difficult conversations in mediation sheila heen...aled: so, here's my thinking. i'm...

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Difficult Conversations in Mediation

Sheila Heen

Aled Davies: Hi everyone. My name is Aled Davies, founder of MediatorAcademy.com.

If you're a conflict resolution practitioner and want to develop your thinking, learn brand

new skills or even sharpen old ones, then this is the place for you. We track down thought leaders

and experienced practitioners and for 60 minutes try and get answers to some big questions so

that you can improve your effectiveness, develop your thinking and stay on top of your game.

Now, my guest today is a lecturer on law at Harvard Law School and founder of Triad

Consulting Group, who have a pretty impressive list of corporate clients. Now, she typically works

with executive teams, helping them work through conflict, repair working relationships and make

sound decisions together.

In the public sector, she has also provided training for the New England Organ Bank, the

Singapore Supreme Court, the Obama White House and theologians struggling with disagreement

over the nature of truth and God. She has spent the last 20 years with the Harvard Negotiation

Project developing negotiation theory and practice and she specialises in particularly difficult

negotiations where emotions run high and relationships become strained.

She is co-author of the New York Times Business Bestsellers 'Difficult Conversations: How

to Discuss What Matters Most' and 'Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving

Feedback Well * even when it is off base, unfair, poorly delivered and, frankly, you're not in the

mood'

Now, I should say that she's appeared on shows as diverse as Oprah and the G. Gordon

Liddy show, NPR's 'Diane Rehm Show,' Fox News and CNBC's 'Power Lunch' obviously to prepare

for this interview today.

It's such a privilege for me to welcome Sheila Heen onto Mediator Academy. Sheila,

welcome.


Sheila Heen: Well, thank you. I'm delighted to be here.

Aled: I feel like a child in a sweet shop. I've only got a dollar to spend and I've got so many

questions that I need to choose wisely.

Sheila: And there'll be health effects apparently down the line for you.

Aled: So, here's my thinking. I'm curious about difficult negotiations. In the intro, I said you

work particularly with difficult negotiations where emotions run high and relationships are

strained. So I thought we could start there, find out what makes these sorts of conversations

sticky, difficult, tough, how we get stuck and so on.

Then I thought we could look at the role of the mediator through the lens of difficult

conversations, thinking about our approach, thinking about what's going on for the parties, sitting

around the table and how we get them engaged in a productive dialogue, in a useful

conversation.

It's certainly one of the things that I think about. I think it's important to frame those sorts

of conversations as mutual learning conversations. I'd be interested in your thoughts around that.

Sheila: Yeah.

Aled: Then I really want to understand how we can give and receive feedback on the basis that I

believe the co-mediation model is an effective model and an important one in the interest of

mediator accountability. We talked about this in the pre-interview.

So how do we really do that well? How do we hold ourselves accountable for our

behaviour and our colleagues' behaviour and do that in a way that's kind of in the spirit of

learning? Because I know, whilst there's a part of me that fully believes that feedback is useful,

will enhance my effectiveness. There's also a little part of me that just wants to know that I'm a

good boy and I'm doing everything right.


Sheila: Yes. Well, I'm impressed that it's just a little part of you. For sure. I think especially for

smart, accomplished people, feedback is threatening.

Aled: Yeah. I can see that. I can see that. Does that agenda sound okay with you?

Sheila: Absolutely.

Aled: I'm also very proud of the fact that I've never once stuck to an agenda like that.

Sheila: Excellent. So everyone will give us feedback on whether we did what we said were going

to do.

Aled: Absolutely. All right. Let's jump straight in. What makes a negotiation or a conversation

difficult, sticky, uncomfortable?

Sheila: Yeah. Let me say a little bit about how we came to it because there's a historical answer,

and then there's an obvious answer. The obvious answer is if the conversation feels difficult to

you, if it's keeping you up at night, if you have tried to have it before and it hasn't gone the way

that you wanted, if it's causing you anxiety, fear, frustration unhappy outcomes or you're avoiding

it, it's difficult. It's very much an experiential definition. That's the simple one.

The historical one really has to do with the work of the Harvard Negotiation Project. So,

when I showed up there in 1990 – dating myself – we were teaching from 'Getting to Yes.' Roger

Fisher was running the programme. People were coming and taking our courses from all over the

word for the exec ed. as well as the regular graduate students.

Periodically they'd come back and they'd say, 'Hey, I just want to tell you how I'm using

this great approach and focusing on interests and creating options. Whether I'm a negotiator or

I'm a mediator, this is incredibly helpful and let me tell you about the impact it's having.'


But every once in a while, people would come back and say, 'You know, your approach is

very helpful in many ways, but there are some conversations I'm in where, when I try to use your

approach, it's not working. In fact, I think it might be making things worse.'

Harvard being Harvard, we had a reaction that I think was typical, which is, 'Well, if our

theory isn't working for you, obviously there's something wrong with you. I mean clearly you’re

not doing it right!’

Aled: That's exactly my thought there.

Sheila: 'You probably need a remedial course or maybe you need to hire us as consultants and

we'll come and show you how it's done.' But eventually we kind of came to our senses and

thought, 'Maybe there's something different about particularly challenging conversations.'

'Getting to Yes' talks about separating the people from the problem.

In these cases, it's seems the people were the problem. Often, there's a lot of history

involved. We don't trust each other enough to have an open conversation about interests. We

feel like we're really backed into a corner and it's not my fault that I'm backed into a corner. It's

your fault because you're impossible.

We just start inviting people to bring in their toughest conversations and we started to

take them apart to understand, 'Okay, so what's getting people stuck and why is it so hard to

make any progress?' And what 'Difficult Conversations' captured, what we learned over the

course of about ten years – it took us a very long time, very slow learners – to feel like we had it

right or close enough to right that you could actually pick up that book and use the approach and

it would help you get somewhere, in your own difficult conversations.

Aled: Okay. So, the people that were coming back saying, 'Look, it's working for some. It's not

working for others.' Were there common themes? Were there particular types of conversations

or were there elements within the conversations?


