In early 2006, I mediated a dispute between two siblings in conflict over their mother’s estate. The total value of the estate was nearly $1 million and the financial stakes were high. These siblings were well into their 60s and had decades of both love and garbage between them. They’d already spent untold thousands of dollars litigating the matter when it landed at my mediation table.
It was messy and loving and frustrating and complicated — like life.
After four hours in mediation, the siblings had made tremendous progress. They’d talked out the things that frustrated them: One had done most of mom’s primary care in her last months. The other felt deliberately shut out by her brother. They’d had tension when dad had died but mom had kept things together. They’d expressed keen remorse for how their anger with each other had created an embarrassing scene at mom’s funeral.
And still they were stuck in divvying up the estate funds, about $5,000 apart. Not bad compared to where they’d started. Five thousand is a whole lot of dollars, yes. Yet not so many dollars when considered in the context of the hundreds of thousands they were disputing.
We spent an hour on that last $5,000 and no wiggle room seemed in sight. I took a break and walked around the block while they went to separate coffee shops for refreshments.
When we re-convened, I said, “It seems a shame for $5,000 to get in the way of all the good work you’ve done, all the sorting out you’ve accomplished, all the possibility you have to reconnect your families again. It also seems to me that the idea of fairly dividing that $5,000 is what’s getting you stuck. So let me flip your thinking for a minute: How could you fairly share that $5,000 instead of divide it?
We were drafting an agreement 10 minutes later.
That last $5,000? They had a touching and befitting solution: Donate $5,000 to Hurricane Katrina relief in the name of their mother.
How we frame the problems in our lives has such powerful impact on the solutions we see and can’t see.
Conflict Zen® by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at ConfictZen.Lenski.com.
Brilliant. But how did you think of it? Is there any particular creative process or system that seems to work for you, in terms of generating fresh ideas and fresh insight? For me the fear is always, “Will I have that flash of insight?” As a mediator, when confronted with a difficult situation, I find it helpful to remind myself that if a dispute were “easy” the parties wouldn’t need my help to work through it. I remind myself of the saying (I think attributed to Gandhi?) which holds that a problem cannot be solved by using the same level of awareness that created it. My job is to move everyone from being a two dimensional flatlander to a bird’s eye view where they can see in three dimensions. In seeking to do this, I ask myself what new perspective, process, or insight can I bring to the table that adds value — what can inspire the “aha” moment that leads to welcome breakthrough? In terms of arriving at that “aha” moment, I’m wondering, is there some specific creative process you employ that helps lead you and parties to think of the (wonderful) twists, illustrated here by the idea of “sharing” as opposed to “dividing”?
Alexandria, great question! I study and think a lot about creativity and finding possibility (one of my favorite books ever is The Art of Possibility). When I’m mediating or coaching and someone’s stuck, I also like to flip problems 180 degrees to see if the new angle sheds any light — it’s kind of surprising how frequently it does.
I think the question you’re asking in such moments, What new perspective, process or insights can I bring to the table — what can inspire the “aha” moment? is the right orientation to the work. It may just be splitting hairs or semantics, but I ask myself just an ever-so-slightly different question. Instead of “what can I do?” I ask, “What do they need right now?” It’s the way I’ve trained myself to take me out of the equation completely and orient my thinking solely to them. When I’m teaching or training new and seasoned mediators, I do some exercises around this.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to muse about this!
Wonderful article – thank you!
I think the importance of exploring what the parties need can’t be emphasized enough. It seems to me that usually when there’s an impasse, there’s a need/interest that hasn’t been verbalized. You’ve mentioned “relentless curiosity” before – I think that’s a key component to being able to help the parties discover the “stick in the spokes.”
I’m reading such an interesting book right now: “Dealing with Differences: Dramas of Mediating Public Disputes” by John Forester (2009). I highly recommend this book for all mediators and facilitators – it takes you into the “trenches” and shows how some pretty amazing mediators helped the parties find their way out.
Thanks again for such a great article.
Take care.
Debra Healy
agree2agree
Healy Conflict Management Services