How a Mediation Can Sometimes Feel Like Watching The Weather Channel

How many times has this happened to you? You get up in the morning, grab a cup of coffee, put on The Weather Channel to check the weather for the day and then completely zone out while the meteorologist is waxing poetic about the current weather forecast.

The whole thing passes before your eyes: the temperature report, the wind direction, the barometric pressure, the pollen count, the UV index, the rain forecast, the tide status, the wave heights, the progression of the weather throughout the day and into the evening – sheesh! Then, the local forecast segment is over and they’re onto the weather in Colorado! You suddenly realize that you didn’t hear or remember a thing and now you have to wait for the loop to return (local on the 8’s!). Sound familiar?

I laugh to myself every time this happens to me. Unless I’m really, really homed in on exactly, specifically, expressly the information I turned the channel on to see (is the rain going to continue this morning and do I need to shlep the umbrella today?), my mind tends to wander as I’m thinking of a million other things, and I completely miss the two-minute sound bite on the precise information I was looking for. With The Weather Channel, there is just so much information being hurled at us in such a short amount of time, that it IS hard to register it all in one viewing. That’s probably one of the reasons they have the eight-minute loop!

In mediation, we are also covering a lot of ground in a short amount of time; certainly shorter than in a litigation process. And it’s easy to imagine how someone can get completely overwhelmed with all the information and decision-making that is being introduced – sometimes for the first time. The methods and procedures that mediators use may vary from practitioner to practitioner, but most of us have an outline that we’ve developed over years of mediating, that mitigates that feeling of being overwhelmed that our clients may experience in other settings.

During my initial consultation with potential clients, I can sometimes see their eyes start to glaze over (not dissimilar to what happens when we watch The Weather Channel) when I spell out, in detail, the main topics that will be covered during the mediation process (parenting, the house, retirement plans, etc.). As I begin to lay out the process, I’m aware that there is a lot of information coming at them. And it’s daunting. I’m mindful that life as they have known it is now morphing into something else – something completely unknown and unpredictable. It’s human nature, that when we feel overwhelmed, we do tend to zone out. As much as possible, I want to restore some sense of calm and order to them, so they can make good decisions for themselves.

In my practice, I assure them that there is a “method to my madness” (which usually makes them laugh and relax a bit). I explain how:

• We will take things step by step, regardless of the order we take in covering the issues.

• Some issues may need to be revisited several times before any final conclusion can be made.

• We can only go as fast as the slowest person in the room is going.

• We will leave no stone unturned until they both feel comfortable that they have a workable, sustainable and acceptable Agreement.

 So how is mediation like watching The Weather Channel? In my mediation – it isn’t!