Conflict Resolution

Without a doubt, the best way to resolve a conflict is to try to avoid it in the first place. Only experience will allow someone to be really good at avoiding and resolving conflicts.

Unfortunately, the legal system in the US takes a big toll, emotionally and financially, during the litigation period And, it could easily take as much as 2 years or more to resolve the conflict. Being involved in hours and hours of depositions, compiling and reviewing documents, meetings with attorneys, etc., is no picnic; and, definitely, not the best way to spend, what would otherwise should be, productive work days.

Generally, CEOs, Presidents, CFOs, COOs and General Managers usually do not take into account the legal costs involved in suing or defending lawsuits; or, the loss of productivity associated with being involved in a lawsuit.

According to Wikipedia, The US population in 2016 was approximately 324 million. 27.1% are under the age of 21 and 14.5% are older than 65%. That leaves about 50% or 160 million adults available in the workforce. As per www.SixWise.com, there were over 16 million civil lawsuits filed in the US in State Courts 2002. If we conservatively assume that 1 in 5 controversies cannot be resolved and a lawsuit is filed, this means that there are approximately 80 million disputes per year; or, on average, 1 dispute per year for every 2 people in the workforce (remember it takes at least 2 people with opposite views to have a dispute), assuming all 160 million people are working. With 250 work days per calendar year, this means that, on average, there are over 250,000 disputes per work day. These figures are simply mind boggling! No wonder that at over 1 million lawyers, the US has more lawyers per capita than any other country.

Smart CEOs, Presidents, CFOs, COOs and General Managers need to find ways to mitigate those legal costs and loss of productivity.

In construction, for example, it is almost inevitable not have a controversy among the GC and its Subcontractors or Suppliers, or among the Developer and the GC. Because the relationship among the owner and the GC is typically adversarial, there is a big chance for legal problems to take place among the parties. No matter how much you anticipate the things that could go wrong, it is almost impossible to anticipate everything that could go wrong. Therefore, having a swift and fair way to resolve conflicts, from the onset, is far better than resourcing to the courts' legal system. For this, I suggest that the agreements, between the owner & GC or the GC and the subs, includes a neutral person or company that shall serve as an arbitrator, not a mediator, that either party may invoke to help resolve a conflict among the parties. A Mediator is one who merely tries to get the parties to resolve their conflicts before seeking legal remedy in the court system or moving to binding arbitration. Therefore, I suggest going straight to binding arbitration and move on!