IAM Blog
Managing Opening Offers: Arriving at the Mediation Table (Part 2 of 3)
Sheldon Stark IAM Distinguished Fellow shel@starkmediator.com Part 2: Arriving at the Mediation Table Who Goes First? This is the second of a 3-part article on managing opening offers. Part I dealt with establishing trust and gaining confidence in the mediator and...
Managing Opening Offers: Are You Really Gonna Make Me Communicate that Number? (Part I of III)
Sheldon Stark IAM Scholar in Residence shel@starkmediator.com Part 1: Setting the Table Introduction What is 168,000,000? 168,000,000 is the number of search results on the web for the term “mediation”. While there is much to be said about mediation, when boiled...
Virtual Mediation – Has it Changed How We Mediate?
Eileen Carroll, IAM Scholar in Residenceecarroll@cedr.com Until Covid-19 struck, I had assumed that the work of the mediator in creating an environment for clients to listen to each other, to get a real understanding of what is driving the conflict and what kind of...
How We Mediators Evaluate, Through Words, Gestures and Sometimes Silence
Dwight Golann, IAM Scholar in Residencedgolann@suffolk.edu Do you give evaluations when you mediate? I suspect most of us do, although we may not consider what we do to be “evaluation” at all. At the Academy’s May conference I showed excerpts of videos of excellent...
Saving Face in Employment Mediation – Part 3: Responsive strategies to help parties save face
Jeff Trueman, IAM Distinguished Fellow jt@jefftrueman.com This article is Part 3 in the series: Saving Face in Employment Mediation. To read Parts 1 & 2, click here. The techniques discussed herein rely on the participants’ trust in the mediator, which must be...
Saving Face In Employment Mediation – Part Two: The Critical Importance of the Mediator’s Emotional Intelligence
Jeff Trueman, IAM Distinguished Fellow jt@jefftrueman.com This is part two in a series of three articles. To review or read Part One, click here. In order to understand the emotions and rationality of others, mediators must first understand their own emotions and...
Saving Face In Employment Mediation – Part One: The Workplace as a Source of Face
Jeff Trueman, IAM Distinguished Fellow jt@jefftrueman.com Employment law disputes can be tough to settle. These disputes center not only on employment practices, but also on deeply held personal views of worth, honor, and status. Parties draw “lines in the sand”...
To What Extent Should Mediators Dictate the Language In the Terms of a Settlement?
Jan Frankel Schau, IAM Distinguished Fellow jfschau@schaumediation.com It’s 4:00 P.M. and the parties have struggled all day to reach a hard-fought agreement. Typically, at that point, the parties themselves take a walk, begin to breathe the fresh air, catch up on...
Reframing the Role of Mediator – Part 3: Mediator as Risk Assessor and Agent of Reality
Sheldon Stark, IAM Distinguished Fellow shel@starkmediator.com (This is the third and final segment of the article. Part 1 discussed Party Expectations as Barrier and suggested that mediators should offer a productive reframing, while Part 2 focused on Mediators’...
Reframing the Role of Mediator – Part 2 : Mediators’ Many Hats
Sheldon Stark, IAM Distinguished Fellow shel@starkmediator.com (This is the second of three segments. Part 1 discussed Party Expectations as Barrier and suggested that mediators should offer a productive reframing, while Part 3 will focus on the key roles of...