Litigation/Arbitration
Fight or Flight
Fight or flight. These are our two primal responses to conflict. Indeed,
fight or flight is the choice
that every animal faces when confronted by
danger. Whereas humans today need no longer fear the approach of a
saber-tooth
tiger — the kind of situation in which our ancestors began to
hone these instincts — fight or flight remains our primary response to conflict.
When a conflict arises we either
avoid the conflict altogether
(flight) or we en-
gage in the conflict (fight). The
latter often begins with aggressive posturing
and the issuance of threats.
It
then typically escalates into litigation or its private counterpart, arbitration. In litigation and arbitration,
both parties typically retain attorneys to contest the
dispute on their behalf.
A New Relationship to Conflict
More than an alternative to litigation and arbitration, mediation is an entirely different approach to conflict resolution. First practiced in Ancient Babylon, it developed further in Ancient Greece and was later recognized in Roman law. A distinctly man-made process, mediation is quite unlike the instinctual responses of fight or flight. It asks the parties to adopt a new relationship to their conflict (while demanding no change in their relationship to one another). Instead of framing the conflict as a contest to be fought, mediation reframes the conflict as a problem to be solved.
In the 10,000 years since the saber-tooth tiger last roamed the frozen tundra, the process of conflict resolution has evolved. You can now choose mediation and, most likely, save yourself the time and expense of litigation or arbitration.