Essay: Organisational mediation in vukaesque environments

Part 1 – For strategy- and future-oriented conflict management

in: Perspective Mediation 2/2019

Dr Sascha Weigel

In its recognisable diversity and ambiguity, the world appears paradoxically clearly overpowering; dangerous for us 20th century minds, even though it has become better in almost all respects than what we assume it to be. This paradox refers first and foremost to the declaration that the world is vuka.

Everything is volatileThe new stability is constant change, highly changeable, fragile, unstable, sometimes pleasingly flexible, but always questionable and dubious. The new stability is constant change.

Uncertainty is not only that we are unable to assess a certain scenario, but also that we do not think about the probability of it happening at all: "Taken together, Your Majesty, the failure to foresee the timing, magnitude and severity of the crisis [of 2008] and to avert it...was primarily a failure of the collective imagination of many intelligent and educated people...". That was the response of 33 experts from the British Academy in July 2009 when they were asked by Queen Elizabeth II: "Why didn't anyone see the credit crunch coming?"

The complex Communication chains between the unmanageable number of system elements appear to be a puzzle, even though their interdependencies are "obvious". Self-reflexive feedback can be detected, but precisely because of this, the chance of repeatability is excluded. The system no longer returns to its original state, but remains a different one. There are no factory settings, no zero hour, no starting point and no end point. The system learns.

Ambiguity The world and its phenomena are ambiguous and contradictory (ambivalent). This is why changes of perspective are so world-changing. Whoever is at the peak begins the descent. Where else, asks anyone who has lived in Bergen – even outside Norway, where it rains less.

What do such vukaesque developments mean for the mediation movement, whose children's shoes were developed in the 20th century? What does this mean for such a hopeful endeavour, which finally wanted to "liberate" the conflict parties directly and jointly in their conflict situations, if they simply do not commission it?

In organisations, it is therefore hardly about a cathartic cleansing (Glasl) of the people involved in the conflict, but about the organisational Processing of strategic tasks.

Mediation serves as a cooperation test bed and creativity workshop for conflict relationships that lead back to the Ability to work are to be managed.

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