Many managers are aware of the upsides of mediating conflict between employees. But mediation can break down, and the authors’ research explains four reasons why that may happen. Being aware of these potential tripwires allows managers to watch out for them and devise strategies to navigate each. There are four roles — beyond the standard mediator role — that managers can assume to limit the potential damage of a dispute and get it back on track.

The Mediator

The higher the intensity of a conflict, the more likely it is for mediation to collapse because the odds of one of the disputants storming out or freaking out and further damaging the relationship goes up. In our scenario above, the fact that the project is high stakes and the department heads have never gotten along are factors that notch up the tension levels.

Four Reasons Mediation Fail: 1. High Intensity

Conflicts that occur between people or groups who are solely competing against one another, especially over coveted resources, are also prone to fail in mediation. For example, perhaps those two department heads are fighting over sparse funding allocations or even the attention and recognition rarely doled out by higher-ups.

2. Competitive Relationships

Efforts that are greatly constrained by time, law, norms, or other factors are also prone to flop. To suggest that two employees can work out their issues in a single, two-hour meeting might be wrong. Working things out takes as long as it takes, and mediation doesn’t always respond to the parameters that organizations draw.

3. Limiting conditions

Problems can’t be resolved in open dialogue if important issues are kept hidden. For example, perhaps there are tensions around gender equity in the office, and the department heads in this scenario are of different genders. Mediations that involve issues that organizations aren’t talking openly about tend to fail.

4. Unspoken Issues and Hidden Agendas

The standard mediator’s role is ideally to open dialogue and then disappear, allowing the parties to reach their own resolutions. Once the mediation is underway, you want to offer a relational, non-judgmental approach by asking questions, reflecting on the answers, and reframing what’s being said to help the parties expand their viewpoints.But to do so, business leaders need to learn to navigate the four tripwires.

Avoiding The Four Tripwires

A mediator’s first task is to gauge and control the intensity of a conflict. For those highly volatile ones, it’s important to play the role of medic by triaging the conflict to reduce its intensity. A mediator in medic mode is active — they remain highly present throughout the process and enforce communication guidelines like keeping people from going on the attack. This does not necessarily require an overly firm intervention; instead, the medic strikes a deft balance between allowing the parties to vent while slowing them down long enough that they begin to talk.

The First Task: Be A Medic

The medic’s best tools are controlling the process, managing emotions, and providing a structure that finally lets the parties involved hash it out, in a reasonable amount of time. Simultaneously, it’s up to the medic to model a positive example of self-composure and self-expression, and to reassure those involved, all while consistently evaluating and reframing their problems. The medic’s authority as an executive helps. A strong presence controls the room, and that control leads to better outcomes.

The Tools Of The Medic

The next task for the mediator is to assess whether the dispute is primarily a win-lose competition. If so, you need to be prepared to support firm and fair negotiations between them. The referee models how to effectively bargain and horse trade and efficiently settles outcomes. The referee also gives guidance and direction and makes the rules of the process crystal clear.

The Second Task Of A Mediator: Being A Referee

The referee carefully evaluates the fairness and viability of both sides’ proposals. The problem may also require facilitating compromise and trade-offs or finding ways to expand the pie to move the parties out of a win-lose mentality. There may be more common ground than you think. For instance, in the hypothetical example above, it may be that the budget allocated to the project isn’t sufficient for either of the department heads to get their jobs done. That shared perspective can help align them toward working on a resolution together.

What A Referee Does

Another critical task is to identify any major constraints on the mediation. Here the fixer makes an assessment with the goal of pushing restrictive situations toward new possibilities. Are there external constraints like bad timing (a pressing deadline makes it impossible to think), lack of privacy, restrictive HR procedures, or others that are keeping the parties from working things out? If so, look at what you can do to lessen those constraints; ideally, you do this before bringing the disputants together.

The Third Task: The Fixer

The fixer can address tight constraints by calling them out and if necessary, discussing and solving them with the involved parties to make the necessary accommodations. This can trigger a more cooperative dynamic. The fixer can also leverage certain constraints to begin to lower the aspirations of anyone who’s completely stuck in their position or is there only to prevail. For instance, if the financial costs of a stalled project are escalating due to the dispute, the fixer might play to the budget concerns of the disputants to get them to budge off their position.

What The Fixer Does

Now for the tough part — to carefully surface unexpressed concerns or hidden agendas. This is where the counselor's role comes in. It’s best to speak privately with each party to unearth those covert issues. The counsellor is a neutral coach who makes all parties feel safe, heard, and understood. The private caucus is a sacred space created by the mediator for the benefit and comfort of the parties. The counsellor must set the tone to show their employees, “Here is a safe space where we can get work done.”

