Busines Mediation Can Prevent Partnership Disputes
Business mediation is recognized as an excellent means to resolve disputes and pending litigation. It is now being used to prevent disputes from arising among partners, shareholders, professional associations and management teams.

Business Partnerships Start With High Expectations
People become co-owners of a business because they believe they will be better off with a larger entity than as a sole owner or sole practitioner. They sign agreements that cover the details of accounting, finance and law. They are wearing their rose-colored glasses and have high expectations for a blissful and financially rewarding relationship.

The history of small business tells us that these expectations are elusive. We have mediated the dissolution of many partnerships and closely held corporations. There was a common thread that ran through every conflict. Although the opening positions were couched in terms of lack of profits, broken agreements and so on, business mediation determined that these disputes were seldom the real cause of the problem.

Management Teams Are Subject to the Same Strains As Business Partnerships
Management teams in larger organizations are usually put together with existing staff to achieve a specified goal. Everyone makes a commitment to cooperate. Too often the team members get mired down in turf battles. The arguments are phrased in terms of disagreements about the best plan of action. Having mediated a number of management disputes, we have found that reality is something different.

How Business Mediators and Business Consultants Differ
The Business Charter process helps people design a program that will keep them focused and working together. In the business mediation conference we guide them as they, not we, draft a "business charter." This is the significant difference between the approach of consultants and mediators. Consultants will analyze the situation and present the client with a solution or a plan of action. Even if it is flawless, inevitably someone will find something to hate.

The difference is whether the participants can say that it is "my idea" or it’s "his idea." Through business mediation people develop a solution that is their idea. Thus, the chance for successful implementation is great, since everyone has a vested interest in seeing it succeed.

Business Mediation Creates a Charter
A business charter addresses matters that are not discussed in partnership or shareholder agreements or in management structure and job descriptions. A charter, resulting from business mediation is a non-binding memorandum, which clarifies what each person expects of the others and how they will operate together.

In business mediation there is no not attempt to change personalities. We help people to understand their own interests, needs and goals and the interests, needs and goals of the others. Then, with our guidance, they work out a plan for working together.

Business Mediation Results in Partnership Charter
To implement this approach, business mediators have separate confidential interviews with each person. We cannot disclose anything they tell us unless they authorize us to do so. During the interview we show them how to air their gripes in a non-adversarial and productive manner.

When we complete the interviews, we have a complete picture of the relevant issues. We learn about each person's perceptions and the hidden agendas that seldom surface when they meet on their own. We therefore have a picture that none of the partners have seen. Our task is to help them develop this picture for themselves during our business mediation conference.

Prior to the group meeting we give each person a set of questions, developed from what we learned in the individual interviews. We review their answers and prepare for the conference, in which we facilitate a discussion of all that was previously unspoken.

What Causes Business Partnership Problems?
The length of the business mediation conference depends upon the number of participants and the complexity of the relationships. Notice the reference to "complexity of relationships" rather than "complexity of the problems or disputes." Although people discuss problems in terms of financial issues, legal problems or poor management, these disputes are seldom the real causes of friction. The real cause is the people themselves.

For a case study and further explanation of the Partnership Charter click here.