The Canberra Business Podcast
A podcast about all things Canberra Business.
The Canberra Business Podcast
How Mediation Helps Businesses Fix Disputes Early
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Workplace conflict almost never starts as a crisis. It starts as a small issue that lingers, gets avoided, and slowly turns into factions, formal complaints, stress leave, or a long workplace investigation where nobody feels safe to talk. We sit down with James Judge, Principal of Mediation Canberra, to unpack what mediation really looks like for businesses and how leaders can step in earlier with better options than “let’s wait and see.”
James breaks down the kinds of disputes where business mediation can help fast: unpaid invoices, supplier and contractor conflict, partnership breakdowns, and staff tension that is starting to affect performance and wellbeing. We walk through the real process: confidential intake conversations, assessing whether mediation is suitable, and choosing the right format, from same room sessions that let ideas evolve on a whiteboard to shuttle mediation when dynamics or anxiety make separation safer. Along the way, James shares why half day mediations often beat all day marathons, especially when emotions are high.
We also move upstream into leadership. Many “mediation problems” are really management skill gaps: avoiding hard talks, poor feedback habits, and performance discussions that only happen once a year. James shares his practical framework for performance management: Prepare, Discuss, Record, Reflect, plus tactics for when an employee shuts down or resists feedback. We connect conflict management to psychosocial hazards at work, modern expectations of workplace culture, and simple self care practices leaders can model, including the memorable “3 4 5 approach.”
If you want practical conflict resolution, better performance conversations, and leadership tools that prevent problems before they become legal or safety issues, subscribe, share this episode with a manager who needs it, and leave us a review. What’s the hardest conversation you’ve been putting off?
You can reach out to Mediation Canberra by visiting their website www.mediationcanberra.com.au.
Welcome And What Mediation Canberra Does
SPEAKER_00Hello and welcome to the Canberra Business Podcast. I'm Greg Harford, your host from the Canberra Business Chamber, and today I'm joined by James Judge, the principal of Mediation Canberra. James, uh welcome to the podcast.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for having me, Greg.
SPEAKER_00Now, um you've recently joined the chamber as a as a member, um, but what exactly is it that Mediation Canberra does?
SPEAKER_01Uh well the trick is in the name, um, but uh I'll elaborate on it because there's some things I do that aren't strictly mediation. Um really there's three streams to the business. So one is helping organizations with workplace disputes, um, another is business and commercial conflicts, and the third one is family dispute resolution, and that's something I've only been doing for the last couple of years,
Closing Thanks And Subscribe Reminder
SPEAKER_01and it is an increasing focus for the business. Uh on top of that, I do do some leadership coaching, uh, but it's not coaching as you might know it. So there's a lot of people out there that do executive coaching, and their view is you know, hold a mirror up to the coachy and uh ask questions like, you know, what's one thing you could do to change that out. I do ask those sort of questions, but my coaching is very much focused on what's on the manager or the leader's desk at the moment, and uh I'm not hesitant in giving advice or working with the person I'm coaching to safely think about different strategies they might use in the workplace. Uh, and because I've worked in that consulting, sort of talent management consulting space for a couple of decades, there's lots and lots of tools I can use to help the person I'm coach better understand what it is about their communication style or maybe things they could be doing differently. Uh often I find that strategies and practices that a leader has had that's got them to a leadership position are no longer fit for purpose. So um I don't want to put anyone in a particular category here, but technical leaders especially. I find people that have got uh a you know a terrific background as engineers or uh in IT suddenly find themselves running a team of um you know ten staff and uh surprise, surprise,
Leadership Coaching For Real Work Problems
SPEAKER_01it's a different skill set. It's a different skill set, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So, how did you get into all of this in the first place? You spent spent some time and kind of people and culture work uh earlier in your career, but how did you sort of decide that was what you wanted to do? Yeah, look, uh that's an interesting question.
