27/7/2022 Climbing Stairs in MediationIf life is like a box of chocolates, then ‘challenge’ can be like climbing huge, giant stairs, where the vertical part, the riser, reaches up above you. Like the Borrowers in a normal size house. I’ve used the ‘stairs’ analogy with newer members of the team, those who are on a steep learning curve, for whom each new project delivers the same high level of challenge as the last one. The next stair is always the exact same level of challenge as the last one, and just as daunting as every other one. That can be so disheartening. But once in a while, if you stop and look back down the stairs, then you’ll realise how far you've come. You see the journey you’ve taken. You see the bigger picture.
I also find myself using it as a way of describing to parties in mediation that they have actually come a long way. When they arrived at the mediation they disliked, even hated, their opponent, didn’t trust them and didn’t know where any possible settlement could come from. During the day we’ve started moving away from pure ‘positions’, we’ve identified their interests, we’ve started to work out ways that a settlement could serve those interests, we’ve applied blinkers so they think about themselves rather than everything being relative to the other party, and there have been offers given and received. Yes the next step, the one where they have to think about how to narrow the gap, what they might need to give up to get the settlement, feels as painful and difficult as the first step they took, but in fact they are already different people, with a different perspective on the dispute, and they are far nearer to resolving it. They just can’t see it yet. Comments are closed.
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AuthorRichard Marshall is an Accredited Civil and Commercial Mediator with over 25 years experience as a Litigation Solicitor, as well as being a qualified Solicitor-Advocate. He is the founder of Striving to Settle, through which he works as a mediator and provides negotiation training. www.strivingtosettle.co.uk Archives
August 2022
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