Business mediation in family enterprises

Professor Juan TAUSK

We shall consider mediation in family enterprises analyzing the specific difficulties for the mediator and indicating some conceptual and technical resources that facilitate work in this field. Some cases shall be presented so as to observe the impact of primary ‘liaisons’ that highlight  similarities and differences with usual business mediations.

The course of the negotiations is tinged by demands in which the parties’ adherence to ‘positions’ poses obstacles to rational work on the ‘interests’. A paradoxical event can be observed: the mediator can appreciate that the positions interweave with the interests. The reduction to unidimensionality complicates the intervention of the third party, who vacillates in his/her capacity to operate. 

The prevalence of ‘mirror-like confrontations’, conflictedly processed family histories and mourning, and the generation of intense destructive passions expose the business initiative to the risk of being ‘shipwrecked’, which seems to preoccupy the mediator more than the stake holders. 

Juan is a psychologist graduated 33 years ago, speaks fluently English and Spanish also speaks French, German and Hebrew. Born in Argentina, he has Argentine and German citizenship.

• Full professor of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy at the Psychology Faculty, Buenos Aires University. Since 1989.

• Director of Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Courses in Negotiation, Dispute management, Leadership training and  Team building in Argentine and foreign universities.

• Director of the Negotiation and Conflict Administration in Organizations’ Department of the Social Sciences Faculty , Buenos Aires University.

• Professor of the Communication & Journalism and the Public Administration Departments of the New Mexico University (USA). (Course: International Perspectives on communication and conflict. July 2000)

• Coordinator of the White House Project: Tribal University, Technology and Tradition Conference . San Francisco. USA October 2000.

• Organizer of the IV International Conference of the World Mediation Forum Buenos Aires 2002.

• President of the World Mediation Forum’s Argentine Delegation and member of the Steering Committee of the WMF.

• Leads the Voluntary Interprofessional Mediation Law initiative in Buenos Aires.

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