Conciliation: Bridge-building when relationships matter

When someone disagrees with you, the disagreement threatens to deprive you of something you that want or load a burden upon you that you do not want. Disagreements end in various ways, including physical violence, smoldering grudges, court orders, arbitration decisions, and negotiated settlements, but most of those endings destroy relationships among friends, coworkers, and family members. Conciliation, a less well-known dispute resolution system, sometimes preserves or strengthens relationships while resolving disagreements.

Physical violence, smoldering grudges, court orders, and arbitration decisions pit opposing people against each other as adversaries. In the classic sense, one competitor wins and the other side loses. Unfortunately, with a few exceptions like wealthy professional boxers and football players, everyone loses something in a conflict and the costs often make winners feel like losers.

Mediation has emerged and matured among lawyers as a dispute resolution system that helps transform opponents into "win-win" problem-solving teams. Highly trained mediators guide adversaries and their lawyers through a study of each group's desires and needs, and builds a negotiated agreement that gives each group a better solution than that group's most dreaded courtroom outcome. Although mediation can lead participants to mend broken relationships, it focuses more on settling disagreements than on improving relationships. Often, parties only begin mediation after they have spent thousands of dollars in attorney fees and an expensive courtroom battle becomes a looming financial and emotional threat.

Family members, coworkers, and close friends often mourn broken relationships and regret participating in the disputes that divided them. Usually, if such people calm down and think clearly about their conflicts before tensions get out of control, they recognize that their underlying disputes are less important than reconciling their fragile relationships. Sometimes, however, neither side can step far enough away from the issues to find solutions -- both sides need a neutral guide toward conciliation.

A conciliator functions like a relationship counselor. Much like a marriage counselor (a kind of conciliator) helps estranged and dysfunctional couples avoid divorce, a conciliator helps people discover why they disagree and guides them to remove or overcome their relational barriers. For instance, if one farm family member's growing habit of acting alone in farm business decisions enrages other family members, a conciliator may help the lone wolf slow down and seek family participation in important decisions and actions.

Conciliation works best in the early days of a dispute when strained relationships remain unbroken. When a conciliator starts working early in a dispute, the parties can manage their emotions better and begin trusting each other sooner. Pride makes some people dismiss conciliation as ridiculous or unnecessary, but such dismissive feelings often signal that pride is part of the divisive problem. Conciliation requires humility from everyone, but the joy of restored relationship usually rewards everyone far beyond the sacrifice of submitting to the conciliation process.

Jeff R. Hawkins is a registered civil mediator and the 2014-15 President of the Indiana State Bar Association. He and Jennifer J. Hawkins are Trust & Estate Specialty Board Certified Indiana Trust & Estate Lawyers and both are admitted to practice law in Indiana. Jeff is admitted to practice law in Illinois and he is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel.

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