“While disagreements can strengthen relationships; Disputes are likely to destroy them”
In families, as in all human interactions, some level of conflict is natural. However, a lot of conflict is not.
Conflict is constructive when it stimulates critical thinking and collaborative problem-solving. The necessary interactions between individuals can strengthen respect, trust and relationships in general.
Conflict is destructive when it is avoided, denied, mishandled or just allowed to fester. Eventually it generates all manner of disputes, in a wide variety of different areas.
Family Disputes are bad enough; Family Business Disputes can be disastrous – they skew family and business decision making, damage the family and the business, and eventually destroy relationships, both commercial and familial.
Why do so many families fail to deal with their conflicts? I suspect that the common aversion to conflict shares its roots with a general aversion to public speaking. Statistically, most people would rather die than have to speak in public. Fear of public speaking is greater than fear of spiders, heights and loneliness put together!
This aversion is caused by individuals’ fear making fools of themselves in front of others; being shown as a fraud or a charlatan; exposing themselves to attack, and generally being vulnerable. Similar emotions are engendered in contemplation of conflict.
It takes courage to try to resolve family conflict. There’s always the concern that what looks like a can of worms may be a bucket of snakes, and there’s always the great unknown: “Will the cure be worse than the pain?”
However, doing nothing almost always leads to worse problems. When family leaders fail to provide the clear, fair and compassionate leadership that should be expected of them (or of someone) poison seeps in to pollute family and business cultures, diminish respect, destroy trust and eventually, end love. Families fall apart and effectively cease to be families, although individual family members live on, in new and smaller family groups.
Some families are blessed with an “Uncle Bob / Auntie Mary” – a widely respected elder with a knack for taking the heat out of family situations and restoring the peace.
Most family members run in the opposite direction – it’s all to easy to get burnt while trying to make peace.
Families need to parachute an external, family-sensitive, neutral, efficient and effective dispute resolver into the middle of their morass to help them sort things out. At the end of the process they’re disposable, like a surgeon after an operation, and the family is free to get on with life.
After thousands of contact hours with business families, we’re convinced that standard mediation processes are sub-optimal in a family context, because many families lack the internal discipline to reach, or to enforce, reasonable outcomes.
And the consequences of failing to complete the process, or worse, failing to implement its outcomes, may be taken by some as final proof that the family is completely stuffed and there’s no future with it, or in it, for certain individuals.
The COVID-19 crisis raised the conflict temperature in many families that were already under pressure. Divides widened and gulfs deepened. Although people couldn’t meet face-to-face, something had to be done.
SODR for Families
SODR stands for Solution-Oriented Dispute Resolution. The primary focus is on getting any dispute resolved: non-destructively, fairly, quickly and cost-effectively.
- SODR Is a complete dispute resolution system, specifically designed to resolve family business, and many other types of dispute and conflict. It’s based on more than 30 years’ resolving disputes and conflicts for families, partnerships, and other businesses.
- It comes in Face-to-Face, and Online versions, and in combinations thereof.
The authority and jurisdiction of the process are conferred by the parties on the dispute resolver through a formal Engagement and Process Contract.
Outcomes are final and legally enforceable both by contract, and under Family Rules.
The process is designed to minimise the possibility of legal challenge on the basis capable, consenting adults formally agree to: (a) participate and (b) abide by process outcomes, at commencement. The system delivers Natural Justice and Procedural Fairness.
- Although family conflicts are too intrinsically human for current online technologies to completely replace skilled personal contact, online interventions are effective, and much better than doing nothing!
- Running processes online also saves significant time and costs.
SODR Engagement and Process Contract
Before starting the process, family members discuss and agree the terms of a formal, Engagement and Process Contract that contains:
- Issues in dispute.
- Explanations of process.
- Ground rules for participation and effects of non-participation.
- Processes and Procedures.
- Information requirements and exchanges.
- Developing consensus and effects of voluntary agreement.
- Determinations and Decisions (if required) – process and effect.
- Implementation and execution of agreed actions, including Orders and Directions.
- Effects of outcomes.
SODR Process
Phases: (1) Facilitation è (2) Determination è (3) Independent Decision
Phase #1 Facilitation (Resolves 80%+ of disputes).
Facilitator guides family conversations towards a Negotiated Agreement, and provides individuals with personalised support, as required.
Phase #2 Determination (Resolves most of what’s left).
If Facilitation doesn’t result in a voluntary Negotiated Agreement, the Facilitator becomes a Determiner. They make a written Determination, based on everything they’ve learnt about the parties and the issues.
The Engagement and Process Contract encourages the family to choose the level of authority it wants to confer on the Determiner. There are 3 options:
(A) Advisory, or
(B) Enforceable under Family Rules (practical consequences), or
(C) Enforceable at Law, as a contract (legal consequences).
Anything can be changed by the parties, provided they’re unanimous, at any time. Otherwise, initial recorded commitments bind everyone, up to the end of the process.
Determination can be useful when the family needs somebody who isn’t a family member to make a credible, objective decision to end their conflict.
Phase #3 Independent Decision (Resolves what’s left!)
In the very rare situations where all Parties agree to reject the Determination, the dispute is referred to a neutral, Independent Decision Maker (“IDM”) for a Decision.
The IDM is either: (a) an individual nominated at the start, or (b) an adviser selected by TSG.
The IDM decides how they want to proceed, after receiving briefings by the Facilitator / Determiner, and the family. They may just work with what they’re given, or could seek further information and conduct online meetings.
Like the Determiner, under the terms of the Engagement and Process Contract, the IDM’s Decision is either:
(A) Advisory, or
(B) Enforceable under Family Rules (practical consequences), or
(C) Enforceable at Law, as a contract (legal consequences).
The IDM option provides the ultimate safety net for families who want to be certain that their issues will be resolved, once and for all.100% online, anywhere in the world.