Page 220 - An Indispensible Resource for Being a Credible Activist

The New York State Dispute Resolution Association (NYSDRA) has a pilot mediation
certification program in anticipation of New York State at some point requiring professional
certification in order to call oneself or practice as a mediator. The link to these guidelines is
1
http://www.nysdra.org/userfiles/file/ethics_standards.pdf. These guidelines may change
occasionally, so whether you are referencing NYSDRA ethical standards or those of other
mediation organizations, be sure to be on their list for revision updates. Additionally, these
professional ethical guidelines will serve you well should you wish to include any of them
in a contract you enter into with external mediators or other kinds of consultants.
If your company is small, it often makes sense to bring external consultants into the
workplace, particularly for issues concerning mediation. When everyone knows everyone
else, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for anyone at the company to approach
staff conflict with the kind of objectivity a neutral third party can bring. However, when
selecting external consultants, be extremely careful regarding their qualifications and eth-
ical standards. Particularly when using mediators or organization development consult-
ants, you must ensure that there are no conflicts of interest, that the consultants’
qualifications are sufficient, that the consultants abide by a code of professional ethics of
some kind, and that the consultants have sufficient understanding of relevant employment
laws. Ask the consultants if they have such a code that is either specific to their industry
or state guidelines, or if they have chosen one to present to clients and by which they
intend to abide.
If you have consultants conducting any kind of survey assessment, be sure to clearly
delineate who owns the results of the survey or other measurement assessment. There have
been well-meaning HR professionals who have retained OD firms to conduct quite costly
employee surveys of thousands of employees only to have an organizational leader deter-
mine that they dislike the actual results of the survey and choose to release their own false
“results” to the employees. For this reason, it is important that any contract with consult-
ants disallows this kind of unethical hijacking of important OD interventions by someone in
the company who has the power to do so. If you suspect your company may include some-
one on staff capable of this action, you need to discuss this frankly with your consultant
before even retaining him or her to be certain that the consultant will now allow this and
will make this very clear in the contract.
For your own internal ground rules for a facilitated discussion, please see the HR Tool
entitled “Sample Ground Rules for a Facilitated Discussion,” on pages 210–211. A facilitated
discussion is much simpler than mediation, but it can still accomplish a great deal, even in
a small company where everyone knows everyone else. The key to success is that all par-
ties follow an agreed-upon, sound process, such as the model presented on the following
pages. You will want to be sure to have at least some conflict resolution and mediation train-
ing before attempting to facilitate a conflict between two people. If you cannot find a qual-
ity mediation program or if you don’t have the budget or time to devote to a quality
mediation program, then a course at your local college or business training center should be
sufficient for conflicts that are not complex, entrenched, or extreme in any way.
Learning Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and Emotional Intelligence (EI) skills will
only help your conflict resolution and mediation abilities. Influence corporate culture by
using reminder posters, monthly themes (see the HR Tool entitled “Sample Monthly Theme:

CHAPTER 13 • Conflict Resolution 203