Mediation Skills

  1. Opening
  2. Reframing
  3. Paraphrasing
  4. Summarizing
  5. Guiding others to take perspective
  6. Making a supportive climate
  7. Keeping a safe environment
  8. Asking questions
  9. Collaborating with clients about progress
  10. Searching for doables
  11. Listening for goals
  12. Listening for interests, positions, values, needs
  13. Active listening
  14. Listening and watching to interpret others
  15. Controlling others
  16. Testing reality of plans and perspectives
  17. Identifying common ground
  18. Generating options
  19. Judging fixed vs. expanding pie
  20. Discerning rights, distributions, and values issues
  21. Planning for contingencies
  22. Applying objectives/external criteria
  23. Collaborating with co-mediators
  24. Maintaining neutral role
  25. Turning coercion into persuasion
  26. Validating others
  27. Building trust
  28. Controlling process
  29. Making concrete agreements
  30. Balancing promises and protections in agreements
  31. Identifying and balancing power
  32. Giving feedback
  33. Avoiding advice
  34. Handling emotions
  35. Keeping things moving, building sense of progress
  36. Offering prospects for transformative and problem-solving collaboration
  37. Following ethical standards
  38. Closing