SPEAKER_01I don't have a short answer, so I'll I'll give you a little bit of a chronology. Um I think often where we end up in our career uh people do plan, but sometimes you look at it in retrospect, and it's almost like a a bolt of cloth that's rolled out, and you kind of see the pattern um after the fact. But I started off, one of my very first jobs was in the APS. Um I did the public service exam, uh showing my age here, back in the late 80s, and I got a role as a base grade clerk. But very quickly I got involved in the the union movement, and I ended up working what was then personnel. Um, and I worked as an organizer and then a national industrial officer for the public sector union in my very early 20s. Went back and did an arts degree, moved to Sydney, did a law degree, uh, ended up working for a place called the Workplace Research Centre, which was an independent uh centre at the University of Sydney, ended up working for the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, so uh you know representing journos and actors and film crew, um, had enough of the union movement and um then moved into more the HR consulting and the teaching and the training space. So um have done a lot of design and delivery of uh workplace uh courses, done done lecturing at the University of Canberra in areas like employment law, dispute resolution, negotiation skills. So I did that from about 2018 to last year. Um and I got interested in mediation after I finished my law degree. Um I went and became nationally accredited as a mediator and initially did a lot of workplace mediations because that's was I was already working there, I was comfortable there, I knew my way around awards, enterprise agreements. Um I think in my 20s I was probably more interested in creating conflict than resolving it. But as I got older, uh I guess my focus shifted a little and more and more got more and more involved in helping organizations more broadly. So sometimes it's called HR consulting. Um but what I find is sometimes there's conflict in the workplace. An HR manager or or a leader thinks, oh, you know, let's let's have the mediation, uh, and it can be a bit of a ticker box exercise. What I like to do where I can with a client is actually get beyond what is often the the presenting issue is not always the underlying issue, so there can be some symptoms and work with a client around mediation is an option, but is coaching going to work? Can we have an interest-based negotiation? Is it a facilitated discussion? Does somebody need to go on a course? Do we need to look at some change we can do on design in the workplace? So uh it's it is, I mean, bespoke is probably an overused word in the consulting world, but that's the kind of service I I try to offer in that workplace and business space.
SPEAKER_00So obviously you've had a long career sort of working for others. What prompted you to go out on your own and start the business?
SPEAKER_01Look, I have had my own business as a side project on and off for many years, but I think as I got older, my capacity and my resilience to organizational politics, particularly in large organizations, it's just not me. Uh it's it's a different skill set, and I know people who are working in very large private sector companies or government departments, um sort of uh that's something they like to do and something they're good at. For me, I find that the variety in the work I do uh and being my own boss and not having to deal with those um uh do those office politics, happy to help other people struggling with that problem. But um it's interesting. I was actually talking to uh a client this morning who is a similar age to me and um very senior, very experienced, and she's got stuff happening in her personal life, um, and it's like, oh, you know, I'm kind of over all this. And uh as we get older, we've all had times in our lives where maybe we've been bullied in the workplace, um, or we've had a really bad manager who's you know a micromanager, or someone who's not a very nice person. And I think you get to an age where if you can work for yourself and you've got that risk appetite and ability to do so, then it's you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So, and and that's of course is one of the challenges of working for yourself, right? Is that you've got to go out and find your clients and you're you're reliant on uh actually delivering outputs and work for clients rather than sort of getting that paycheck kind of automatically uh every every week or every fortnight. Um how how do you find that?
SPEAKER_01Well, I started this business at the end of last year, and I I've got supplemental income streams. Like I was doing lecturing uh at the University of Canberra, which gave me money for some of the year. Um I had to actually go and work for a community-based not-for-profit for a couple of years to get my family dispute resolution practitioner ticket that's administered by the Attorney General's department. A lot of supervised hours of practice you have to do. Um wasn't paid very much, but that I kind of had a small paycheck coming in every fortnight. Um But it look, it it is a c you've got to constantly keep your eye on it. Um there is that uh it's not just delivery, it's keeping the sub keeping keeping this the sales funnel.
SPEAKER_00Um how do you how do you do that as a small business?
