Communication strategies in mediation

Communication is the core of mediation and mediators are the key to its proper flow. They must pay close attention to their own communication skills and the communication dynamics of the participants. Advocates will benefit by paying attention to the strategies utilized by the mediator, what the parties and advocates want to communicatively reflect, and how to help the mediator perform more effectively.

Key communication strategies include empathic attunement, active listening and body language, open and closed-ended questions, ascertaining interest vs. position, and reframing. While empathic listening is often considered the core skill, each of these skills can assist the mediator and advocates in working through conflict and clearly and positively communicating necessary information to reach resolution.

Empathic Attunement

Empathic attunement allows the mediator to understand a participant's perspective (their needs, thoughts and emotions) and then communicate to them that the mediator understands. This is critical for building trust and confidence.

Empathic listening attends to the underlying emotional content, in addition to the factual content, by noticing the emotion the person is expressing, looking for the cause of the emotion, attempting to determine what thoughts or beliefs are underlying the emotion, and validating the emotion without necessarily agreeing with the assessment.

Active Listening and Body Language

Empathic attunement is best achieved through active listening and good body language. An effective mediator can convey their understanding and validate a participant's experience without getting caught up in the emotions or taking sides. Letting them know you understand them is not the same as telling them what they want to hear.

Active listening allows the mediator to focus their attention on what is being said and reflect the participant's message and emotions accurately. This conveys to the speaker that the mediator is listening to them and understands what they are saying.

Active listening requires being truly present - emptying the mind and not thinking about how to respond. Key components are maintaining eye contact, nodding as appropriate, and using "minimal encourager" noises, such as uh-huh, okay, right, mmmm.

Body Language

We're social creatures, and as such, evolved skills to communicate with our body long before we had language. Mediators and advocates should pay attention to what their, as well as the participants' body language is communicating. Positive body cues, such as leaning toward the participant and maintaining an open and relaxed posture signal interest. Mirroring or matching the speaker's tone and body language, pacing and leading the speaker's speed or energy and then gradually slowing or calming down, and writing notes all let the participant know they are being taken seriously.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is restating and summarizing what the speaker is saying, without adding anything. It allows the mediator to make sure they understand what's being said, gives the speaker a chance to make a correction, and lets the speaker reflect on and correct their own story.

Paraphrasing does not include asking questions (other than "am I understanding you correctly?"), sharing personal experiences or opinions, or giving the speaker extra information. Paraphrasing every few sentences is most effective, as is asking a participant to pause to allow paraphrasing, as this frequently helps them recover their emotional balance.

Open and Closed-ended Questions

Mediators need to ask a lot of questions in order to accurately understand the needs, motivations and feelings of the participants. Open-ended questions invite more participation and detail from the speaker, while closed-ended questions invite a yes/no or factual answer. Both are valid methods of obtaining information and maintaining the communication flow. Open-ended questions encourage free communication. Closed-ended questions can decrease the level of engagement, which can be useful to help the person to focus or slow down. They also are easier to answer, and might make it easier to start a conversation with someone who is overwhelmed.

Reframing and Interest versus Position

Reframing is a tool to help participants change their view of something. It recognizes that the frame we place to make sense of an event is not neutral and helps the parties to refocus, instead of "digging in." An important area of refocus is from positions to interests.

Interests are a person's underlying values, concerns, needs, fears and hopes. A position is somebody's stated solution to a problem or requirement of how they want to get that interest satisfied, often stated as a fixed demand.

There are numerous parables used to illustrate this concept, many of which involve a conflict over an orange, including the following shared in a post on the MIT website:

There was once only one orange left in a kitchen and two chefs were fighting over it.

"I need that orange!" "Yes, but I need that orange as well!" Time was running out and they both needed an orange to finish their recipes for a very important dinner. They decided on a compromise: they grabbed one of the large kitchen knives that was lying around, split the orange in half, and each went to his corner to finish preparing his meal.

One chef squeezed the juice from the orange and poured it into the sauce he was making. It wasn't quite enough, but it would have to do. The other grated the peel and stirred the scrapings into the batter for his cake. He too didn't have as much as he would have liked, but given the situation, it would have to suffice.

The better solution seems obvious once the "why" was defined: both chefs would have been better off if they had peeled the orange and simply taken the part they needed. Instead, the chefs focused on each other's position (the "how") and not on each other's interests (the "why").

It is important for the mediator and the parties to be able to distinguish between the positions and underlying interests of both parties. Positions are a difficult place from which to negotiate. Identifying underlying interests can be powerful because it helps generate more options, making it more likely that the conflict can be resolved.