Examples of mediation


The most beautiful thing about mediation is always the meeting, the appeasement of the conflict, the moment of change where the participants are, for a moment, on the other's chair and understand the other, feel what the other has feeling.
Self-respect is restored at this point.

Examples of mediation


Example: I am contacted by an employee. During this first contact, he explains his point of view to me; we only have the facts and feelings of one of the two parties. The crucial point is the shock of the rejection that the employee often expresses clearly. My questioning focuses on two elements:


Do you have any idea of the reason for this interview

What do you see as a result of this meeting with your counterpart?

Then there are the factual elements "Can you send me your employment contract?". These elements allow me to analyze the company, its sector, its activity, the culture of the sector as well as the viability of the company. These elements, analyzed before the interview with the employee, give me the field of intervention.


During this first interview, directed, reformulated listening is the most reassuring. It is about understanding how the employment contract was signed, an act that is always bipartite. What then was the need sought by the employer, and that of the employee?

What were their mutual motivations? Without going into the projection, the reformulation allows the employee to understand that you mean it and he can trust your discretion and your confidentiality. It is not simple listening, it is active and participatory listening. We are here in the mediation approach. Likewise, we must understand the culture of the company, just as we must understand the deep motivations of each party. In this specific case, the employer is the founder. The DNA of the company is that of a participatory concept.


During the plenary interview where the two antagonists are face to face, the founder expresses his annoyance about the employee's intervention in the company's strategy. Maintenance changeover occurs when this element is identified and reformulated. The boss is as much in pain as the employee. Its DNA has created a conflict between its participatory values and its leadership role. Very quickly it becomes clear that the disagreement is functional as well as economic, that basically there is a communication problem. the boss's disappointment is then projected onto the employee.







Example: This is a three-year-old start-up, most of the attendees no more than 26. The employee is 36 years old. She was hired before the Covid period, to manage fabric purchases. As a buyer, it had to be to define new trends and to negotiate with suppliers to have fabrics at the best price. Two months after being hired, the Covid intervenes. A reorganization takes place, its manager, the director of the operation, is dismissed and the function is taken over by a young girl leaving school. Immediately unease sets in between the two women, the young manager seems to be undermined by the qualities and experience of her subordinate. In this context very quickly, the manager asks Alice to be content purely and simply with a subordinate position, as the employee puts it “it's only to count buttons. “In the middle of the Covid period, she is offered a conventional break, her child barely a year old, and she has only six months in the company. She refuses the break-up, for two reasons: - The period to find a new job is very inconvenient, - The young age of her child makes finding employment and financial insecurity even more difficult. Three interviews take place around a breakup. Finally, the company accepts his refusal to break up and invites him for a dismissal interview. We can hear several things in this conflicting situation: - no reorganization has been done, no reframing of the objectives for each team. The new employee qualification ranges from autonomy in work to outright execution, it is demotivated - it is difficult for many young people not to feel challenged by an older subordinate it requires a certain dexterity in communication. Experience is always an asset in a team, although it is not often felt as such. - The balance between private and professional life of the employees anchors their active participation in the business plan - the company has in this case taken its responsibilities and decided to lay off the employee, but this type of badly managed rupture often generates an injury, a feeling of rejection and injustice ensues. This situation could have been avoided with timely mediation and communication advice.
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