The Tough Part: Counselling

The counsellor’s tools are listening, coaching, questioning, clarifying, and probing the history of the dispute, all while taking their time. This approach often gets frustrated parties to open up about sensitive issues like workplace inequity, such as concerns about wages, access to promotions, advancement opportunities, and unequal distribution of work. It’s often in these more open, candid conversations that managers get a more accurate sense of the challenges some employees face.

What A Counsellor Does

Many managers are aware of the upsides of mediating conflict between employees. But mediation can break down, and the authors’ research explains four reasons why that may happen. Being aware of these potential tripwires allows managers to watch out for them and devise strategies to navigate each. The authors offer four roles — beyond the standard mediator role — that managers can assume to limit the potential damage of a dispute and get it back on track. These roles are the medic, the referee, the fixer, and the counselor. In some mediations, a leader may need to play all four of these roles to move things forward. Other times, they may lean heavily into just one. The key is to assess which of the pitfalls the parties are at risk of falling into, and respond accordingly.

Stashed ideas

Why Employee Mediations Fail — and How to Get Them Back on Track

<ul><li>To convince people of your competence, use the “impression management” tools of the “eight pillars of competence.”</li><li>Competence and brilliance aren’t necessarily self-evident; you must showcase your qualities.</li><li>Manage people’s anticipation, so they will expect you to be competent.</li><li>Associate yourself with good news.</li><li>Showcase specific elements of the “competence formula”: performance, ability, motivation, dealing with difficulty and luck.</li></ul>

Prove Your Competence & Win People Over

Master verbal and nonverbal communication.The greater your attraction and popularity, the greater will be your perceived competence. Project tact, authenticity and self-confidence.Use the “power of symbols” to build the most reliable measure of your competence: your habitus – the way you look and act.Judging other people’s competence is hard; recognizing their incompetence is easier.

Communication Matters

It’s not your actual competence that counts. It’s how people perceive your competence that makes the difference. You can apply impression management techniques, tools and tactics to convince others of your competence. Persuading others gives you a tremendous advantage over people who are equally competent but can’t differentiate themselves.

Impression Management

Competence, even brilliance, isn’t self-evident. You must showcase your skills, expertise and competence, so they resonate most strongly with those whom you want to impress.Brilliance does not speak for itself. You can, in fact, be the best in the world and no one will notice.

Showcase Your Skills

To demonstrate your competence, use “expectation management” to direct other people’s anticipation and shape positive perceptions of your competence. When you help people reduce or eliminate anxiety about dealing with a stranger – in this case, you – you benefit. Demonstrate confidence in yourself. Subtly refer to your past successes in areas that matter to those whose support you require.

Manage People’s Anticipation, so They Will Expect You to Be Competent

Use the technique of priming your audience by projecting competence from within. For example, suppose your boss asks you to stand in front of your colleagues and answer several questions. “What are you…good at?” “What was your greatest professional success?” “Why should you, of all people, take on the responsibility for an upcoming project?” “Why should anyone be led by you?” Prime yourself by developing answers in advance to these and other likely questions.

Projecting Competence

In 1980, Senator Ted Kennedy campaigned for the US presidency. During a high-profile TV interview, newsman Roger Mudd asked Kennedy, “Why are you running for president?” Ten incredibly long seconds passed – an eternity of dead air – before Kennedy came up with an answer. This was the precise moment when Kennedy’s presidential campaign inexorably started downhill. Prime yourself to answer probable questions from bosses, clients and job interviewers. Have clear answers ready.

Ted Kennedy Didn't Know Why He Was Running For President

Positive news radiates positively over every other aspect of a person or event, and bad news does so negatively.Always deliver good news face-to-face, not by phone or email. If you make a presentation sharing good news, stretch it out as long as possible. After your presentation, don’t immediately retreat from the podium. Every second you stand there will solidify your association with that good news.

Associate Yourself with Good News

You can’t directly assess the factor by which competence contributes to successful performance and/or achievement. Many aspects play a part in any successful outcome. Elements of the competence formula include performance, ability, motivation, dealing with difficulty and luck.

The Competence Formula

During his 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University, Apple CEO Steve Jobs told the graduating students about the severe hardships he faced before he became a business legend. “I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned Coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple."

The One Good Meal At The Hare Krishna Temple

More than any other technique, “power talking” will enable you to maximize how others perceive your competence.Success or failure has surprisingly little influence on the perception of competence. One can appear to be competent despite vast failure and seem incompetent in the midst of immense success.

