I have started this piece several times. I’d come at it from one angle, not liked it, re-started from another, changed it so much it became something completely different and so on.
In the end, I decided to post this version. Is it perfect? No. Could it be different? Yes. Is it too short? Maybe. Is it too long? Probably. Is it illuminating? That depends. Has it got a point? Not sure. Will you like it? That depends too.
Would we all answer those questions the same way? Definitely not.
And that is the point. Or at least, it is a point.
Whatever I wrote, however I explained it, there would be as many perspectives about it as there were readers of it.
As those of you who engaged with my recent LinkedIn posts will have spotted, that is what I have been thinking about a lot recently – perspectives.
Mine, and other peoples.
In a mediation, most important are the perspectives of the people whose dispute I am trying to help resolve. But, I also need to be aware of my own particularly if the dispute relates to an area of law and practice I know something about. I need to be careful not to “interfere” in an inappropriate way contrary to my role as a mediator.
Helping someone understand where their opponent is coming from and why is critical to moving the parties towards a resolution. For me, achieving that is up there with the most important of skills a mediator needs to have. Obviously, if that understanding also results in a changed perspective and a consequential acceptance or tolerance of something of the other party’s case, so much the better.
As a coach, I also need to work with both, in what feels to me a different way but which in fact might be very similar.
As a mediator, in most cases I am being invited to actively engage with the parties to move them to a resolution, almost always in the expectation I will bring my experience of the area of law and practice to bear, albeit without making any decision about the rights and wrongs of the respective cases. Resolutions in mediation cases almost always involve some element of compromise by both sides.
But as a coach, I partner with the client to help them with their thinking. That’s the crucial bit – it is their thinking. Any questions from me (which I ask without judgment or attachment) are in support of the client, not to encourage them to a particular outcome which I think might achieve some resolution for them. The resolutions are theirs.
However, it is in the context of making decisions that I have most been thinking about perspectives, my own mainly.
Obviously, we all make a gazillion decisions every day.
I was going to write here simply that some will seem trivial, but fortunately I quickly realised I need to acknowledge that what might seem a small decision to me could be critical when made by someone else –which itself makes an important point about perspectives.
Ahead of a speech I made recently, I was considering a principle close to my heart: to do the right thing. I reflected on what, for me, the constituent enabling elements of that principle might be. There were four. The first was that cognitive diversity was necessary – i.e. diversity of thought.
As society has rapidly evolved in my short life and the mode of communication of that evolution accelerated awareness of changed or better ways of living and thinking, I have become ever more conscious of my own limitations. I was brought up in a stable, successful, loving, middle-class family. I am certainly not going to apologise for that, but there is no doubt it framed some or a lot of my views (if I had any) about the world. I was educated, but my relationship with formal education when I was younger was not overly successful, something I have been wondering about recently. I eventually got some A Levels and have a degree, but you could not look at that time and think “gosh, Jason must be clever”.
But I have been clever! Because, somehow, I have been astute enough consciously and unconsciously (is that even possible?) to recognise I have limitations in my thinking, and no doubt some blind spots. Societies do not stand still – they evolve (obviously), there are a multitude of perspectives and social mores and I need to work constantly to access them. I need to do that to have a chance of making (as an individual or collectively) good, better or reasonable decisions.
So, among other things, I seek out people. I love people. I walk through life thinking I am going to learn something from everyone I meet. My family get a bit cross with me because, in those encounters, I sometimes become too intensely involved in the person I have met and they can see it is probably a bit much for them. The best I can say is that I am just trying to learn, to broaden my own perspectives.
More, I rely on people I can trust to speak up, and who can have trust that their voice will be heard, by me or the group. Without much thought, I can think of two recent examples of diverse interventions which, once expressed, made it clear another path was better; that the original path carried unacceptable risks.
Have I had any success at this stuff? Perhaps. Some months or more ago, in the context of a discussion about a topic that has caused much societal vexation, my daughter said to me: “One of the reasons I love you is because you are always learning.” Now that is a thing, and probably also a challenge, which I gladly accept.
I am not complacent. I know diverse perspectives are crucial. I am working hard to broaden my own. I am reading more. I am thinking more. I am conversing more. I am getting better at seeking them out. But I absolutely know there is always more work to do.
I am only me. I only have my own life and experience as a frame of reference. Add in others whose lives and experiences have been different to mine, and it is almost inevitable that, together, better decisions will be made.
© Jason Hunter
July 2024
