The Culture Nerds - A Leadership Podcast

Must Managers be Mediators too?

• Simon Thiessen & Kirralea Walkerden

Share episode

Text us your thoughts or questions

The 5 Phases of Mediation for Managers and Leaders. 

******************************************************
Visit our website The Real Learning Experience

Thanks to our producer, Josh at JCALdigital.org

Speaker 1:

Before we get into today's episode, we want to acknowledge the privilege of living and working on Aboriginal land and we pay our respects to the Elders, past, present and emerging. Welcome listeners to another episode of the Culture Nerds a leadership podcast. My name's Simon Tyson and I'll be your host for this month's episode. Welcome listeners to another episode of the Culture Nerds a leadership podcast. My name is Simon Tyson and I'll be your host for this month's episode. It's a very practical episode today and I do plan to punch through it pretty quickly.

Speaker 1:

As with every month, we have a theme around the resources we create for our subscribers, our customers, our followers on various social media, etc. And this month's focus, or this month's topic, is around mediation. Now, before you switch off and go oh, we don't need to talk about professional mediation. That's not what I'm here about. That's not the topic. The topic really this month is must managers be mediators? Must leaders be mediators?

Speaker 1:

Now, I am a professional mediator so I understand the way the process works, but I also understand where professional mediation fits in the overall picture and it's not where a lot of organizations put it. The two biggest mistakes that I see as a professional mediator is that organizations bring a mediator in because it's going to be a quick fix. It's going to be this magic band-aid just get, get someone in, pay a professional, get them in and look. Of course we love it when clients book us, but it's not the best option unless other strategies have been explored. So it can't be that quick fix that overcomes not just the issue itself but the broader context in which the in which the issue has been allowed to occur. So very often when I go into an organization, I find that the mediation that I need to do is just the tip of the iceberg. There's a whole bunch of things that sit around it that are creating the circumstances in which a conflict can be allowed to exist beyond the point at which it's healthy. The other mistake that we see made is just waiting and waiting, and waiting until the issue is so entrenched. I have, over the last decade, worked with some mediations that have been going for issues that have been going on for perhaps 10 years, 12 years. Issues that should have been dealt with much sooner, should have been escalated much sooner. So don't see it as a quick fix. Slap a bandaid on. But also don't kid yourself when it's becoming entrenched and it's doing ongoing damage and it does, whether we believe it is or not. It is doing ongoing damage and I've seen that damage behind the scenes in organizations. So, yes, I believe leaders must be mediators, but they don't have to have the skills, they don't have the strategies, they don't have to have the knowledge, the experience of a professional mediator. They've just got to use the skills and strategies that should be available to a leader who takes their responsibility to create a great culture seriously, a leader who's prepared to push their boundaries, go out of their comfort zone a bit and develop some skills to help their team function most effectively together.

Speaker 1:

We often see managers simply see themselves and so this is not just for you, if you're listening as a senior leader. This is a cultural issue that I'd love to see you embed. Model yourself, but embed amongst the other managers throughout the organization. Very often managers see themselves as a conduit for problems. So there's a problem with such and such a team member, I'll tell my manager. I'll tell people in culture there's a conflict between two people, I'll tell my manager. They don't recognise that it's actually their role to be resolving those problems, at least in the first instance. And I'm going to walk you through a really clear set of steps that any manager should follow as they make the decision about. Is this something I deal with or is this something that I need to pass on?

Speaker 1:

Unresolved conflict in a team is corrosive. I want you to think you might be listening and you might be from an organisation that has 20 team members overall, or you might have 10,000 team members, but no matter how big the organisation is, those people are generally arranged into teams. So if you had a team of 10 people, in that team you've effectively got 90 or 45 relationships. So I think the maths is the number of people in the team times the number of people in the team minus one, and then you halve it because they're two-way. That's the number of relationships in that team. So in a team of six people it's 15 relationships. So it grows exponentially as the team gets bigger. If you have two people in a team whether it be two peers or the manager of that team and a team member who are in unresolved conflict and who feel differently about each other because of that conflict, it is dramatically impacting the climate in that team, what it feels like to work there, the performance of that team. Other people are having to work around that issue rather than just get on with business as normal.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to give you a couple of examples. Many years ago I worked with a building company who had and I was there to do broader cultural work with them. But as part of this process they told me about a building crew that had been working together for nearly a decade, obviously with some turnover Now crew of about 12 people. So if we do the maths there, that's 66 relationships in that team. They had in that team one person who wouldn't get on with anyone, was alienated by everyone or had alienated everyone. So there's 11 relationships gone. They had two other people who hadn't spoken for nearly a decade. So that impacts another relationship and of course, that changes the way people deal with them. We looked at it and we really analysed and thought there's probably about 30 to 40% of the relationships within that team that were not effective. Now don't for a minute tell me that that's not impacting performance. And 100% it's impacting the culture, the climate, what it feels like for everyone else to come to work there.

