As I was reading about the different ways in which people can be involved in other people's conflicts, I couldn't help but think how we already ARE, in a sense, mediators. For example, how many times (this is probably more with the ladies) have two of your mutual friends gotten into a fight and they come to you to vent about it? I know for me, I am really good at seeing issues in a neutral manner, so typically when both of these people tell me what's going on, I will listen, and then give my opinion on where their fault was in the situation. This typically allows for people to see how THEY could have reacted differently and how that might of had an impact on the overall problem because they have an unbiased, outsider view of what is going on. Also, sometimes people just need to hear how dumb and immature they're being, which coincides with how the text talks about how it is being viewed by others.
This also made me think of my dad when it said, "Competitive communication is self-serving because it serves as a vehicle through which individuals attempt to distort the other's perceptions of the situation in order to gain an advantage," (pg 198) because he used to always tell me, "there are three sides to every story: yours, mine, and the truth." I think this is great to keep in mind while being a mediator because I think no matter how much you might attempt to tell your side of the story honestly, you're still going to be biased because you are automatically going to see most of the fault on the other party.
I think knowing how to effectively be a mediator is an important trait because it is natural for us to get involved in other peoples' affairs, and it is unlikely that we can totally remove ourselves from hostile and undesirable situations.
I like what your dad told you, “There are three sides to every story: yours, mine, and the truth.” How true that is! We may think we know how things really happened, but how we see and understand things is affected by so many things such as how observant we are, how much we are paying attention, past experiences, etc.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that oftentimes we are asked to be mediators in friends’ conflicts, but I, for one, am not a good mediator. I, like you, am a good listener, but after I hear both sides, I tend to jump in with my judgment of who’s at fault and what I think should be done, and that’s not mediation. A mediator is impartial and doesn’t tell the conflicting parties what to do. A good mediator would instead use tools such as fractionation, framing, reframing and finding a common ground to get the conflicting parties to work out their own mutually acceptable agreement on how to handle their conflict.