From Union Work To Mediation Practice
SPEAKER_00Because this is quite a niche sort of space, really.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, look, I've actually spent over the last six months, I've spent a lot of time deepening my expertise in AI. So uh getting my head across SEO, um, which has changed dramatically actually now. You can't just um uh look at are you coming up in Google? You've got to look at questions, you know, Claude and Perplexity and Gemini, what's being asked, and designing FAQs on your website that directly address the questions being asked. Um look, I always try, I I I really enjoy talking to people and and meeting people who might I might have very little in common with. So um for me, networking, I don't think about networking is networking. It's something I kind of do intuitively. Um so I think that's a plus for somebody who's in a small business. I think if you can't sell, don't get don't get into a small business. Because I had made a mistake previously where um I was in a business enterprise with somebody, and what I realized was that they had no capacity to sell. Um so I indeed had to get work for me and get work for them, and after kind of a year, it wasn't working, so that didn't end well.
SPEAKER_00But uh yeah Yeah, and it's always a challenge because not everyone has that that skill set, right? Yeah, yeah. So look, let's talk a little bit more about kind of the work you're doing, particularly in that kind of business-to-business space. Um why or when might a business need mediation?
SPEAKER_01There's multiple times a business should consider mediation. Um, whether it's unpaid invoices, supplier or contractor disputes, partnership breakdown, staff conflict. Uh it's it's worth considering as an option. Um it always works best when it works
Going Solo And Finding Clients
SPEAKER_01early. Uh I just can't I can't recount the number of times where I've been called into a situation, especially with a staff, inter-staff conflict, and it's you know the problem's been going on for six months or a year. Um and at that point there's a number of things that typically happen. There's bullying complaints, there's people going off on sick leave, there's work and soft compensation claims. Um triggered. Um what you typically see is a polarization in the workplace, or factionalization in the workplace. Uh I've done a number of workplace investigations myself, and there's a place for them, but often they take a long time. Uh people can't talk to people, people are told, you know, don't discuss this or don't discuss that. Um because the test uh you know, the the test is you know, is this allegation proven on the balance of probabilities? It's often one person's word against another word. Uh you don't often get a definitive result, and you know, another 12 months of uh workplace uh chaos uh conflict. So um think about it early. Um it's much cheaper and faster than going to court. And um, you know, it's relevant to be thinking about mediation before an internal conflict becomes a more formal complaint or a workplace health and safety issue. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So how how does it work in practice, James? What does mediation in that kind of business context look like?
SPEAKER_01Okay, so typically there's uh uh you know an initial conversation um and there's a referring party. If it's a if it's a workplace mediation, it could be a manager or an HR practitioner, um, or it could be somebody's senior, it could be a partner or a person who has got an unpaid invoice. Um then there's a a mediation consultation that takes place, so that could be you know 60 minutes to 90 minutes. I'm focusing here on the workplace and the business conflicts. That's a confidential discussion, and that's really um getting a better understanding of what's at play, who the people are, making an assessment about whether mediation is suitable and what sort of mediation might be suitable, because there are different ways mediation can be done. Um then if if that all looks good, it passes that first test, then there's the discussion with the other party. Um that can be a sort of a formal um invitation process. Um of the work I get is I'm I'm on a number of panels, like Australian Small Business and Family, the F E S B F the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise. Enterprise members, yeah. So sometimes sometimes I'll get work of that nature where the parties are have have signed up to it already. Um thinking about conflict in the workplace between staff members, or also do conflicts in schools, actually. I'm on another panel for the New South Wales Department of Education, it could be a teacher, it could be a parent. It's typically voluntary, the mediations I do, so it's not a compulsory process. So we need to have another separate confidential discussion with the other party. If mediation looks like it's going to be useful, and um I've got to assess risks and things like that, then book a mediation session. Umsu I put aside half a day for a mediation. That seems like a long time, but you don't want to be doing a mediation and have somebody say at four o'clock, oh, I've got to go and pick up the kids, and uh you're almost at the point of getting a settlement or a conclusion. So a half-day process is usually enough for workplace and commercial disputes. Some days I'll we'll need to do another half-day mediation. Um when I'm working with lawyers, because I do get legal, legally referred mediations as well, lawyers like to do a full-day mediation. Um, you can charge for a full day, book the day out, and uh they are appropriate, so complex commercial disputes which I don't don't do a lot of, or in family matters where you've got both parenting and property, lawyers like to do it all in one day. I find it's too much. I find that the participants are exhausted, and if you've been dealing with highly emotional content like parenting, uh then to start talking about property um it's it's not appropriate. Um so lawyers often like to do it, uh it's not wrong, but generally half a day is enough, or I'd prefer to do half day mediations. Um you also get a sense as a mediator of what's going on with the dynamics of the parties. Um I can do mediations with the parties in the same room. That's what probably my preferred way of doing a mediation because I can I can use multiple whiteboards, we can get different you know, iterations of ideas and proposals on a board. Um sometimes that's not possible because the parties are uh you know high conflict or there's other sort of factors, you know, someone's extremely anxious that they're on a return to work um program. Uh so we do what's called a shuttle process. So you've got them in different rooms. You've got different rooms in between. You've got to move between the the two rooms. Takes a little bit longer because I've got to convey the messages. Um and as I say, lawyers typically like to do that process. So if if you've got lawyers involved, um it often is a shuttle process, they've got a lot more control of the client.
