MEDIATION JOURNAL
in association with:
CIVIL MEDIATION COUNCIL
Mediator Research Highlights: Developing an effective personal style through reflective and reflexive learning. Roy Poyntz, Mediator, Researcher, Trainer y research examined the practice of in-house workplace mediators in British universities. For these practitioners, mediation is an occasional activity – an adjunct to their main roles – and they typically have infrequent opportunities to practice: the most experienced participant in the study had undertaken 20 cases over a period of seven years. This is a characteristic of practice that is shared by many newly trained mediators. At the start of their practice, the mediators in the study group aim to achieve a mastery of the skills and the process of mediation introduced in in their basic training. However, more experienced mediators move beyond the formal model to develop a personal style and complex schema. Style is not fixed and may, with experience, become increasingly flexible. Research finds that mediators operate with either a simple or a complex schema (Kressel, 2013). A simple schema is portrayed as less stressful, relying on formal models, simpler intervention strategies and ‘linear’ procedural scripts. A complex schema is less reliant on formal models and utilises a diversity of intervention strategies. The latter is accompanied by more decisional stress as mediators have a greater array of choices and possible objectives. Mediators are generally trained not to judge the people or the problem. At the same time, a mediator must judge when and how to intervene. They may select from at least 100 identified
M
8 8 UK Mediation Journal, Issue 7
techniques (Wall and Dunne, 2012) and their judgment is about which is most likely to move the process on in the circumstances with these people. During the mediation they may also choose to do nothing whilst remaining an engaged but observant listener. Listening is a demanding state: responding to interactions between the parties which may involve high emotion and tension, being in the moment, and holding a mental map of potential routes forward. Over time, mediators are said to simplify complex choices by developing a personal style (Wall and Kressel, 2012) – a synthesis of formal mediation model and informal personal schema – that encompasses their own approach to mediation. A personal schema operates at an implicit unconscious level drawing on personal insights acquired over time and with experience. Developing a personal style requires an opportunity to learn from experience and using a framework for managing learning which supports making the implicit explicit. University mediators develop their personal style through post-case reflective practice. This is conducted with their co-mediator, service coordinator and periodically within their university practitioner group. Two types of questions characterise these reflections: ‘what’ and ‘how’? ‘What’ allows the less experienced mediator to ask what they should (or should not) be doing, seeking confirmation that techniques acquired in
Sponsored by:
