Making Space, Not Rules:
Re-Thinking Ground rules in Conflict
When I became a mediator, it felt like I’d found my place.
After years of working in human rights and community organizing, I realized what I loved most was being with people in hard conversations, supporting them as they found their voice, their clarity, their way forward. Not fixing it for them. Not deciding what was right. Just showing up, being present, and holding space.
Like any craft, mediation invites you to find your own way. There are tools and approaches that resonate deeply, and others that just don’t align with how you see the work, or the world.
For me, creating a space where people can truly hear each other, get messy together, and have the conversation they need to have, with support when they need it, is at the heart of the work. I’m not there to control the conversation or manage people’s behavior. I’m there to hold space so folks can have the conversation they need to have.
The Problem with Ground Rules
One of the things that’s always sat a bit sideways for me is the way many mediation processes start with a list of ground rules.
These are often pre-set guidelines like “no interrupting” or “speak respectfully”, meant to shape how people engage with each other. The idea is to create safety and structure. And I get that.
But in practice, ground rules can become a flashpoint where the mediator’s need for control bumps up against participants’ need for voice and agency.
Even with the best intentions, rules can shift the focus from the people in the room to the comfort of the mediator. What starts as an effort to encourage “respect” can quickly become about behavior policing, something that limits voice and erodes trust.
Take a rule like:
“We agree to call each other by our first names, not ‘he’ or ‘she’ or worse.”
It might aim to reduce hostility, but it often redirects the conversation away from honesty and toward compliance and prioritizing performance over meaning.
Rules like “no interrupting” or “stay respectful” can sound reasonable, but real conflict is messy, emotional, and deeply human. When we try to tidy it up too much, we risk missing what really needs to be said.
Rules That Silence
Some ground rules even treat emotion like the problem.
From my experience, emotion isn’t the obstacle, it can be the indicator. It points to what’s still unresolved or needing attention.
And then there’s the word respect. We throw it around like we all mean the same thing. But respect is culturally shaped. What feels respectful in one space can feel stiff, stifling, or even performative in another.
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Intensity might signal sincerity to some and aggression to others.
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Interrupting might mean “I’m with you” in one culture and “I’m not listening” in another.
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Strong emotion might be welcomed in some spaces and shut down in others.
When we rely on a narrow idea of what’s “appropriate”, often shaped by dominant cultural norms, we’re not just guiding the conversation, we may be unintentionally silencing people. Instead of saying what’s real, they say what they think they’re allowed to say.
That’s not resolution. That’s restriction.
A Different Approach
As a transformative mediator, I take a different approach. I don’t arrive with a script or a set of rules. Instead, I open with a simple, grounding question:
“Is there anything you need in order to have this conversation?”
That’s it.
Rather than assuming people need support or worse, deciding what kind of support they need I let them name it. It’s a small shift, but it changes everything. The process becomes theirs.
And if that question feels too open, I’ll offer a few prompts to help them reflect:
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“Some people find it helpful to take breaks if things get intense, does that sound useful to you?”
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“Some folks like to speak without being interrupted so they can get their full thoughts out. How does that feel to you both?”
It’s an invitation, not a prescription.
Mediators as Reflectors, Not Enforcers
Sally Ganong Pope writes about this in Designing Mediation. She offers a similar opening:
“As I work with you, I might observe some ways of interacting that seem to interfere with you reaching the goals you said you want to accomplish. Would you like me to comment on those if I do observe anything I think could be helpful?”
And if the answer is no? That’s totally okay. The choice is theirs. Always.
She also shares what she does if the parties set their own ground rules but then don’t follow them:
“If they set the ground rules (i.e., no yelling) but are not following them, the mediator will remind them that they requested certain guidelines for discussion. Rather than enforcing ground rules, the mediator will suggest a discussion with the parties of their difficulties with them and whether they still want to try to observe them or do something else. Here the process still belongs to the parties and they are making the decisions about it.”
This approach doesn’t fix or control, it reflects, supports, and invites. It helps people become more aware of their own dynamics and gives them ownership of the process.
Real Empowerment
And that, for me, is what this work is really about.
It’s not about managing people. It’s not about enforcing the “right” way to talk.
It’s about returning power to the people in the room, so they can do the work they came to do, in the way they need to do it.