11
Acas - Mediation
TRANSMISSION SCRIPT
Time-codes / Dialogue00:00:45:07 / Bernard
Kirsty’s been with the company for a long time and we’ve worked together very, very well and Paul has joined us from the last 18 months and he’s a very efficient worker, very, very efficient worker. But his methods and Kirsty’s, well they’re clashing.
00:01:04:00 / Bernard
Kirsty always gives 110% and Paul, he’s fantastic, he gets things done boom-boom-boom boom-boom-boom. So, you know, I can’t afford to lose either of them. I know for a fact that recently we should have tendered for a new contract which we would have got, we would have got indeed had we been able to get it out in time but because of the squabbling within the office it didn’t happen. So you can see what’s happening, it’s costing us time and money.
00:01:36:09 / Kirsty
He doesn’t listen, he doesn’t listen to anything that I say. He doesn’t value anything, any input that I give. If I go into his office to talk him he just basically says “Email me, email me, email me.” I’m working with clients who have feelings, alright, I have to be empathic. I share that with him, he doesn’t even know what feelings are.
00:01:56:19 / Kirsty
I have been considering just packing the whole thing in to be honest because I haven’t experienced this feeling for the whole eight years that I’ve been working here. And I have felt respected in the past and I’ve felt that I’ve been able to do my job and now, to be honest, the situation’s untenable.
00:02:14:20 / Kirsty
I mean I don’t know how we’re gonna work this out to be honest. I can’t see a way through.
00:02:26:02 / Paul
I don’t know where she gets this idea that I’m harassing her or something. All I’m doing is doing my job and doing it to my best ability.
00:02:33:17 / Paul
You know, it’s my job, if we don’t hit these targets then who does it come back on? It comes back on me, it makes the whole department look like they’re not working efficiently just because of one person. And she keeps having a go at me about emailing her and it’s like, you know, it’s too impersonal and can’t we sit down and have a chat. And it’s like what’s she wanna do, have a cup of tea and some biscuits?
00:02:55:04 / Paul
I don’t understand how she works, she just seems to waste so much time and it’s just not efficient.
00:03:03:24 / Mediator VO
I met with Paul and Kirsty individually and explained that mediation’s voluntary and it was up to them whether they took part. It’s confidential so I reassure them that nothing would be passed on without their permission. Because mediation’s informal and outside the company’s internal procedures Paul and Kirsty were able to speak freely and tell me how they felt about the situation. Having agreed the issues to be resolved and the points they were happy for me to share, Paul and Kirsty agreed to go forward with mediation and meet together with me.
00:03:46:10 / Mediator VO
When we met together we agreed that everything said in the room would be kept confidential but anyone could call for a break or a one-to-one talk with me at any time but only one person should speak at a time and that we would try not to raise our voices.
00:04:11:02 / Mediator
During the meetings that we had a particular flashpoint for both of you seemed to be the incident concerning the delegation of some of Kirsty’s work. And I thought it actually might be useful to start with the particular incident and discuss that. Paul, it might be helpful, if you’re happy, to sort of tell Kirsty why you did that and what was going through your mind.
00:04:36:24 / Paul
Well, as I explained in the meeting there, the work still has to be done and if Kirsty’s off sick then someone’s gotta do it and all I did was kind of…
00:04:49:10 / Kirsty
When was the deadline for that piece of work?
00:04:51:18 / Paul
It’s not about…
00:04:52:01 / Kirsty
It was two weeks later…
00:04:53:00 / Mediator
Kirsty, can we just sort of have one person speaking at one time. You did mention to me that you were actually concerned about Kirsty.
00:05:03:16 / Paul
Well obviously if one of the people in the office is off sick because of stress… due to the workload or whatever then – and then thing is if she’s gone off with stress, you know, it’s not like a cold.
00:05:17:06 / Kirsty
Gone off with stress.
00:05:18:21 / Paul
Well it’s not like you’re going off with the flu or something, you can sort of judge when you’re gonna be back.
00:05:23:05 / Kirsty
Right, so he acted concerned did he? He acted concerned when you two talked. It was concern, was it? It doesn’t sound like concern to me. Gone off with stress, yes.
