What is Peacemaking?
Peacemaking involves dispute settling discourse and collaborative problem solving. This method is often used by organizations seeking resolution of conflicts, elimination of stasis and creation of strategy in evolving and moving the organization successfully forward.
Peacemakers analyze conflicts and develop apt interventions that rebuild a productive environment. The Peacemaker, in a corporate context, acts as a facilitator to coordinate activities and align priorities.
Peacemaking uses strategies from Mediation and team-building principles to enable the parties to work toward a mutually satisfactory result. The goal is to recognize the common ground (e.g. the success of the business, charity mission, board management) that exists in the organizational mission.
Often the need for such intervention arises when an organization is experiencing conflict internally that is interfering with conduct of its mission statement. Peacemaking seeks to help identify the cause of the impasse through the knowledge and internal talent base of the organization and develop solutions.
Reconciliation of viewpoints is an essential part of peacemaking, and something that cannot be done by outside impetus. Thus the collaborative compromise methods used in Mediation are especially useful in bringing the parties together. The role of a Peacemaker in the legal context is to facilitate the changing minds and evolving perspective required to re-evaluate a situation.
Unfortunately, sometimes viewpoints cannot be reconciled. In those situations, a properly conducted Peacemaking process can help lead to acceptance of that fact, and where necessary an amicable parting of the ways.
Conflict is an opportunity for growth, where all parties can come out ahead. But resorting to more formal legal processes like Arbitration can make situations unnecessarily adversarial, instead of collaborative. Peacemaking allows a conflict of priorities or differing opinion on methods to remain in the context of a team-effort for a common goal.
Rather than a binding opinion or a settlement agreement, Peacemaking focuses on long-term solutions that are flexible and practical. Using creative techniques to explore options and viewpoints, the Peacemaker provides a refuge for where collaborative resolutions can arise.