Conflict Transformation
 Conflict costs your organization in many ways: wasted time, reduced decision quality, lost employees, restructuring, sabotage/theft/damage, lowered job motivation, lost work time, health costs. We can support you in transforming the conflicts in your organization from a negative and destructive force that wastes both human energy and financial resources to a constructive and creative force for evolution and growth.
Conflict has many different faces and requires many different responses. In our work we are interested in creating cultures where people have skills to work more effectively with conflict, inviting exploration of issues, valuing of differences and discovery of new possibilities often lost when people are stuck in the cycle of conflict. We work with individuals in the organization to help them look at conflict in new ways. We support people in taking responsibility for issues they care deeply about, understanding their individual contributions to conflicts, exploring and understanding the perspectives of others, and in the process develop intentions, attitudes and skills to deal more effectively with disagreements and differences in the future. Conflicts are an inevitable part of connecting to other human beings at home, at work and in our communities. We believe that people are inherently resourceful and have the capacity to deal more effectively with each other. We can help you access, and develop this capacity.
Types of Conflict Resolution we can assist with are:
Early Conflict Resolution
We support leaders in building healthy and productive workplaces, creating life nurturing environments that encourage the engagement and personal growth of staff members, and the evolution of workplace processes and systems to keep the spirit of the people and the organization alive. We work within holistic frameworks that go to the root of the problems and establish new ways of thinking and new systems/processes within the organization to support healthy relationships. We work with what Steven Covey calls the “whole person paradigm”. Our work provides simple processes and systems for early conflict resolution based on the Genuine Contact ™ Program and WEL-Systems™.
Conflict Coaching
Conflict coaching brings together the skills of executive coaching, the approaches and theories of Alternative Dispute Resolution, Systems Thinking, Appreciative Inquiry and other practices to support the growth of individual and collective capacity to deal more effectively with difficult situations and conflicts. This service is designed to meet the unique needs of each team or individual and uses the real life issues being faced by the client as the ground for learning and practice. In this process, we work with the deep structures of thinking and organizational life to support the evolution and growth of capacity to deal with both present and future conflicts. Enduring behavior changes are supported in this process by working with purpose, intention, identity and values. We work with you to create space for new possibilities and to develop your ability to truly accept and listen to others and to invite them to resolve your issues together. The ground is prepared for ongoing learning after the coaching is finished as the process includes practices for independent reflection and action.
Workplace Mediation
Donna and several of our associates are certified in alternative dispute resolution and mediation. We are prepared to provide mediation services for two party or multi-party situations using interest based mediation approaches or more transformative mediation approaches. Depending upon the situation and client requirements, we will provide a mediator or mediator team that can work with your unique situation.
What is the difference between interest based and transformative mediation?
Interest based mediation has as it’s main objective to have parties negotiate in terms of their underlying needs and interests instead of their strict legal entitlements and to solve their problems together. Transformative mediation seeks to deal with the underlying causes of the parties’ problems with a view to improving their communication and their relationship as a basis for resolution of the dispute. If both substantive issues need resolved and relationships need restored and improved, mediation can offer an opportunity to work more effectively and creatively with conflict.
Workplace Healing
If conflict has not been worked with effectively, there can be long-term costs to an organization and the individuals who work within the organization. Within a team conflict between two or more parties can lead to wounding and hurt that affects the whole team. The impacts are often widespread, unacknowledged and painful. Rapid and seemingly endless changes in organizations have left many people struggling to keep coming to work. There is much grief and loss and often no invitation or time to deal with the individual transitions that are the basis of the natural human capacity for working through changes. Workplace accommodation issues often arise when staff members are uneasy about returning to a toxic work environment. In all of these situations energy can be drained from the people and the organization, individuals can experience loss of motivation, stress and illness, and client service inevitably suffers.
We can work with your organization to create the space for healing of the individual and organizational wounds, and to co-create a new story for life in your organization. Our processes can support you and your team in creating an environment that invites people to name and work with the impacts of conflicts and changes in their organization and to access their capability as individuals and groups to move through these issues, take responsibility for themselves and make choices to reclaim their energy and spirit for work.
Training in Conflict Resolution
We provide training in Cross Cultural Conflict Resolution, a conflict resolution technique that is based in what is fundamentally similar across all cultures, rather than focusing on what is different between them. Cross Cultural Conflict Resolution can be used in all situations where the parties involved have a desire to resolve their conflict, regardless of their familial, social, or organizational cultural beliefs. This process is based on the teachings of the Genuine Contact™ Program. For more information, visit the Training section of our website.
Contact us to learn more about conflict resolution or to begin a dialogue about how Emergent Futures can assist your organization in resolving and preventing conflict.
|