SPEAKER_00And it's certainly appropriate where there's a major uh change in bargaining powers or there's some other uh sort of exogenous factor that means a person, whether it's mental health or um Luckily I don't get a lot of those in workplace disputes, but sort of um and of course that's that's been quite a sort of topical uh thing in the news recently, with Pakistan playing the role of the mediator between the US and Iran and sort of shuttling shuttling between them in different rooms. So have you have you ever thought about sort of stepping up into that geopolitical space?
SPEAKER_01No, well I I don't have a I don't have a knowledge of different languages, which I think really helps for those mediators that do that sort of work. Um yeah, look, I think I'm I think sticking with with sort of workplaces, um businesses and and families is is kind of enough.
SPEAKER_00Well, fair enough too, probably. But look, tell me James, um performance management um and how to have performance discussions are often topics that members are raising us and want raising with us and wanting advice on. Um what what tips could you perhaps give us on having effective performance discussions?
SPEAKER_01Uh again, I'd say don't leave them as something you you're going to do on an annual or a uh you know a half-yearly cycle. So I see this in um uh especially government departments, uh, all large organizations where there is a uh a schedule, you know, we better sit sit down and have this conversation. It's something that managers need to be doing constantly. Uh I I have a framework that I I um I talk about. I um last month I did a session for the ACT Law Society uh uh and um you know this is a framework I use and it's prepare, discuss, record, and reflect. It's like like PDF, but with ours. Um so preparation is critical. Uh I think it was Benjamin Franklin that said failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Uh so you know, really be clear about what you want to do. You need to be having that constant performance feedback with staff, not not doing it annually, or not to be six months, but prepare, have an agenda, have some specific examples ready to discuss a piece of work uh that the person has done, uh, how they've contributed uh in terms of a project they've been working on, uh, what you know what they've how successful they've been or otherwise in terms of you know interpersonal relationships in the workplace. The discuss point is really around making sure it's a dialogue, not a monologue. So what I see is some people can really embrace that that preparation phase and thinking about where you're gonna have them, where you're gonna have the discussion, how you're gonna have the discussion, what time of day you're gonna have the discussion. Um but really making it a two-way conversation. Don't don't go in, yes, have an agenda, but don't feel you've got to um you know steamroll your way through through all those items. Uh be curious, so try to get an understanding of why the person's doing what they're doing, especially if there's uh an issue where they're not meeting your expectations. Um there's a principle in employment law, you know, uh reasonable management directions given in a reasonable way. Um that kind of informs this how you have that discussion, and um, and no surprises.
When Businesses Should Use Mediation
SPEAKER_01So uh you don't want to be dragging somebody into a performance discussion and throwing something on the table or um uh giving them feedback uh and them not having at least some idea of of what you're going to be discussing with them?
