Mark Whittell advocates mediation for professional partnerships in a rescue situation
In this last recession we have seen an unprecedented number of professional partnerships find themselves in financial difficulties and have to seek professional advice on their solvency and long term survival, on occasions at the insistence of their bank.
Corporate rescue teams understand the economic causes behind the potential business failures and are ideally positioned to advise on the appropriate number of debtor days, the levels of WIP, the structure of teams, the necessary redundancies and the reduction of partner drawings. However, these are people businesses with personal idiosyncrasies which are often causing or exacerbating the problems which fall outside the normal remit of a corporate rescue team and it is here where we feel that both we and mediation can add value.
The type of situation where we envisage we can help by using our workplace mediation skills, the encompassing solution of a team mediation or what we call the “hybrid mediation” to avoid a “melt down” situation are where:
- two or more partners have serious disagreements;
- the behaviour
