In Conversation with John Andrew

An expert in managing conflict, Dr. John S. Andrew teachesnegotiation at Queen's School of Urban and Regional Planning; providesindependent facilitation and mediation services to parties involved inland use, environmental, and transportation disputes; and leadsexecutive seminars on strategic consensus-building in corporate realestate.

Dr. Andrew spoke with us about what makes a good conflictmanager. You need to be part problem-solver, part creative thinker, andpart loner, undaunted by the prospect of eating lunch by yourself.

What is the role of a mediator?

In conflict resolution we try to find a solution that allows asmany of the parties as possible to have their key interests met. Seldomis it all of their interests, but usually a settlement can satisfytheir most important ones. That's really the challenge.

There's a classic example I use for teaching. There are two sistersfighting over an orange. Both of them want it - those are theirpositions, and they're completely incompatible. I ask the students,‘What's a possible solution?' and someone usually says, ‘Get a knifeand cut it in half', which of course meets only 50 percent of eachparty's interests.' That's not great - if were trying to sell my housefor $300,000 and got $150,000 for it, I would be pretty unhappy. Thebest answer is that you need to get all of the parties to identify andshare their real interests underlying their positions. Ask them whythey want the orange. It turns out one wants the pulp to make juice,the other wants the rind to make a cake. So it's possible to meet 100percent of the interests of both parties.

This is a simple example but it gets people thinking in a new way.Finding the interests is important because there are usually morecompatible interests than conflicting ones in a dispute. Once everybodyat the table understands the key interests of the other parties, thenyou can begin to make tradeoffs and “expand the pie” rather than divideit.

What are the key attributes and skills of a successful mediator?

1. You have to be able to quickly understand the essence of theconflict. You often get just a few days notice of a mediation, andyou're under pressure to come up to speed about the dispute as fast aspossible.

2. You have to be able to get the parties to focus on theirinterests rather than their positions. For months or years they've beensaying, ‘This is what we want, this is what we want.' You need to getthem to identify what they really care about. I was involvedin a railway dispute in British Columbia that was fascinating andcomplex. It was a good illustration of the need to, and difficulty of,identifying true party interests. For quite awhile it appeared to be afairly straightforward transportation dispute, with many commoninterests between the parties. However, as we began to unravel theinterests it became apparent that for some of the parties it was reallymore of a land use/real estate conflict, and their interests had littleto do with the operation of the railway. The land adjacent to therailway was worth far more than the railway operation itself, and realestate eventually became a whole new set of issues. Only once they wereon the table could we begin to make progress toward a solution.

3. It is essential to be completely neutral and impartial, and beable to convey that to the parties. Both perception and reality areimportant. Some of that is the language you use and how you conductyourself during mediation, and it can be very simple: if there's alunch break, eat by yourself. The parties may be getting together andit's natural that they invite you, but you can't unless everyone istogether. Disputants are very sensitive to your degree of fairness. Ifyou lose the parties' trust, it's almost impossible to get it back.

4. You need to know when to let the parties hash it out, when tostep in, and when to suggest possible options. You ask yourself, ‘Arethey making progress on their own?' Sometimes you're better justsitting back and letting that process happen but it can beuncomfortable. Remember it's their dispute and theyhave to craft the solution jointly - you can gently steer them but youcan't hand them any solutions, even if you see them. It sounds terribleto say, but a good mediator doesn't care about the content of asettlement or whether the parties even reach agreement. You'd love tobe able to say, ‘I'm such a good mediator, I've done 120 cases and 99of those have been resolved,' but that's not a good measure of success.Lots of agreements are reached that are bad agreements. Sometimes thebest thing is for the parties to walk away before that point. I'm thereto help the parties to craft their own agreement, and if they reachone, that's great. But there are lots of legitimate reasons why theymight not. This is a voluntary process, and there has to be buy-in fromall the parties. They won't all love the agreement, but the key is thatmeets their most important needs and they crafted it themselves. If Icome in and suggest something, they are less likely to implement it andbuy in, and the agreement is more likely to break down later.

5. You need to know when to have a private caucus - when to take the parties aside. And then you do so with allof the parties. This can be very effective - you can give them a senseof what will likely be acceptable to the other side, and what they'retrue BATNA is – their “Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement.” Forexample, if I hear people say, ‘Well, I really don't want to negotiatebecause if we go to court we will win,' I can sit them down and say,‘Based on my experience you aren't going to do as well as you think,and it's going to cost everyone 10 times as much. So even if you don'tget exactly the agreement you want, you're going to get it months oryears earlier, and save a lot of money and anguish.'

6. Shuttle diplomacy - being able to effectively shuttle ideas andoffers between the parties – is another skill. Sometimes parties willsay, ‘Well, offer this to them,' and I might suggest modifications thatwill make it more palatable to the other side. Sometimes they're subtlechanges in the wording or the order in which items are offered. Thechallenge is that a mediator obviously can't give away any confidentialinformation, so giving guidance to parties is a delicate business, andyou have to keep careful track of where you obtained certaininformation and what needs to remain confidential to one party.

7. Finally, I think it comes down to your own personality and howyou relate to other people. Credentials are nice, but does having aPh.D. really make me a good mediator? Not really. What makes you a goodmediator is doing mediation, and you probably learn more from yourmistakes than anything else.