Mediation Aims
The mediation process offers individuals engaged in a dispute, an
impartially guided opportunity to:
- Attempt to clearly define the issues of contention, as each
of the people perceive them to be, and consider the cause and effect
of
these on their working relationship
- Encourage an improved awareness of the needs and concerns of
each of the individuals between themselves
- Establish whether there is sufficient common ground and sufficient
desire between the individuals, to search for a workable compromise
that would enable the working relationship to improve through the
resolution of identified issues
- In the case of no agreement being reached on how to resolve
the contentious issues, then at least the parties might reflect upon
how
further damage to the relationship can be minimised in future.
Mediation Process Pre-requisites
In entering the mediation process, if there is going to be any reasonable
chance of improving the current situation, the following are some pre-requisites
that the parties need to carefully consider and be willing to accept.
Neither party to a dispute should enter the mediation process lightly …..
- There must be a willingness from each person to honestly consider
what they may be doing that is contributing to problems that are
perceived to exist in the working relationship, and be willing to
accept their
portion of responsibility for contributing to finding solutions
that are mutually acceptable.
- It is necessary that both parties acknowledge there will be
some degree of discomfort and unease in confronting and discussing
contentious
issues
- Each of the parties must have a desire to improve the situation
- There must be a genuine willingness to give consideration to
the other person’s view of the problems.
- There must be an acceptance of the confidentiality of discussions
during the day – that is, proceedings or comments from
the process should not be disclosed to work-mates outside of
the mediation process,
without the mutual consent of the actual participants.
- Finally, the parties need to accept a no-blame exit opportunity
for either of the individuals during the course of the process.
In other words, either of the parties can choose to withdraw
from the
process at any time. The obvious risk, and disincentive to
such a decision to withdraw, is that the issues causing the conflict
will
remain unresolved.
Only if the above pre-requisites are accepted by both people should
mediation actually proceed.
The role of the mediator is to offer no judgement on the issues, but
simply attempt to promote a clear and open exchange of views – attempting
to help each of the parties crystallise their feelings and concerns
and to perhaps consider things from a different perspective.
Additional to the above pre-requisites, the mediator will propose
some communication ground rules at the commencement of the conference
between the parties.
It is important for both parties to accept that the role of the mediator
in no way involves apportioning blame, but instead is about encouraging
improved and constructive dialogue between the parties, so as to
find a way to move the situation forward. |
