Informal mediation is a polite way to refer to mediating in situations where we’ve not been invited to do so. In so many words, we’re sticking our nose in other people’s business.
I was shopping in a grocery store one day when I saw a woman strike her toddler. She was about to do it again when I jumped in. She didn’t ask, “Marshall, would you mediate between us?” Another time I was walking in the streets of Paris; a woman was walking alongside me when a rather inebriated man ran up from behind, turned her around, and slapped her in the face. As there wasn’t time for me to talk with this man, I resorted to the protective use of force by restraining him just as he was about to strike her again. I inserted myself between the two, and stuck my nose in their business. On another occasion, during a business meeting, I watched two factions in a repetitious exchange, arguing back and forth over an age-old issue and again I stuck my nose in between them.
When we witness behaviors that raise concern in us—unless it is a situation that calls for the protective use of force as described in Chapter 12—the first thing we do is to empathize with the needs of the person who is behaving in the way we dislike. In the first situation, if we wanted to see more violence directed at the toddler, we could, instead of offering empathy to the mother, say something to imply that she was wrong to hit the child. Such a response on our part would only escalate the situation.
In order to be truly helpful to people in whose business we are sticking our nose we need to have developed an extensive literacy regarding needs, and be well practiced at hearing the need in any message, including the need underneath the act of slapping another person. And we need to be practiced in verbal empathy such that the people sense that we are connected with their need.
We need to remember, when we choose to stick our nose in someone’s business, it’s not enough to simply support someone to get in touch with his or her own needs. We aim to practice all the other steps covered in this chapter. For example, after empathizing, we may tell the toddler’s mother that we care about safety and have a need to protect people, and then request her willingness to try another strategy to meet her need with her child.
We refrain, however, from mentioning our own needs regarding the person’s behavior until it is clear to them that we understand and care about his or her needs. Otherwise people will not care about our needs nor will they see that their needs and ours are one and the same. As expressed so beautifully by Alice Walker in The Color Purple: “One day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it come to me: that feeling of being part of everything, not separate at all. I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed.”
Unless we make sure that both sides are aware of their own as well as each other’s needs, it will be hard for us to succeed when we stick our nose in other people’s business. We are likely to get caught up in scarcity thinking—seeing only the importance of our own needs being met. When scarcity thinking then gets mixed with right-and-wrong thinking, any of us can become militant and violent, and blinded to even the most obvious solutions. At that point, the conflict seems unresolvable—and it will be if we don’t connect with the other person by first offering empathy without focusing on our own needs.