Podcast – Final question: Mediation is conflict at its best.
What do you mean when you say: Mediation is conflict at its best? This was the final question Chris Knutson, PE asked in our podcast from Stuttgart, Germany. The podcast was a wide ranging discussion of how civil engineers could use mediation to resolve disputes in construction.
Here are the links to the Podcast:
The final question of the podcast that Chris Knutson, PE asked:
What do you mean by the byline on my website: “Mediation is conflict at its best”?
To answer that I will have to give you a little history. Throughout history societies have developed and used mediation to resolve problems. Somehow in the last hundred years the USA has only focused on litigation to solve problems. That is why we are considered a very litigious society.
In the sixties, the hippies rebelling against the “Establishment”, rediscovered mediation as a means to solve problems. Their intent was to eliminate all conflict. Don’t forget the whole idea was to have peace.
Around the same time the business community (and I lump engineers into this group), were facing an average time of five years of litigation just to get to trial. This was expensive and counterproductive. They also started to experiment with mediation as a way to quickly resolve disputes. They also recognized that you could never get rid of all conflict you could only manage conflict in better ways.
For myself, mediation does have conflict in it that must reach a conclusion. But it is controlled so that it does not get out of hand. A better solution comes from the recognition that conflict is part of our lives and that through mediation you can control the outcome of the conflict. Therefore: Mediation is conflict at its best.
About the Author: Ken Strongman (www.kpstrongman.com) has years of experience and a growing national reputation as a mediator and arbitrator. He has successfully resolved more than a thousand disputes in the fields of construction defects, real estate, intellectual property, and employment. He is also a Mediator and Arbitrator for FINRA.
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