Bringing people together to sort out a workplace dispute might mean dealing with them separately at first. He’s drawn together several techniques and developed a form of mediation known as party-directed mediation.
It differs from other mediation processes in that the mediator while present sits quite separately to the parties and has little input in the proceedings.
Instead, the parties rely on skills they’ve been helped with by the mediator meeting each party separately beforehand to hear their side of the issue and coach them in how best to communicate their concerns.
Billikopf said the pre-caucus meetings are an important place for the parties to vent separately rather than hammering it out in the mediation where it can be hard for each to get past the others’ tongue lashings.
In party-directed mediation the mediator sits a distance away from the parties involved.
The mediator listens empathetically, without interruption and needs to be a skilled communicator if they are to help each party develop their own skills so they in turn can communicate directly in a positive way.
By talking to the mediator separately, each party feels the support of the third party and through coaching might get to broaden their horizons over the issue.
The mediator might help the parties discover their blind spots and help them get to a point where they have a strong desire to resolve the conflict.
They should also help each party find some positives about the other.
The mediator decides when the parties should meet and then, rather than being an active participant in the conversation, is there only as a facilitator if called on or if the discussions get out of hand.
By sitting apart from them it sends a clear signal that the mediator is not an arbitrator but a facilitator.
Billikopf has written a book on party-directed mediation that’s free to download from the internet either as a whole or in part, chapter by chapter at http://nature.berkeley.edu/ucce50/aglabor/7conflict/
