Winning With Disarmament. “Tell me about your case”.
The Isaiah Wall in Ralph Bunche Park at United Nations Headquarters, New York, USA.
Mediation is a conflict solution strategy. Talking, is our tactic to achieve our goal. When we mediate, there are ways to talk that work. It’s no good to preach. Listening to the other side gives us our solution.
FIRST, LET’S GET WHAT DOESN’T WORK, OUT OF OUR WAY.
We learned on playgrounds to talk at our opponent because our obstacle, is our opponent. Our formative life experience taught us to keep ripping into them, until we’ve stripped the bark off them.
That blowtorch style, or it’s cousin, the filibuster, is pointless when we are negotiating. In fact, they are proof we are not negotiating. The result? They stymie every way out of our conflict, because they send our opponent into murderous rage.
Want to see its futility, let loose in the wild? All of us laugh at the evergreen TV comedy gag that people who don’t speak our language will surely understand us, if, we yell it at them.
IF YOU ARE ALWAYS PLAYING OFFENSE, YOU AREN’T NEGOTIATING. STOP BATTERING YOUR OPPONENT.
If mediation is our strategy, “piling it on”, is a foolish tactic. Resolution is always discovered listening to the other side. “Tell me about your case” is the most genuinely disarming thing we can say in a dispute, and, if our opponent knows we mean it, it generates powerful momentum for us to settle.
Of course we know our own case. If we’ve done our blunt assessment of it, there is no epiphany about our own case in a day-long mediation. Okay, so how do cases settle, then? They settle, by learning new or different things about the other side’s case, or, by learning, after listening for as long as it takes, that there’s nothing new to know, and our view of our opponent’s case is what we thought it was. Either is okay. It’s what we do next with this information that’s meaningful.
IF YOU ARE CREDIBLE, YOU CAN GET A GOOD RESULT
Credibility is our dividend if we listen respectfully; with self control. If afterwards, we cannot embrace the other side’s view of the dispute, we can cash in our credibility, and our opponent is receptive to hearing us explain that we are not bullheaded. This is the way to talk that works. Done well, our opponent knows why we stand where we are, because they have seen us patiently consider every word they utter. Respectful listening does not deliver you an outright win. It does mean your opponent won’t be blinded by rage and your negotiations will be fruitful.
We can grow to trust people we disagree with. “Tell me about your case” builds our opponent’s confidence that our settlement offers are rational, not ad hoc. We may be fighting with them about terms, but we are doing it in good faith.
LISTENING IS YOUR BEST WEAPON
Listening, is powerful three ways. When we listen, we learn. When we listen, our opponent knows we respect their arguments. They know too, that we respect them. This human-to-human goodwill is vital in negotiation.
3Chairs CAN HELP YOU
We look forward to answering your questions and helping you with your full or half-day mediation. Contact us:
3Chairs Mediation Group, Inc.
(855) 3Chairs | (855) 324-2477