00:05:32:01 / Paul
Well my main duties are to get the job done. At the end of the day the work has to be done and if…
00:05:41:22 / Kirsty
No, you’re basically trying to imply that I’m neurotic and that I go off on stress, with stress…
00:05:46:00 / Paul
I’m not trying to imply anything, I’m trying to do my job…
00:05:48:14 / Kirsty
I’ve been…
00:05:49:18 / Paul
That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to get the work done and if you’re not there then I’m gonna delegate it to someone else who is there, who can do the job. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that deadlines have to be met.
00:06:01:11 / Mediator
Well can I just stop you both there? Kirsty, could you just explain to Paul when you came back how you felt about that work being delegated whilst you were away. How did that make you feel?
00:06:15:01 / Kirsty
You know, to be honest, I felt violated…
00:06:18:06 / Paul
(Exaggerated sniff)
00:06:20:20 / Kirsty
I mean do you see how he responded, did you see how he sniffs? You know, takes no notice or doesn’t have any understanding for feelings.
00:06:27:20 / Mediator
So how might Paul have dealt with that in a way that would have been more acceptable to you?
00:06:35:03 / Kirsty
Maybe just had a bit of trust that I would actually carry out the things that I need to carry out, even if I’m having a day off I’ve got it covered.
00:06:42:08 / Paul
It was one time and I thought I was helping you out by passing these over to other people to free up your time so when you got back you could concentrate on the projects that really mattered to you.
00:06:53:14 / Mediator
In terms of just taking this forward, because we’re now got a difficult situation, a situation where when either of you are away your section’s not being covered and we’ve now got a situation where there’s a bit of a stand-off between you which is obviously having an impact on your staff, how are we going to resolve that situation?
00:07:13:09 / Kirsty
Well I would like, in future, that he – whenever he feels there’s something he’s gonna do for me as a favour that he checks with me first.
00:07:21:23 / Mediator
Okay. How does that sound to you Paul?
00:07:24:02 / Paul
Yeah, it sounds like a good idea.
00:07:27:10 / Mediator VO
As you’ve just seen feelings were running high but, once they’d aired their views, Paul and Kirsty did start to reach agreement. They went on to agree arrangements for their sections during periods of absence. Tackling this flashpoint early on in the mediation helped Paul and Kirsty to move on and discuss other points.
00:07:53:23 / Mediator VO
Another incident that came up during the discussions that we had which was the incident about the barbecue. And I know that, having spoken to Paul, there are some things that he would like to say to you as a result of that. Do you feel that you can share that with Kirsty?
00:08:14:23 / Paul
Well I kind of think, in a sense, that it’s not really relevant because it’s a social thing and it’s away from the office. But, yeah, there were reasons why I didn’t want to go. I was going to come, I was going to come and I had every intention of coming right up until kind of the last minute. But then…
00:08:37:20 / Kirsty
But then you didn't ring and you didn’t inform me that you weren’t coming and I had bought all the food and I had explained to other people that you were about to arrive. So situation not really very well dealt with I’d say.
00:08:51:09 / Mediator
Would you be willing to share with Kirsty what your reasons for not being there were Paul?
00:08:56:18 / Paul
Well I think it’s the same for anyone when you’re kind of in a new environment and you’re not… you know, there would have been a load of people there that I don’t know, there may be a few people from the office and whatever…
00:09:12:12 / Kirsty
But I’d chosen people specifically that I thought you might get on with, I was aware…
00:09:15:11 / Paul
Well I wasn’t aware that.
00:09:16:04 / Kirsty
That you’d come to an area, you know, where you didn’t know people and I was trying to open up avenues for you so that – you know, I was aware that you may be lonely, you know, coming here – you know, I wanted to give you the opportunity to get to know people who lived nearby.
00:09:34:19 / Paul
Well it’s not a case of I’m lonely or anything, I’m quite content. But in certain environments like that I would feel uncomfortable, I would feel very self-conscious and I – it just got to a point where I wanted to avoid that. And I didn’t think that I could phone up and tell you that’s why I wasn’t coming to your barbecue. Sometimes it’s very difficult to talk to you and sometimes it’s quite intimidating to talk to you so that’s why I didn’t do it.