Speaker 1:

Now the reason it had grown to 30 or 40% of the relationships is some things had been tolerated that should never have been tolerated, and then they became normalized. One of them, as I say, was two guys who hadn't spoken for 10 years, nearly 10 years, and they'd been allowed to do this. They had to work on this relatively small team together on a building site, and other people had to work around them because they would not communicate. They point blank refused to communicate with each other. Why? Because one had parked in the other one's spot. Now, the irony here is there weren't any allocated spots, they were just on a building site, and so one had started parking in a certain place. Another one parked there. One said you've got to move, the other said no, and you can imagine where it went from there.

Speaker 1:

That should never have been tolerated, and I'm going to be really clear on this in a minute. I'm going to be really clear on my perspective on this in a minute, but I'll start that clarity. It should never, ever have been allowed. That is not their choice. The moment they accepted their paycheck to come to work, they also took on an obligation to behave decently with the rest of the team.

Speaker 1:

I have another scenario and I was the CEO of the organisation where we had two people who, because of issues outside of work refused to talk with each other to the point that they in a building of about 35 people, 40 people. They manipulated the rosters without telling the manager so they'd come to work and one in particular was entrenched in their position. The other one was happy to work together if the other party would make an effort. The one who absolutely refused to would manipulate rosters, move staff around the building, et cetera, to make sure they weren't rostered to work in the same location. And I'm being sort of careful here not to say too much about this sort of organisation. That's why I'm sort of picking my words carefully. That should never have been tolerated.

Speaker 1:

The circumstance, the personal circumstance that led to the fallout was a terrible one and as an organisation we should have given them some scope to sort that out and we should have given them a reasonable amount of time. But two, three years later unacceptable. And it was having a dramatic impact on the services that were being provided and the impact on other people. A lot of other people were making sacrifices for these two people. Because it was easier than upsetting them. I drew a line and said this is what will happen from now on. One of them resigned and, to be honest, I'm okay with that outcome. Happiest outcome would be they would both say, okay, help us get on and we'll work together. But failing that, I'm okay. If someone says I'm actually refusing to work like that, I'd prefer not to have them on the team. And that brings us to the question is it okay for people not to get along on a team? Is it just their personal business? And I'm saying adamantly no, it's their personal business when they're doing it outside of the workplace. But as soon as they bring that into the work, then it is the organization's business, it's their manager's business, it's the team's business. It's their manager's business. It's the team's business.

Speaker 1:

Effectively, those people are withholding some of their effort because we pay people to come to work and do a great job and be part of a positive culture, create a workplace that everyone wants to get up in the morning and and come and work in. That behavior is not aligned with that outcome. When two people refuse to talk to each other, they make it awkward for everyone. They reduce the ability to get things done because people then have to work around them rather than with them. The awkwardness, the sacrifices other people have to make, the message that it's actually okay becomes it catches. So no, as I said, they're effectively withholding part of their effort. Now, if you announce tomorrow that you're not going to pay people for Tuesday mornings anymore, you're going to withhold part of their income. There'll be absolute outrage, and I don't think you should do that. It would be the wrong thing, it would be illegal, of course, but it would be ethically, morally the wrong thing to do.

Speaker 1:

I see it exactly the same way when someone comes to work and withholds some of their effort, whether that's being unaccountable in terms of the output they produce, whether that's not pulling their weight, whether that's not treating people properly, whether that's, in these cases, refusing to communicate with the people around them. I don't want them to be best friends. I actually don't care whether they're best friends. I want them to treat each other professionally and civilly at work and I want them to be mindful of the impact they have on the overall culture. It is selfish, and there is no other word for it. It is selfish when two people become so self-indulgent, so caught up in their issue, that they lose perspective of the impact they're having on everyone else and completely unaware of it, probably because they are so self-focused.

