The Mediation Fantasy That’s Undermining Your Company: How “Mutual Benefit” Outcomes Often Cause More Issues Than They Solve

I’ll going to question one of the most cherished beliefs in current dispute management training: the idea that all business dispute can and should be fixed through “mutually beneficial” outcomes.

That thinking sounds enlightened and humane, but after over a decade of training in organizational development, I can tell you it’s often utter garbage that creates worse problems than it solves.

Here’s the core issue with the “collaborative” mindset: it assumes that every disputes stem from communication problems or conflicting interests that can be cleverly harmonized if individuals just talk sufficiently.

In the real world, many workplace disputes center on real, absolute oppositions in goals, real competition for limited positions, or cases where someone really has to win and another party must to fail.

We worked with a significant creative firm where the creative team and the client services team were in continuous disagreement about client work strategy.

Creative people insisted on to create original, standout work that would enhance their professional standing. Account management teams demanded work that would satisfy conservative accounts and maintain established business partnerships.

Either teams had completely reasonable concerns. Both perspectives were essential for the company’s success.

Leadership brought in a team of mediation consultants who spent months facilitating “collaborative problem-solving” workshops.

Those workshops produced detailed “mutually beneficial” strategies that looked sophisticated on in theory but were completely impractical in reality.

For example, they created approaches where each campaign would somehow integrate “innovative standards” with “customer satisfaction.” The consultants developed detailed evaluation criteria and review processes meant to guarantee that all parties’ concerns were addressed.

This result: creative development processes that took three times more time than originally, creative output that was compromised to the extent of being forgettable, and accounts who were dissatisfied by contradictory communication about campaign direction.

Each departments were increasingly dissatisfied than initially because neither side was achieving what they actually needed to do their roles successfully.

Following half a year of this failure, I persuaded management to scrap the “win-win” strategy and create what I call “Clear Priority Making.”

Rather than trying to assume that every client work could concurrently satisfy conflicting objectives, they implemented definite standards for deciding when innovative excellence would take precedence and when customer retention would be the main concern.

For prestigious clients where the agency sought to protect stable partnerships, client approval would take focus.

With newer accounts or pro bono work, creative people would have greater latitude to develop innovative solutions.

With prospective industry competitions, innovative excellence would be the top objective.

All teams knew specifically what the priorities were for specific project, what criteria would guide direction, and what sacrifices were being accepted.

Conflict between the teams almost disappeared. Each groups could focus on excelling at what they did best rather than endlessly arguing about direction.

Account satisfaction got better because client services staff managed to confidently discuss campaign strategy and deliverables. Creative quality improved on designated projects because artistic teams received definite authority to develop innovative solutions.

This lesson: trying to create “win-win” outcomes for genuinely competing priorities usually ends up in “lose-lose” outcomes where neither party gets what they actually require.

Better to be clear about priorities and make deliberate, intelligent selections about when competing priorities will get priority.

This is one more situation of how the “collaborative” obsession causes dysfunction. I worked with a software development business where experienced engineers and new employees were in ongoing disagreement about work distribution.

Experienced programmers preferred concentrating on challenging, prestigious tasks that would enhance their careers and improve their market worth.

New developers required opportunities to meaningful projects to gain their expertise and grow their capabilities.

Scarce numbers of challenging assignments meant that providing more opportunities to junior staff necessarily meant fewer assignments for senior staff.

Supervision hired conflict resolution consultants who dedicated extensive time working to create “creative” approaches that would somehow satisfy all parties’ development needs.

These experts developed elaborate processes for “shared assignment management,” “coaching partnerships,” and “knowledge exchange initiatives.”

None of these approaches fixed the basic problem: there were simply not enough complex projects for each person to get what they wanted.

This consequence: even more confusion in assignment distribution, slower work distribution, and continued conflict from both sides.

I helped them establish a honest, merit-based approach for work assignment:

Experienced assignments on high-profile work would be given based on established skills and experience

Entry-level staff would receive planned development opportunities created to enhance their skills methodically

Specific criteria and pathways were created for promotion from beginning to advanced positions

All team members knew exactly what they had to achieve to qualify for higher-level categories of work responsibilities

Tension among different groups almost disappeared. Junior team members were able to focus on meeting defined development goals rather than fighting for limited opportunities. Senior developers were able to focus on complex projects without repeatedly defending their claim to these opportunities.

Output and quality increased dramatically across every performance categories.

The reality: clear, fair allocation often produces better outcomes than forced “collaborative” approaches that attempt to eliminate inevitable competition.

Now let’s examine probably the most harmful component of the “mutual benefit” mindset: how it enables poor employees and damages workplace standards.

We consulted with a public sector department where one unit was regularly missing performance standards, delivering inadequate quality, and causing problems for other teams that relied on their output.

When impacted departments complained about these delivery issues, leadership consistently replied by arranging “collaborative dialogue” sessions to create “compromise” arrangements.

These workshops would invariably result in complex “process modifications” that fundamentally expected effective teams to work around the substandard work of the failing team.

As an illustration, rather than requiring the problematic department to reach standard timelines, the “win-win” arrangement would be to adjust every project schedules to adjust for their inadequate productivity.

Instead of expecting them to enhance their standards output, different departments would be expected to offer additional checking, support, and corrections to account for their poor deliverables.

That approach was remarkably unfair to high-performing departments and directly enabled inadequate performance.

Even worse, it created anger and disillusionment among good employees who experienced that their additional effort was being exploited while problematic performers were being protected from consequences.

The team persuaded management to abandon the “collaborative” pretense and establish honest accountability systems.

Management established measurable performance requirements for every units, with clear accountability measures for repeated failure to meet these expectations.

This underperforming department was provided specific training and a reasonable timeframe to improve their work. Once they were unable to reach the required standards, necessary staffing changes were taken.

Their improvement was dramatic. Organizational performance rose dramatically, team disputes virtually disappeared, and worker satisfaction with effective performers got better considerably.

This lesson: real “mutual benefit” solutions come from enforcing consistent standards for everyone, not from compromising expectations to enable substandard work.

Here’s what I’ve learned after extensive experience of seeing businesses suffer with ineffective “mutual benefit” philosophies:

Effective conflict resolution needs leaders who are prepared to make unpopular calls, set consistent expectations, and accept that not everyone can get everything they desire.

Sometimes the right approach is for certain people to succeed and someone else to compromise significantly. Often the best approach is to remove individuals who are refusing to perform professionally within reasonable parameters.

Furthermore sometimes the right solution is to accept that certain conflicts represent irreconcilable incompatibilities in approaches that cannot be resolved through conversation.

Quit working to manufacture “collaborative” solutions where they cannot apply. Focus on establishing systems with fair standards, consistent enforcement, and the courage to make difficult decisions when collaborative solutions aren’t appropriate.

The organization – and your best employees – require nothing accommodation.

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