Many companies use their most experienced operators to bring on their newer staff. This of course is a great idea – people can learn on the job, knowledge capital is maintained and develop and the mentor develops new skills.

But what if your managers are not happy or experienced in this new role? Maybe you’ve got a performance issue that needs righting quickly? What happens when you’ve got lots of new staff and the manager doesn’t have time to get around to everyone? 

Managers are really enjoying the new Workshop Development Skills course which we started running a week or so ago. This is a course to help managers run group sessions for staff to help them learn and develop their performance. This is a list of the most important learning points from our first group

-       Start the session by asking 3 positive and true things from each participant

-       Highlight where current performance is high

-       Involve staff in workshop by asking what they hope to get from the session and what they’d like included

-       Incorporate a conversation about a successful future, when these skills are used to the best of their ability

-       Encourage discussion on how stakeholders will benefit

-       Keep presentation element to around 25% of time

-       Consider the learning style of the group and the facilitator

-       Think about people’s emotional state before the content – make sure that they are comfortable

-       Finish by reflecting on what they’ve noticed about themselves and their colleagues during the session and how they’ll apply the learning

-       Have fun!

This external pressure may take a number of forms, anything from ringing clients up between sessions to a gentle reminder of the previous session plans at the start of the next session? 

My coaching practice is undertaken from a Solution Focus perspective. SF coaches ask clients to describe the future in which all of what they wish has transpired, we encourage clients to work through this in some detail, exploring how important people in their lives or at work will notice the changes that will take place when this “preferred” future is brought to fruition. We then ask how much of this ideal future is already in place and what would be the first things that would happen that told the client that they were moving very gradually towards how they’d like things to be.

In SF work the emphasis is on descriptions – what would the client “notice”, see, feel, hear that would tell them that things were improving. The underpinning theory leads SF coaches to believe that in this detailed descriptive process helps the client to vividly construct their future, actually making changes happen as they speak and leading naturally towards the client making the changes needed to start to achieve their goals. 

SF practitioners, including myself, love to argue the relative merits of small signs as opposed to small steps, often known as action planning. In my practice I tend not to be too doctrinaire. Clients often want to make a list for themselves about what they’d like to do to help make the small signs and that seems fine for me, but I don’t insist that they do so. It’s also my experience that people come to the second session with goals that have nothing to do to those that they express in the previous meeting. They are now energetically focused on something else and I don’t remind them of what we talked about last time, I tend to assume that these things are either resolved or of less importance than what they are talking about today.

This seems to work well for the coachee but wonder how it plays for their employer, particularly when there are urgent performance matters to address. 

I was contacted recently by a HR Manager in a large public sector organisation in the South East to deliver coaching for a senior professional in their organisation. There was something about her tone that told me that this was urgent and as she described the situation it was clear that approaching me was a “last ditch attempt” at avoiding a serious capability situation and possible dismissal. The caller went on the say that the coaching would begin with a three way between me, the coachee and their line manager to ensure that the correct objectives were identified for the coaching and by the coachee.

A number of things became clear 

• the client in this situation is the organisation not the coachee
• the consequences of failure were severe
• the timescales were short as there was an immediate need for performance progress

This caused me to reappraise my position somewhat. The organisations expectations about performance were understandably unequivocal. I could do what I usually do, help the coachee understand their own goals in the context of their employers and hope that sufficient progress would be made quickly to secure the performance for the employer and the job security for the client.  

The risks seemed too high. I concluded that I would need to work smartly and juggle the notion of a self-directed client whilst taking something of a whip hand. I would use my firmly held notion that people are “most convinced by what comes out of their own mouth” to engage the client in their successful future. However I would also apply some of that gentle external pressure that I’d heard other coaches talk about, doing some gentle reminding during session, making cajoling and encouraging phone calls in between meetings, anything in fact to keep this person safe and their employer satisfied.

In conclusion there’s nothing wrong with a “horses for courses” approach. It seems to me that if people are at serious risk all of us would prefer to take immediate action to prevent disaster. In this case holding the coachee to account seems the best course of action.

There’s nothing wrong with HR and Law professionals being at the forefront of conflict resolution. Many are, and all can be, great mediators and they are obviously experts in their fields. It the setting of their work and the processes which they engage in at the early stages of their contact with clients which, in my opinion, cause problems for the mediation process.

The main obstacle to a solution in mediation isn’t the problem, nor is it how long it has existed or who is involved. The main obstacle to a solution in mediation is the position that parties hold before arriving for mediation. My concern is that the investigative and representational approach of HR and Law professionals respectively, tend to serve to harden these positions and the institutional weight of these powerful people further cement positions.

Conflict arises at work (and other places) because people experience strong feelings arising from an unmet need. We all know the kind of thing. They want recognition, respect and someone else does something which they interpret as undermining that need. Often to explain these strong feelings the aggrieved party starts to form strong feelings about the other, they are rude or obnoxious. They may start looking out for other behaviour to confirm these opinions, maybe recruiting colleagues to re-enforce these views. In such a way a position is formed.

If such a person first encounters a mediator, they will not be asked too much about has gone on, it will be sufficient to know that there is a problem and that someone wants to resolve it. If the other party can be encouraged to get on-board, then we’re ready to go. Mediation approaches vary but what is held in common is the needs that the individuals have and a discussion about the future – any explaining can happen in the mediation session when understanding is developed between the parties.