Speaker 1:

So I'm black and white in this one, and I'm really happy, in any organisation I'm involved with, to draw a line and say we'll help you, but you need to find a way to get on. So I always think what's the cost of dealing with it? Well, I'll piss someone off, probably they might not like it, et cetera, but what's the cost of not dealing with it? And this is the death of a thousand cuts thing, isn't it? I'm in my belief. I'm just better off to deal with the issue and deal with the consequences of that, rather than let this drag on, slowly, slowly, slowly, bleed to death as our team performance diminishes because the issue has been allowed to become entrenched. So I'm going to take you through five steps and then I'm going to give you seven tips. So I'm going to take you through five steps and then I'm going to give you seven tips. So I promised you I'd make this really practical.

Speaker 1:

So first of all, as I start the five steps, remember at the end of this process, whether they agree or not is optional. Working together and communicating in a way that doesn't inhibit the work of others and of themselves is compulsory. At the end of it, they can disagree all they like, I'm not too fussed about their underlying beliefs. I can't change that. It's not my right to demand they change that. But I can absolutely expect them and hold them accountable for changing their behavior. The way those underlying beliefs manifest, what they do under the surface, up to them. I'd like them to change that, but I can't get into that. So that's the baseline. So the five steps, and you'll wonder when I tell you the first one.

Speaker 1:

So the first step, or the first phase, I guess is the best way of talking about this in dealing with these entrenched issues is to do nothing. Now, it's not a passive nothing, it's a proactive nothing. So what I'm actually doing is monitoring. I'm not going to ignore the issue, but you know what. They are adults and I do want to give them the space to sort it out themselves. The minute I become involved.

Speaker 1:

It's a little bit of an escalation which entrenches an issue a little bit more. The more an issue escalates, the less likely it is to be effectively resolved, which is one of the key reasons we need to escalate it step by step rather than going from. We've got a problem external mediator, which is the sort of the top level of escalation. So what you would do is you need to be aware there's a problem and observe. Make sure they're making progress. Make sure it's not becoming destructive and spilling over to other people and impacting other people. Make sure that they're okay. These are two human beings and you want them to be okay. They're human beings in your team, so make sure they're okay.

Speaker 1:

But don't get all squeamish when it gets uncomfortable. Uncomfortable is essential for effective workplaces. It's the avoidance of uncomfortable that leads to issues being suppressed, tensions building up, things remaining unresolved for a long time. So don't stress when it becomes uncomfortable, just if it's impacting the team. You might have a quiet word and say hey look, I can see you're working on this. Good on you, I'll give you some space, but be careful of the team.

Speaker 1:

You want them to solve this as many times as possible, because that builds muscles and they'll actually have a good chance of improving their relationship by resolving it together, and that then becomes something that can be sustainable throughout their ongoing workplace relationship. So when do you intervene? Well, when it becomes clear they aren't progressing, or when it becomes clear that the damage that's occurring is crossing what's really acceptable, or it might become irredeemable. What's really acceptable or it might become irredeemable, it's becoming personal, etc. Or there's just a lack of willingness on behalf of one or both parties to actually resolve themselves. They're in that well, have to agree to disagree, but they're not actually agreeing to disagree. They're still hostile towards each other. And that's where, as a leader, and that's where, as a leader, you get involved.

Speaker 1:

And the second phase is all about coaching. So every leader and this is the topic of other months and with other pod, other pods we've released and some of our plenty in 20s, etc. You need to be able to coach people, and the key to coaching is not imposing solutions, it's guiding people to find solutions themselves. So coaching in this case is and pretty much in every case is a one-on-one process. So this would be sitting down with each of the parties and reminding them that hey, we've got some expectations. Hopefully you've got workplace values that you really mean. Hopefully you've got workplace values that you really mean. If you don't look back through previous episodes, it's only two or three months back and some of the resources are available on the website, almost all of them free. Refer them to that values framework.

