Narrative Mediations

Starting a business together with a business partner. You invest in an entrepreneur and are actively involved in his business. Or you are involved in a strategic partnership. You notice that the cooperation has been a little strained for some time. And then, before you know it, you find yourself in a serious conflict situation. This not only has an impact on your relationship, but also on your business operations. Too often, dramatic measures are taken unnecessarily. Lawyers are mobilised, court cases threatened. Positions become more difficult. But what if, in the end, you have to go on with each other? A unique opportunity to turn your conflict into an opportunity.

An alternative story
The starting point of mediation is to let parties in conflict talk to each other in a constructive way with the aim of letting them think of their own solutions to settle the dispute. Narrative mediation is focused on turning the dominant conflict stories of the parties into an alternative story, in which the parties lay the foundations for appropriate solutions.

Understanding each other’s interests
No matter how well parties think they know each other, in practice the cause of a conflict often turns out to lie somewhere else than initially assumed. By translating viewpoints into common interests and paying more attention to the future than to the past, parties often manage to find each other again in order to continue their cooperation. The basis for this lies in the willingness to look into each other’s interests instead of each other’s points of view. ELT Labs offers narrative mediation to guide this process. It starts with having a cup of coffee.

For whom

• Entrepreneurs
• Intrapreneurs
• Family businesses
• Investors with commitment
• VCs, PEs
• Supervisory Directors
• Strategic partners

When

• In conflict situations where parties no longer communicate sufficiently with each other
• Silent conflicts
• Misunderstanding and distrust
• Feeling of unfairness
• Standing between one or more conflicting partners

Benefits

• Increased mutual understanding and trust
• Improved interactions
• Broadening of insights
• Coming up with own solutions to settle conflicts
• Awareness of cooperation
• Making difficult issues negotiable
• Making interests explicit
• Informal but structured process
• Being able to reflect in a confidential and safe manner
• Researcher is independent, has no interests, is not judgmental
• Attention for emotions
• Show what is really important to each other
• Being able to separate main issues from side issues
• Awareness of your own way of thinking and acting (and being able to learn from it)