LEARNING TO BE A MEDIATOR

This month I’m conducting yet another class for people desiring to be volunteer mediators. I have described the objectives the people in the class had for studying mediation. Now, I’d like to describe what people found most difficult to master.

First, I should describe the style of mediation they are learning. There are three major styles: Evaluative, Transformative, and Facilitative.

Evaluative mediators often have legal backgrounds and most often conduct separate meetings with the disputants rather than having face-to-face meetings. Evaluative mediation, then, resembles settlement conferences held by judges. The mediator guides the parties in reaching a resolution by identifying weaknesses in their positions and predicting what a judge might likely do if the case went to court.

Transformative mediation presents the opportunity for participants to transform their relationship. In transformative mediation the participants structure both the process and the outcome of the mediation. The mediator follows their lead. Transformative became widely used when the U.S. Postal Service adopted it for handling internal labor disputes.

Facilitative mediation gained popularity in community mediation centers in the 1960s and 1970s. In this style, the mediator structures the process through which the parties can reach a mutually agreeable solution. The facilitative mediator does not make recommendations, does not give advice nor predict how the dispute might be dealt with in the courts. The facilitative mediator controls the process but the disputants are in charge of their own outcome. To accomplish this, the facilitative mediator asks questions, summarizes and assists the parties to identify interests behind the positions parties take. Facilitative mediation remains most widely used in school peer mediation programs, community mediation programs, church-based mediation programs and volunteer mediation programs in Small Claims Courts. That is the style I help people master.

Most people have no difficulty understanding the importance of a comprehensive opening statement that both informs and motivates the disputants to participate. Most develop question skills and listening skills to help the disputants focus on the issues in their disagreements. Most develop the coaching skills to help participants in the caucus to better problem-solve and negotiate. And most easily learn how to help parties establish objectives, how to use deadlines and how to help participants under the consequences of not settling.

But there are two skills that generally prove more difficult for potential volunteers to learn:

--It may be a cultural preference, but most potential volunteers are too eager to facilitate a compromise solution when there may be opportunities to help the disputing parties work toward a win-win or collaborative solution. As I’ve written in the past, collaboration is more difficult, but it is usually possible.

--Most people who desire to become mediators have been successful problem solvers in their lives and careers. And when they sit with disputing parties as a mediator their first—and natural—reaction is to see just how the disputants’ problems can be easily solved. And when the disputants have difficulty reaching their own solution, the trainee’s frustration becomes overwhelming.  They just want to tell the parties how to solve their problems. The facilitative mediator doesn’t do that. The strength of facilitative mediation is just that the parties solve their own problems with their own solutions.

As the instructor I remain convinced that my students can learn to be effective facilitative mediators. And years of experience support that belief. It can be done!