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It’s not always about the money
Mediation is usually regarded as an alternative to litigation — it is part of a raft of interventions referred to as alternative dispute resolution which includes mediation, conciliation and arbitration.
A mediator is often brought in when two parties have been to their lawyers, letters have been exchanged and, sometimes, court proceedings have commenced. In these cases, it often is about the money; but as I have written before, mediation allows the protagonists to take control of their dispute and have meaningful input towards a mutually acceptable outcome.
Disputes are always about relationships — it may be the breakdown of a relationship that led to the dispute or the dispute may be about how to improve the relationship. It may be a commercial relationship, one between employees, or members of a family trying to navigate their roles in family enterprises when dynamics change within the family.
I have been involved in a mediation of this last kind. The first session was with just the four adult siblings and the parents — no lawyers, no other family members. There were a myriad issues they wanted to talk about to do with the way things stood currently. I could have ‘mediated’ these issues in a standard way and we might have achieved something, or nothing. Instead, I asked them to put the current situation to one side and I had each of…
