The Creative Solution Table of Contents
Summary:
Chip Rose’s chapter, “The Agent of Reality,” discusses the crucial role of mediators in helping disputing parties overcome emotional barriers to reach mutually agreeable solutions. Rose emphasizes that mediators act as “agents of reality,” guiding clients toward a realistic assessment of their options by acknowledging subjective perspectives and identifying various impediments to effective negotiation, such as moral, financial, or philosophical filters. He highlights the importance of reframing perspectives as negotiating points and showcasing the potential for choice development through collaboration. The article concludes by emphasizing the value of a mediator’s role in facilitating productive resolution.
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The first time I heard the phrase “agent of reality,” it captivated my imagination. It is so bondesque. James. James Bond…mediator and agent of reality. Adds a bit of panache to the profession, wouldn’t you say? On the other hand, the first time I embraced the concept of a mediator acting in this capacity, I surveyed every mediation that I had done to that point and could not remember one in which that particular skill had not been utilized to good, if not critical, effect. In reviewing my case work since the last column for a good topic, I was struck by the ubiquitous presence of this particular intervention and thought it an appropriate subject for discussion.
The reality that each client brings into the process can be simultaneously both interesting to observe, and extremely challenging to facilitate. Understanding that most clients come to the process with broad levels of anxiety that manifests itself in a perception that everything the other party says, asserts, desires or feels strongly about, is seriously threatening to the first party. The predictable counter-behavior is to cling with a tenacious vice-grip to positions that are diametrically opposed to those taken by the other party. If this dynamic is not addressed, the mediator will have an extremely difficult time in helping the parties make progress. One effective preemptive approach is to normalize this tendency and to identify the fact that each party=s perspectives are entirely subjective (in the ultimate sense), as we are each observing the world through the windows of our eyes and other senses. In that context, no one person’s perspective is any more valid or meaningful than that of another. Identifying the futility and ineffectiveness of arguing over predictable differing perspectives is an invaluable early intervention of reality. In a process in which the only settlement will be one that is created, accepted and embraced by each participant, the wants, desires, opinions, perspectives (and even the positional statements) of either party can be reframed as important negotiating reference points rather than threats to an agreeable solution.
The typical interpersonal conflict evidences a variety of filters that are natural impediments to the development of effective solutions to the disputed issues. Moral filters may reflect deeply held beliefs, unbearable hurt or pain, and rigid postures regarding resolution possibilities. When one of the parties comes to the process feeling violated on one level or another, and, when a sense of moral outrage is brought to the table at the outset of the process, something more strategic than a sharp sword is needed to deal with this Gordian knot if impasse is to be avoided. Financial filters reflect a most common source of relationship friction and present an opportunity for effective and critical reality-checking. That neither party will have enough money to meet one=s needs, is a fact on which there will undoubtedly be reluctant consensus. Identifying that truth and the shared perspective each has about it, is both a reality check and starting point for effective problem-solving. Examples of philosophical filters would be the belief that an equitable division of property will never be obtained using the rules of law, or the belief that equal custody arrangement is the only acceptable outcome (notwithstanding the fact this may represent a significant departure from the allocation of parenting responsibilities during the marriage).
In each of these types of circumstances, there are a number of interventions available to the mediator as agent of reality. One is the normalizing of the perspective differences we discussed earlier. Another is acknowledging the fact of, and reasons for, the moral, financial or philosophical filters, followed by refocusing the client’s attention to a candid assessment of the actual choices that are available either as a product of the law model or which might be obtained through negotiation. Few clients have a meaningful grasp of the expansive potential for choice development that can be produced by a collaborative approach. This is not surprising when collaboration runs so counter to the emotional grain at this stage in their relationship.
How clarifying it is to the client to grasp the reality that there are choices to be made and that they derive from more than one source. Choices flow from the law model (such as rules regarding marital property division), from the real world (such as the exemption of social security benefits from allocation by state courts in family law proceedings) and from negotiation with the other party (such as specific outcomes desired by one party being bartered in consideration for outcomes desired by the other). The next step for the client is to subordinate how she or he feels about any particular choice to the task of identifying all possible choices as one of the most effective process tasks leading to negotiation.
These examples and observations only scratch the surface of this very strategic role a mediator can play. And while intervening as an agent of reality isn’t exactly ordering your martini stirred not shaken, it will ultimately prove more valuable to your clients.
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