00:10:07:11 / Mediator
When we spoke, sort of one-to-one in the meetings, I mean what you said to me was that you felt embarrassed and so he didn’t know what to say so he didn’t call you and then I asked you about what happened on Monday, you know, when you got back to the office and you said well, you didn’t know how to deal it so he didn’t speak to you then about it. So it just got left and, I mean, do you want to tell Paul how you felt about it?
00:10:35:07 / Kirsty
You know, if you genuinely did feel embarrassed and, you know, you can tell me that. I mean you could just ring and just say “Look, I can’t handle it. I’m not in the mood, I’m feeling…” I can handle that. I mean, I completely understand that you were – you know, if you were feeling – if he was feeling uncomfortable or breaking out. That I can un – just maybe sharing that with me. I didn’t know what – I still, to this day, had no idea that this was the case. I thought he’d just decided “(Bleep) it, I won’t come.”
00:11:09:01 / Mediator
I think it’s clear to me as a sort of third party here that what we’ve got actually is a misunderstanding.
00:11:17:03 / Mediator VO
At our one-to-one meetings Kirsty and Paul had both identified the barbecue incident as the point when things really started to go wrong between them. Kirsty had been angry and Paul, although feeling a bit awkward and embarrassed, had told me he wanted to sort things out and agreed that I could share his feelings with Kirsty. Sorting out this misunderstanding will hopefully prove a turning point and help them to move forward.
00:11:52:02 / Kirsty
You know, to be honest, I just had no idea that Paul was feeling embarrassed and insecure about that barbecue. And to be – you know, I just – if he’d have been able to share that on any level I just think that maybe this isolation that I was experiencing from him, this closing off would have - we would have maybe been able to deal with this whole situation a bit earlier. You know, because I just had no idea that he was feeling like that. How he was coming over to me was hard and closed and withdrawn and I actually felt for him in the meeting to be honest. I felt… you know, I felt quite warm to him for that.
00:12:50:00 / Mediator
Kirsty, when we spoke you said that you felt that Paul wasn’t willing to discuss things with you and Paul you told me that sometimes Kirsty wants to speak to you at times when you can’t talk and that, by preference, you’d like to see things in writing. So I think this would be a useful area for us to explore now to see whether we can agree a way of working together. Would you like to say how you feel Kirsty?
00:13:16:04 / Kirsty
You know, for me, when I’m working on ideas that need to be bounced off other people, the idea of putting them in writing, you know, on an email is – it just feels like a hindrance really because, you know, some of these things aren’t fully worked out, you know.
00:13:35:10 / Mediator
Right.
00:13:35:11 / Kirsty
There’s things that I’d like to bounce off my team members so that we can come up with some – so that the creation that you’re actually coming up with is a group creation.
00:13:46:18 / Mediator
Paul, how would you respond to that?
00:13:48:17 / Paul
Well I think you can discuss things via email and the one thing that really works for me is because it is quick, it is efficient and you don’t have to waste valuable time…
00:14:04:01 / Kirsty
Communicating.
00:14:04:17 / Paul
Well no, you’re still communicating, aren’t you, but it’s just in a different way. So, you know, you’re still having the same discussions but when you send an email you’re gonna be more concise about what you want to say. So it makes sense to me.
00:14:19:06 / Kirsty
For certain things the technology’s fine, for certain dry matters where we’re just trying to work out itineraries, that is fine. But for bouncing off ideas, you want to work with someone. I wouldn’t know what to write…
00:14:33:09 / Paul
But you could…
00:14:33:13 / Kirsty
The whole thing is I have an idea, I’m inspired, I want to bounce off someone else. I want them to respond in the moment. You know, it’s all so dry and it’s all so once removed with you.
00:14:44:15 / Paul
If you’ve got ideas you put them down in an email, you send them across, the person reads them, sends an email back with their ideas, it’s the same thing.