I am the author of ‘The Essential Heart of a Leader’. The book describes my perspective on Leadership and is based on my 34-year police career. In my view, leadership is knowing ourselves and those we are responsible for as people and behaving accordingly. Whenever interviewing witnesses, suspects, victims or colleagues, my purpose was to create an environment where they felt safe to provide their perspective of events rather than me following a pre-set agenda. The skill set I developed as a senior leader included active listening and neurolinguistic programming (NLP). This has helped me to develop authentic rapport and trust and confidence in my neutrality, objectivity, impartiality and fairness with participants in the mediation process. This is reinforced by my being independent of the client organisation. I am the director of my company, TM Development Associates Limited, and I was trained by ACAS as an internal mediator in the police. You can well imagine the challenges that I faced. In 2021, I was re -accredited by ACAS as a workplace mediator. The same year, I was similarly registered by the Civil Mediation Council. About Anthony Munday WORKPLACE MEDIATION ADVISER OF THE YEAR Anthony Munday Director Achieve Success UK What is your ‘icebreaker ‘stage in mediation? The ‘icebreaker ‘is an essential and distinct first stage I developed in the mediation process. Traditionally, the first time that the participants meet, their mediator is at the start of the individual meeting. This is especially challenging in several ways: • There is no foundation of trust and confidence in the capabilities of the mediator at the outset. • The participants and the mediator are strangers to each other. • The participants, who are often traumatised by events, are not in a psychological state to effectively engage with the mediator. • If the participants choose to engage, it is invariably at a superficial level. • The experience of previous processes called ‘mediation’ is real for the participant. These may not have been positive and are not conducive to the current mediation. • The ability of the mediator to transition the participant to a state of authentic engagement with the individual meeting in a conjoined meeting is questionable. In this context, I have observed that the ‘icebreaker’ stage brings several benefits: • Because the mediator meets the individual participant without the pastoral support of a friend or staff association representative, it is an uncluttered environment. • Since there is no discussion of the matters pertaining to the mediation, the communication is focused upon recognising the psychological state of the participant, which is often fearful, suspicious and traumatised. • The participant can establish for themselves – in their own way and in their own time – trust and confidence in the bona fides and role of the mediator. 92 UNITED KINGDOM Lawyer Monthly Legal Awards 2022
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