Negotiation and Mediation are two techniques with many similarities. In both techniques, clear communication, listening, and empathy are essential for achieving the desired outcome. These techniques are used in dispute resolution, negotiations at work, and in everyday life.
There are principles of negotiation and mediation skills that one needs to understand to implement these techniques for successful dispute resolution. These principles include:
A Mediator Needs to Meet the Disputants Where They Are
When a mediator meets the individual involved in the dispute where they are, it becomes easier for them to have better subjective perceptions of the facts behind the dispute, understand biases of any sort and get a deeper insight into the dispute and its underlying cause. It further allows both the mediator and person involved in the dispute to rethink the conflict with more openness. The mediator helps build trust with each of the parties.
Using Dispute Resolution Techniques in Everyday Life
Life is full of opportunities where you can employ mediation and negotiation skills. Using these skills in everyday life helps in addressing peace-making as part of our daily lives. Common relationship decisions like partners making household decisions, parents making peace with young children or teenagers, and friends deciding on a movie or classic examples. Using these skills of dispute resolution in a regular manner in everyday life can help in mitigating the discomfort of conflict. Building relationships, listening actively, and educating judiciously leads to building bridges and negotiating closure. Helping the parties to explore their underlying emotions, and exploring fairness leading to more rational behavior allows the parties to explore the deeper issues involved in the dispute while enabling them to listen to the perceptions of the other side. All this helps in generating creative suggestions for potential dispute resolutions.
Making them Comfortable
Making the disputant parties comfortable is another important principle of mediation and negotiation skills. When time is properly applied, communication is carried out clearly and it allows people to understand and address the situation properly. The emphasis is on building authentic connecting relationships and listening with paraphrasing, summarizing, and empathizing. Connecting and listening should be given special attention to minimize triggers that can activate the reactions of the people involved in the dispute. Usually, mediators and negotiators practice these skills to make the dispute resolution process more comfortable for the disputants. In general, our world offers daily opportunities for its practice which we can learn and implement whenever required.
Conclusion:
To help you please reach out to Michael Gregory Consulting LLC for successful and effective dispute resolution. To know more visit https://mikegreg.com/mediation-and-conflict-resolution.