Tarrant County Association of Mediators (TCAM) Annual Meeting in 2024

Mediation is a lot like making gumbo.

There are many ingredients. Ideally the ingredients meld together to make one delicious dish.

There are a few essential ingredients in all gumbo (water, onion, celery) and after that it gets creative.

And it takes time for the flavors to come together. You cannot rush it. Mediation is similar.

Every cook has a different recipe for gumbo – it does not make one right and one wrong.

Sometimes a gumbo is a hit and other times it’s just not as good. Mediation is the same way.

The chef is in charge of what goes into the pot, but the ingredients dictate what eventually comes out of the pot.

Every cook is in search of the perfect gumbo recipe – and that might not exist. What works for one mediation might not work for the next one.

The cook should not rush – let the ingredients slowly come together. Just like mediation, I often find that mediation is a slow process that takes some time to begin to come together.

I often think that the “magic” happens when I’m not in the room and when I stay out of the way of the process

I try to be invisible in the mediation process. I try to keep my ego out of it. It is irrelevant to me how many mediations settle. I believe that it’s the parties decision to settle or not.

Sometimes a recipe produces surprising results. If it’s not the way you thought it should go, that’s not important.

You are the “cook” (aka “ring leader at the circus”) but it is the parties “circus” and they are wholly responsible for the outcome.

A good cook is creative. Mediation can be challenging and the mediator needs to be creative & think “outside the box” sometimes.

A good cook checks the pot from time to time – a mediator needs to constantly keep checking that the parties are on topic and that they feel “heard” & check in with them on how they are feeling.

A good cook gets all the ingredients together ahead of time – the mediator needs to make sure both parties have agreed to the mediation process (Agreement to Mediate) and paid their fee (if applicable).

Recipes evolve – how I mediated years ago is different from how I do it today & I assume that my style will continue to evolve in the years to come.

A good chef cleans up at the end – at the end of every mediation, I often think about what I could have said or done different. It does not matter if the mediation settled or not, I always spend some time thinking about how I did.

The mediator needs to not let their ego get involved.