Listening Skills.
The focus of a mediation must be the parties and their concerns. This requires the ability to open communications and encourage an open exchange of information, perceptions, ideas and feelings. The mediator thus seeks to elicit the parties expression of not only their positions, but their needs, interests and, indeed, themselves. Open expression is engendered by a tone of candor, neutrality, non-directive attention to the parties, the ability to rephrase and reframe in ways that let one party hear while the other party feels heard.