Mediation for Managers

Resolving Conflict and Rebuilding Relationships at Work

John Crawley, Katherine Graham

• Publisher: Nicholas Brealey International
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781857883152
• eBook ISBN: 9781857884876
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Conflict Resolution

In recent years mediation has become an increasingly popular approach and powerful technique and has been used successfully in such areas as commercial disputes and customer complaints-handling. Here, for the first time, is an accessible and practical book on mediation at work and in the workplace itself. Packed with real-life examples and cases, it focuses on mediation's positive way of looking at conflict, how it injects a new dimension into people's "conflict zone", and outlines the qualities needed to be a mediating manager. Mediating managers become beacons of positive energy perceived as people capable of holding things together when others are "losing it". They are able to do this because they are enablers, not judge and jury, catalysts not fixers, encouragers not enforcers. Mapping out the overall steps of the mediation process, what mediating managers' core tasks are at each stage, the opportunities offered to those involved, and illustrating different key moments of effectively resolved workplace disputes, the book demonstrates how transferable mediation skills are and how they can be used in a wide range of workplace settings.

Part 1
Understanding Mediation

1
The Potential of Mediation

Two managers had suffered a longstanding “personality clash” that had simmered below every meeting, affected their performance and caused poor communication between their respective teams. Most people avoided being with the two of them.

One day Bob was in the accounts department arguing over an invoice, when Jill walked in to argue over the same invoice. The accounts team froze at their terminals; this, surely, would be show time. Bob and Jill turned to face each other and squared up. Jill took a deep breath … and in walked the accounts manager.

“Jill, Bob, you both look like you have a lot to say.”

“Well, I certainly do, anyway,” replied Jill.

“You could put it like that,” added Bob.

“OK,” the accounts manager continued, “so would it be helpful if we spent a few minutes each listening to how the other person sees the situation?”

The accounts team sighed with relief. It looked like someone, finally, was going to help Bob and Jill talk through their differences without it turning into the usual drama.

The above is one of many examples of an interpersonal dispute in the workplace in which mediation can help.

DEFINING MEDIATION

Mediation is a process by which an impartial third party assists people in a dispute to explore and understand their differences and, if possible, to settle them. The parties, not the mediator, dictate the terms of any agreement.

For the last 10 years or so mediation has been seen as the preserve of the “professional mediator”—the fully trained expert called in when a crisis is reached; the lawyer who is trying a less adversarial approach; the quasi-counselor who works with people when they reach desperation point. However, external mediators are often brought in too late, by necessity rather than choice. They are parachuted in and depart, often with a dispute resolved but leaving no new skills behind them. Some organizations have even been accused of avoiding their responsibility for dealing with conflict by bringing in an external mediator.¹

We believe that all managers need mediation skills. Managers who learn how to mediate will be able to manage different demands, personalities, and behaviors, while setting a positive example. When conflicts do occur they will be able to intervene early, prevent disputes in their own team from escalating, resolve them comprehensively, and repair broken relationships. Teams and colleagues will emerge with a greater understanding of one another, with some tips about how to disagree constructively and a different, more realistic level of trust and rapport.

People who have this approach to conflict are hugely valuable to colleagues on a personal and professional level. It also makes sound business sense. Many organizations around the world have already trained managers and in some cases teams of “peer mediators” to offer a service to people at all levels in their working community.

MEDIATION AND OTHER TYPES OF DISPUTE RESOLUTION

Mediation is often confused with arbitration and people are often not clear what its key characteristics are. Table 1 explains how mediation works and Table 2 clarifies the differences between the various types of dispute resolution.

Table 1 Explaining mediation

Table 2 Mediation and other types of dispute resolution

Taking the grief out of grievance

All the organizations we work with tell us that staff grievances and complaints are steadily increasing and that managers are finding it difficult to cope. Most procedures for responding to conflict—such as grievance, disciplinary, anti-bullying, customer complaint and harassment procedures—involve a combination of formal and informal approaches, with managers heavily involved in both. The informal measures usually suffer from being ill-defined and inconsistently delivered.

Organizations, like managers, need a practical, fast, humane way of processing all this disagreement and distress. Mediation skills, and the use of mediation in a more formal sense, will enhance managers’ capacity to defuse and handle grievances as they arise.

