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Introduction:
Silke Hansen, a mediator with the U.S. Community Relations Service, talks about the impact that her role as a federal
employee has on developing trust with her clients. She notes that setting
realistic expectations and explaining what she can and cannot do is critical in
building rapport with the parties she is involved with. Here she uses her
involvement in the aftermath of the Rodney King case to illustrate her points.
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This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).
Developing Trust
Silke Hansen
Senior Conciliation Specialist, Community Relations Service
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Q: When you go
to these cases you are working for the Federal government. How do people react
to that?
A: You know, it depends. It can be a pro and a con. It is not just the
government it is the Justice Department. I think sometimes people have expectations that
I cannot meet because they think that the Justice Department will come in and
investigate the bad guys and resolve it. So I always have to be very careful in
explaining what roles CRS in fact plays. I also have to be careful to explain
that I am neutral, impartial and I am there as a resource to work with all of
the sides, and basically describe the role of a mediator.
But in each of those cases it reaches the point where the relationship is
going to be with you not the agency that you represent. Particularly in
communities of color if you can't develop a trust relationship, and I don't mean
trust in the technical sense in terms of Native Americans for instance, but just
where they trust you, then who you are with does not really matter. It is
important to find ways to develop those kinds of relationships before you can
try to mediate or conciliate or resolve the conflict.
...
Part
of that is being realistic about expectations that they can have of me. Just
because I can't come in and investigate and I can't sue anybody and I can't
punish anybody, here's what I can do. Let's look at how that can be helpful to
you. I begin to set realistic expectations of what they can expect from me and I
can begin to carry out that role that I'm supposed to be carrying out.
Part of that is not trying to pretend that I can fix all of their problems
because I absolutely cannot. I explain here's a piece that I can do and here's
how I think we might be able to do that. So let's talk about how that might be
useful or how we can best go about that. And if that then works, and is something that is
important to them or valuable to them than they will take it.
Q: How do you go into a situation that
is so hostile and so oppositional as was the case with the Rodney King incident?
A: I think part of what you need to be able to do is to identify smaller
pieces of the larger conflict that you can actually respond to. Since I was not
from Los Angeles, it was very clear that I was just brought in for this
particular case. I had no illusions about being able to fix that whole issue or
that broad of a conflict. So part of what I had to do was to identify pieces of
that that I could address where I could make a difference and where I could be
useful to all of the parties. I think that is true of many bigger problems or
many bigger conflicts. What you need to do is if I can't fix the whole thing then maybe I can at least fix
something in this neighborhood or maybe I can at least get these two parties
talking. Or maybe I can at least ease tensions here somewhat.
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