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Home › Articles › Relationships › Mediate ... Me? (Yes, You)

Mediate ... Me? (Yes, You)

10 Ways to Help People Settle Their Differences

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3. When someone seems "locked up," dig for the emotion behind the stone face.
Krivis recently mediated a situation in which a famous television producer was on the verge of being sued for plagiarism. Essentially, the plaintiff claimed that the producer had "stolen" his idea for a successful situation comedy TV show. When anyone talked to him about his case, he gave short, robotic answers and showed no emotion. So Krivis asked the plaintiff, "What is it you really want to achieve here?"

"The plaintiff almost broke down," Krivis says. "He said, 'I never wanted to bring this case in the first place. I just want to break into television.' So I returned to the producer and said, 'Is there any way you can help this guy out?' And the producer said, 'Sure, let me talk to him.' So I got the plaintiff an audience with this extremely well respected producer, and the producer ended up offering him a development deal. By tapping into this person's repressed emotion, we were able to find a solution that made everyone happy."

4. When people are picking flyspecks out of pepper, come in with a reality check.
Often in a conflict, the various parties are so focused on minutiae that they lose sight of the big picture and all its implications. As the mediator, you need to bring people back to reality by wrenching their attention away from the grain of sand and having them focus on the whole beach. Doing so may help resolution arrive at a startling speed.

"I was mediating a case in which a security officer was raped by a superior," Krivis says. "Everyone was nitpicking the details, saying, 'Well, we don't know if we can believe the officer, so-and-so is biased, she's asking for too much money, etc.' I had to step in and say, 'Let me paint the picture the way the jury is going to see it: the horrific crime of rape, a woman in distress, a thriving six-figure career cut short, and so forth. Now you go ahead and tell your story about the sand granule. By then the jury will have made its decision and you're going to wish you had that moment back.' Once I gave them the reality check, they came to an agreement right away."


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