Jeff Kichaven

Insurance Coverage, Intellectual Property (including patent) and Professional Liability

After 27 years as a mediator, I still like to ask myself, "What have I learned lately?"

In truth, it's the same lesson every year, and every year I learn it more deeply.

What's the lesson? To steer clear of what the great psychoanalyst Viktor Frankl called "hyper-intention" when it comes to settlement.

Hyper-intention is "a neurosis that causes patients to be unable to accomplish that which they intend. For example, Frankl writes that one will never achieve success when that is one's intention. Instead, it will only come when one has forgotten about it entirely."

While it's tough for a mediator to forget about settlement entirely, it's important to keep it in its place.

Earlier in my mediation career, I was hyper-intentional. I pressed, pushed, and pulled people to settle, right then and there, whether the settlement seemed principled or not. This approach was often met with resistance, deepened impasse, and limited my success.

Now, I work to avoid hyper-intention. When settlement is right, settlement will happen. When people have a calm, informed environment in which to make clear, strong decisions, that's when we see the magic. The mediator's job is to provide that environment.

If folks don't settle on the mediation day, it's not a sign of failure and I try not to take it personally. Nobody ever tells a mediator everything, and people's inability to get beyond an impasse is generally explained by stuff which the mediator couldn't even guess. Sometimes that stuff isn't even apparent to the people themselves. But just because a case hasn't settled doesn't mean it won't settle. Thinking can change.

So I stay with cases ever more closely. When the time is right, I am there for you and your clients. That's how we get the tough ones settled.

jk@jeffkichaven.com

888-425-2520

www.jeffkichaven.com