Analyze a Case Assignment | Get Paper Help

Move through the process of case analysis and mediation preparation, answer the following questions:

1. What factors lead to this being an appropriate case for mediation?
2. What is the conflict about?
3. What are the positions and interests of each party to the conflict?
4. Who are the parties to the conflict?
5. How has the conflict progressed?
6. What type of mediation intervention would be most appropriate?
7. Who needs to participate in the mediation, and how would you involve/approach them?
8, What, if any, are the cultural, ethnic, gender, or other issues; and how will each affect your decisions regarding the entry phase of the mediation?
9. How would you conduct the first five phases of mediation (Moore, p. 68, 69) and establish trust, rapport, and credibility among parties to the conflict?
10. What arena, physical arrangements, and procedures would you choose, and why?
11. What might be some substantive, procedural, and psychological issues related to the parties – and how might you deal with them?
12. What strategy might you employ to address the above-mentioned issues if your assessment is correct and they emerge during mediation?
13. What conditions must be present for a win-win outcome to occur – and what do you foresee as a potential win-win for the disputants in this case?
14. How might psychological closure be important to redefining the relationship and supporting a lasting agreement? What actions might be necessary to bring this closure?
15. What are some of the voluntary commitment procedures that may be employed here – and how might they enhance the success of an agreement between the parties?
16. Who are the parties that might threaten a good agreement – and how can those threats be addressed or neutralized during the mediation process?

Length: 8-10 pages, not including title or reference pages

5 scholarly and professional resources

Scenario #1
Office Sharing
Maureen Smith and Elwood Dunmore both work for CSC, a defense contractor, who
provides a variety of sophisticated computer support systems to the U.S. Navy. In the
past year they hired a new President of Operations who is keen on team building
strategies and creative ways for getting people to increase productivity. One of his pet
projects is the Mixing Bowl, where every 6 months, people switch office mates. Offices
are favored over cubicles and although they are not large, each one has a window and
space for a desk, bookcase and file cabinet. The selection process is reportedly random
with names pulled from a hat. Each staff person actually only ‘ moves’ once a year as
during one “mix up” a person moves to a new office, and in the next round, their office
mate moves. Maureen Smith and Elwood Dunmore were selected to be office mates,
with Elwood moving into the office Maureen already occupied. From the moment they
started sharing the office space there were problems. Just passing by you can feel the
tension in the air. Both have accused the other of purposely messing with the thermostat
to make the space unbearably cold or hot. Light bulbs have been removed, computer
messages deleted or supposedly never received, mail missing, and instead of fostering
camaraderie and improved productivity, both spend the better portion of their day
seemingly trying to find ways to make the other miserable or e-mailing their supervisor
or HR back and forth with complaints. They share the same supervisor, Mr. Greene, who
has tried to counsel them both but says he hasn’t been able to get to the bottom of the
issue. According to HR it would be hard to fire either of them, as their performance
evaluations have been good. However, each has started to engage others in their little
warfare and the whole situation has escalated to the point that morale in the department
has been affected. The supervisor has been reluctant to move them although both have
requested this because it is against the policy of the Mixing Bowl and frowned on by the
President of Operations. Moving either Maureen or Elwood would involve disrupting
other members of the team as well as the expense associated with the move. The
supervisor has sent them to mediation hoping they will find a way to co-habitate for the
rest of the six-month period without jeopardizing their jobs or team morale.
Maureen’s Story:
Maureen is a 52 year old woman who has risen through the company during her ten years
o~ employment, from an entry level receptionist to Analyst II. She only has a high school
dtplo~a bu_t has attended nu’!1~~ous company sponsored training programs and is proud
of her Job title and respons1b1httes. She was recently granted a security clearance which
has allowed her to work on a new configuration identification project. She is a good
work~r W:hose performance evaluations note her ability work to well under pressure and
contnbut,ons to the overall project. She is often late coming to work but her supervisor,
Mr. Harvey Greene, tolerates her lack of punctuality because she works late and comes in
on the weekends. She is a very large, attractive woman who works hard and is well liked
by the other members in the department. She is known as the queen of funny e-mail.
Even though it is against company policy to send and receive e-mails unrelated to
business, her violation of this policy has been overlooked because the jokes are enjoyed
by so many people. Her office is also grand central – it is where others go to gossip, get
comfort and any number of over-the-counter prescriptions if they are ill, food if they are
hungry, and a spare dollar if they are short for lunch; she has played the role of
department mother. She is the person who remembers others’ birthdays, bakes the cake,
buys the card for everyone to sign and arranges for monthly potlucks.
Maureen has told Mr. Greene numerous times that she likes the Mixing Bowl and looks
forward to each six month period when she will get to share an office with someone new.
She knew within one day that she and her new office mate, Mr. Dunmore would never hit
it off. She feels like Mr. Dunmore invaded her space with a total disregard for her
preferences. When she moved into the office she intentionally selected the desk away
from the window and positioned her desk so that she can look out at the view. She gets
hot easily and would prefer to have a view than have the afternoon sun hitting her on the
back. She feels like she spends a significant part of her life at her job and wants her work
area to be comfortable and reflective of her personality. She prefers natural light from
the window and lighting from the two lamps she has on her desk and bookcase to the
glare of the overhead fluorescent lighting. She usually has fresh flowers on her desk as
well as a scented candle burning. She also likes to play soft music while she works and
listens to either jazz or classical. On the first day of their sharing space together she went
to the rest room and came back to find the blinds closed and the fluorescent overhead
light on. When she asked him why he had turned it on he said he couldn’t see his
computer. She feels like she tried to explain the importance to her of lighting preferences
and offered to buy him a lamp which he refused, saying he preferred the overhead light.
Within a week he had complained to Mr. Greene that her candle made him sneeze and
that he couldn’t concentrate with the music playing. She offered to play a different kind
of music and he stated he preferred silence. He also told her that the jokes she passed on
via company e-mail were against company policy and asked her to delete him from her
forwarding list. She knows he complained to Mr. Greene about it bec~use she got a
“Dear All” message from HR reminding everyone of the company poltcy on personal email.
She feels like she has tried to befriend him but he has rebuffed her attempts at
conversation. She baked him a cake when she found out it was his birthday and noticed
he didn’t eat any of it. One day she had asked him to please turn the light off because it
was making her hot. He refused but the next day showed up with a space heater and
stated he was ‘cold natured’. The space heater turned the office into an oven. She feels
like he did it intentionally to be ugly towards her. He has started telling fat jokes and
leaving articles about weight loss on her desk. One Friday after he left for the day and
she was working late, she climbed up on the chair and loosened the fluorescent light.
When he came in on Monday he was furious and started yelling at her. A few days later
she noticed that when she left her computer to go to lunch she came back and her e-mails
had all been deleted. She can’t prove that he deleted them but the IT guy said it was hard
to believe only her e-mails were deleted without the system going down or anyone else
having problems with e-mail. She retaliated by turning the thermostat down to 60
degrees before she left one night and the office was like a refrigerator the next morning.
They don’t speak to each other and she has told everyone in the office what a jerk she
thinks he is. People don’t come into her office anymore because the tension is so
noticeable. She has complained to HR and tried to find ways to have him fired but
instead they have asked her to go to mediation or threatened her with disciplinary action.