
each party “hearing out” the other party “uninterrupted” can at
times greatly facilitate a resolution in itself. It may actually
be the first time one party has heard what the other party
believes and can rapidly lead to communicating where the
conflicting parties “got at odds” over misunderstanding of simple
behaviors.
Dysfunctional communication techniques lead to projection of
intent onto the other party without any feedback loop for reality
checks or “checking it out directly”. The results of such a
communication style are often distrust, anger, projection of blame
onto the other party, and intense isolation from any functional
problem solving techniques.
It is of paramount importance for the mediator to understand in
detail each party’s position on the issue. It is best that each
party be interviewed one at a time until the complete story is
given before moving on to the second party. Moving point by point
between parties at this time does not permit the mediator to
either maintain control or gain a full understanding of what the
are central issues involved. Parties, in turn, can begin by
“putting on the table” superficial or superfluous” issues to test
the waters and see what happens before they “risk” saying how they
really feel about an issue. These tests by the conflicting parties
can be to determine if the mediator is going to take sides on the
issues or is going to be injecting what the mediator thinks is
“fair” and imposing that on the parties. Each party is given a
structured and facilitated opportunity to express completely
“their side of the story”.
It is the skill of the mediator that creates the setting, whereby
emotionally charged mistrust is transformed into articulated
perceptions by each party in behavioral terms. Behavioral terms
means describing “what” the other party is doing specifically not
describing how the party “feels” about their disputant’s actions.
As the mediator develops the setting for each party to discuss
their perceptions of the issues, careful attention continues to be
needed to prevent loss of structure and control. The mediator must
assist each party in being able to express their thoughts,
feelings, and beliefs in behavioral terms. This can be one of the
biggest challenges to the mediator who is working with party’s
many times who are only reacting to their own emotional feelings
about the situation and have long since abandoned any effort at
attempting to articulate their thoughts clearly and as objectively
as possible.
It continues to be of paramount importance that the mediator
focuses the conversations to him/her and not let the dialog
deteriorate to eyeball-to-eyeball exchanges of accusations between
disputants directly.
The facilitator must generate non-leading open ended questions
that facilitate the speaking party in defining “what and how” is
going on in the conflict situation from their perspective. The
mediator is wise to steer clear of the “why” of events taking
place. “Why” leads to projection of emotions, values, and
judgments into the situation with each disputing party attempting
to vilify their adversary and put themselves forth as the
reasonable “victim”. Using “What-How-When-Where” as prompts forces
each party to articulate behavior and not respond with emotional
tirades and accusations.
It is important that the mediator not permit the parties to
discuss events from the long-term past, but to keep the parties
focused on the “here and now”. Many times conflicting parties will
attempt to “muddy the waters” by forcing numerous potentially
irrelevant issues into the mediation process. The facilitator
needs to deal with one major issue at a time. The mediator,
however, must not decide prematurely what the major issue is, but
permit the parties involved to define the problem from their
perspective. It is at this point many times mental health
professionals performing mediation confuse mediation with
psychotherapy by interjecting their interpretation of what is
transpiring between the parties. Whether the interpretation is
accurate or not, is basically irrelevant to mediation. All that
counts is that each party is given the structured and facilitated
opportunity to express completely their story. It is only
important what the disputants say and hear from each other in a
mediation because they are the parties that will generate the
mutually agreed upon solution to the issue.
One of the biggest challenges for the mediator is assisting each
party with expressing emotionally laden thoughts into behavioral
terms. “He just does it to make me mad” would need to be responded
to by the mediator with the prompting question “What is he/she
doing that you believe he is doing to make you mad?” The question
forces the speaker away from their own interpretations of the
opposing parties intentions and forces them to speak in terms of
objective clearly defined behaviors, “What is the other Party
doing”?
People often times can not agree with “why” someone is doing
something, but they normally can agree with “What” they are doing.
The facilitator must accept each party’s perceptions
nonjudgmentally. The mediator is not a judge or problem solver,
but rather a facilitator of a structured process. If a given
parties version of the events in question is inaccurate the
mediator can rest assured that the disputing party will point out
their beliefs about the inaccuracy when they are permitted to
articulate their own statement of the events.
