Arbitration & Mediation

If Anyone Needs a Mediator, It?s These People.

By Christopher Annunziata

Two sides sit across a table.  They are faced with a major problem.  Both are adamant that their position is the strongest.  They’ve bickered and argued for months, creating a stalemate that has caused considerable damage to their business, their reputations, their relationships, as well as their future ability to work together.

Sound familiar?  Sure.  It probably sounds just like many of the cases with which you deal.  If this were a business dispute, someone would probably suggest mediation.  Having a neutral go-between could ease the tensions and sort out the issues, identifying some common ground on which to build.

But it isn’t.

Who needs a mediator more than anyone else in our country right now?  The boobs Solons running our government. Partisanship on both sides of the political aisle have caused a stalemate in the debate over health insurance reform.  It’s a particularly sad day when the putative leader of the Free World utters the phrase, “”I don’t know that those gaps can be bridged.”

Unfortunately, as Sen. Bayh recently pointed out, the deal makers, the moderates, the pragmatic members of our government have abdicated any role to the demagogues on the fringes.It doesn’t matter what side you support.  Both sides need to move from their entrenched positions and discuss real options, not just talking points prepared by pointy headed people in Ivory Towers or tucked inside the Beltway.  Having a mediator involved would be very useful.

Please forgive my foray into politics but the analogy seemed quite obvious to me.

Full post as published by CKA Mediation and Arbitration Services Blog on February 25, 2010 (boomark / email).