Speaker 1:

If you've got one, remind them that you have expectations about how people behave and perform in the workplace. Encourage them to have healthy disagreements, because they're part of adult relationships, that's just the case, but insist that it's done in a way that's aligned with expectations, with values, etc. And ask them what support they need from you. Do they need you to coach them on strategies to use here? Do they need a sounding board? Do they need to run through what they plan to say to the other party and get your feedback on it? And you'll listen and maybe give them a few tweaks to ensure that it lands a little bit better.

Speaker 1:

But don't take ownership of the issue, and this is one of the tips I'll give later. But it's their problem, not your problem. You expect it to be resolved. Don't let them say to you so what do you want me to do about it? What I want you to do about it is solve it like an adult. That's what I want you to do about it, and at this stage I'm going to let you guys come up with some solutions, because if I impose them, you might not like them.

Speaker 1:

I would have that conversation with normally, with both people in the team or, if there's more, which starts to get tougher, of course, but each of them individually. Some people might need more coaching. Some people might just need a little bit of a reminder. Are you on this? I can see there's an issue, doesn't seem to be getting resolved. What's your plan, et cetera. Now, if they can't resolve it, if I coach people, I'm checking in with them as well, so I'm coming back to them saying have you had the conversation you said you were going to have? How did it go? Where are we at? Is the issue resolved? Or have we at least got to a place where the two of you have found a way to work effectively together? If they get stuck, if one or both parties won't participate in coaching, if they try it and they don't succeed, then it's time for you to facilitate.

Speaker 1:

And, as a manager, I said before do leaders need to be mediators? And I said yes, in reality, I think you need to be facilitators. Facilitation and mediation are very, very similar processes. Professional mediation has just got a couple of added layers and a couple of added strategies, but really you need to facilitate, and what that would mean is having both parties sit down and work through the issue together. Now, again, it's not your problem, it's their problem. All you're doing is providing the framework I mentioned, I'm going to give you seven tips. They relate purely to this stage, because the other stages most managers have got at least some of the skills to deal with and you can pick those up, as I say in other episodes of our pod, etc. But the facilitation phase, I think, is actually one of the most difficult things for a leader, for a manager, to do. I think it's probably the hardest part of the role for most people. So, as I say, I'm going to finish up today by giving you seven tips specifically for this phase.

Speaker 1:

But recognise your role as the facilitator. You're there to make sure it's a safe process in which people listen to each other, that you've got some sort of framework that guides them towards an outcome, and you might ask some questions, but you let them search for the answers, you let them talk together and resolve this. Otherwise, you might as well go right back to phase one and just impose a solution. More on that in a moment. Phase four is to escalate. So instead of being the conduit, instead of managers being the conduit for problems and escalating as soon as it happens, this is the point at which that threshold gets crossed.

Speaker 1:

As a manager, you're not a professional mediator. You're a leader doing your best to facilitate a process, but there does come a point at which you need to escalate. Now that could be after you've tried the other three phases, but it could be right off the bat. So the point at which you should escalate really depends upon a number of criteria. Your people and culture team, if you're a larger organisation, will typically have some guidelines around this. If you're in an organisation where those guidelines don't exist, or if there's a legal issue bullying, for example, a bullying claim, a bullying complaint there's a legal aspect to that and I would be escalating.

Speaker 1:

That straight off the bat Doesn't mean that you might not have any involvement, but there is a proper process that needs to be followed there and I would at least be talking to your next level manager and, if you have a people and culture team, I'd be involving them and talking with them and asking them what's the appropriate next step. They may say we want you to handle it this way, or they may say, no, we'll take it over. If there's other legal issues and if there's a safety issue, I would at least be getting outside input from your manager or people in culture if it becomes entrenched and people are refusing to deal with it. That's absolutely the time. So that would occur after you've gone through the first three phases, where the legal issue, the safety issue, et cetera that could pop up at any time and you've got to know those.

Speaker 1:

It's important to establish that, if in doubt, by the way, you can consult without escalating. You can go to people in culture, you can go to your manager and say this is what I'm dealing with, I feel comfortable handling it, but is that something that's appropriate? So if in doubt, at least consult without necessarily escalating, but under certain circumstances you're going to escalate. Once you escalate it, it goes out of your hands. It's another step up. It becomes a bit more serious, potentially a lot more serious. It can become formal and the chances of a genuine resolution in which these two people establish a genuinely good relationship is significantly diminished. So just be aware of that. Again, another reason not to escalate too quickly unless certain circumstances exist. And then, if that doesn't work and again I guess this depends upon the size of the organization If you're in people and culture and it's been escalated to you and it's not going anywhere, then it might be time for mediation.