SPEAKER_00And and sometimes um, you know, anecdotally you hear about um sort of performance management meetings where uh one party just doesn't want to engage in um in that conversation or the employee doesn't want to engage in that conversation. What advice have you got for a manager who's perhaps sitting there uh trying to provide some constructive feedback and discussion and discuss performance, but um actually the person just sort of shuts down and doesn't want to take that on board?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that feedback reluctance is a real thing. I actually do an exercise on this with when when I run this as a workshop. Uh, because some people not only not like don't like getting negative feedback, they don't like getting positive feedback as well. Um I'm thinking of my father's generation where you know what what would I that's what I'm getting paid to do, that's my job. I don't need any any fluffy, you know, positive feedback. Um I guess making it clear to the staff member that sitting down and having performance discussions is part of their duties. Now, whether you've got that, it should be put in a position description. Uh, generally there's another other other duties as directed there, but normalizing those performance discussions, uh, taking away that that element of surprise, so letting them here's the agenda, here's what we're going to be discussing. Uh, maybe not asking for uh immediate responses if you think that there's a topic and someone's showing a reluctance to to engage or give feedback, move on to another topic if you've got your list of topics and then Say to the person, look, I I know I've raised the issue X. Do you want to have a think about that and we can talk about it next week? So, yeah, look, I don't think there's there's no one answer to that question, but there are techniques that you can use where you do have that that feedback reluctance. But I mean I have seen some dysfunctional workplaces where you've basically got the staff members running the uh running the section or the enterprise because the manager is conflict avoidant and doesn't want to have those difficult conversations or hard conversations. And there's books written on this, and there's a reason they're called difficult conversations and hard conversations, um is because you do need to have, prepare, discuss, um, uh, record. So that that's another thing that sometimes busy executives and leaders they prepare, they have the discussion, but they really don't document what was agreed, send it to the person, and spend some time reflecting on, you know, what went well, uh, what what could they do differently next time? Um, self-care is really important in stressful, uh you know, stressful, busy contemporary workplaces. What are you doing after you've had had these tough discussions to do self-self-care? Is it um thinking of confidentiality, who can you discuss it with? Is there an EAP program that your organization offers where you can book a discussion um post that difficult conversation?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a really interesting point. I mean, do you think there's enough self-care that goes on in in modern workplaces?
SPEAKER_01I think there's a lot of lip service to to um sounds very cynical, doesn't it? There's lip uh, you know, I've seen organizations where if there's a problem, a manager or an HR person will say, Oh, here's the EAP, here's a card, go and ring these people, ring this 1300 number. It's great that that service is there, but it's not enough. Uh I think normalizing these practices, um, whether it's I mean, some organizations do this so well, they have um functions all the time. I remember working for an organization in Sydney and they have, you know, you have a yoga class after work on a Thursday, um, uh, you know, gym membership. There's different organizations take different approaches, but yeah, and some of that's hard in small businesses, right?
SPEAKER_00Very hard because if you're a team of four, five, six people, um, you've probably not got the resources to put some of that stuff on.
What A Mediation Process Looks Like
SPEAKER_01The other thing is leading by example. So, you know, the old adage um walking the talk. So, as a manager and a leader, what are you doing to um to normalize that self-care uh in your in your workforce? There's actually a um uh something I shared with um in this workshop I was running the other week, um, which I learnt from a senior exec uh I was doing some work for their agency, and he was talking about a 345 approach. And I hadn't heard of it before, and I said, you know, what's this three, four, five approach? He said, Um, no meetings after three, nothing to sign after four, and out of the building by five. And I thought that was a really lovely uh approach uh that um uh you know a leader could take in a workplace. Uh don't know if that's necessarily going to work in a in a sort of a trades environment, but certainly in office work, it's a three, four, five approach.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's an interesting, it's an interesting take, and obviously you can tailor that to particular circumstances, uh one presumes. Um tell us a little bit more about leadership coaching. I mean, you you that's something you you do. We talked about that a little bit before. How does that how does that link to the work you do around conflict management?
