Why does business mediation still underperform in continental Europe?

Everyone agrees mediation should play a much bigger role in business decision making in continental Europe. What’s more interesting is how our systems still treat it as optional. After working for years in roles where conflict and collaboration were part of my daily reality (like it or not, you are a negotiator), I made the switch last year to working full time in negotiation and decision making. That shift gave me the opportunity to look much more closely at how business mediation actually functions in practice. Across conversations with business owners, general counsel, lawyers, and mediators, this one observation keeps coming back.

Through my own work around commercial disputes, and through close interaction with experienced mediators in places like Australia, the UK, Canada, Singapore and the US, I’ve seen how differently mediation functions when it is taken seriously as a business decision moment. There, mediation is used to decide. To actively manage risk. As a conscious choice to regain control and get back to doing business.

What I keep encountering in much of continental Europe, and in the Netherlands in particular, is mediation that often ends up somewhere else. Underused. Delayed. Treated as something you can always fall back on later, or try when the mood is right. Not because mediation does not work. But because of how it is made to work.

From what I see in practice, mediation underperforms when it is designed, framed, and embedded in ways that no longer align with how business owners actually want to make decisions. This series is my attempt to put structure on that gap. Over the coming weeks, I’ll work through twelve variables that shape whether mediation functions as a serious business tool or remains something peripheral.

Next week, I’ll start with how business mediation is presented and who it is actually presented to.

P.S. This series is not a critique of the mediators or institutions I’ve worked with or learned from. On the contrary, I’ve had the privilege of working closely with and learning from some outstanding practitioners, and I’m genuinely grateful for those experiences. The focus here is on the systems, incentives, and design choices they operate within, rather than on individual practice.