Mediation

Mediation is a structured, confidential, voluntary way to deal with it while it is still fixable — and considerably cheaper than the alternatives, which are usually litigation, a resignation, or both.

—   Conflict between two employees, or between an employee and a manager

—   Team breakdowns where the working relationship has stopped functioning

—   Business partner and co-owner disputes

—   Grievance and complaint processes, as an alternative or a complement to a formal procedure

—  Conflict in family-owned businesses, where the professional and the personal are inseparable

—  Board and organisational disputes, including non-profits

—  Return-to-work conversations after a period of conflict or absence

Most people default to one approach under pressure, and most of the defaults have costs.

—   Avoiding — hoping it goes away. It rarely does; it goes underground and resurfaces bigger.

—   Competing — standing your ground. Effective occasionally, corrosive as a habit, and it reads as controlling.

—   Accommodating — conceding to preserve the relationship. Sustainable until the resentment arrives.

—   Compromising — trading positions. Reasonable, but it optimises for what each side asked for rather than what either actually needs.

—  Collaborating — looking for the outcome that meets both sets of underlying needs. The most work, and the only one that reliably holds.

Knowing your own default — and the other party's — is often the first genuinely useful thing that happens in mediation.

Formal mediation produces a written agreement. Facilitated conversation is a lighter-touch supported discussion, useful where the relationship needs repair more than the situation needs a contract. Conflict coaching works one-to-one, and is the route when only one party is willing.

We work with employers, HR departments, unions and individuals, and we can be engaged by either side or jointly.

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