Zen and the Art of Mediation (Not Motorcycles)

Some of you may have heard of the 1974 novel, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert Pirsig. It is an exploration of many philosophical ideas ranging from “pure truths” to “classical thinking”. Although it is not a book about conflict resolution. But it has lessons that translate directly to mediation. There are a few that resonate with me:

Lessons that translate

“Stuckness”: Pirsig writes extensively about “stuckness”. That feeling when the lock won’t turn, the solution doesn’t come and your mind just goes blank. I think we’ve all experienced this. It comes up in mediation, too. That moment when the session stalls and helplessness start to creep in.

Peace of mind as precondition: The internal state of the person trying to resolve something matters as much as their technique. The author suggests that a troubled mind produces troubled work. You can’t fix an engine (or a dispute) from a place of agitation. In mediation, it can be referred to as the “baggage that a mediator brings into the session.

The mechanic who cares: One of Pirsig’s recurring themes is that the quality of work depends entirely on the quality of attention brought to it. A bad mechanic isn’t necessarily less skilled; he may just not care as much. Most conflict is worsened by the absence of a genuine desire to find a solution.

Techniques for stressful situations

As I develop my mediation skills, I realize that these concepts have guided me, at least unconsciously, to develop and refine several techniques for dealing with stressful situations:

• Slowing the pace of the room When things get heated, the instinct is to match the energy. I do the opposite. I remember my son’s Elementary School teacher who used a sotto voce volume whenever the class got noisy and unruly. So I lower the volume of my speech, slow down, extend my pauses. It creates a kind of gravitational pull toward calm. Trying to talk over conflict almost never works.

• Changing the structure, not just the subject: It’s easy to get caught up in the details and lose sight of the underlying issues (see: Root Cause Analysis). When the parties are focused on the problem and not the solution, I try to reset the process by restating some of the guidelines for a mediation. The most common one is the remind the parties to let the other one finish.

  This shifts the room from “what” they are fighting about to “how” they are fighting. And the ‘how’ is something a mediator can actually work with.

• Naming what’s happening without taking sides “It sounds like you’re both feeling really unheard right now” lands very differently than trying to be the referee. A key proposition about mediation is neutrality. Reflecting on the process as opposed to the content is one way that I find very useful to keep the session moving forward.

• Getting curious instead of alarmed Underneath most anger there’s fear, grief, or shame. I try to lean into that, shifting internally from ‘this is chaos’ to ‘what is this telling me?’ That shift is invisible to the parties… but they feel it.”

After decades away

I picked up the book again after decades away. Pirsig may not have set out to write about conflict resolution. But, sometimes, the best frameworks rarely announce themselves that way.