Mediation Agreements 6 months later
6 Months Later
In a recent panel discussion being filmed to promote and encourage voluntary mediation for viewing on our public television network my panelists opined that one of the characteristics of a mediation agreement should be that it is “lasting”. Although we may say this is evident I’m sure that as practitioners and or frequent users of mediation we’ve seen both lasting and short lived mediation agreements. As a result the panelists also indicated that safeguards should be built into agreements if hey begin to break down. One option is an agreement to return to mediation.
One of the problems in knowing how lasting our agreements are is that we may not hear from the clients again. In other cases they may return. Or we could hear they have entered into litigation. So, what can we as practitioners or clients do to build lasting agreements?
A train of thought goes like this. Deep a little deeper behind what drives relationships, be they business with business, business with client, or interpersonal into conflict. For example, in a teen conflict perhaps we should spend some time in trying to understand the reasons behind each actors behavior. Another suggestion is to query what the actors in a teen conflict have learned from this mediation. If parents are involved measuring whether they have left messages of positive or negative support for ending the conflict. Another suggestion is to encourage the actors to prominently display their agreement where they can refer to it on a frequent and reinforcing basis.
The other way we know how long an agreement lasts is when the parties come back because they need either further work to expand or change an agreement or they come back because an agreement is not working. In the case of a divorced couple with children this could be years later. Sometimes it is possible to renegotiate and resolve differences. At other times a relationship is quickly becoming dysfunctional and they may have to go to counseling. In the case of divorced couple, unless they are an exception and are collaborative on an ongoing basis it is probably wise to include a clause about steps to take if the agreement is not working, like come back to mediation.
In the business context I believe that if a relationship is to be saved businesses should include process wise steps to avoid, prevent, and resolve conflicts as an ongoing part of their relationship.
Having a process in place for avoiding, preventing, and resolving conflict is an ounce of prevention worth so much more than a pound of cure.
