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Avoiding being a knight in mediation

A basic principle of mediation is that the mediator does not provide solutions. A mediator is not there to solve clients’ problems, but to help clients solve the problem themselves. For people who are in a conflict, they will often hope or expect a mediator to come along and ‘fix things’ for them. After all, if the mediator has experience of dealing with conflicts, then surely they must have lots of ideas on how to sort a conflict? Getting this message across to clients is a key part of a mediator’s job in explaining their role.

On our accredited Mediation Skills course, we explain that it is important not to offer solutions. We explain this is because the people who best know the problem, and as a result best know which solutions might work, are those who are living and breathing the conflict, not you as the mediator. Despite the temptation to arrive like some knight in shining armour armed with a full set of ‘fixes’, the solution offered may not be the best one. When you add to this the chance of ‘buy-in’ from both parties reduces if the solution is external to themselves, these are two good reasons why mediators will not normally offer solutions. In simple terms, mediators do not offer solutions for two reasons:

• Those who are within the conflict know which solutions are most practical and likely to work
• For those who are in the conflict and experience the mediation process, they invest themselves in it and build a commitment to making the solution work, long after the meeting is over.

There is, however, something more fundamental behind this approach. When two clients are in a conflict, it can be confusing and challenging for them. A mediator can help them gain a deeper understanding of what underlines their conflict, and help them think creatively about potential solutions. By doing this, a mediator is helping them learn not just how to find a way forward with that particular conflict, but how to learn a new approach to conflicts. A mediator will help them think about solutions and not dwell solely on grievance or emotions and through this approach a way forward can be slowly built.

At some point during our course, I use the word ‘empowering’ to describe the process of clients beginning to build an agreed way forward. This is an over-used word - one that is trotted out in all sorts of well-meaning circumstances by professionals across many sectors. It is used in situations where the person who accesses the service is allowed to provide some input, however limited, but the worker remains in control and has the majority of the power. In this way it is a phrase more honoured in the breach than the observance [1].

In a mediation meeting, it is meant sincerely. The power within the room, the control of where a mediation meeting goes, sits squarely on the shoulders of the clients. The mediator is there to support, to keep things safe, to agree boundaries so that things can be discussed openly and calmly, but not to control or retain power. And this is something that is both novel and at times unsettling for those learning mediation.

[1] Apologies to Mr Shakespeare.