The Expert Podcast

Great article in the Wall Street Journal today about conflicts and disagreements. A conflict or a disagreement could be everything from a full-blown heavy-duty lawsuit down to just two people arguing about where to go for dinner. The skills that humans have to deescalate disagreements, conflicts, or disputes have deteriorated rapidly. I'm sure you would agree with that, where people don't know how to resolve things. They stand their ground, and you see these two fists. We use this metaphor all the time: people fighting against each other.

Normally, a disagreement has about 90% of things already in common. There's 90% agreement on the facts, and only about 10% of the facts are really in dispute. Why then do disagreements escalate? Well, a lot of it has to do with pride, resentment, or wanting to be heard. That's where it's difficult to break through. How do you do it? Well, at the bottom of the article it says to actively listen and discuss how to move forward. That's all well and good when you're not blinded by rage, jealousy, or feeling like you've been disrespected. That's the biggest one: disrespected.

So, where mediation can come in is now you have a third party that's neutral, not taking sides. They can listen to both parties so that both people are heard. Both people get to tell their story. You ever hear that phrase "I want my day in court"? They don't want their day in court because they want to pay an attorney. They don't want their day in court because they have to take a day off from work. They don't want their day in court because they want to be in a musty courtroom. They want their day in court because they want somebody to hear their story. Does that sound like you? Do you want somebody to hear your story if you're in a dispute? Of course, you do. It seems like nobody's listening. The other side's not listening. Nobody believes you.

A mediator can solve that. A mediator can listen to your story and honestly take it all in and absorb it. They can listen to the other person's story without you having to go through the pain of hearing that other person's side again because you think it's wrong (and it probably is). Somebody else can do that. You're outsourcing the listening by having a mediator step in.

Then, what the mediator can do is, first of all, identify the 90% of the problem that's already solved that you may not be aware of or you're blinded to because of your resentment, anger, jealousy, or sometimes revenge. The other side is not identifying your needs because they're blinded in the same way or they're wrong. The mediator can then say, "Look, here's the 10% that's still out in the open," and come up with win-win, mutually beneficial strategies that solve all that without you having to feel like you gave in. You can save face. You don't have to be submissive to the process.

The good thing about mediation is it's completely voluntary. If you don't agree with the solutions offered, you can just walk away at any time. It's not like a court case where if you want your day in court, that's great, but at the end of that court case, whatever the judge says, you have to do it. You can't walk away from that. Mediation is your last chance to have your fate in your hands, so use it to your advantage. It doesn't even matter if it's a small disagreement. If your neighbor's fence is too high, get a mediator. It might cost a few hundred bucks. They can talk to both of you, work it out, hash it out.

The other thing a mediator can do is they can tell you the reality of, "Look, if this does go to a higher type of conflict like a court case, here's what's probably going to happen," because as a mediator, we've seen it before. We've seen how these cases go. It can drag out for months or years, cost tens of thousands of dollars. You're not going to feel any more satisfied with the result because even if you win, the other side's still not going to voluntarily agree with you. They're forced into the resolution. With mediation, both people volunteer to it, so you'll have a much more satisfying result.

If you continue the escalation, you'll also find a lot more anxiety while that dispute or conflict is ongoing. You're going to have sleepless nights. You're going to worry about it. It's going to eat you from within. They have that old saying that the person is living rent-free in your head. Don't let that happen. A third party can neutralize it. Guarantee it'll cost a lot less than an attorney, and the increased productivity and increased happiness that comes from it will be worth it too.

Look, you probably spent a few hundred dollars on something that gave you pleasure in the last couple of months. Maybe you went out to dinner, maybe you went on a vacation, maybe you bought some clothes. I guarantee you that mediation of any ongoing dispute will give you much more peace than any of those expenses that you incurred. So avail yourself of these resources. Mediators are out there wanting to help people. We love helping people, and we love to see the resolution that you may be blinded to because of the baggage that comes across in a conflict.

If nothing else, use it as an opportunity to vent, just vent your story. The first thing any good mediator is going to do is say, "Tell me your story," and they're going to sit back and they're going to be quiet. They're going to listen to you. They may ask some questions to draw it out of you, but they're not going to talk over you. They're going to want you to tell all the details of your story, good, bad, or otherwise, so that it gets it all out in the open, and you can be free to discuss it where sometimes other people may not want to hear it anymore.