Sheila: Yeah. The first working title of the book 'Difficult Conversations' was 'The Ten Hardest

Things to Say and How to Say Them.'

Aled: Okay.

Sheila: Our first hypothesis was, 'Well, we're hearing themes in the kinds of conversations. So

we'll just have a chapter about each of them.' There's giving feedback. There's dealing with a peer

where you don't have any authority but you're trying to influence them. There are conversations

at home with your spouse. There are conversations with your teenager. There are conversations

about difficult topics like politics or religion or strongly held views. That actually was our first

mental organisation.

Aled: Yeah.

Sheila: Then we started to listen to the kinds of things people were thinking and feeling during

these conversations, what we eventually called 'the internal voice'. It pretty quickly became

apparent that actually it didn't matter who they were talking to, and it didn't matter what they

were talking about because the same kinds of things show up.

All of us have a story about what's happening or what has happened or what should

happened. That includes what we're right about and whose fault it is and why that other person is

acting this way, their intentions or their character.

Everybody is grappling with strong feelings and – and this was actually a pretty late insight

that came from Doug – if a conversation feels difficult there's something about identity that feels

like it's at stake. It says something about the kind of person you are, which is then driving the

depth and scope of the feelings, that then influence the story that they're telling so that they

interact together.

But once we saw that actually it's not organised by subject, it's organised by what our

internal voice is typically doing. That really set the agenda, which is, in order to handle these


conversations better, you have to change from the inside out. So, it's not about the script and

saying magic words. It's about changing your internal stance, in the conversation, and first

negotiating with yourself.

Aled: Something you said about identity, then, I got the impression that that is central to . . .

Sheila: Oh yeah.

Aled: . . . the struggles that people have. Is that right?

Sheila: Yeah. Absolutely.

Aled: Could you say a bit more about that?

Sheila: Yeah. Identity can be big or small in terms of the hook. But what's interesting about it is

that even when it's small, and it can be true or not true. In other words, even if it's small and I'm

pretty sure it's not true the fact that you think this, about me, is especially upsetting. So we all

have a few traits that we wrap our identity around.

If I'm nothing else, I'm really responsible or I'm really responsive to clients or I'm kind or

empathetic or I'm very thorough. So what you get from me is going to be right, down to the n'th

detail.

That means if I do something that isn't 100% right and I overlooked something, the

suggestion that, 'Oh my gosh, I can't believe I made that mistake. What must they think of me?

What do I think about myself?' Particularly for high achievers, I think identity can be even more

brittle because we hold ourselves to such high standards.

The identity lens can help you understand why certain kinds of conversations feel difficult

to you but they're not hard to others. So, this is part of what gave us this insight. We were


puzzling over the observation that some kinds of conversations are predictably difficult for

everyone, like firing someone. But have you noticed that there are a few people who actually

don't have trouble with that? There are ranges of how hard that feels. Some people have a really

hard time saying no when they're asked for help. Other people have no trouble.

So, we were puzzling over why that was and hit upon this, as we talked with people,

about why they felt stuck. If you have trouble saying no, you're probably someone who's a real

team player. You'd never abandon someone in need. So, turning down a friend who asks for help,

or a colleague, isn't just saying the word no, it's doing something that is not who you are or want

to be.

Aled: So, the conflict with our own identity or with our sense of self?

Sheila: Yes. By the way, this is tough for mediators because it's really easy to get your identity

wrapped around either, how happy are the parties with you afterwards or what's your settlement

rate, and, because there isn't a lot of oversight in the midst of a conflict where you can't figure

out what to do, and these parties are further away from settling than when they walked through

your door. Maybe you've actually made it worse. That is a really tough identity issue. Should it be?

Not necessarily. These parties maybe shouldn't settle.

Aled: Okay. I had a thought a moment ago. If I'm going in as a mediator into a particular

conflict, I've got one on the burner at the moment and I'm continuously changing my approach.

I'm continuously changing the way I engage parties.

So, one of the things that I might say, I'm aware that I have that expectation of myself, to

be really effective and to help these people solve their problems, even though I know that it's

down to them to do it, and I'm just there to help them have a good quality conversation. There's a

part of me that I want to be able to walk out and I go, 'I really helped. I earned my fee.' to put it

crudely.

I'm thinking one of the things that might be helpful to say is to kind of share that dilemma

with the parties. How do we overcome this identity struggle then?


Sheila: Yeah. It's such a great question. So, two thoughts. In terms of sharing the struggle, one of

the things that I have sometimes started doing up front is to frame my role pretty specifically and

to say, 'Your job is to come as you are. You don't have to pretend you think or feel anything

different.'

By the way, I should say something about the kind of mediation that I do. A lot of the

mediation I do is what we call 'uncontained mediation,' which gives it the aura of an extreme

sport. What we mean by that is we think of contained mediation as often court annexed.

So you already know who the parties are. You know what the issues in dispute are. You

know how much time you're going to spend, at least initially, trying to mediate it, etc.

In uncontained mediation, half of the project is often figuring those questions out. Who

are the players I need to talk to to even understand what the issues are and then who should be

at the table and by the way, how do we structure that process because it's not necessarily

everybody for the whole time. We may be sequencing.

In terms of framing my role to get buy-in for people to even participate in that process,

rather than saying, 'We're going to see if we can settle this or find a solution'. what I've started

saying a few years ago is, 'My job is to help you guys have a candid and high quality conversation

so that at the end of the day, you either find a solution or an outcome or you don't, but if you

don't it's not because you didn't communicate well.

We're trying to remove the communication barrier so that we can then actually just deal

with all the other challenges and barriers here. At the other end, ideally you have better working

relationships even if you still don't agree or have a solution, which will help you down the line.'

So, for me, being transparent is almost a reminder to me as much as to them that

settlement isn't the only outcome but there are some other benefits of the process and we're

figuring it out together, whether there's something to be agreed upon and acted upon.


