Can online mediation work?

Can online mediation work?

Technology provides advantages to a number of different types of online mediation service. This article explains very briefly how online mediation can be made to work well. Andrew Taylor offers an online mediation service, through this website, following the philosophy and procedure set out here.

Conference calls

The invention of the telephone enabled mediation for the first time between parties who might be miles apart. It probably didn't work terribly well in the early days. Today it works extremely well.

With conference calling technology, all you need to do to join your mediation is to dial in to a telephone number.

Email messages

Almost everyone uses email today.

The problem is that some people check their email messages only rarely. Even if everyone is asked to check their email messages at least once a day, that is no guarantee that it will happen.

Although email messages can move at the speed of light, sometimes a thread of correspondence stretches over a couple of weeks or more.

VoIP and teleconferencing

It does not matter how far apart the parties are physically, mediation by VoIP and teleconferencing are real, practical, successful ways to negotiate, discuss and settle your disputes.

Today’s vast increase in the number of virtual meetings results from:

• the development of better software.
• the increase in international trade which has resulted in a wider spread of senior and middle management who have to communicate from time to time not only with their own people but with their customers and suppliers.
• home-working. Through new law and the necessity to keep good staff, corporate policy on the extent and reasons for working from home has caused an enormous increase in the number of working hours spent away from the office and therefore requiring attendance at Internet meetings.
• the need to reduce long-distance travel.

Face-to-face meetings have to be managed

As the technology improves we use it more and more. Nonetheless, many people regard online meetings as an inefficient use of time.

Face-to-face meetings invariably provide for one person to be in charge as a leader or chairman. That is much less common for an online meeting. As a result a discussion of business that should have been covered in a couple of hours tends to drift on for far longer. What is more, as human beings, we cannot concentrate on screen for as long as we can be sufficiently alert at a face-to-face meeting.

When I am around a table in a real room with real people, everyone can see my every move. On the other hand, online, I am visible only so long as I place myself in front of my device. It is therefore very easy for me to move myself a little in order to check my email or social media, or just catch up with other work for a few minutes here and there. As soon as another participant sees that I am not paying attention, he or she feels that he or she too can be excused for a temporary mental absence.

Face to face, we humans communicate, fight or cooperate. That requires our instincts to be honed to take in and process information obtained face to face far more efficiently than information obtained from a screen.

As far as online mediation is concerned that affects not only our attention span but our willingness to share information, to cooperate, and to commit. As a result, a promise to take a particular action in a face-to-face meeting always provides a higher level of commitment than the same promise given over the telephone, or at a virtual meeting.

Even though your mediator is likely to be an expert in assessing human nature and applying that to what each person says at a live meeting, it will be more difficult for him to empathise in a VoIP meeting than in a face-to-face meeting. You cannot judge someone’s body language if you can watch him or her only when he or she wishes to be watched.

All in all, this adds up to a situation where a virtual meeting is most useful only when the hurdles are acknowledged and covered by the preparations and management of the meeting, both in advance and on the day.

Overcoming potential problems

Latest technology

The chance of success of the event will be greatly increased if everybody has comparatively up to date hardware and software.

This may not be possible. However, the mediator should make clear to every participant that his or her own success in achieving outcomes he or she desires will be reduced if he or she cannot take the trouble to engage with the technology. If that is not possible then neither is the meeting.

Start the mediation process outside an online meeting

If the meeting is the culmination of several weeks of discussion by email and telephone, then your online meeting will be treated as the most important part of the process and as a deadline for all other work. Whether with joy or trepidation, participants will look forward to it.

Use the telephone if the Internet fails

However, if there are problems with VoIP, a standard conference call may well be the best alternative. Telephone conference calls are not perfect either, because when you can’t see someone, you cannot know how far he or she is really assimilating what you are saying or.

Conference calls and VoIP work best with only a small number of people. If a participant requires the support of a number of people then the meeting will be more successful if some of those people physically join one of the participants on the same device rather than if each person is in a different location.

The question of who is in charge of the meeting should not arise in a mediation because the mediator him/herself will take charge.

For our mediator, dealing with documentation should be just as easy in an online mediation as in a traditional live mediation. Documents will simply be uploaded to the Mediator via our website just as for every other mediation.

The mediator controls the meeting

The mediator will make certain that he is in charge of the process. He will not accept a failure by a participant to take a full part in the proceedings. He will engage frequently with each participant to make sure no one falls asleep or spends time reading a website.

Even though a mediator is your paid servant, his or her position gives him or her authority over the preceding. He or she will use that leadership to maintain the engagement of the participants by empathising with each and keeping them interested and engaged.

On some occasions it may be that one or more participants are able to meet together face-to-face, leaving one or more others to join the meeting via the Internet. If that happens then it is essential that the mediator is one of the people at the live meeting and that he allocates specific time to bring in the party who is online so as to make quite sure that the playing field is level. That means encouraging the distant participant to provide input specifically on the same basis as the face to face participants.

It is not only a distant participant who should be encouraged to engage with the others in the meeting. For example, the mediator will, in any event, work to maintain everyone’s interest and participation in the mediation meeting – even if it is a whole day long.

Finally, remember that telephone and online mediation really are just tools of our trade. There is no reason why an online mediation should not be interrupted, or terminated, or continued later with a conventional face-to-face meeting. In any event, many mediators start every mediation by gathering information by telephone and email.

Simple telephone mediations

Simple mediations, like those covered by the new EU consumer-trader provisions, are dealt with exclusively by telephone. If your dispute is quite simple, and of comparatively low value, then any dispute can be mediated by telephone. However, as soon as you are involved with documents, history, detail, both you and the mediator need time to assess everything and for the mediation event to evolve in a way that may not be possible in a few phone calls.