My firm has just finished conducting some mediation and negotiation training for some staff at a leading London council and looking to develop their negotiation skiils.
Now one of the intriguing themes which we explored was how to break impasse in negotiations. What do you do as mediator when things stall and the mediation looks like hitting the rocks?
Here are some tips:
1 Hold a summit meeting - Get the parties or their representatives together and impress upon them what has been achieved and what needs to be done to reach a successful resolution.
2 Take a 10 minute break and re-think strategy. Sometimes the mediator may be taking an approach which is not taking thiings further forward. A change in plan of attack may be required.
3 Just explain to the parties that you cannot see any way forward and ask - Do they have any ideas?
These are some of the options which you can think about when trying to broker that deal and get the mediation on track. Of course the key piece of advice is try to avoid getting into the impasse scenario in the first place.