I think that there's a second identity thing, at least for me. You can say whether this is

true for you, which is, when I was little, I looked at all the grown-ups, at least if they were good at

their job, I assumed that they were in a state of knowing and confidence all the time.

It has taken me a really long time to feel comfortable with the fact that a lot of the time,

particularly in a challenging mediation, let's say, I sit in a state of thinking to myself, 'I have no

idea what I'm doing here. I have no idea what to try next because this is not working.' or, 'So-and-

so would know what to do here but I don't.' Sometimes I'm asking myself, 'What would Doug do

here? What would John do here.' Just to try to push my own boundaries of what I can even think

of.

I think that state of feeling out of your depth and uncertain that you're up to the task,

itself is an identity issue, right? It will trigger, 'Well, if they hired somebody who knew what they

were doing, they would be in a lot better shape'. Even if, intellectually I know, there aren't that

many people in the world – we're a small community – who have this much experience trying to

help people.

Aled: It's not just me, then. That's good to know.

Sheila: It's you and me. Everybody watching this totally knows what they're doing.

Aled: So, what do you do then? I'm throwing the agenda right out the window for a moment.

Sheila: Oh, good. Excellent.

Aled: What do you do when you have that internal voice that says, 'Oh my God. I haven't got a

clue. I have to present this calm, knowing expression' inside your paddling?

Sheila: Yeah. In some ways, it's almost like you have two choices. You can try to fool them by

appearing and acting as if, 'Oh yeah, I meant for that to happen. This is really good.' when you're


thinking, 'Shoot, that was the wrong question to ask. That took us down a rabbit hole.' Or I think

often it's better to be transparent, as you were saying.

I have definitely said to parties either in joint session or in caucus, 'Look, I'm at a little bit

of a loss here because it feels like we're pretty stuck. I can't tell whether that's because there

really isn't room here to come to agreement and it is better off for you to walk away, or whether

we're missing something and there is a solution that would help you guys move to a better place

or whatever the issue might be.

My experience has been that that move actually often shares the responsibility with the

parties. Otherwise, they're content to sit back, 'What are you going to do next to solve this? What

I want you to do next is go browbeat the other person because clearly I'm right and this is their

fault.' But by sharing the dilemma that you feel you're in, I think you share responsibility for

thinking about what might help.

Aled: Yeah. Okay. So, that's helpful.

Sheila: And you get them to do your job for you, see?

Aled: I think I would do that, although I would then – you know what? I would then find myself,

if I happened to find myself in the same mediation at the later stage thinking this same thought,

I'd then be thinking, 'I don't know what to do,' again because then I'd definitely look incompetent.

Sheila: Yeah. One question is also what's the persona that you bring in to the room? So, it has to

be congruent with that persona. So there maybe two things that maybe make it easier for me to

constantly tell people I don't know what I'm doing. I don't want to give that impression. But

certainly when we're stuck, I don't mind saying it several [sounds like 00:22:22] times.

Aled: Yeah.


Sheila: Sometimes I'll just say out loud, 'I'm debating because there are a couple of different

directions we can go from here, so I'm thinking about which is going to be more helpful or more

valuable at this stage.'

So, if I'm being transparent and sharing throughout, certain choice points, part of

mediation, as we all know, is to try to help equip them to solve their own problems going forward,

either with each other or with other people. But I also bring a lot of humour into the room

because I think that it can help break tension and it can help us step away and sort of self-observe

in tough moments.

But you have to be careful about humour so it really usually needs to be self-directed. So,

if I can make a joke about feeling stuck myself or thinking, 'Okay, well, that wasn't what I expected

to happen,' at the right moment. It's a way for us to step out and sort of self-observe.

You have to be careful about it. It's not that I'm telling them I'm not taking this seriously.

But we might as well enjoy the time that we're going to spend together given how stressful it is

for the parties to be in the room.

Aled: Okay.

Sheila: It's a fear of humour as well.

Aled: I'm thinking about some of the ideas and frameworks in the different conversations and I

wondered how much does that influence you in the way you approach your mediations? If I'm

bouncing up and down, by the way, I'm sitting on a Swiss ball.

Sheila: Oh, nice.

Aled: I've thrown my office chair out and I've moved to the Swiss ball. Posture.


Sheila: Excellent. See, that was nice transparency. I thought you were just excited.

Aled: Okay. Composure now. How much does that influence how you approach, how you think

about – I'm thinking specifically about the three conversations, for example.

Sheila: Well, for better and for worse, it is a huge influence because of course, my brain now is

organised in this way, right? We all get stuck in our own mindsets and my map is certainly very

influenced, where I'm thinking that I'm working really hard to paraphrase, to turn accusations and

judgements into feelings, to reframe when I paraphrase.

I'm working really hard to help them move from laying the contributions, so it sounds like

that didn't help and you were reacting to that. Talk to me over here about your response or what

you feel like you contributed to the problem.

So, it's certainly underlying the architecture of what I'm trying to do. And the danger is

that I miss things because, of course, we see what we're expecting to see. But I'm also using a

vocabulary that is different than their usual vocabulary in subtle ways, which can disrupt their

story a little bit.

Aled: Yeah. Tell me a little bit about the story, then. We've got three different stories going on,

right?

Sheila: Yeah.

Aled: You've got the 'what happened', the 'emotions' and the 'identity'. Are those the stories

that we've got running around?

Sheila: We do. Within what happened, they each have a very different story about what

happened and certainly what should happen, which is why we're here. A lot of explicit

conversation is going on inside the what happened conversation.


Some of the feelings/identity stuff is happening beneath the surface and I'm nudging it

out or referencing it a little bit along the way, but it depends on the situation and the purpose.

A big piece of what I'm trying to do is listen for what do they each pretty sure they're right

about, and it's not always true for sure, but the most common pattern in my experience is that

they are each right, about what they think this is about.

Aled: Okay.

