Disputes / Conflicts that cannot be resolved by the participants themselves usually end up in an adversarial process, where the end result will produce a “winner” and a “loser”.
For most of the past century, that process was litigation, and that third party was a Judge.
The Judge would hear each participant, and hand down a decision in favour of one or the other – there was no further discussion, and none of the participants had any input into the final decision.
The “loser” was always unhappy with the outcome.
As processes such as litigation became more expensive and time consuming, it was clear that there was a need for different, and more user friendly, approaches.
These approaches have become known as Alternative Dispute Resolution processes, and the most popular, and user friendly, is Mediation.
Mediation, unlike litigation or arbitration, has no “loser” – either an agreement is reached by all involved, or the Mediation is called off, and no participant is any worse off than they were before.
Choosing Mediation means that the participants are 100% responsible for reaching an agreement.
If the Mediator can help do that, they have done their job – if not, you simply continue on with the previous process, be it litigation or other.