Thinking Like a Mediator: Listen First

When you are trying to resolve a conflict between two other people, it is important to ‘LISTEN FIRST’.

Listening is often said to be the most important part of communication. So, whether it’s listening to someone when they approach you with the conflict they are facing, or listening to both parties in the facilitated conversation, it needs to be done well. The idea is that you can give people a ‘good listening to’; that they have a chance to offload and that you have heard, understood, and have some concern for their predicament.

So how do you go about doing this? Simply put, through Active Listening.

You can read a whole article about Active Listening here, but it typically involves skills like Paraphrasing and Reflecting, as well as having the ability to express empathy and summarising well.

There is another element of listening as the conflict resolver too: the ability to do so without casting judgment, and instead listening impartially. This doesn’t mean that you have to sit on the fence and be completely indifferent to what the parties are saying though. Impartiality in this sense means investing equally in both sides’ interests and drivers, and empathising equally with both of them.

Of course, this series of articles is designed for those who are not mediators and who have not had formal mediation training (where these Active Listening skills can be practised extensively). These skills might not come naturally to some of us, and instead it can take years of practise in order to fully master them. And in terms of impartiality, most people may not even be aware of their own biases!

There are, however, people who are just naturally good listeners, who may find themselves having to deal with other people’s conflict more frequently. Perhaps people feel more comfortable approaching you with a problem, knowing that you are going to listen to them both actively and impartially, and treat them with sensitivity and empathy.

And if that's the case with you, we can move on to the next aspect of ‘Thinking Like a Mediator’…