Beyond Neutrality: Confronting the Crisis in Conflict Resolution

In Mr. Mayer's book "Beyond Neutrality" he tackles several problems that mediators have virtually avoided for the last 30 years. The concept of neutrality itself is one of those such topics. Mediators see themselves as "Neutral" but Mr. Mayer posits that really there is no such thing as neutral in the truest sense. That is, all mediators bring to any case, all the emotional, personal and spiritual baggage that makes up their life choices and moral values. All of us have some Political Affiliation, or we have NONE, which is in effect, the absence of any one. We each are either male or female, we have opinions about labor and management, we have various age biases, prejudices and the like, which we bring to every mediation. Thus can anyone really be fully neutral? Perhaps not. Yet this should not stop us in our objective to help people deal with the problems of life. Rather, we should redefine what we do, so it encompasses what the client might need, not just our definition of a narrow range of activity, i.e. A Mediator. Specifically, Mayer suggests that we look at the techniques and skills in such fields as facilitation, arbitration, negotiation and coaching. All of these avocations have intersecting skill sets. Each of these groups could teach a lot to the other groups, and vice versa. At this time, when mediation is finally really showing some benefits to many, we must now examine, where we see mediation going in the future, and how we wish to be involved with that evolution of the field. If nothing else, Mr. Mayer's book raises questions about ethics and values that we should have been talking about for the last 30 years.