Speaker 1:

If you're a smaller organization and you're a manager and you've tried all the appropriate strategies that you would. If something's escalated, they're not working. It's time for mediation. My suggestion is do it quickly, don't let it become entrenched.

Speaker 1:

After you've gone through those first four phases, there are times, by the way, where you recognise that we don't have the skills, we don't have the knowledge in the organisation. This is an issue that's got some volatility around it. There could be a fallout. You might go to an external mediator straight away, but, as I say, my advice is escalating an external mediation. You only do them after you've tried other strategies or because a specific threshold's been crossed. An external mediator is quite likely, but not guaranteed to get an outcome. One of the legitimate outcomes of mediation is that these two people will not get on because they're not prepared to, and as an organisation, as a leader, you need to decide whether you're prepared to tolerate that. So I think my attitude on that is clear. It shouldn't be a choice, and if people want to continue making a destructive choice in the workplace, then in my view they don't belong in that workplace. So I like to think that, given all the opportunities that we've talked about so far, that people have made some positive choices. But it's possible you'll get to that point and a mediator might say to you don't waste any more money on mediation and ask them for a report, ask them for something that states that, because that then becomes important in further and formal action with people who are refusing to behave appropriately in the workplace.

Speaker 1:

So I'm going to take you through seven tips that you can use at the facilitation phase, at the third phase of responding to the conflict. Now again, remember agreement's optional Working together effectively and professionally in a way that doesn't inhibit other people's performance and doesn't inhibit their performance and inhibit their performance compulsory. So my seven tips be really strong on insisting that this is their problem, that this is. I've actually just looked at my tips and there are nine of them. So two bonus tips, seven tips and two bonus tips.

Speaker 1:

So the first of them is it's their problem. You provide the context, you provide the framework, but that's all you provide. If they make it your problem, then you're doing all the hard work and you might as well have just avoided this whole thing and just issued a directive and made it. You know this is what you're doing, whether you like it or not. It won't be as effective what you're doing, whether you like it or not, won't be as effective. That absolutely is a reasonable thing to do, but at the other end of the process, at the end of the process, the second is to set some ground rules. So I'm now envisaging you've got two people sitting in the boardroom with you or sitting in your office with you I would set some ground rules.

Speaker 1:

Don't make them a lot. Make three or four ground rules. I would write them on a board, write them on a flip chart, whatever it might be. I would ask them are there any other ground rules that people think are necessary for us to have this conversation in an appropriate way? Don't let them put silly things up, draw the line. You are in charge of the process, not finding the solution. So set those ground rules. Things like we'll listen without interrupting. We won't make personal attacks. That doesn't mean you can't say uncomfortable things. By the way, it's okay to say to someone I get really upset or you really annoyed me when you did this. That's not a personal attack. When someone says you are a, and add the expletive, that's a personal attack. So there's some good ground rules.

Speaker 1:

Another one relates to the fourth tip and it's all about being future focused, but I'll expand on that. So the third tip is to ask them to listen to each other without interrupting as they explain their perspective, and I'd ask them who'd like to go first. What I want you to do here is simply talk about where things are at for you. They've probably never actually listened to each other. People are so intent on what's in their head and what they want to say, on their needs, that they can completely miss the needs of other people. I've, as a professional mediator, I've actually done this step and found that we've almost resolved the issue straight away, because people didn't actually realize oh, I thought you wanted such and such, if you just listened to each other earlier. So one thing that you might need to do here is meet with them individually first, which you've probably done in that coaching process, but to talk about what they're going to say and how they're going to say it in an effective way, and continue that coaching.

Speaker 1:

Really big tip the second person. So this is sort of three. This is still part of tip three, but a really big hint here is the second person to speak. You don't want them to respond to what the first person said, you just want them to talk about what was important for them. Otherwise you've got one person expressing their perspective and the other person issuing a rebuttal of it. What you want are two people talking about their perspectives. We'll come to the rebuttal bit and so on later on. So that's number three.

