Empowerment
Whose Dispute Is It Anyway?
Empowerment. The word dates to the mid-17th century, but contemporary usage began with the civil rights movement in the 1960s. This usage — increasing the political and economic power of individuals or groups — has since found even more widespread application.
Today, empowerment finds common use in contexts as diverse as healthcare (patient empowerment), the workplace (employee empowerment), and the security of local communities (neighborhood watch). Mediation is a further expression of empowerment in the context of conflict resolution. In an age when people feel less control over their lives, mediation places parties in control of their disputes. It empowers you to reassert yourself as the principal decision maker in any resolution you choose to make.
When people encounter conflicts they can’t readily resolve themselves, they seek help. Typically, they may proceed with an adversarial process such as litigation or arbitration, or they may meet with a mediator. The prevalence of empowerment movements in almost every aspect of modern life suggests that mediation is generally the better choice.
Litigation and arbitration, in contrast, disempower parties to a dispute by placing decision-making authority in the hands of judges and arbitrators, none of whom must live with the consequences of the resolution they've created. For people in disputes, this loss of control makes the experience of their conflict even more distressing. This, in turn, makes the conflict more adversarial, and so the vicious cycle continues. Mediation reverses the cycle. It is the empowering alternative.