The Co-Mediation Where Roles Were Never Agreed
A training organisation runs a simulated co-mediation assessment. Two candidates, Ana and Ben, are paired for a 90-minute role-play with actors playing a neighbour dispute about noise and a boundary fence. The assessors observe against a rubric covering process management, party engagement, and co-mediator coordination. Neither Ana nor Ben has been told who leads, how they should hand over, or how to signal disagreement. Twenty minutes in, Ana has run the entire session while Ben has spoken twice. The parties are engaged but the session is running long. Ben later tells the assessor that Ana "took over" and that he was waiting for a cue that never came. Ana says she was "keeping it moving."
1. Evaluate the assessment design and the candidates' performance. Whose conduct should the rubric capture, and on what basis?
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Design flaw: The task requires co-mediator coordination but gives no briefing on roles, handover signals, or disagreement protocol, then assesses coordination. That is a validity problem: the rubric measures something the candidates were not set up to demonstrate. A fair design either briefs the pair on coordination expectations or assesses coordination only where it was instructed.
Ana: She managed the process and kept the parties engaged, which the rubric rewards. But monopolising the session and leaving her co-mediator sidelined is a coordination failure. "Keeping it moving" is a legitimate concern about time, but the correct response is a handover signal, not absorption of the other role.
Ben: His disengagement is a coordination failure too. Waiting passively for a cue that was never agreed is not adequate; he should have asserted a handover or signalled Ana. His explanation is understandable but does not meet the standard.
Recommendation: Assess coordination against what was reasonably expected, record the design flaw, and consider whether the pair should be re-assessed with a proper briefing. Assess each candidate individually on the criteria they could control.
2. Ben asks for a re-assessment on the basis that the exercise was unfair. What is the strongest argument for and against, and what should the training organisation do?
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For re-assessment: The assessment purported to test co-mediator coordination without briefing the coordination protocol, so the pair were assessed on an undisclosed expectation. Ben's pass or fail on that criterion may reflect the design, not his competence. Procedural fairness favours a remedy where a candidate is assessed against a criterion they were not told applied.
Against: Co-mediation coordination is a core competence that accredited mediators are expected to manage even without explicit instruction, and both candidates had the same briefing gap. Re-assessing Ben alone would be inconsistent with Ana, who also failed coordination.
What the organisation should do: Acknowledge the design gap in writing, review the rubric to separate individual competence from pair coordination, and offer both candidates a re-assessment of the coordination criterion under a properly briefed exercise. Record the outcome and the reasons. If the organisation has an appeals policy, follow it rather than improvising.
Reasoning: The fairness issue is symmetrical. A remedy that helps only the candidate who complained would itself be unfair, and the organisation's credibility depends on consistent treatment.