The most common problems that face mediators who apply co-resolution result from carrying mediation habits into the co-resolution process. This post will focus on these issues and how to correct them.
As a co-resolver, you sit on one side of the table and stick with one disputant, even when the two disputants sit in separate rooms during a caucus. This dynamic, along with the coaching/advocate role you undertake in relation to your assigned disputant, creates an immediate and powerful bond between you and your disputant. Your disputant will trust you, confide in you, and accept your advice concerning negotiation behaviors.
The trade-off of this close bond is that you will not know what is happening between the other co-resolver and the opposing disputant. As a result, you must trust the other co-resolver to have your back and not condone negotiation behavior that will put your ongoing relationship at risk. But this also means that you need to take cues from your partner about when the negotiation is heading toward rocky terrain and a caucus is necessary.
As a mediator, you know both sides of a dispute through caucusing with each party (so long as the parties trust that you will not disclose sensitive information to the other disputant in future caucuses). As a co-resolver, you only know your disputant's caucus disclosures.
Mediators can experience this dynamic as a limitation; however, this limitation can be avoided in two ways. First, co-resolver should touch base briefly between caucus and joint session. Ideally, an approximate time limit should be set for caucuses (because co-resolvers can become too positional when they spend too long listening to one side of a dispute), and each co-resolver should tell their disputant that they need to step out and tell the other co-resolver that they are ready for a joint session. That co-resolver would then either run into their partner in the hallway or call them out of their caucus to have a thirty-second chat about the overall direction of the negotiation. Second, co-resolvers must trust their partner co-resovlers. When your partner tells you that "Maybe this is a good time to caucus" or gives you a look that tells you that you are approaching a sensitive subject, defer to their judgment--they know their disputant and you do not. Of course, being able to read each other's cues will come with time and through debriefing at the ends of cases.
Another problem that mediation-trained professionals encounter in co-resolution involves trying to play the mediator in a joint session. When both co-resolvers are trying to do whatever they can do to reach resolution, they will both start acting as mediators and abandon their role as coach for one side of the dispute. To prevent a backslide into co-mediation, remember to focus your energy on helping your disputant be as effective as possible within a cooperative negotiation. There will be times when you will want to understand an aspect of the other disputant's perspective. But instead of addressing them directly (which they may perceive as aggressive) you can announce that, based on what you know only about your disputant, you are curious as to how the other side's perspective fits into the situation and then ask your partner co-resolver to respond. This way, you can air your client's disagreements as curious questions and then allow the other co-resolver to filter a reaction. However, this again takes trust of your partner.
The bottom line is that co-resolution involves a new and different role from mediation. And with new roles come different behaviors. There will be an adjustment period as you adopt these new habits and develop rapport with your partner co-resolver. But the result will be a greater level of involvement in the negotiation process.
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