By utilizing active listening skills and reflection techniques the
mediator has each party in turn, clearly and in behavioral terms,
complete their respective version of the events. This process has
the mediator utilizing communication skills, such as, reflection
of content, summarization of events, and reflection of emotion.
The mediator can put the summarization to test by reviewing what
the respective disputants believe about the conflict. One example
of this might be:
“John, am I correct that you are angry at Joe because you believe
he intentionally leaves the equipment dirty after he uses it?”
The mediator should reflect back each major point of the
disputants “side of the story” before moving onto the next party.
The mediator can test that each party has finished expressing
their version of the situation when they respond to the question
“Is their anything else you would like to add? in a negative mode.
A “No” response by each party in turn lets the mediator know that
each side in the conflict has had the opportunity to fully
articulate their thoughts to the point of completion. The mediator
would at this point reflect the summary content back to each party
to assure individual agreement.
Once each party has agreed with the mediator’s summary of their
respective problems in behavioral terms, the facilitation of the
mutually agreed upon solution begins. It is important that the
mediator not play problem solver and make suggestions. The
mediator must elicit remedies point by point from the disputants.
At this juncture the mediator begins moving between parties after
each specific point of the problem is addressed. This is unlike
the initial information-gathering phase where the mediator remains
with one party through to completion of their respective statement
of the issue.
The resolution is reached point by point in specific terms.
Generalized statements of agreement by each party such as, “we’ll
get along from now on” are not mutually agreed solutions but
rather generalized “feel good” platitudes often times utilized as
a means of avoiding the more behaviorally specific problem
solution.
The basic question the mediator utilizes at this phase is:
“What do you suggest to remedy this issue?”
If either party reverts to accusations or projection of emotion
onto the other party the facilitator brings the person back to
behavioral terms and focuses on the solution. At this point the
problem has already been defined and the parties are being asked
to put forth solutions to remedy the specific aspects of the
situation. “What do you suggest”, can be repeated after each
negative response by either party. It forces the individuals into
the solution phase and away from remaining in the dysfunctional
non-productive re-articulation of projection of blame onto the
other party for the problem.
The mediator must remain neutral and not project their own
solutions or feelings into the situation. If the mutually agreed
upon solution appears one-sided to the mediator, it is of no
importance. It is not the mediator’s perceptions that count, but
rather the perceptions of the conflicting parties. If a mutually
agreed upon solution of behavioral changes is arrived at by the
disputing parties, the mediator has completed his/her major work.
Once the “solution “ has been arrived at by each party, the
mediator would need to get each side to “sign off” on the specific
behavioral changes they have agreed to perform. “Signing off” can
be taken quite literally. Many situations benefit by the mediator
putting in writing the specific agreed upon behaviors that
constitute the solution. Having each party read their agreed upon
behavioral changes and sign the agreement reinforces the idea of
contractual commitment to the behavioral change.
For some parties involved in a dysfunctional conflict the
structured communication process of competent mediation is a new
experience. In order to see that the solutions are actually being
put into use, it is important that the mediator follow-up with the
disputing parties after a reasonable period of time has past. This
is to determine if each party is in fact producing the behavioral
change they agreed upon. This follow-up session not only
determines if the agreed upon changes are taking place and reviews
the accountability of each party, but also reinforces the concept
of functional problem solving.
The mediator must remember that problem solving is a skill and
that many of the parties involved in protracted disputes or
dysfunctional conflict lack the necessary skills for functional
problem solving. If the mediator has been successful in providing
the structured setting and process to reach resolution by the
parties involved, an important training and skills development
process has also taken place. Both parties in the conflict have
learned how to approach the other involved individuals directly
and to communicate, in behavioral terms, thoughts, expectations,
and perceptions about an event while at the same time,
respectfully permitting the other parties involved the same
privilege. Workforces that communicate and problem solve with
these traits rarely find themselves unable to move past a conflict
situation. Conflict begins to signify the potential for growth not
the need to create angry fragmented groups of coworkers.