THE BENEFITS OF MEDIATING MANAGERS

Not all managers will make good mediators, but the mediation approach will make all managers better. Mentoring, counseling and coaching skills can significantly help individuals to manage difficult situations more effectively. The particular benefit of mediation is that it takes a collective approach rather than an individualistic one. It starts from the premise that everyone involved in a conflict needs to participate in its definition and resolution.

CHECKLIST THE BENEFITS OF MEDIATION IN THE WORKPLACE

1 Cutting the cost of conflict—the stress, illness, and staff loss caused by conflict often affect the bottom line. Managers who take a mediation role will reduce stress, get people back at work, and keep people collaborating, whether they like one another or not.

2 Diverting conflicts away from costly adversarial procedures—where mediation is available, more people choose not to go down a formal route involving investigation and adjudication when they have a grievance against a colleague.

3 Getting working relationships back on line—using mediation skills you can produce effective practical solutions to complex issues, build understanding and rapport, and refocus people on their core tasks.

4 Enhancing communication—resolving conflict through mediation helps people understand one another, what is required of them, and why things may have gone wrong in the past.

5 Stimulating healthy change and avoiding stagnation—conflicts are often caused by different responses to change. Some people wish to hold on to the past, others like to walk all over the past and present and race into the future. Mediation helps people express their fears and concerns and focus on what they have in common. It can reduce the terror of the new by encouraging open communication and feedback. If people feel safe enough to talk and express a view, as well as to hear how and why change is happening, they will be less vulnerable to the effects of change and more able to cope with it.

6 Fostering dignity at work—issues of equality of opportunity often cause a tremendous amount of bad feeling and are difficult to handle. Mediation-style interventions have been used effectively in this area to depersonalize the conflicts, to establish what has been happening and what people want to change. Mediation focuses on the specific behavior associated with prejudice, discrimination, and oppression, and creates a safe environment in which people are able to talk these issues through.

7 Improving understanding of how to prevent costly conflict—whereas many conflicts previously took on a personal aspect, the process of resolution by mediation also looks at underlying causes, such as organizational difficulties, blurred role definition, or inadequate working practices.

8 Enhancing people’s handling of their own disputes—contact with less adversarial methods of dispute processing will help individuals to change the way they deal with disputes. People who sample the mediation approach are given a different model to work with. They also rehearse the skills needed to resolve conflict effectively with the mediator, at each stage of the process. People have to listen to get something out of mediation and once you are into the listening habit, there is little reason to close your ears.

INTERACTIVE MEDIATION

There are a number of approaches to mediation and some different interpretations of the mediator’s role. Mediators differ in three main areas and it is useful to discuss these briefly so that our own approach—which we call interactive mediation, explained in more detail below—is clear and put in context.

Who develops options and forms decisions?

Problem-solving mediators tend to be active in suggesting and evaluating options. The reasoning behind this is that mediators are generally experienced in dispute settlement, they can think outside the parties’ limits and bring their own experience and knowledge to bear. Our fear is that this method leaves the door open for mediator power plays, such as premature closing on issues that become difficult, and a lack of ownership from the parties. Within the workplace it also affirms parties’ feelings of powerlessness and dependency on “expert” help.

Interactive mediators fully involve the parties in generating, evaluating, and closing on the issues. This may involve more work, but it leads to improved self-image, as people are brought forward at their own pace, and greater ownership of solutions that are agreed, as they have been reached voluntarily by the parties themselves.

Are mediators there to solve problems or resolve conflict?

Interactive mediation is a way of working that allows problem solving to happen, but even if no tangible movement on practical issues is achieved, the parties are often able to move on in other ways—in their mutual understanding, approach to future communication, or the way they accept inevitably difficult outcomes. These latter benefits are more important than practical solutions, and often more significant in terms of future relationships, than the quick fix or imposed solutions that a purely problem-solving approach can achieve.

What degree of formality is appropriate?

When you ask mediators about dress codes, styles of address, and the set-up of rooms for mediation, you touch on a whole range of values associated with people’s perception of formality, accessibility, safety, and consistency. Some mediators present themselves and the process as a “cosy chat,” others see mediation as more akin to business consultancy.

We believe that mediators n...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Part I: Understanding Mediation
• Part II: Mediation in Action
• Part III: Day-To-Day Mediation Skills
• Appendix: Materials for a Workplace Mediation Service