Defining Issues/Setting Agenda: The Mediation Process

This chapter from the Mediation book is all about defining the issues that will be covered in a mediation and setting the agenda (i.e. procedural process to coming up with solutions and the order/way in which the issues will be looked at). The author breaks the issues down into interest and value based conflicts. Most times values cannot be negotiated, so the mediator needs to be skilled in reframing value statements into issue statements. The mediator(s) must be careful about neutrality while doing this. The first level of reframing, detoxification, involves making a statement the party said sound more neutral; I believe this would work best in a caucus or shuttle intervention. If both parties are at the table and one party is saying (as per the example in the chapter) “That fat slob hasn’t paid his rent money for the past two months,” since both parties are at the table, and the ‘fat slob’ can hear the comment, I believe that in addition to reframing what party one has said, the mediator needs to remind the parties of the rules of conduct/politeness. If they don’t, they won’t appear as neutral to the second party.

The other main topic of the chapter, besides the issues, was how to set the agenda. The author gives several examples of types of agenda. You can look at the issues linearly, do the easier items first, alternate issues, do building blocks, and a principled agenda. To me, as a mediator, it does not make sense to separate all of the issues and solve them one at a time because I think that most issues around a conflict will be interlocked, and it is hard to negotiate one without the other. Also, I agree with the ‘trade-offs’ agenda; I think that if I were a party I would not want to be resolving the issues separately in fear that I might lose my leverage and negotiating power when it came to an issue that I really felt strongly about; I would not want to resolve anything before whatever the most important issue to me was. I suppose as a mediator, I would have to learn to adapt if the parties really wanted to solve things linearly or separately. The author touches on this in his psychology department example; you may think you know the best way to attack the issues, but you have to feel out the culture and norms of the group you are working with.