Sheila: So, you're moving pretty quickly into an and world. In other words . . . One of the

examples we give in the book is from my point of view, we're not arguing about what the contract

says. We can both read what it says. We're arguing about what we each expected or given

changed circumstances, the interpretation that we each have.

So, I'm listening for parties to be able to say, 'So, it sounds like, when you signed it, you

were pretty sure that the market was going to change in the following way and you assumed that,

that would mean the price would adjust, or whatever it would be and it sounds like you assumed

that one of the reasons you agreed to this term was because it was fixed. So, we're in an and

world, which is as you came in, you are right about what you each assumed and that it is now a

problem.'

Aled: When you say an 'and' world, I know what you mean when you say that. Can you explain

what you mean when you say that?

Sheila: Yeah. So, we started to notice that a big piece of what we were using in trying to help and

coach people is shifting them from thinking of the world as 'but' to 'and.' Because in any

argument, dispute, conflict, I make my point about why I'm right and you say, 'Yeah, but here's

what's really true.' And the 'but' is a hinge that sort of cancels the first part of a sentence. 'I love

you, Honey, but . . . ' The important part is what's to come.


When in fact, the reality is usually an 'and' world. Which is this is true and our dilemma is

this is also true, so what do we do? So, helping people say, 'You can believe that I let you down or

was liable or whatever and I can believe that I actually did adhere to the expectations. Whether

your expectations were unreasonable, and, now what do we do about that?' so that I don't have

to give up my story, although it will start to be modified by that 'and' in order to actually be

present or come to agreement.

Aled: Okay. When you're saying it being in an and world, you're acknowledging that both

stories are valid and can co-exist alongside each other. What you try to do is, in the words of – I

interviewed a narrative mediator.

Sheila: Yeah, yeah. Totally.

Aled: He talked about enriching the narrative rather than it being a thin narrative, which is a

fairly one-dimensional story, you try and expand on the story, bringing in different elements so

the story changes shape, grows, becomes bigger, therefore creating more possibility.

Sheila: And you create a narrative that is inclusive of many of the most important things that

each party feels strongly about, I think. We talk about third story so that you can have a narrative

that is more complete, so I totally agree with this guy about the narrative being a huge piece of

what you were negotiating with, with each party.

So, you're looking for a narrative that includes what they feel is most important about

who they are, and what this situation represents in their life, and which includes a possible

outcome that doesn't mean they have to give up key pieces of their story in order to say yes to it.

Aled: Yeah, okay.

Sheila: They have to live with it and to repeat it to people who say, 'What happened?'


Aled: So, the third story is a story made up of parts of what one party thinks, parts of what the

other party thinks and other information that gets put into the pot during the course of the

discussion.

Sheila: Yeah. Often, the headline on that narrative is very simple. It's things like, 'So, it sounds like

you guys had very different assumptions coming in and that that's gotten you guys in quite a bit of

trouble, not surprisingly.' And they will each say, 'Yeah.' Or, 'It sounds like you guys had very

different preferences about how to handle noise in the condo.'

'Yeah.'

So, it often includes the word 'difference' and it includes the word 'and,' different,

whatever, assumptions, preferences, expectations, blah, blah, blah. And that that third story is

one that they can both sign onto. That they feel like, 'I don't have to give up my view in order to

participate in that.' So, now they've stepped into a shared narrative that helps us to work

together. So, given that narrative, what do we want to do about it?

Aled: Now, it's quite interesting, isn't it? As you're talking now, I can see how useful that just

having those phrases at hand would be in a mediation, 'So, it sounds like you arrived here today

with some expectations about X, Y and Z and it sounds like your expectations about X, Y and Z

were different from . . .'

Sheila: Yeah. Or the narrative can be around feelings. So, if you're in a family business, you've got

parties with a family business. After listening and giving them a chance to say their story, you're

saying, 'So Bill, it sounds like part of what this means to you is that you feel like you've gone

totally out of your way. You have solved 105 problems for Susan over here and that over time,

you felt really chronically underappreciated for that, and that the demands for what else you're

going to solve have only increased.

'And Susan, it sounds like you actually often haven't wanted the help with your problems

and feel like Bill is butting in and disrupting what you're trying to run, that he has been under-

appreciative of your ability to do it yourself,' whatever. So, I'm summarising as an and. It could be

around feelings, and it often includes a piece of feelings as well as just whatever the narrative

that's at issue is. Whether it's liability or responsibility or whatever it would be.


Aled: Now, you talk about in the book about unexpressed feelings make it difficult for parties to

listen. But also you say that it takes a toll on one's self-esteem. Did I get that right?

Sheila: I don't know if that's been your experience either for yourself or for others that you've

helped.

Aled: I certainly think if I'm holding onto stuff, now whether they're feelings or . . . If I'm not

being transparent, I become preoccupied with my own thoughts.

Sheila: Yeah.

Aled: That in itself makes it hard for me to listen.

Sheila: Go ahead.

Aled: I'm trying to understand how it takes a toll on one's self-esteem.

Sheila: Mm-hmm. I think that a couple of things happen when there are feelings about how

you're feeling treated or whatever, that you keep to yourself. That seeps in both directions, both

directions being from the feelings conversation into the, What happened? conversation and into

the 'identity' conversation. So, it seeps into the, 'What happened?' conversation because I start to

– because of the impact on me emotionally of this problem between us, I start to attribute more

and more negative intentions and character to you.

'Clearly you're oblivious or you don't care about me at all.' It really starts to become a

stark picture where, 'This is all your fault because you're such a terrible person. But I'm not going

to change you because you're evil.' So, often when parties can't let go of blame, it's because of

unexpressed feelings, actually . . .


Aled: Okay.

Sheila: . . . that has cemented that blame in place because, 'I feel like that person doesn't really

understand why what they're doing is so awful.' It will seep now the other way into identity

because, 'Why am I letting myself be walked on? Why have I put up with this for so many years?

What is wrong with me? I'm a doormat.' This is what we mean when we say unexpressed feelings

can start to eat away at the story you tell about who you are and whether you stick up for

yourself in an important relationship.