Master Verbal and Nonverbal Communication

Powerless speech indicates a lack of status. On the other hand, power talking suggests elevated social status. To speak powerfully, avoid the “uhs.” Don’t repeat yourself. Make your speech – and speech patterns – crystal clear and direct.Women routinely fall into “powerless speech patterns,” including showing hesitation, trivializing phrases such as “you know” or “pretty good,” and excessive politeness, for example, “Won’t you please close the door?”

Your Speech Patterns

The greater your attraction and popularity, the greater will be your perceived competence. Project tact, authenticity and self-confidence.The more popular you are, the greater will be your perceived competence. The same is true about being more attractive. Popularity and attractiveness are positive indicators. Thanks to the halo effect, these factors enhance all other personal attributes, including perceived competence. The better you can increase your popularity and attractiveness, the more competent you will seem.

The Halo Effect

Ingratiation – People like you more the more you compliment them. This is true even of obvious flattery. Starting your compliments with the right introductory phrasing makes them seem more credible.Opinion Conformity– People like people who agree with their opinions. But if you go overboard, you’ll come across as a toady.Self-presentation – Most people intuitively know how to win the favour of others. Being kind and courteous is a great place to start. Underline the similarities you share with others.

Increase Your Popularity

Personal attractiveness has been a compelling factor for humankind since the Stone Age.  Keep in mind how people perceive beauty. Remember four factors when it comes to physical attractiveness:<ul><li>For women, what counts most is physique – your weight vis-à-vis your proportions.</li><li>For men, what counts most is facial attractiveness.</li><li>When it comes to women’s faces, most people prefer features like full lips, big eyes and a small nose.</li><li>In general, people consider blonde women more attractive than brunettes.</li></ul>

Physical Attractiveness

Many perceptions rely on symbols. Status symbols such as a company car, a title on a business card, a frequent flyer card and a corporate credit card will shape what people think about you and how they act toward you. You can control some of the powerful symbols that help define you to the world.People use habitus to determine someone’s status, and it’s the most reliable measure of a person’s competence. The habitus elements you choose will define you to the world. Your clothing, your lifestyle choices, and so on will affect how others perceive you and your competence.

The Power Of Symbols

BIRGing– a technique that enables you to impress others with minimal effort, though it has nothing to do with competence, perceived or otherwise.  BIRGing means that your status automatically goes up if you can demonstrate a connection – however slight – with someone of greater status. For BIRGing not to backfire and make you appear to be namedropping, offer your connection with tact and subtlety.

BIRGing - Basking in Reflected Glory

Reliably determining competence in others is a valuable skill. This takes on crucial significance when it comes, for example, to selecting a lawyer, a surgeon or a financial professional.Because accurately determining someone’s competence is so difficult, try to judge his or her intelligence instead. Intelligence directly relates to and points to competence.

Judging Other People’s Competence Is Hard; Recognizing Their Incompetence Is Easier

Highly intelligent people generally:<ul><li>Speak clearly and cogently without any hesitation.</li><li>Establish strong eye contact during conversations with people.</li><li>Possess ample self-confidence.</li><li>Stay alert and react quickly.</li></ul>

How To Spot Intelligence

<ul><li>Does the person ask intelligent questions?</li><li>Can the person separate important from unimportant factors?</li><li>When you present a particular issue that needs resolution, does he or she respond with the most logical, appropriate answers?</li><li>Is the person able to consider all the possible options for resolving the issue?</li><li>Can he or she properly weigh the pros and cons for each option?</li></ul>

The Intelligence Checklist

Mentalist Jack Nasher offers tips to help you appear more competent, attractive, intelligent and important.

Competence does not speak for itself! You can't simply display it; you have to draw people's attention to it. World-renowned negotiation and deception detection expert, business professor, and mentalist Jack Nasher offers effective, proven techniques to convince others that we are talented, trustworthy, and yes, even brilliant. Nasher offers the example of Joshua Bell, possibly the world's most famous violinist. In January 2007, at rush hour, he stepped into a Washington, DC, subway station, dressed like any street busker, and began to play a $4,000,000 Stradivarius. It was part of an experiment staged by a journalist of the Washington Post, who expected Bell's skill alone to attract an immense, awed crowd. But Bell was generally ignored, and when he stopped, nobody applauded. He made $34.17. The good news is that you don't have to accept obscurity: you can positively affect others' perception of your talent. Whether you're looking for work, giving an important presentation, seeking clients or customers for your business, or vying for a promotion, Nasher explains how to use techniques such as expectation management, verbal and nonverbal communication, the Halo Effect, competence framing, and the power of nonconformity to gain control of how others perceive you. Competence is the most highly valued professional trait. But it's not enough to be competent, you have to convey your competence. With Nasher's help you can showcase your expertise, receive the recognition you deserve, and achieve lasting success.

