Do you have time to listen?

I hope you are enjoying the Olympics and the better weather. Welcome to the first of my regular mediation updates where I tell you what I see is happening in the mediation world. I hope you find it useful. In the spirit of mediation, if you wish to unsubscribe please call me first so we can talk about it.

As we know, disputes happen in life  –  but do you have time to listen and help prevent them? Approximately 99.9% of the disputes that I am asked to mediate arise because people don’t listen to each other. Either they can’t or won’t listen and in my experience it’s often that people don’t know how to listen. Miscommunication is the driving factor in the disputes I mediate.??I find myself sitting between a number of experienced business people: grown adults with plenty of life experience and they’re behaving like spoiled children.

Why does this happen? Why does the emotion, ego, pride and principle often get in the way of common sense and business acumen? This is where mediation comes in as a sensible, cost and time effective form of dispute resolution. It helps minimise confrontation and encourages the participants to find a solution they can live with and move on. Better still it can often help preserve a relationship.

I’m working on an initiative with several professional bodies to introduce mediation as an early intervention for businesses. The aim is for the business to pledge to use mediation as a first port of call before resorting to litigation. For many companies, large and small this would mean a significant mind shift…….but will they listen? ….watch this space. I’d be interested to discuss this with you if you have any thoughts or experience in this area.??I’d also like to remind you about my free, interactive one hour CPD seminar which I conduct at your office. For more information or to request a free seminar, please email me using this link. Remember – most people don’t listen because they wish to understand: they listen, waiting for the opportunity to reply. ??That’s all for this update, enjoy the sunshine.

Roger