Last month, a chance encounter with the CEO of another organization in the hallway set off a chain of events that, three weeks later, found me sitting in a mediation session with two warring colleagues. I work for a charity in a building shared by other charities, surrounded by charitable people for whom alternative dispute resolution is an easy sell. The reasons for this, however, require an uncomfortable acknowledgment of a variety of stereotypes that I don’t feel secure enough to list. The colleagues in question, despite both self-identifying as reasonable people, could not quite reach a resolution on their core disagreement. My strategically placed grapes and custard creams could not de-escalate the palpable tension in the room, with anger and frustration fizzing almost visibly in the air. And yet, despite the thickly oppressive atmosphere blinding my optimism, many smaller, bite-sized agreements were made collaboratively, which, in the moment, gave me hope—and perhaps th...
Recently, during a training session for an online conflict management course, I noticed a promise that participants would learn how to confidently manage “single-issue conflicts.” While I’m sure the phrase made sense in the context of the training, I found myself reacting strongly against the idea that any conflict can truly be reduced to a single issue. It made me reflect on mediations that, at first glance, appeared quite simple, and I thought I’d share one of those with you today. *Names and key details have been changed to maintain confidentiality. This was a simple mediation, according to the paperwork, focusing on damage to the respondent’s home. The respondent had hired a maintenance company to fix the damage. The company finished in good time and the work was done to a satisfactory standard; however, payment did not come. When the owner of the company (the claimant) reached out to his client (the respondent) to encourage payment, he was told that his workers had damag...