The Secrets of Successful (and Unsuccessful) Mediators

In my What makes a Supermed? post last year I mentioned 3 worthwhile articles.

Two of them - The Secrets of Successful Mediators (Negotiation Journal, July 2005) and The Secrets of Successful (and Unsuccessful) Mediators (Negotiation Journal, October 2007) cost $29 each to download and anyway the third article - the free MATA Advanced Mediator Skills Project was as good as you'd want.

Well, now you can get the two Negotiation Journal pieces summarised in one place at no cost - courtesy of the winter edition of Jams' Dispute Resolution Alert newsletter out last week.

The article reports the results of studies in an ongoing research project designed to determine how mediators succeed in assisting disputing parties to achieve settlements.... and why they sometimes fail;

"I had one mediator... disclose information provided in confidence... Once it surfaced that the mediator had breached confidence, clients and lawyer were outraged and mediation failed.

Dishonesty in reporting the other side’s position – confirmed later in conversation with counsel.

I’ve had mediators come in and say to both sides that their case stinks. No credibility there" [... read more]