Speaker 1:

Number four the past is only relevant for context. Let's keep it there. The future is where the solutions and the resolutions lie. What I mean by that? They can talk about what's happened, and it's important that they talk about what's happened but there comes a point at which we're stuck in the past, which is why they can't move to solution. So once they've gone around that once and they start to go around it again and again and again which is probably what they've been doing in their discussions stop them and say I think we've got the context here, we've got what's happened. We can't change what's happened, but we can talk about how we're going to deal with it, what we're going to respond, what comes next. So be really strong on that one. And that relates to some ground rules as well.

Speaker 1:

I warn people up front when I'm doing a professional mediation, there are times. I will move you on. If I think we're getting stuck, I'll move us on. Once they've listened to each other, ask them to brainstorm solutions together. Now, in that third phase, where they genuinely listen to each other something I didn't say and it is important there they should talk about what they want out of this process. You know what's the outcome they're looking for. So, with hint five or tip five, once they've listened and they start brainstorming solutions, it should be with those objectives in mind. So you want this and I want that. Maybe if we did this it could work. We're not actually pinning them down to solutions yet.

Speaker 1:

I think it's really important to have a bit of a brainstorming process where we throw them around. As the facilitator, you might be capturing these again on a flip chart whiteboard, you might be writing them on a pad, and once I've done some brainstorming and they've sort of lost some energy here, I would read them back. I would go through them and say, gee, we've got a lot of solutions there. We've got some things. It seems like we've got a lot of common ground too. I think it's a really important thing to emphasise. There's a lot that we've got in common. There's just a few things we don't agree upon. So let's that in context. Once they've finished brainstorming and you've summarized, I'd guide them towards reaching an outcome. So what would an outcome look like? We've done this brainstorming of solutions. What would an outcome look like that everyone could live with? You know, if we look at all those options, can we sort of move those around and marry a few up, etc.

Speaker 1:

Now recognise, the more entrenched the conflict, the more complicated it is, the more likely you are to need more than one meeting. It's a really good strategy sometimes to say, all right, I think we've done a great job today and do this especially if you think they're still too far apart. Can I get everyone to go away and reflect on this discussion? And when we get back together tomorrow or a couple of days later, I want you to think about how we're going to close the gap. We've got a bit of a gap. How we're going to close that gap, which is going to require both of you to show some willingness to make some changes, to compromise on some things, and remind them it's not optional for you to come up with a solution if you want to keep working together in this team. So continuing to work together in this team in a destructive way off the table and you decide how blunt you need to be about this. Some people require it because they're stubborn about where they're at. Some people just need a bit of a nudge. It's important we find a solution, got a bit of a gap, go away and think about it. You might do it all in one meeting.

Speaker 1:

Number seven whether it's straight away or later. Ask them to reach an agreement. So ask them to propose, once they've thrown around these solutions. So let's propose an agreement. What would that look like? And again, notice the pressures on them to do this, because it's their problem.

Speaker 1:

Once they put an agreement out there, I would move to my eighth tip and notice these tips are sort of almost a sequence. By the way, they are something you would move through in a linear way. Make sure you finish up with each person reiterating what they understand that agreement to be. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people walk out of mediation having agreed, but in their heads having agreed to different things. And again, the more entrenched the conflict is, the more likely that is to happen. So I always finish up by just saying can you just take us through what this looks like for you? What do you feel we've agreed to in the room today.

Speaker 1:

And my ninth tip, and again sequentially don't sit and forget. I would say to each person I'm going to follow up with you in the coming two or three days, see how things are going. I'm going to follow up with you again in a week or so and we might even get together in a fortnight and check in and I'll bring that forward if I think there's still issues dragging on. So there you go. There's five phases that I've taken you through and for the critical phase that impacts you most well, it doesn't impact you most, but I think it's the most challenging one, which is facilitate I've given you nine steps in a sort of nine hints, in a sort of sequence. Thanks again for listening.

Speaker 1:

Remember there's a whole series of resources that sit with this. There are some and I'm recording this ahead of time because I'm about to go on a major travel schedule for work, so some of them haven't been developed yet. There is a Plenty in 20 on mediation. There is a blog to go on a major travel schedule for work, so some of them haven't been developed yet. There is a Plenty in 20 on mediation. There is a blog. There are other resources that will be developed and made available as part of this month's theme. Again, thanks for listening and talk to you next month and, in the meantime, stay authentic.