Convinced!

Decisions formed from a diversity of opinions usually lead to better long-term outcomes. So, when you believe that your team or organization is missing something important, moving in the wrong direction, or taking too much risk, you need to speak up. Done effectively, dissent challenges groupthink, reminds those in the majority that there are alternative paths, and prompts everyone to get creative about solutions.

Dissent In The Team

Six decades of scientific research point to strategies those without formal power can use to make sure their dissenting ideas are heard.<ul><li>First, pass the in-group test by showing how you fit in.</li><li>Then pass the group threat test by showing how you have your team’s best interest at heart.</li><li>Make sure your message is consistent but creative and tailored for different people, lean on objective information, address obstacles and risks, and encourage collaboration.</li><li>Finally, make sure to get support.</li><li>Dissent isn’t easy but it can be extremely worthwhile.</li></ul>

How To Bell The Cat

Perhaps you have indispensable skills, specialized knowledge, or vast experience that allowed you to play a “glue role” in an organization. You answer questions, help people, and amplify the contributions of others.You might also point to mentorship, service, sacrifices, and overdrive mode in the presence of time, financial, and personnel constraints. This will remind people that you accumulated a large number of “idiosyncrasy credits” – that is license to cash in the goodwill you’ve earned and challenge the majority opinion.

Demonstrate how Your Work Has Benefitted the Team

Illustrate that you have the best interests of the group at heart. Show that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2041386619849085">your primary concern is boosting the team’s chances of success and longevity</a>.Acknowledge potential upfront costs or short-term pain points, but explain that you’re focused on a better long-term future. If you stand to benefit from the direction suggested, address that conflict of interest. You want to inspire trust and evoke <a href="https://hbr.org/2018/09/the-five-dimensions-of-curiosity">curiosity</a>, not fear.

Pass the Group Threat Test

Recognize that mindless repetition doesn’t often work. What triggers and holds curiosity is expressing the same message in different ways. Use anecdotes and stories as well as data. Include precise details on the benefits of ideas. Help people imagine what they will be doing, thinking, and feeling six months and one year in the future. <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/1998-12834-009">Make the relevance of your message clear</a> to each person and tie it to what is deeply interesting and valuable to them. While you won’t know which arguments will be attractive to whom, you can have a master list from which to choose.

Be Creative with Your Consistency

Label what is a <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1990-01250-001">subjective opinion and what has supported evidence</a>. You earn an audience’s trust by anticipating their questions and already having answers ready. Show how your own view has updated over time in response to new high-quality information.

Lean on Objective Information

It might feel intuitive to focus only on the positives and what an audience will gain. But it’s important to be upfront about the difficulty of executing your idea and the dangers that might arise as you pursue it. <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10888683211001269?casa_token=-i1GQi9lVQ0AAAAA%3AgZZ-DaM71M6LrF4vYDiL-AwmAS9po8XOp0JoZmDHg0AHIqXl9XVRpD7WtgOM56XiqS09OPqa3vXoOQ">Transparency boosts persuasive appeal.</a>

Address Obstacles and Risks

Reduce the distance between you and your audience. Use “we” instead of “I.” Investigate and embrace the expertise of your teammates and explicitly ask for their assistance to improve on your idea. Show you know their background, and ask them to leverage this knowledge, strength, and skill. Offer opportunities for them to volunteer criticism and refinements.Try also to meet with potential detractors in private (instead of public forums) so you can effectively address their concerns. Let them know how they’ve been helpful and give them credit as contributors to solutions.

Encourage Collaboration

Demanding activities, like dissent, are less daunting when bolstered by friends. Over the past few decades, scientists have discovered that the mere thought of existing healthy relationships allows us to believe that more is possible and act with bravery. When we know allies are just a phone call away, <a href="https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2011.00400.x?casa_token=fHfeDZfceokAAAAA%3APk_WDo3MlE3ko59NXHkWyTWlIGMNETPHwQCXCUAIpS1s5yfO77WvKU42Wge_q8MexoxdUabmKIFFZYi0">we view their capabilities as part of our own supply</a> and can act with more confidence and resilience.

Get Support

Results are not guaranteed, but these seven rules ensure a greater probability of winning over an audience and turning dissenting ideas into accomplishments. What the world needs now are not conventional thinkers but people who dare to differ, deviate, and defy to make their organizations – and society – a better place.

