Conflict Management

Conflict management is the identification and management of differences and disputes within an organization.  We believe that conflict is inevitable within organizations because no two individuals in an organization have completely overlapping interests, and that managers should attempt to harness intra-organizational conflict positively.

Our conflict management experience and expertise encompass conflict management system development, integration and evaluation; conciliation, mediation, facilitation and coaching; conflict management competency profiling, assessment and development; and conflict management practitioner qualification, selection, placement, training and performance management.

We provide expert services either in support of an organization’s systems and programs or to help the organization implement and work effectively within those systems and programs.  Whether acting in a support role or in an implementation role, we typically serve either as a conflict management system design consultant, trainer or evaluator or as a neutral and impartial conflict management conciliator, mediator, facilitator or coach.

When we serve as a neutral intermediary our role generally is to help two or more individuals, groups, operating units or organizations prevent, resolve, mitigate or contain the scope of their current or potential differences through a variety (or mix) of traditional and non traditional conflict management approaches, including the following: conciliation; mediation; facilitation; regulatory negotiation; proactive partnering; and cooperative problem solving.

Conciliation. When playing this conflict management role, we typically help disputing or potentially disputing parties to establish communication, practice greater openness, clear up misperceptions, develop positive perceptions, deal with strong emotions, get to know each other better, and build enough of a relationship to take the risks associated with working together on the next steps in addressing their current, recent or potential differences.

To achieve these ends we may provide the parties with a neutral meeting place, carry initial messages between the parties, help to reality test their perceptions or misperceptions, and eventually affirm the parties’ readiness for working together on the all-important next steps

Mediation. When acting in this conflict management capacity, we intervene in a dispute or negotiation to help the parties voluntarily reach an acceptable resolution, make primarily procedural suggestions regarding how the parties can progress toward reaching agreement, occasionally suggest substantive options as a means of encouraging the parties to expand the range of possible solutions under consideration, often work with the parties individually to explore acceptable resolution options or to help them develop constructive proposals, and (when requested) train members of the client organization in the effective performance of each of these mediation steps.

Facilitation. When filling this conflict management role, we generally work simultaneously with all of the participants in a meeting convened to prevent, resolve, mitigate or contain a dispute; provide strictly procedural guidance as to how the group members can efficiently move through the steps of whatever problem-solving or decision-making method they are using to reach their meeting objective(s); and (when requested) train members of the client organization in the effective performance of basic, intermediate or advanced facilitation responsibilities.

Regulatory Negotiation. When supporting this conflict management process, we facilitate the meeting(s) of an advisory committee chartered by federal or state government to help the committee members negotiate the text of a proposed rule before it is published in the Federal Register or in one of the Register’s state counterparts.  In our experience, a successfully facilitated rulemaking negotiation considerably shortens the time and significantly reduces the resources needed to promulgate sensitive, complex and far-reaching regulations that are often mandated by statute.

Proactive Partnering. When supporting this sophisticated and potentially far-reaching conflict management process, we help improve the working relationship either between an organization and one or more of its key external stakeholders (contractors, customers, suppliers, unions, etc.), or between two or more of an organization’s key internal stakeholders (employees, managers, workgroups, business units, operating functions, etc.) by helping the organization to understand, establish and maintain mutual trust building and cooperative problem solving forums, structures, processes and activities.

We design and facilitate a variety of proactive partnering interventions to help the key actors develop a collaborative approach to issue identification; agree to share the risks involved in joint undertakings; formulate and apply confidence, trust and respect building behavioral ground rules; define their common and separate interests; respect their legitimate and significant differences; improve communication and information sharing; integrate end-to-end engagement with individual responsibility and organizational accountability; and maintain a cooperative problem-solving approach to conflict management.

Cooperative Problem Solving. When supporting this conflict management process, we train the participants in the interest-based method of problem solving and the strive-for-consensus method of decision making, and we help them apply these methods to the surfacing and resolution of issues that could otherwise cause costly damage to their long-term working relationship.  When agreeable to the parties in a unionized organization, we use contemporary interest-based problem solving in place of traditional position-based bargaining to design, facilitate and document the outcomes of term and mid-term contract negotiations

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