SPEAKER_01It it builds on this the mediation skill set that I have and deep experience in workplace conflict, where people might see mediation uh or a facilitator discussion as a solution, but often the underlying cause is that the leader or the manager doesn't have the necessary skills uh to have those tough conversations. And it's also not just a question of competence. So one approach that some organizations take is oh, you know, we'll we'll send James on a course. Uh I'm I'm not saying that's that's a bad thing, but um so many times I've come into situations in organizations and workplaces where things are going not going well, there's conflict, um negative conflict. And conflict itself is not bad, by the way, it's how conflict is managed that that's the problem. Um and in talking to a manager or a leader, I'll say, Oh, but I just didn't want to make things worse. I didn't want to say the wrong thing. Uh I think this is especially the case given the the complexities of what what's happening in a person's life outside work. So 20, 30 years ago, you know, what was what went on in home was not talked about in the workplace. There was a much lower understanding of famil and appreciation of family violence and its implications in the workplace. But I think with COVID, what happened was uh I think this is one factor, there's sort of a confluence of factors operating here, but with COVID, we saw people sitting at home, dogs in the background, kids in the background. Um it kind of brought people's home life more into the workplace. Um I'm sorry, I'm not sure where I was going with that.
SPEAKER_00Um what was the question about it? Well the question was about how how uh interpersonal conflict work links with leadership coaching.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, okay. So people a lot of managers don't have the confidence or the confidence or the confidence to have those discussions. And with leadership, this leadership coaching I do, which is really leadership coaching around conflict, um, focuses on what's on the leader's desk at the moment. So what what problems they're facing and my approach is working confidentially with that person over a series of meetings, could be normally at six, could be eight, where they can try different ideas. Um I can introduce them to different tools they can use. Um it's one-on-one. Um it's particularly useful in, or for managers whose maybe their decision-making style or their communication style is part of that tension. Um managers struggling to establish trust in a team, um, technical leaders promoted into people uh leadership position, or managers who have been subject to some complaints and you know your manager's manager or the leader wants to there's confidence. This is a great employee, this person is extremely competent in certain areas, but they just need some support uh now uh with the immediate concerns they've got. And that's where um, especially with this, by the way, this increasing understanding and acknowledgement of um managing psychosocial hazards at work. And uh you'd be you'd be right across this, Greg, about you know, WorkSafe ACT and uh how employers in the ACT now have a positive legal duty to eliminate or minimize these risks, not just responding when when things go wrong. Um and my understanding is that they've now embedded these psychosocial hazard checks into routine workplace and health and safety inspections. So it is being actively enforced. So, particularly professional services firms, so consultancies and government contractors, this mat this matters because workplaces there tend to be relationship intensive and expectations around workplace culture are high, especially the younger, younger generation.
SPEAKER_00Um certainly you sort of hear about I mean the the stories we've all known about about um you know some of those big corporates um, particularly sort of 10, 20 years ago, working their uh young employees to the bone, um having them, you know, 6 a.m. till midnight kind of shifts and and being yelled at by their superiors. That stuff's all gone, right? Um but but it's still really important to and it just wouldn't be tolerated by by younger people in the workforce today. Do you think that's fair?
SPEAKER_01I think that's right. I think I mean I've got a 20 24-year-old daughter. Um that's not indicative of of how all 23, 24-year-olds think, but she's this idea about you know, you join the company and you you spend, you know, you get your long service leave after 10 years. I don't think I've met anyone in that cohort of younger people that thinks that way. Now, I think there are people who go and, you know, high achievers, you know, first, you know, honours degrees, undergraduate degrees at uh, you know, ANU, University of Canberra, University of New South Wales, to name some local Australian Catholic University. Um, and you know, oh, I just want to go and work for EY or KBMG. Uh, but yeah, I think that if they are going to be working those long hours, I think the tolerance um for that is is completely diminished from um people on a baby boomer, people of my my generation.
SPEAKER_00Um excellent. Well, James Judge uh from Mediation Canberra, thank you so much for joining me here on the Canberra Business Podcast. It's been great, um, great having a chat and learning a little bit more about the work you do, and and really handy to pick up some some handy tips there for our listeners on um how to manage uh performance uh conversations and conflict management in the workplace. So thanks very much for joining us.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for having me, Greg.
SPEAKER_00Uh I'm Greg Harford from the Canberra Business Chamber. This has been the Canberra Business Podcast. Uh, don't forget to follow us on your favourite platform for future episodes. We'll catch you next time.