Conflict Resolution

In healthy workplaces and relationships, conflict is still a fact of life. Harnessed correctly, conflict can help to clarify what is at stake and to generate creative solutions that meet multiple interests. When that’s not happening, it can be helpful to bring in a skilled mediator from the outside to help build the capacity of individuals and teams to negotiate productively and make personality differences an asset instead of a liability.

What Is Mediation?

In the workplace, mediation is a process where I help two people to improve their working relationship. I create safety by guaranteeing the neutrality, independence, informality, and confidentiality of my work with them. Generally I will meet with the individuals 1:1 at first to hear out their concerns in a confidential environment. Then follows one or more sessions in which I help the parties to describe for themselves the issues they want to address, and to come to agreements on how they want to work together going forward. Along the way, I introduce concepts and skills that make them better able to communicate with each other. It is a capacity building experience that leaves the parties more confident about their abilities to have productive conversations even when things get hard.

Council Circle for Group Conflict

When conflict is negatively impacting the entire team, I use council circles as a way to create safe channels for honest, heartfelt communication that clears the air and gets things moving in the right direction. After conducting an assessment through confidential 1:1 interviews, I will formulate the central questions that are on people’s minds. By giving everyone the opportunity to address these questions, the team develops its ability to communicate about challenging topics. The council circle format creates equity by ensuring every person’s voice is heard and has equal weight.

Get Started!

Use my convenient online scheduler below to schedule a free 30 minute consultation to discuss your needs in more detail, after which I’ll send you a proposal with my preliminary assessment, clear objectives, the methods I would use, and the costs involved.