By the way, often other people will be telling you that, right? Like, 'Why do you put up

with this? Why haven't you done something about it?' They have good intentions. But it can

actually reinforce that sense of, 'I'm just a loser.'

Aled: So, as the mediator, then, are we trying to bring those feelings to the surface or not

necessarily bring them to the surface, but help give people the space to express them? If so, how

do we do that? Do we tackle the blame, the contribution, or do we address it from the identity

perspective?

Sheila: Yeah. It's a great question. So many mediators that I know and have worked with would

say, 'Look, when there are messy feelings around, you don't want to open that can of worms

really at all if you can avoid it, so you're going to try to work around that.'

I was co-mediating a family business dispute a few years ago. My co-mediator definitely

had that view. It was a situation where some of the shareholders who were family members

needed to be bought out. They had staked the business but now had big disputes with the son-in-

law who was running it.

I said, 'I don't think we'll find a solution if we don't feel with the feelings because, there's

so little trust here and so much anger and frustration and hurt and suspicion' that they're not

going to agree to any terms because if, 'Well, if he would agree to them, they must not be fair.'


So, I said, 'I think we just can't find a settlement unless we engage some of the

relationship issues and try to improve those.' So, in that piece, I did something that I had not done

before, which is not only did I do individual conversations between the current guy running it, the

son-in-law, and individual family members, but I also reached beyond those family members to

their spouses and I asked whether the spouses could come in to just meet with us, have breakfast

with us as the mediators.

I knew that these shareholders were going to go home and their spouses were going to

say, 'What happened? You didn't agree to anything, did you? You can't trust him. He's snowing

you.' They needed to be familiar enough with the prospects and familiar enough with how we

were going to find a solution, if there was one to be had, that they would trust the process.

Because they couldn't trust the players – even their spouses – for not being a pushover, getting

fooled again or the folks on the other side.

So, we did that. We actually came in – they found a solution early, earlier than we had

predicted and budgeted. But it was high risk, right? What you don't want to do is have people

arguing about whether feelings are justified, whether they should feel that way, etc. I think that's

what people worry about when you open that can of worms, which it's often called, which is it's

actually just going to escalate.

They're going to be arguing about the feelings. So that one of the keys for me is you don't

have to agree that the other person should feel this way or whether they should feel this upset

about it or whether what they are accusing you of doing, and saying it was purpose, was on

purpose. You don't have to agree with their story but you do need to hear it.

Aled: So, by inviting other family members in and giving them the opportunity to share what

was going on for them –

Sheila: Yeah, and ask questions about the process and who we are.

Aled: Okay. It's an interesting strategy, isn't it? In my mind, I was thinking, 'How do I get these

guys to express how they really feel?' That was what I was thinking. So that once those feelings

are out there, you can just do what you need to do. It sounds like you had a different – what led

you to take that approach?


Sheila: The individual interviews with the shareholders in those interviews, which we do by

phone ahead of time, just so we can start to get a feel for the underlying architecture of the

conduct.

In those individual interviews, it became clear how big a role the spouses were playing. I

have a little bit of history with this in a mediation where a lot of the mediation was one of the

parties saying, 'Well, my wife says I shouldn't do this.' and, 'My wife says I shouldn't do that.'

The challenge of that is when you have parties outside the periphery of the mediation,

and what they know about the conflict is the story their party tells, they're not there to hear that

actually that thin, one-dimensional story really needs to be complexified. They're outside, at

night, reinforcing that this person is getting snowed or whatever.

So I've got to find some way to connect them to that process, otherwise the difficult

conversation the party has to have about settling is going to actually block anybody's ability to

find a solution.

Aled: So, there are a number of dynamics going on, isn't there? Not just between the parties,

but between other decision makers that are not apparently party to the substantive aspects of

the negotiation.

Sheila: Yeah. I'm always asking and maybe this is partly because of the uncontained parts, where

I'm thinking, 'Who are the parties who feel that it should be at the table or would want to be a the

table and who are going to demand to know why what was done at the table, was done at the

table?'

I'm really thinking about who do each of the parties have to talk to afterwards to justify,

or to implement, what they just agreed to or how they agreed to go forward. I've got to somehow

reach out to influence those folks as well.


Aled: Okay. Look, I'm mindful of time. I've got one more question on this before we move on to

feedback. I guess the question is around creating a learning conversation. How do we engage

parties in that given that for the most part I think that for the most part, I think people find it

really difficult coming together to talk about painful things or things that are really tough, difficult,

etc.

How do we create that spirit? What are the kinds of things that we could say to parties to

set the frame? You talked earlier about being clear about how you describe your role to set those

sorts of expectations. But what can we do to create that learning conversation?

Sheila: Yeah. I don't know about you but my experience is that nobody comes into mediation

either expecting to learn anything or often wanting to learn anything.

Aled: Yes. Absolutely.

Sheila: The safest place for me to stand, is on the things I feel certain about. Even if, privately,

parties may be a little bit more open to learning something new or seeing it from a different

perspective. In the room with the other party, part of the way that we as human beings all cope

with anxiety is to cling to the things that feel safe and certain. Those are the things I'm sure I'm

right about.

As long as I'm clinging to that, I'm not that interested in that little island over there that I

might be able to swim to that might actually be better, but I don't know that I'll survive that swim

to something better.

So, some of it's just framing, up front, which is, 'I think we're all going to learn quite a bit

over the course of the next, whatever, few hours, just about how we got here and what might be

possible. So, there will be times where you hear things that surprise you. There will be times when

you hear things that are upsetting or seem wrong. This is a pretty complex set of circumstances

and history and issues . . .

Aled: Yeah.


Sheila: . . . So, a lot of what we're going to be doing over the next couple of hours in this phase is

just really trying to understand it. I suspect we're going to learn things that were not apparent

from where we sat, certainly I will as the mediator.' So, I'm trying to establish that as the task.

Aled: Yeah.

