Mediation Techniques to Resolve Conflict
Mediation
Mediation is a method in which the parties talk with a trained, unbiased third party(s) about their conflicts and help them resolve them. It can be an informal gathering or a planned settlement conference between the parties. Either a legal proceeding or a disagreement that can be brought in court may be pending. Mediation cases include business transactions, personal injury, construction, compensation for workers, labor or community, divorce, domestic relations, employment. Or any other subject that does not involve elaborate proceedings or evidence.
Take these scenarios into consideration: The turf war has engulfed two young sales agents.
The HR Director will not approve of the extra week of paid maternity vacation you promised her. Your administrative assistant is furious.
You have failed as a leader to handle such employee issues. But how you can respond, mainly when you are interested in the problem. Intervention by third parties can sometimes worsen things. In recent years, managers in the form of employee mediation approaches to resolve and manage conflicts at work have started to embrace the abilities demonstrated by professional mediators and arbitrators.
Stay calm
“Nothing offers one such much advantage over another, that under all circumstances, one always remains cool and unbuffed.” It is an escalation that leads to conflict. It’s their rage that begins to escalate. Most of us stop hearing how angry we are. On the contrary, we begin to listen to argue against it. To perform these techniques, it is vital to be calm. It helps you see the big picture to remain calm. Most disputes will settle if you think about it. So it is beneficial to stop the conflict when there is inevitable disagreement. And assume that it is likely to resolve finally. Therefore, why not start to solve problems now?
In our busy lives, it’s a fact that we’re all a little bit more stressed than we want to be. With rush hour traffic, cell phones, PDAs, overfilled e-mail boxes, too many clients, and insufficient assistance. One of the most valuable things you can do when a quarrel starts is to ask yourself, “What could I get into an argument?” We usually see someone else and think that perhaps they were in a quarrel at home or under enormous pressure. But usually, we are not self-conscious enough to wonder what we could do. Our boiling point must be checked before reciprocal embarrassment.
Listen to understand.
Now take a look at an argument you were involved in recently. Perhaps it was with a collaborator, client, or family member to leave the house this morning. When you revisit the encounter, ask yourself how much you heard. I bet that every hearing was solely done to argue to prove your point. The first thing we do is stop listening when most of us enter into conflict. Only by being diligent to listen to what others say can a conflict solve or any problem-solving. You might be surprised by reason, or indeed their point is valid.
They can begin by reducing and personalizing the product by stating that the people who supplied the goods are incompetent. But I do not think that this is more than their fury. What they want is to fix their product, not to insult us personally.
Importance of listening
It is a secondary emotion that psychologists teach us, and that anger is often used to conceal hurt or fear as a defensive mechanism. If anybody is upset, there is usually some harm or concern about them or maybe not knowing they are so angry. It would help if you listened to them to spread people’s anger. Just hear them out. Hear them out. Let them go till the gas runs out. Let them settle down until they relax down as long as they can. After that, you will see a person starting to slow down and begin to feel safe enough to finally say that it was so frustrating that the salesperson never returned any phone calls, and the customer service person continued elsewhere to take the blame and not to take responsibility and apologize for the product to be unacceptable.
The best thing you can do to get individuals to show some vulnerability and trust them for some of the fundamental reasons they’re upset is to participate in ‘Active Listening.’
Listening actively involves providing you with active physical and verbal signs and understanding what you are saying. The speaker can feel as though his narrative was welcome by you, and whether it is simple things like “Ohhhhhh” or “OK, go on,” they want to go on. People hear the dead quiet of your complaints and ideas on the phone and cannot discern your reaction to them. Because we all dread the worst at times, people tend to shut down and cease feeling secure to keep speaking their experience.
Positive emphasis.
It is necessary to find or develop some commonality between you and the other individual. It is beneficial and kind to say, “Oh boy, I know what’s going to happen to you. I had just lately a similar circumstance. Let me look at what I can accomplish.” The situation can be normalized. Someone is told they are not the only person to have experienced this, and they are normal. That immediately soothes people.
Tactfully state your case.
The objective here is to help people understand your views without defending them. They will be able to hear more, to the extent that they can disarm them. A few ideas are for your own – excuse what you or your team did wrong and get yourself done in the first place. This allows you to hear the next thing you have to say. Try also not to say that differences are factual. Allow the doubt a slight advantage. Any opportunity for doubt should be recognized by recognizing. Instead of insisting on things arriving on the timetable, “My data shows that they come in time. I’m going to need to look into that more closely.”
While you may still be correct, you need more information to persuade them, and if you don’t have to excuse yourself for the mistakes. It is also helpful to state with your interests your position. Instead of saying that nothing is wrong with your product that is merely arguing and does not support your stance, it is best to offer something useful, for example, by sending somebody to inspect the product in person. The consumer can therefore show and define precisely why the product does not work as needed. The bottom line of what you are ready to do is your position. The grounds underlying this decision are your interests.
For example, you may not be able to take back any merchandise or cancel the contract. However, your objective may be to link your bonus to your returns directly and to have every motivation in the world to address the problem in another way. You can also give what some of these things are so that you do not merely remove or refuse something from them but instead offer constructive solutions.
Rewards.
As a leadership, you have access to resources to enhance the behavior of disputants. Suppose you were so pleased by the results of your marketing vice president that despite the budgetary limitations that your financial vice president wishes to implement, you agree to finance the research endeavor. As CEO, without exception to the regulation, you can use special funding for the project. But expect some in your organization to regard such specific arrangements and incentives as a sign of weakness or a damaging precedent.
Coercion.
He says that leaders can both punish and reward. If you are tired of the continual battle between your salespeople and their customers, you may threaten to take away crucial accounts from both of them if they cannot work out a solution. But take care not to be too heavy with persuasion to prevent a more profound and closer dispute from happening.
Expertise.
Subordinates often bring the conflict to their supervisors because they want specialized skills to deal with a situation. Your management smarts would persuade your financial vice versa to embrace the new project of the marketing vice versa. Lawyers, doctors, and other experts provide conflicts in their workplaces with specific knowledge and skills. However, Salacuse advises that if disputants see your expertise as nothing more than theirs, they can reject your recommendations.
Legitimacy.
The legitimacy of a leader changes according to the nature of the organization and the issue. In a top-down company, employees are more inclined than a less hierarchical company to accept instructions from a person with power. If your HR director has a lot of autonomy, he may oppose if you push your helper to take maternity leave for another week.
Relationships.
The degree to which you can influence a disputant also depends on the nature and strength of your relationship with that person. Suppose you decide that you erred in offering your assistant a more extended maternity leave than other employees. You should have a better chance of persuading her to accept this view if she has worked closely with you for ten years than if she only joined the organization a year ago. The desire to preserve the relationship can be sufficient motivation for a disputant to follow your advice.
Coalitions and networks.
Sometimes outside help is required to resolve a dispute effectively. By building coalitions and capitalizing on existing social networks, you can gain support for your proposal, Salacuse writes. For instance, if you are relatively new to your organization, you might ask a senior partner who has worked closely with at least one of the two warring sales reps to help you resolve the conflict.