As conflict resolution professionals, we are all supposed to be neutral and impartial.

If we cannot meet this standard, then we are ethically bound to reject a case. Over the last 27 years as a Group Facilitator and Mediator, I have had to regularly confront this issue on many levels and in many forms. I’d like to spend a few moments musing on my experiences with, and ideas about, neutrality.

My first thought is: No one is neutral. We all have our own personal biases, and we form opinions on every situation. These opinions may be very strong (e.g., if the situation strikes a personal chord with us) or just a vague feeling. Nevertheless, the opinion will be there. Some have said that conflict resolution professionals do not have the luxury of opinions, biases and feelings, and we must push them away, firmly tamp them down, sweep them under the rug, or whatever metaphor most aptly describes the mental gymnastics to become that ideal neutral person. I strongly disagree with this strategy. It is akin to telling someone not to think of a blue elephant. There is a better way.

I mentally acknowledge my opinion or bias when I realize I have formed it. This may be very early in the processing of a case, or it may be later. I then remind myself that I am not a decision-maker, I am a process person. Once I have mentally “aired my dirty laundry” as relates to the case, I can more easily put it aside and focus on the process. I got great practice in doing this exercise early in my career when I was doing major environmental mediation and group facilitation. Prior to becoming a mediator, I had extensive education and experience as an environmental scientist. In typical conflict situations between land developers (miners, landfill operators, housing project developers, etc.) and the groups and citizens opposing them, I was able to make educated judgments about disagreements over environmental factors (potential air and water pollution, potential for reclamation, etc.). I kept these to myself. I was able to use my training and experience to constructively guide the conversation and sometimes interpret between the sides, but not to tell anyone he or she was right or wrong on a particular issue – no matter how much I knew about that issue. My credibility with both sides was thus maintained and everyone felt heard.

I have been able to successfully use the same strategy with disputes in many other areas, such as public policy, contracts, workplace disputes and the many other unique areas of practice in which I have worked. Once I acknowledge and examine my “blue elephants”, I can to put them away. However, I have one “blue elephant” that is not so easily be banished, so I do not practice in that area. For various reasons, I seem to have an innate bias toward the women in domestic cases, whether it involves parenting issues, or not – and, through experience, I know that acknowledging it does not let me put it away. This does not hamper me in running a program where over two hundred mediators work on several hundred of these cases per year. I am a supervisor and mentor (and at arm’s length) for those cases. Distance is of great assistance in these cases. I simply do not mediate these cases, myself.

In my next article about this topic, I will deal with how I have coped with the parties’ perception about my neutrality.

In early 2013, I was asked by Brian Beck of the mediation group OvalOptions to be the mediator in a workplace training video.  Since I knew that there was a great need for good quality videos in this area, I was immediately intrigued.  Brian told me that he wanted to make a new kind of training video.  In the past, such videos had been done with low quality equipment with mediators and/or mediation students playing the parts of the mediators and the parties.  Resolution was almost always reached quickly, and the “actors” were not convincing.  It was hard to learn much from such an unrealistic scenario.  Brian intended for this video to be different.

The entire effort would be professional.  A realistic office set was constructed in a vacant office building.  A professional production crew was hired (including, video, audio, make-up and direction).  Two professional actors were hired to play the parties to the case.  An outline of a dispute between an older, male home office manager and a young, female field manager was developed, and brief notes for each party and the mediator were produced based on the conflict outline.  Finally, I was asked to mediate between the two parties/actors, just as I would in a real workplace case.  So, I did.

After all of the introductory filming activities were completed (make-up, sound check, camera positioning, arrangement of participants in the room, etc.), we started to talk, and the crew started to film.  After a surprisingly short time, I simply forgot the crew was there and the parties were actors.  For me, it became mediation between two employees of a company, with the goal of reaching an agreement to resolve their differences.  I think this is the magic of the video.  It feels real.  That wasn’t just because I treated it that way – the two actors also got emotionally involved in their characters.  I think this was because they weren’t just saying lines – each was each given an outline of his/her character and what that character brought to the conflict, and then they were asked to “live in” the role and work with the mediator.  It worked.  Both actors told me that they got caught up in the action and were invested in the issues and needs of their characters.  When we reached an agreement, it really was an agreement that reached the needs of the parties involved.  I felt the same satisfaction I would have felt at the successful end of a real mediation.  And, the process took not ten minutes or so, but from one to two hours – more like the time a real mediation might take.

The post production work on the video makes it a real learning tool for conflict resolution students.  Brian sent the raw video to a professional film editor in New York.  He worked with Brian to make sure the final video had a realistic look and flow.  Brian and I sat down with a couple of his colleagues at OvalOptions and critically examined every minute of the draft video.  We found the appropriate break points for insertion of the segment headings (“Mediator Opening” all the way to “Writing the Agreement”) and our comments and questions became the first framework for the workbook that now accompanies the video.  My notes taken during the video were compiled, and I used them to produce a written version of the final agreement (which also went into the workbook).

I have real pride in the completed workplace mediation video training package.  I volunteered to be the mediator for this video (I wasn’t paid and will not receive any royalties from the sale of the finished product) because I wanted to help OvalOptions produce a quality product on a limited budget.  I knew that the mediation field could use such a product.  Besides, it’s cool to be the mediator in a video that will hopefully be used by a lot of students of our field.  If they think what I did as the mediator was appropriate and effective, that’s great.  If they are critical and think that I (and maybe they) could have done better in that situation, that’s fine, too.  I know that I can always do better.  I hope I get their feedback and grow from the process.  I demonstrated for anyone who views the video one way, not the only way, to conduct a workplace mediation session.

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