Shades of Grey

Shawnee Love   •  
February 23, 2011

I remember many years ago hearing a police officer say that eyewitnesses were notoriously unreliable. I didn’t understand what he meant at the time, but after mediating a number of conflicts over the years, I get it. People can experience the exact same incident, hear the exact same words, and see the exact same actions and come away with very different understandings of what happened, what was said, and what it all meant.  Our perceptions are influenced by our own experiences, values, belief systems, attitudes, needs and wants, and yet, our perceptions are our realities!

That is why, when conducting a mediation, I often explain that there are three truths: the truth for one side, the truth for the other side, and the real truth which is typically somewhere in the middle and not easily confirmed without hard, physical evidence. When poor communication is at the root of the problem, hard physical evidence is rarely present, so deciding the best way forward is never about black and white and instead falls somewhere in the spectrum of grey in between.

That’s my opinion, what has been your experience?