One of the main functions of an emergency manager is to help stakeholders with competing agendas agree to a common goal and the best approach to achieving that goal. The problem is that often those competing agendas and organizational biases can lead to conflict. Consequently, emergency managers may find themselves serving as mediators for the opposing groups.
Here are just a few examples of the types of conflicts that can create the need for mediation between opposing demands:
- Two city departments who have traditionally battled for dominance, distrust each other’s motivations, and compete for resources must now agree on how best to spend federal grant funds. The underlying cause of the conflict is that each wants an equal share of the funds regardless of overall operational needs.
- A homeless advocacy group and the city social services department who distrust each other need to help craft a plan for dealing with victims displace by residential hotel fires. The advocates want more benefits and services than the victims had available before the fire while social services department has budget and policy limitations on what they can provide.
- A shelter working group does not want a police presence in emergency shelters, despite a clear need for some measure of security. The lack trust in the police department’s ability to deal with a population largely consisting of homeless people and foreign nationals.
Mediation is not just a case of just holding a meeting and working through issues. This is the normal approach, and we are very effective at it. Mediation comes into play when there is a deadlock that requires intervention to help the parties in conflict reach an agreeable compromise. It is frequently exacerbated by a mutual distrust among the parties involved. Success in mediation really depends on doing your homework beforehand and being adequately prepared. Here are some suggestions you might want to consider:
- Position yourself as a neutral party. Your success as a mediator depends heavily on the trust of the parties you are mediating. This is not something you can develop quickly and must be built over time. If you cannot be perceived as neutral, get someone else to mediate and support them as necessary.
- Understand context. You’ll need to do some research on what created the problem you’re trying to mediate. By this I mean understanding a bit of history on why there is a conflict and what biases might have a bearing on the problem. For example, in the early days of the Incident Command System there was resistance to adapting it to other departments because it was viewed as a “fire program”. Understanding context can help you avoid pitfalls that can cast doubt on your neutrality.
- Make sure you have the right participants. While it’s unlikely you’ll be able to get department heads, the participants should have sufficient authority to speak for their organization and commit the organization to a course of action, pending ratification by their superiors. This is important or you’ll find yourself holding multiple meetings, each ending with, “I’ll have to get back to you on that after I talk to my boss.”
- Consider meeting with each participant separately prior to a joint mediation session. Depending on your relationships with the participants, you may want to meet with them one-on-one as part of your research before the mediation session. This can give you insight into the causes of the conflict and the positions each is likely to take on the issues at the later meeting. This understanding can make you sensitive to each participant’s issues and help you develop more effective approaches to resolving conflict.
- Be clear about the expected outcome. By this I don’t mind a specific outcome that you force the participants towards but rather the overall end results you’re trying to achieve. The specifics will be determined during mediation, but you need to be able to articulate a clear goal to keep participants on track. Having this agreed to by the participants prior to any session will avoid the need argue about goals instead of issues.
- Use a formal meeting facilitation process. Particularly in the case where there is animosity or distrust, you’ll need all the tools at your disposal to keep the meeting on track and stop it from being sidetracked. An agreed upon agenda, accepted decision-making process, issue parking – all these are extremely important tools in helping participants maintain their focus.
- Focus on agreements. I have found it effective to open a mediation session by developing a quick list of those things that the participants can agree on or have already agreed on. These are easy wins that demonstrate that agreement is possible and there are only a few things that are really problems.
- Don’t try to fix everything at once. Unless you’re doing something like an all-day or multi-day retreat (a whole different approach), keep your sessions short and focused on a single issue. This can prevent participants from getting tired and combative and allows for cooling off periods between meetings.
- Document results. This is part of the meeting facilitation process, but it is absolutely essential to mediation. There will be a lot of people who will be interested in the outcome, and you’ll want a record of decisions made and actions agreed to by the participants. I prefer to share a draft with each participant to make sure my meeting memorandum is accurate.
- You’re not always going to be successful. While it’s rare, there are times when you won’t be able to resolve an issue. In this case, the question for participants is, “At what level would you like this resolved?” The best you can do is to document the results of the meeting and escalate the issue. This is most effective if you can summarize the issue and offer several options for resolution based on the information you have collected in the mediation process. Having clear options makes it much easier for senior managers to render a quick decision instead of asking them to formulate a solution to a problem.
Mediation is not often necessary, but when it is, it is the result of a major conflict between two or more participants. In this case, it’s best approached outside a larger planning group and by focusing on the specific issues causing the conflict. Focus on the problem, resolve it, and move on.
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