Is Mediation Your Best Option?
Legal disputes are costly, time consuming, emotionally draining, and not good for business. A business dispute is a business illness. If mild, you can work through it, but it still drags you down and impacts profits. If severe, a business dispute can destroy an entire business. Unfortunately, just as illnesses are an inevitable part of being human, disputes are an inevitable part of doing business. Learning how to effectively manage the disputes that arise is critical for business success.
Negotiation, mediation, and litigation are each potent processes for breaking down an impasse so that disputants can move from conflict to resolution. As with any tool, there are right and wrong times and ways to use it.
I like the analogy about disputes being like illnesses, and Negotiation, mediation, and litigation being like possible cures. I believe the reason mediation is used least is because people in general don’t know how it works, so they don’t consider even trying, this type of remedy. In my eyes, mediators are like doctors of dispute who are way ahead of their time; who are skilled with a cure that people just don’t know about.