Sheila: And then sometimes if I feel like they're really stuck, what we've done is ask a quite

explicitly challenging question. Meaning, we'll ask them to, 'Say something on this issue that feels

really important to you for them to understand and then second, can you say a little bit about

something around this issue that you feel uncertain or confused about or ambivalent about?'

By inviting people explicitly to name something that they feel uncertain or ambivalent or

confused about, they want – most of the time – they want to succeed at the task you just asked

because they're the good person in the mediation.

In their mind, their job is to persuade the mediator that, 'I'm the good person, and they're

the problem.' That's the implicit task for the parties.

So, I'm going to try as long as I still trust that the mediator is helpful. I'm going to try to

comply with that task. That means that we'll start to put out some things that aren't totally clear

to me. And then the other person – often reciprocity means that if one of them is willing to take a

risk, the other will take a risk. If the other doesn't, I'll nudge them a little bit. I'll say, 'That sounds

like something you're pretty certain about. Are there things you're uncertain about?' So, that can

help.

Aled: Okay. So, I've learned something that I wasn't expecting to learn just from this first part of

the interview which I think is very helpful. I guess as a mediator, the importance of reflective

practice, to really understand what are our blind spots.

I'm going to go away and I think I'm going to take a bit of a look at myself and think about

what are some of the internal voices I've got around my own identity, that might trip me up going


into a mediation. What expectations do I have about myself that actually might undermine what

I'm trying to accomplish, what I'm helping the parties to try and accomplish? What are the

conversations I've got in my mind about my identity?

I also think how important it is to be able to frame, even though our job as mediators is to

be very good at listening. Listening to what's being said and what might not be being said. I also

think what we say is very important. I think we don't give enough thought about what we say at

the beginning, to be really clear about our role, to set some expectations and to see how we can

engage the parties, to take them – I don't want to say outside their comfort zones. But just take

them to the edge so that they work really hard at getting the most out of it.

So, I think those are the key things for me that I wasn't expecting really to think about.

Yeah, very useful gifts, actually from that first section.

Sheila: Well, if we had all the time in the world, the comment that you just made about comfort

zone made me think about something because, I don't know about you, but I have encountered

parties who are very, very uncomfortable even being in conflict. It's often contributed to why

they're here because they've avoided for a long time and things have festered.

But then I meet parties who actually are quite comfortable in this role of opposing the

other side, and being the good guy and actually you have to push them out of that comfort zone if

they're going to complexify their story and find any way forward. And those are kind of different

challenges.

Aled: Yeah. It is interesting how sometimes when I encounter someone that they seem to be

just composed and compliant and I have a hunch that there's something underneath that I never

quite know how to tackle that.

Anyway okay, here's where I want to go next. I want to burrow into this because I think

it's a very important topic and that's giving feedback, from a co-mediation perspective.


The co-mediation model where you come up with some agreement about how you'll

approach the mediation between the two of you and then you give each other the feedback

about how you did and what you could improve on, etc.

I said earlier I think it's important and I think I've struggled with it. Even though I think I'm

good at it, I think I'm deceiving myself sometimes.

What is it about feedback that we struggle with? How do we do it well and how do we

receive it well?

Sheila: Well, so, after writing 'Difficult Conversations', we spent 15 years travelling around

helping people with their toughest conversations. We started to notice that feedback was on the

list of the conversations that they were struggling with, pretty much 100% percent of the time.

Whether they were on the giving side or the receiving side, people weren't giving or getting

honest feedback, problems were festering, etc.

For the first ten years, we did what everybody does which is to help givers know how to

give better, right? More skillfully or more clearly. There's a lot to learn about how to give

feedback more effectively. But what we started to notice is that we would go back to the client six

months later, a year later and they were all having the same problems. In other words, teaching

givers how to give wasn't helping. Organisations spend billions of dollars every year teaching

givers how to give.

Then one day it suddenly occurred to us that in any exchange between giver and receiver,

the receiver is the one who's in charge. They decide what they're going to let in and the story

they're going to tell about it and whether they decide to change. It also occurred to us that

actually if we're only focusing on teaching givers how to give, it's a push model of learning.

So, I decide what you as my co-mediator need to learn and I push you to learn it. Maybe

we should be focusing on understanding why it's so hard for all of us to receive feedback and

trying to create more pull, where I would have the skills I would need to take charge and to drive

my own learning, to balance that out.


Now, one of the first things that became apparent is that feedback really sits at the

junction of two core human needs, which is that we all do want to learn and grow and it's a big

piece of happiness research of what makes life satisfying. Which is why many of us started

mediating because wow, this was a whole set of skills and things to do that are really interesting

and fun to learn and practice and it's a community, that supports that learning.

The problem is it bumps into the second human need of wanting to be respected and

accepted and, in some cases loved, the way that we are now. So, when I get feedback from my co-

mediator or anybody else with the parties explicitly or implicitly who are or are not happy with

how I'm handling this. It suggests that how I am now is not okay with them.

So I think there's a tension at the heart of feedback for all of us. That isn't going to go

away but being aware of it can help me manage it a little bit.

The second thing – and this has been one of the most helpful things and I can't take any

credit for it. It comes from Roger Fisher and Alan Sharp and John Richardson, who wrote a book in

'99 called 'Getting It Done'. They pointed out that actually although we use this word 'feedback',

there are three different kinds of feedback and the easy way to remember is ACE. So, they have

very different purposes and we actually need all three kinds to learn and grow as mediators and

as people, spouses, parents whatever.

So, Appreciation says, 'I see you and I get you and you matter and I notice how hard

you're working at this or that you've gotten a lot better at it.' 'Coaching' is what actually helps me

get better. Coaching is what I most want from my co-mediator. 'Here are one or two things in this

moment. I had different instincts. Let's talk about that, why you did what you did and what you

might try instead'.

The third kind, though, is 'Evaluation.' Evaluation rates or ranks you. It judges whether

you're good and not up to standard, etc. The problem is that we're hardwired to listen for

judgement and evaluation. Do I stack up? Am I good enough? Does this person think I'm good or

not good?