The Bottom Line

Decisions formed from a diversity of opinions usually lead to better long-term outcomes. So, when you believe that your team or organization is missing something important, moving in the wrong direction, or taking too much risk, you need to speak up. Done effectively, dissent challenges groupthink, reminds those in the majority that there are alternatives paths, and prompts everyone to get creative about solutions. Six decades of scientific research point to strategies those without formal power can use to make sure their dissenting ideas are heard. First, pass the in-group test by showing how you fit in. Then pass the group threat test by showing how you have your team’s best interest at heart. Make sure your message is consistent but creative tailored for different people, lean on objective information, address obstacles and risks, and encourage collaboration. Finally, make sure to get support. Dissent isn’t easy but it can be extremely worthwhile.

7 Rules for Persuasive Dissent

First understand the counterpart and then you'll get what inside their head. From where they're coming from.<ol><li>How does the person like to be communicate with?</li><li>What action can I take to make a yes easier for them?</li><li>What's the person's dominant communication style?</li></ol>

Do Your Research

As if you are adequately prepared, it's time to have the conversation. Don't just attack bluntly. Spend time on being personable. Show your human side. Ask diagnostic questions, like "what are your thoughts about...?"Open-ended questions helps you to dig deeper to find out more relevant information and perspectives of other person.<ol><li>Can you explain how you arrived at that solution?</li><li>Can you walk me through your decision making process?</li><li>How can we make this beneficial for both of us?</li></ol>

Ask Deeper Questions

"No" is an opportunity, not an ending.Use the FEEL, FELT and FOUND formula:FEEL: I understand why you might feel that way. Many others have felt the same way.FELT: I understand where you are coming from. During points in my career I have felt the same way.FOUND: What i have found is....

Get Ready For Objections

We usually dealt with some people with whom we hardly get negotiate easily.

Here are three steps to blast through resistance and nail your next negotiation.

Self Improvement Pills

3 Steps to Negotiate Anything

Negotiations entail trust and teamwork more than pinning an opponent to the ground.Tactical empathy - “intentionally using concepts from neuroscience to influence emotions” - can be used as a core stratagem in navigating any type of friction.Mirroring your counterpart, negotiating across cultures, and building relationships are all essential.

Negotiating Mindset Has To Shift

Negotiation is typically portrayed as a winner-take-all skirmish. Be it <a href="https://qz.com/work/1916146/negotiating-a-salary-raise-how-to-prepare-a-month-in-advance/">haggling for a higher salary</a>, <a href="https://qz.com/707327/before-asking-for-that-promotion-make-sure-youve-done-these-three-things/">asking for a promotion</a>, or closing a deal, the process might summon tactics, for example, from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Countless MBA courses and textbooks have taught us that business is a battlefield. A former hostage negotiator with the FBI has a different take on this.Tactical empathy—intentionally using concepts from neuroscience to influence emotions—is a core stratagem in navigating any type of friction.

Tactical Empathy

Tactical empathy requires demonstrating to your counterpart how deeply you’re listening to their words and, in effect, how thoughtfully you’re considering their position. One key tactic, called “mirroring,” entails echoing back one to three words the other person uttered, which Voss says can help build rapport from the outset.Mirroring can also be a survival tactic for awkward networking events. Faced with a roomful of strangers, one can simply echo words and phrases to get them to open up. This simple practice can even turn idle chit-chat into meaningful conversations.

The Art Of Mirroring

In a heated confrontation, mirroring can help you regain balance when you’ve been challenged or buy you time when you’re really flummoxed by what somebody said. Framing the other person’s words in the form of a question also gets them to try different terms, which helps clarify what’s at stake and gives you time to gather your thoughts.For instance, your boss might say: “I need you to pull your weight better around here if we want this operation to survive.” Repeating the word, “survive” will likely lead your supervisor to elaborate on the pressure he or she is faced with.

Mirroring Helps 

And what if both parties are skilled at mirroring each other? Will it produce a stalemate?Mirroring ultimately reveals the most important factors at stake, and the character of each party. At some point, one of us is going to come out of this dynamic and just flat out say, ‘Look, here’s here’s what I’d really like to do.’ Someone is going to step forward and offer something up because you’ve earned each other’s trust.

Two Negotiators

Will this tactic work when parties come from different cultures? What about someone who uses silence as a power manoeuvre? Everybody on earth wants to know that they’re being understood and will open up when they feel they are listened to.The desire to connect and be understood is the basic layer that underpins everything.

Negotiating Across Cultures

Chris Voss, a top hostage negotiator turned leadership coach, believes that negotiations entail trust and teamwork more than pinning an opponent to the ground.

Why Employee Mediations Fail — and How to Get Them Back on Track

Convinced!

7 Rules for Persuasive Dissent

3 Steps to Negotiate Anything

What is tactical empathy and how can it help in negotiations at work?

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