Outside Help for an Inside Problem: What can mediation do for you?
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Have you ever witnessed something that had you wondering if you should call for help? Someone on the ground, a car accident, a kid by themselves— these situations leave most of us wondering if everything is alright, if help is already coming, if we need to do anything, or if the situation will resolve itself.
Deciding to bring in an outside mediator is kind of like that. Except you don’t watch a split-second event occur; instead, it unfolds over weeks or months, drip by drip, seeping into the environment and culture, until it almost becomes normalized.
But just because something is normal does not mean it’s okay.
The boss who, day after day, chips away at an employee’s morale with abrasive, thoughtless comments. The clique on the team that is increasingly taking over meetings with their own agendas, gossip, and subversive complaints. Founding partners who are clearly going in separate directions in terms of their vision for the fast-growing company but no one wants to name the elephant in the room. Two execs who consistently rub each other the wrong way, disrupting every attempt the leadership team makes at making an important decision.
These are the kinds of situations I see that fester, grow and can seem to become something like a “regular day at the (virtual/hybrid) office”—but couldn’t be further from the truth.
So, when do you bring someone in to resolve a dispute or conflict?
Well, probably around the same time you find yourself asking this question.
What is mediation?
Negative workplace cultures can result in high, measurable costs to a company. Mediation is the tool that can help people come to the table, get clear on the issues, sort out their conflicts, and put the company back on track. Mediation is a process by which a trained conflict advisor facilitates communication and negotiation and promotes voluntary decision-making by the parties to a dispute.
Believe it or not, most people want to resolve conflicts. A simple example: The person you’re in that awkward situation with because you overheard them deride you last month is dreading sharing the elevator ride just as much as you are. But, by now the person told another person and you told someone else, and people started taking sides (and the stairs instead of the elevator) and it’s become a big, poisonous deal where work isn’t getting done and people are not happy.
The beauty and benefit of bringing in a mediator is that an independent facilitator brings fresh (trained) eyes to the situation. You want an outsider’s perspective, because they’re going to see things people close to the problem will have difficulty seeing. And it works! According to the American Arbitration Association, over 85% of all mediations result in a settlement.
How does our team work?
At Resologics, our process begins by holding interviews with all the key players to gather their knowledge and perspectives on the situation. We also test for trust every step of the way in these initial interviews, because “loss of trust” is a key indicator of how hard it will be to recover the relationships and resolve the conflict in a way that’s productive for everyone.
Every case is different, and sometimes it can be a delicate tightrope to walk. A mediator can walk into a conference room where there are more elephants than people. These frequently include past relationships, bad business decisions, blame, different communication styles, personality types, conflict avoidance, strategic needs—you get the idea.
Questions are asked, emotions are drawn out and expressed. There can be painful moments, as when a key founding member quits, taking his knowledge and passion with him. There can be screaming— what some mediation textbooks call “venting.” Different people have different needs when it comes to expressing themselves. I can promise: we’ve seen it all.
But there are also deeply personal moments. The breakthrough is almost audible when it happens— and everyone in the room knows when it happens. It’s one of the greatest satisfactions of the work! “Venting” is typically the final stage someone passes through before realizing the problem, and then the real work begins. People come to a shared reality, hope emerges, and we help them take the steps towards building a new future.
Aftermath
Unfortunately most people don’t call us when they start asking themselves, “So when do I bring someone in to resolve this dispute?” They wait until the papers and chairs are flying. Conflict has been brewing inside their group for years, and even with mediation it’s going to take time to course-correct. But our team is there every step of the way, working with teams to help them nurture that trust in each other, make hard and necessary choices, and build momentum toward their new story.
The team gets better not only at seeing the elephants, but at dealing with them before they ever make it into the room. This benefits the organization as a whole, and improves a company’s long-term prospects.
The ultimate goal in our work as mediators/conflict advisors is to teach teams how to embrace and use constructive conflict to their benefit, creating conflict competency which in almost every case eliminates the need for outside mediation again.
How is your organization dealing with conflict? Schedule a conversation with us here.
When we join a company, partnership or team, our expectation is that everyone involved will exhibit professional behavior toward us and each other. Instead, it’s highly possible that we may become one of the more than 60 million adults in the United States who are affected in some way by bullying behavior at work.
What kind of behaviors are we talking about? Our definition is any interpersonal behavior that causes emotional distress in others sufficient enough to impede their productivity or disrupt organizational functioning. It isn’t just a personality conflict — it’s a chronic pattern of disrespectful behavior.