So, even when they intend to be coaching, we hear it as evaluation. So, evaluation is the

one that makes everybody most anxious and reactive. There is a structural problem, which is,


there's at least a little bit of evaluation embedded in any coaching. Any coaching suggests that

you could have done it a little bit better. You're not yet doing it as well as you might, maybe.

But for me, one of the things that's been really helpful with being aware of ACE is to think,

'Okay, what do I need right now? What do I want? And how do I ask for it? So that they

understand what I want so that we don't get a cross transaction where I was hoping for a little bit

of encouragement and appreciation but what I get is, 12 things I need to fix or their disappoint

that they had to mediate with me. I screwed it all up.

Aled: Yeah it's that sort of tsk, tsk, tsk.

Sheila: Yeah. They're thinking, 'Ugh, I can't believe I agreed to work with this person. Now I've

got to fix all of her problems as well as the parties' problems.' So, very quickly, one of the

questions that we started using when we're coaching each other, whether that's when we're

consulting or mediating or teaching or whatever, is the question, 'What's one thing you see me

doing or maybe I'm failing to do that you think is getting in my own way?' or you can contextualize

it, 'What's one thing you think I could change that would make a big difference?' And it's not, 'Is

there anything?'

If you ask, 'Is there anything?' They'll say 'No, you're great. You're great.' Sort of. It's

assuming there's at least one thing. So, just pick one. So, it's kind of lowering the stakes on the

exchange and you're most likely to get coaching because, what you're asking is for something to

improve or think about or see another option that in the moment I didn't think of.

You know, if I ask that, every once in a while of various people around me all get stuff to

think about. Oftentimes I'll start to hear themes of things I should be thinking about and working

on. So, after we do a programme, we have that conversation in each direction, 'All right, so what's

one thing you think I should change?' I don't think we can change everything at once either.

Aled: Again, if you can adopt that sort of frame of mind, where feedback is the food of

champions, feedback is going to help you learn, grow, I don't think I asked that question at all, not

just of my partner, but my network, my friends, my colleagues.


Sheila: Yeah.

Aled: I can see how asking that kind of question would be almost like a social experiment.

Sheila: Yeah.

Aled: I'm really curious now to go and send a few emails.

Sheila: Yeah. And by the way, when you ask, if you ask it in person, you'll get an answer like that.

You'll think, 'You've been carrying this around with you for years, and you never told me before.'

And then what will often happen is the next morning, you'll get an email with all the things that

they thought of overnight. They're like, 'Oh, I should have said this, not that. This is so much more

important.' Right?

So, often what people will say is, 'You know, I asked my dad who I work with and I got this

like long email. Apparently he's been holding all this stuff back.' And sometimes they have, but

they're really trying to help.

So, it's been interesting to me how it enriches the conversation in a way that feels a little

less threatening if I can remove the judgement from it, 'Am I good or bad?' or a little bit. The

other thing is, as you know, we care a lot about internal reactions and internal voices, as our bent

for how to combat these problems.

What we started to notice is we all have these triggered reactions to feedback. So when

you do hear the coaching, occasionally you'll think, 'That's true. That is something I should work

on.' And that's really interesting. Other times you'll think, 'Okay, well that's just not what

happened or not actually true or didn't understand the constraints I was under or it just wouldn't

work or it's not who I am.'


And we're really good, as human beings, at wrong-spotting when feedback is incoming,

looking for what's wrong with it because, if I can find what's wrong with it, then I can said it aside

and safely move on with my life, my ego intact.

But if it's right, I need to keep worrying about it. The problem is that first of all, as human

beings we just have instant trigger reactions, three kinds – truth, relationship and identity. Truth

is, 'Would it work? Is it accurate? Is it fair?' It's all about the what of the feedback or coaching. The

second is relationship, which has to do with, 'Who gave me the coaching.'

So, a lot of times, it's like, 'You're worse at this than I am,' or, 'You don't really know what

you're talking about. You totally mis-stepped and created that situation.' It's all about the

relationship with them, what we think of them and how we feel treated by them.

Aled: Yeah.

Sheila: Then the third is identity, which is in the case is the story I tell. And the sensitivity to

feedback varies hugely, like 3,000% in terms of how upset we get and how long it takes us to

recover.

So, the short answer to what to do about those triggers is that the fact that I have a

triggered reaction at the end of the story is the beginning of the story. There will always be

something wrong with all the feedback I get. So, I'm asking myself two questions. What's wrong

with it? That's very satisfying. Go out for a glass of wine with a friend, make a list of all the things

that are wrong with the feedback of this person.

Then I have to ask, 'Is there anything that might be right about it? Is there anything for me

to learn here? Because 90% of it can be wrong but that last 10% might be, actually, exactly what I

need to start thinking about.'

Aled: It's very similar to the question – earlier we talked about how do we get engaged parties

to see it as a learning conversation. It's almost like, 'What are you certain about what's right?

What are you ambivalent . . . ?' Those are those two sort of polar opposites. But it's encouraging


you to think to go in that direction, even if it's just momentarily. If this was to be true, if there was

a part of this that was remotely possible, what would it be?

Sheila: This is one of the beautiful things about mediation, which is that it is such a rich and

layered process because the parties are having difficult conversations with each other. They're

often having a difficult conversation with you.

The parties have feedback for each other about why you're terrible and should change.

And, by the way, they have a lot of feedback for you as the mediator that may not – it's often

explicit, but it can be very implicit. It's unspoken. But you feel it. Then you've got your relationship

with your co-mediator, which also has difficult conversations and feedback embedded in it.

So, if you take a lens to it, there are so many layers at which you've got stuff going on,

which I think is why we as mediators find it such a fascinating lifelong learning experience and

such a rewarding profession.

Aled: How do we get useful feedback from parties?

