Normally, when we talk about a mediator in the field of health, it is usually to refer to one of the following three aspects: mediation in cases of medical practice or negligence; mediation in intercultural conflicts within the hospital environment; or mediation applied within socio-health contexts such as, for example, situations of functional dependency. However, and in addition to this, it should be noted that mediation, in itself, is already a healthy method for resolving conflicts: all mediation implies a commitment to achieving consensual and sustainable agreements over time through a process of dialogue.
In this sense, mediation is the method for managing conflicts that is in line with a comprehensive concept of well-being that considers the relationship between the health of people, animals and ecosystems. Specifically, in October 2022, an initiative was launched to support this concept of health and well-being. This is a joint initiative promoted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), World Health Organization (WHO), the World Organization for Animal Health (WHOSA, formerly OIE) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), called “One Health”.
“One Health” aims to create a framework capable of integrating systems and actions to prevent, predict, detect and respond better to threats to public health, contributing, at the same time, to sustainable development. As it is a holistic and interdisciplinary conceptualization, it implies the need to open a multitude of new avenues for dialogue.. Thus, for example, among its objectives we find promoting values such as cooperation and shared responsibility, multi-sector action and association, gender equity or inclusion.
A mediating leadership to analyze each decision
As a vehicle so that all of this can, little by little, be brought into daily practice, it is worth talking about both Mediation and a Mediating Leadership that helps delve deeper into the pros and cons of each decision in order to adopt initiatives for coexistence that are more coherent and sustainable over time.
To facilitate, from neutrality, the negotiations that may arise throughout these processes of transformation and change, it is useful, for the conflict management professional, to have contextualization tools such as Motivational Attractors, applicable to various areas of mediation. Motivational Attractors serve the mediator to help their clients create solutions from a broader and healthier perspective than the one in which the conflict arose. It is a systematized tool, which offers guidelines and help to facilitate negotiation on the ground, that is, in practice, in real situations that are happening.
The six Motivational Attractors
The six Motivational Attractors, from least to most complex, are: security, power, duty, success, belonging and integration. During the years that I have been working with them, I have been able to verify that people react in a more collaborative way to stimuli that are in line with their predominant Motivational Attractor and transcend positions towards the Motivational Attractor that is next in complexity.
If you notice, the implications at the level of complexity or, in other words, the level of consideration or empathy with the other, are not the same in the case of each of the Attractors. It increases as we move from Security to Integration. What's more, it moves not only towards greater consideration for other people, but for all living beings in general.. And we do not have the same level of consideration for other living beings when what we are concerned about is our safety or having power, as when we care about achieving sustainable results over time, generating a feeling of team or creating bridges between people or situations. very disparate.
The most complex Motivational Attractor, Process Integration, takes into account our relationship with the ecosystem, not limited only to what affects us and has an impact on people, but also, considering, with subtlety, the impact of our actions on all living beings, including, among others, animals and plants. This means that Observing the patterns of nature can help us generate knowledge to improve our social interactions beyond cultural, political, religious beliefs, etc.. This is precisely what the way of perceiving a conflict from the Motivational Attractor-Integration represents.
As a conflict management professional or educator, working with Motivational Attractors provides, on the one hand, a neutral starting point to address the conflict situation broadly and, on the other, guidelines to prepare and guide the negotiation process. . In any case, an essential part of the tool, the human one, is the professional himself, since it is necessary for him to apply it within his specific area of intervention, exercising his particular mediating leadership.
To obtain the Motivational Attractors Profile, each of the parties involved in the conflict to be managed must fill out the questionnaire available on the website. www.motivationalattractors.com. You can do it anywhere where there is internet access and you have between 10 and 15 minutes to do this brief reflection exercise.
It is not necessary for you to explain the concept of Motivational Attractor, this is a tool for you as professionals in charge of transforming the problem through your questions and reformulations. The point is that using Motivational Attractors to guide the management of a conflict allows us to maintain sufficient breadth of vision to help the people in conflict choose to give a healthy and sustainable meaning to the problem.
The system established as the most common for group living is frequently contrary to natural systems, but it is also evident that it can be improved in many ways. Therefore, Taking the patterns of nature as criteria for success opens a door to the wisdom of everything connected to each other., something that our current system of knowledge specialization has lost sight of for some time and is now beginning to recover. This change does not have to be a drastic break with the past, but rather a serene step forward for which it is necessary to prepare the ground from the calm evidence that not connecting with the wisdom of nature is destructive for our psyche, our body. and our human civilization.
What sounds so good in theory, we have to bring it down to our daily lives. To do this, we can consider Mediation as a method and Motivational Attractors as a tool, among many others. When you apply Motivational Attractors to analyze a conflict together with your clients, you will notice that they, quickly and without much effort for them, begin to see the problem from the outside, from the perspective of an external observer. You will also notice how they become aware that they are immersed in a process that is constantly changing and that, therefore, they can intervene in said process through their decisions.
You, as mediators and conflict management professionals, will exercise your mediating leadership by being the ones who will interact directly with the opposing parties, knowing the scope of their problem. It will be necessary, on your part, as professionals, to analyze and evaluate the context to test and decide when and in what way it is appropriate to ask which questions to help your clients give a healthy and sustainable meaning to the problem they face. . This is essentially what the exercise of mediating leadership consists of.
