When people ask me if there are conflicts that just can’t be resolved, they are usually thinking about such disagreements through the lens of good vs. evil, right vs. wrong and moral vs. immoral.

What we hold values about, though, do vary in their importance to us. For example, religious values are held to be more important than beliefs about day-to-day interactions, such as expectations for being on time for meetings.

Conflicts over these more important values can generate more extreme language including:

• The use of words that express strong feelings and judgments.

• Predictions of dire consequences if a change or solution is pursued.

• Use of sources, which one party believes are unquestionable to try to convince the other.

• Negative characterization about the views, values or capabilities of the opposing parties.

Some approaches that have been successfully employed to deal with these conflicts are:

• Address peripheral conflicts first. It is possible that reaching some accommodation on peripheral issues help to lower tensions and hostilities and lay a foundation for future attempts at dealing with the value-based conflict.

• Work to change the relationship between the parties from one of head-to-head adversaries by limiting their interactions with one another and creating forums where positive interactions are more likely to occur. For example, rather than permit adversaries to debate one another, have them co-present their positions to a neutral party, such as community forums or educational settings. Not permitted to engage in argument and being forced to hear each other’s positions has the potential to begin to change the parties’ relationship.

• Work to identify superordinate values. Just as superordinate goals require competing groups to cooperation, it is possible that in value conflict there may be superordinate values, that is, values the competing groups may share and that bridge their differences.

• Finally, recognize and accept that all things have a time. Value based organizational conflicts, which may not be resolved at the present, might be seen differently in the future as conditions change.

Cultures do vary as to their acceptance that such conflicts must be immediately resolved and recognize that conflict is a process that evolves over time.

I’ve been asked how to help people get into a constructive mindset for mediation.

I can’t tell you how many participants go into a mediation session with the sole intent of telling the other party exactly what they think of them. Some even rehearse the abusive and venomous language they plan to use in order to blame and hurt the other party. Let me make it simple and clear: No meditator will allow either of the parties to inflect harm with abusive language. That won’t happen. The mediator will either call for a recess or terminate the mediation altogether.

I tell people learning mediation to imagine asking each disputant in private who they think is in the “right” and who is “wrong.” Of course, you can imagine that both disputants are firmly convinced they are the ones in the “right”

People who do Small Claims Court mediation will tell you that there are some people who refuse the option because they absolutely are certain that when they present their side to the judge, they will of course agree with them and they will prevail. And these people are absolutely, totally convinced they are correct about this. Small Claims Court mediators will also tell you that those same people are usually shocked to discover that their judge is more likely to see both sides of the dispute. And they usually leave the court quite disappointed that the judge couldn’t see what they considered to be the obvious point of view.

Coming into a mediation the parties must accept the fact that their adversary has reason to believe they are also “right.” The mediator is not there to decide who is “right” and who is “wrong.” Nor are the parties in mediation there to persuade their adversary that they are “wrong.” Who is right and who is wrong doesn’t really matter in mediation because, in one sense, they are both right. Going into mediation with the mindset that an openness to understanding your adversary’s position will ensure a much smoother and realistic outcome for all.