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| © 2010. Sigrid Caroline Schroder. All rights reserved. CONCILIATION ADR shouldn't be just another adversarial process. It should not be a mini-trial. Nor should it drown the parties in emotions. It shouldn't make the bad worse. It needs to address the emotional rationally. It should not bury the real issues and tie the future up in new complications. It should come to answers for both sides. It shouldn't just split the difference or merely quantify a problem which is truly functional, operational, behavioral, or simply wrong. Call it neutral resolution. | |
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DON'T FALL INTO LITIGATION
It is to everyone's advantage to avoid litigation. Litigation costs, for both sides. It costs in dollars, distractions, fears, reputations, and unexpected changes in relationships even on the same side of the dispute. The costs can cost for years. The court records and financial pages are filled with lost value and litigation expenses. Image©eric26.Fotolia 
DEAL WITH THE DISPUTES
Don't turn a blind eye to encroaching problems and festering disputes. Resolve them early. Come to grips with the other side's reality. Disputes arise not just when things go badly bad, but when expectations mismatch, interests harden, or rules go unenfoced up to the tipping point. After Image©Radiant Byte.iStock RESOLVE DISAGREEMENT EARLY
Parties should look to neutral resolution early, before anyone starts to think about walking on the deal, filing a complaint or gaming litigation. The earlier the parties can agree to neutral resolution, the better the prospects are for any future relationship. The more peaceable the process, the greater the likelihood of the parties being able to work together effectively. Image©NewDawnSingers.iStockPhoto  INDEPENDENT EVALUATION: WHEN YOU JUST NEED SOMEONE ELSE TO SORT IT OUT
You know what you think is wrong; they know what they think is wrong; you each may even recognize that the other side has several valid points. Neither of you can derive the resolution. It takes someone independent to see both sides and find an answer. A neutral can review the positions of both sides, from the history of your commercial relationships to the chronology of your dispute, and give you a balanced recommendation for a reasonable and fair outcome. After Image©SeanGladwell.Fotolia GUIDED NEGOTIATIONS: WHEN YOU JUST NEED SOMEONE ELSE TO KEEP YOU TALKING
It's gotten tangled. Too much has happened; you aren't quite sure who did what to whom or even the facts and sequence of events. Yet you can still talk to each other. You just cannot talk it through to resolution. You need someone to help sort it through and to guide the questions and the answers which you get confused or would think of the next day or next hour. A neutral can keep you in face to face conversation, keeping both sides on track, refocusing each side on what it and the other side want and need, and reducing the emotional content so that both can see beyond emotion and unrealistic expectations or irrational demands. Image © WillSelarep.iStockPhoto | |  CONCILIATION: GETTING TO OK
Business people usually find themselves sliding into disagreement well ahead of an actual commercial or employment dispute. Because each side has its own long history, neither side may really understand the other's perspective or have a clear understanding of all the facts. Individuals on a single side may themselves disagree. Even before thoughts turn to court, both sides may live in fear of litigation. Conciliation is a way to bring festering disputes to resolution. A conciliator can overcome the frictions and bring the underlying problems to an end. Meeting with each side separately, the conciliator helps the sides to analyze the realities, find common ground, and identify what each side will concede to the other for an reasonable resolution. Whether parties are locked in disagreement about a contract, operations, an alliance, a buy out or a merger, conciliation can be a path to to resolution through realistic analysis and prioritization of parties' goals and requirements. Ultimately, both sides in a dispute need a workable solution which addresses the real needs of each without ongoing punishment or humiliation. Compromise should prevent new trouble in the future. Settlement must spell out the means to verify compliance. Solution must end conflict. After Image©LiseGagne.iStockPhoto CONCILIATION: HOW TO COME TO TERMS
Business conciliation is a structured process in which the neutral party meets with the disagreeing (or warring) parties separately. Each party itemizes its points of dispute and presents its side of the disagreement to the conciliator. The conciliator helps refine the thorny issues and prioritize each side's true rdemands while filtering out the noise. Each side can document as much as it wants of its grievance to the conciliator, to be shared with or to be kept confidential from the other side, as it wishes. The sides need never meet and usually do not. Success comes when the conciliator establishes enough give and take, secures enough concessions, and identifies enough equal ground, even enough reconciliation between the sides, to carve out a solution. The parties come to terms over the best workable solution. Image © Gyula Sarudi.Fotolia | |
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