In mediation it’s often helpful to help parties separate intention from impact. Parties in dispute often judge each other, in part, by their assumptions about the other person’s intentions. If the impact was negative, then the intention of the other person was assumed to be negative. This may not be the case. While the parties can always be clear about how the behaviour of the other has impacted them, they cannot be clear about the other’s intentions.

Therefore, it can be helpful when parties are discussing what happened, to help them recognize that their impact on the other person was what it was, and the impact may have been completely divorced from their intentions. Also, it can be helpful to make it explicit to the other person that, while the impact on them was negative or hurtful, that may not have been the other person’s intention.

To learn conflict resolution skills that you can use at work and in your personal life, please visit our Alternative Dispute Resolution Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.

To improve your negotiation skills and get the results you want while negotiating, please visit our Become a Powerful Negotiator Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.

To gain skills to handle difficult conversations and difficult people with confidence, please visit our Dealing With Difficult People Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.

To make better decisions, we need to understand how our mind takes shortcuts and how those shortcuts trick us into making bad decisions. If you understand how your mind works and when it fails you, you will make better decisions. To improve your decision-making skills, please visit our Effective Decision Making Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.