I am a nonconformist for sure; I have always felt that the world was moving forward in a straight line and that my kith and kin and I were just a little to the left of whatever mainstream appeared to be. There is this other side to my personality though, that despite my eagerness to challenge people, & situations, even myself, I am also strangely socially compliant. Charged with tackling complacency, lack of creativity, poor leadership, and poor organisational culture, I will jump right in yet;
I won’t cross the road until the green man flashes and if a restaurant puts up a sign saying ‘Wait here to be Seated’ then that’s just what I will do
As a kid, it would have been fair to say that I ‘had a gob on me.’ Clumsy even bulldozery, I stood up for myself and for those I loved, and always for those that seemed incapable of standing up for themselves. Not knowing about the three roles on the Karpman’s Drama Triangle, I didn’t realise that I was firmly in the role of Rescuer
It was my mum however who taught me that the truth is not a club to beat someone over the head with and that holding mirrors up to people and insisting they look at themselves warts and all is unkind. My mum was born in the 20’s, and she married my dad in the early 50’s. She had a foot in the old world in terms of her Victorian parent’s traditions and values, but the modernity that the 60’s brought did not pass her by. I would say that without a doubt, that she was less enslaved to traditional roles than many of her peers were.
Mum also taught me to assert myself but to do it with kindness. At the age of 14, I found myself in the middle of an argument with my cousin. It would be fair to say that I wiped the floor with her reasoning and threw so much logic and subject matter expertise at her that it was a very big sledgehammer that I had used to crack a very wee nut. As my cousin stood up to leave, I turned to beam a big smile at my mum but rather than receiving a smile back from her; she instead shook her head. Later she said, ‘I’m very disappointed in the way you dealt with your cousin there.’ I just couldn’t understand what she meant, “I was right,” I told her indignantly “you might have been right,” my mother said “but you were not at all kind in how you went about proving it;
You should always leave someone with their bus fare home” she smiled “you know, a little bit of dignity”
She is the voice that ensures that I ask the following two questions of myself whenever I am giving feedback or mediating strained relationships. What is my intention here? & What will my legacy be?
As a specialist in workplace mediation, I have built a reasonable career in dealing with ‘blood on the carpet’ issues. I have undertaken mediative roles, where the stakes were high and emotions ran deep. I operate earning the trust of both management/staff and union representatives alike in situations ranged from interpersonal through to departmental, and all of the combinations in between. I have learned that there is always one version of events, then another version, and that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. In order to get strained relationships back on track; each party must both hear and be heard. Each must be led to see where they feed into the situation but at the same time be psychologically safe while they learn about themselves.
When you attend mediation training, you are taught the real art of facilitation. Listening, framing, reframing, reaching mutual understanding and agreeing productive and measurable ways forward, are all carried out without injecting bias into the situation or contaminating the process. If you also have a deeper understanding of human nature and group dynamics, you can better read individuals, as well as situations; and get a feeling for whether the truth is on the table or not. Important? Yes, because most people unknowingly prefer the pain of managing the conflict over the pain of facing the root cause of their issue. Because one is challenging the outside world, where the other is to challenge what lies within. One is forming an opinion and then defending it while the other is to challenge what you have chosen to tell yourself about the situation. For some, challenging themselves is a lot harder than challenging others.
As well as providing mediation services we also provide Leadership Coaching in handling difficult conversations and conducting ‘on the spot’ mediation if a situation evolves right before your eyes.
For our top 5 tips on how to be sure that you stay neutral when mediating, Please email enquiries@nakedtraining.org.uk and put Mediation Tips in the subject line
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