Mediating a Baking Atmosphere: Between a Happy Couple Turned Business Partners

With the occasional bright sun in the backdrop, here we sit, three of us, managing to talk over a discussion that, by the end of the session, we hope to have reached a mutually accepted solution.

The Mediator’s chair might look a bit comfier than the other two, but it wasn’t just so. Outside the room, there were various types of chairs to choose from, including a bean bag. Both friends chose the chairs they felt comfortable sitting on.

The session would go on for 1.5 hours, and the discussion was to be about one of them talking of the expansion of the cake bakery they own together, while the other spoke of being satisfied at the level their cake bakery had now reached.

A few discussions down the lane, we found that the discussion wasn’t primarily about the expansion of the cake bakery, but rather some uneasiness in recent ways of how they managed their business together. One of them always had to work in the hot baking kitchen area, while the other wore a suit and boots, making business presentations for their cake bakery.

A little further down the lane of our talking, we discovered that the issue wasn’t just the organization of who would bake the cake and who would market the cakes—rather, this was well understood.

Now, they spoke of some misunderstandings they had borne in their hearts for a few months, stemming from the visit of their parents, who happened to be the in-laws to both of them. This led to some brief concerns about how their daily life was routined around their house and their bakery! It was at this point of the discussion that we called for a break, to process the halt at which we had arrived before our journey began again.

Thus, today’s mediation room bore a baking atmosphere by a happy-couple-turned-business partners. The break we called for, we are hoping enriches all of us with a new breath, with a capacity to discuss the real discomfort that was now layered out.

The couple relied heavily on the Mediator to commence and arrange their topics of discussion, delicately.