Sheila: Yeah. Well, I think the same question is helpful. The parties have a particular set of

interests. What their interests are – I want this to be over and settled, so that I don't have to

worry about it and spend any more money on it. But I want to be able to explain it to everybody

else, and I want them to be sorry, hurting, understand how horrible this was for me and the

impact it's had, whatever it would be. It depends on the particular dispute.

Their assessment of your performance often is, 'To what extent did this mediator help me

achieve my purposes and my interest?' Some of that is process interest. So, often they will have

really helpful things, when I have asked them that question. I will ask it periodically throughout.

Sometimes what I do is I'll ask – we often have multiple conversations, sessions.

So, often I'll ask them privately just it will be helpful for me to do a quick check in with you

and maybe I'll do it on an index card or maybe we'll do it as a quick conversation. This is one-on-

one if it's a conversation. 'It's helpful for me to know, is there one thing you're particularly


appreciating about this process or how we're handling it and what's one thing you would suggest I

might change that would be helpful, that you think would move us in the right direction?' And I

don't say helpful to you, I say, 'that would move us in the right direction.'

And if I ask the parties, whether it's both or all, that's multi-party, that question, just

having them jot down on an index card and give it to me at the end of the day, it gives me a

window into what's going on with them. Whether I agree with it or not, it's what's in their internal

voice.

Aled: Does that come under – so, you've asked two questions, one which is the appreciation. Is

that second question, is that an evaluation question?

Sheila: It's a coaching question. What coaching do you have for me? What's one thing you

suggest I might change?

Aled: Okay.

Sheila: Now, the temptation, I think, for all of us, is to ask an evaluation question, 'How am I

doing?' This is the coaching I have for a lot of the way feedback is setup right now, which is about

evaluation. 'How many stars do you give this mediator,' right? Or at Apple, which we've done a

little bit of work with, they have an app, of course, for leaders, and the app taps, you can decide

to tap a few team members at any point in the process. They use it. But the question that it asks

is, 'How am I doing as a leader?'

I said, 'Well, this is great that you have an app and you're using it but it's asking the wrong

question, because if I find out how am I doing is two stars out of five, that doesn't tell me what to

change. It should be asking, 'What's one thing you can appreciate, that I should keep doing and

what's one thing you would suggest that I change?'' That, you don't have to agree, but that would

at least give you more useful information because it would give you coaching, not evaluation.

Aled: Fantastic.


Sheila: And it feels less threatening too, by the way.

Aled: It does, doesn't it? Do you know, this sounds such common sense, doesn't it? When

you're talking, I'm going, 'It's obvious, right?' But why don't we do it? You've said why we don't do

it.

Sheila: Partly why we don't do it, and you know, it's hard. I don't know if you've noticed this, but

we don't really write one-idea books. So, I have a little pet peeve about business books. They're

basically one really good idea and 300 additional pages.

So, we kind of over-compensate in the opposite direction, which is we try to learn

everything there is to understand about a topic, like difficult conversations and then feedback,

which is why it takes us 15 years to write a second freaking book, but then the book itself is like

chock full of things that I forget about. I forget about the And Stance. I'm like, 'Oh, right the And

Stance. I use it instinctively but I forget to teach it.

It's embedded in just this huge collection of experiences and insights and all of this. I

learned that, really, from Roger Fisher and Bruce Patton and Doug at the Negotiation Project,

which is, hand practitioners a huge toolbox that we can all use and keep building through our

whole careers because it's a lifelong process.

Aled: Yeah. Sheila, these interviews, I tell you, they're partly self-indulgent.

Sheila: It's all about you.

Aled: It's all about me. But I think it's incredibly helpful. You know mediators watching this

interview now, I imagine are all committed to learning, growing, developing. They all acknowledge

that there is a gap between where they are and where they want to be. I think we've got to take

responsibility about getting there ourselves, taking responsibility of learning.


I like the idea of pulling, not pushing because actually, it's about accountability, it's about

taking responsibility for our learning, for our improving, but also how effective we are. I think I've

found this incredibly helpful just for my own development.

Sheila: Yeah, and thank you. Can I say one thing as we close? I think when I look back at the first

whatever how many years I've been doing this, 20-some years, the places I've learned the most

have been the most painful.

So, I think all the skills in the world can't sidestep the fact that feedback and failing or

making mistakes or making the situation worse, even for a small amount of time, is incredibly

painful learning.

Aled: Yeah.

Sheila: So, we can talk about all these skills and they are actually incredibly helpful, but as a

mediator and trying to help other people with their conflicts, I've learned the most from the

places where I've failed. I think when you see people talk about it, it's easier to talk about the

successes, but what's important to talk about are the failures.

Aled: I think that's very, very poignant.

Sheila, if people want to find out a bit more about the work that you do, your books, even

reach out to say thank you, what's the best way of doing that?

Sheila: I am really easy to find. It's the advantage of having a unique name online. So, the Triad

website is TriadConsultingGroup.com.

Aled: Okay.


Sheila: Doug and I also have an author website with resources. On both websites, there's a nav

called 'Help Yourself'. It just has case studies and preparation worksheets and articles and things

like that and our email addresses are there.

We actually love hearing from people. We love hearing from mediators because we're all

on this journey together trying to help people with their problems, whether those are

international relations, or contract disputes, or family businesses, or families and children. I think

it's a work with an enormous amount of meaning and if we can help each other do it better, that's

what matters.

Aled: Wonderful. Sheila, I'm going to be the first to say thank you. Thank you very much. It's

been a really insightful conversation. I've got loads from it. I have no doubt people that are

watching this have as well.

Reach out to Sheila, say thank you at the very least. Those worksheets – very, very useful,

difficult conversation ones just to help you consolidate your thinking, think about things, go to

places that, as you say, sometimes it's the most painful experiences that we can learn from most.

But if we can go there ourselves, if we can take responsibility, then we can all learn, grow and

develop.

Sheila: Yeah. Definitely. Thank you.

Aled: Thank you, Sheila.

difficult conversations in mediation sheila heen...aled: so, here's my thinking. i'm...

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