HR and Law professionals have to do a number of tasks and key amongst these is to conduct an assessment of the situation and to offer advice. In these early discussions the party will be under considerable pressure to justify why they are there. The style of this interview is one of receiving a complaint. There will be reasons, lengthy explanations of the other party’s behaviour, evidence from other people about how their own behaviour is reasonable. This is all very difficult stuff for mediation. The professional may feel under pressure to “problem solve”, to make a judgement as to whether the individual is “right” or not. They may have to decide if a rule has been broken and whether a particular procedural route should next be followed. During this process the unhappy party is likely to do usual thing of distancing themselves from blame and pass that on to the other party – quite understandable and totally “human” but very unhelpful.

How to solve this. (1) My sense is that on being approached by a party with a grievance, unless there is immediate evidence of the need for urgent action, the professional needs to have mediation as the default position – unless there is a clear and pressing need to instigate action, mediation has to be the first call before an in depth exploration of the problem and (2) HR people and lawyers would be well served by developing their in house mediation service which is separate from their legislative or procedural role, or use an external, independent mediator.

The notion of “convenient beliefs” seems helpful to me. This isn’t the truth, they aren’t hints or tips, they aren’t guiding principles – however it would seem to me that the participants would be helped if the facilitator adopts these beliefs, or at least acts like he or she has adopted them

1.      People are doing the best they can with the resources at their disposal

2.      People are trying to collaborate with each other (and the facilitator) in the best way they kn

3.      People are more convinced by what comes out of their mouths than anyone else’s – however apparently expert in the subject

4.      An engaged group is a better predictor of success than a content-clever facilitator

5.      The facilitators job is to design experiences not write programmes

6.      If the facilitator knows more than 10% of what is going to happen, it isn’t facilitation

7.      People already have the potential to achieve what they want

8.      A successful future is more likely built upon acknowledged strengths than acknowledges failures

9.      Emotional state and session structure are more the domain of the facilitator than the content

10.  The facilitator takes full responsibility for the process and participants take full credit for the outcome

Mediator Tactics Discoveries

More than 100 distinct mediator tactics have been identified. Among the tactics that have been shown to work well, in the sense of producing long-lasting agreements beneficial to both sides are:

• Helping the parties to understand each other’s positions, challenging them to come up with new ideas, and requesting their reactions to new ideas.
• When conflict is severe, mediators often have to be quite active and even pushy (e.g., telling disputants that their demands are unrealistic) in order to achieve agreement.
• When conflict is less intense, and the disputants are capable of talking productively with each other, it is best for mediators to be relatively inactive.
• When disputant discussions are unproductive it is best to separate the parties (“caucusing”) and engage in problem solving with each of them.
• Compliance to the terms of an agreement is enhanced when the parties emerge from the mediation with a positive relationship and when they view the mediation process as a fair one in which all of the issues came out.
• Continued third-party attention to the conflict has been found to encourage compliance to agreements reached at the end of internal war (Hampson, 1996).
• When there is a continuing relationship between disputants, helping them find a settlement for their current disagreement is often not enough. New conflicts may arise or deeper issues resurface.
• Within the specific continuing relationship of marriage, marital therapists have found that training both the parties in problem solving skills, such as effective communication, identifying key issues, developing solutions that satisfy both parties’ needs, helps ease marital problems. Two evaluation studies have shown the value of this approach, and one of them (Johnson & Greenberg, 1985) has demonstrated that emotionally focused therapy is even more effective.
• Emotionally focused therapy is the practice where, persistent maladaptive interaction patterns are identified, and husband and wife are encouraged to reveal the feelings and needs associated with these patterns and to “accept and respond to” their partner’s feelings and needs.
• Programs have also been developed for training school children in problem solving skills, and evaluations of these programs have generally been quite positive.
• In addition, many school systems have adopted peer mediation programs, in which students are trained to mediate conflicts that arise in their school. Evaluations of these programs have also been quite positive (Coleman & Deutsch, 2001).

One of the things Goodwill talked about was what he callend “companion calls”. These were regular check-ins with his staff during the day – not just about work but just chats, finding out how people are if he could help etc. As somebody who has done quite a bit of training with managers in remote working this struck me as a great concept and one I’ll remember, hope that you will too.

On moving into the Leadership Development role Phil quickly realised the value of good quality conversations – within organisations, within teams, between companies and their customers and in the training room. Phil set out to explore these possibilities and this led to him developing a more facilitative approach to learning.

At this time Phil was introduced to Non-Violent Communication and the work of Marshall Rosenberg. Using the NVC model, Phil began running events for managers and their teams to assist them in finding better ways to talk about conflict and difference and to ask for a different type of working relationships and behaviour at work. This experience was invaluable in helping managers deal with very challenging performance and workplace behaviour issues.

Phil’s experience and expertise in helping teams in conflict grew. Using the Solution Focused approach, developed from Solution Focused Brief Therapy, Phil was able to run a day programme for teams with evident and consistent excellent results. Phil was able to help anxious clients with problems ranging from grievances, dis-engaged staff, threats of legal action, merging teams, de-motivation and caustic atmospheres. Key to Phil’s programme is a development of appreciation between team colleagues, combined with a focus on the future and what people want – all done at the best pace for those involved. In 2010, Phil began to run open courses for other facilitators, managers and HR professionals on how to use this approach.

In early 2011 Phil successfully completed the National Certificate in Workplace Mediation and began offering this service at the point of relationship breakdown with a high level of risk for those involved and their employers. This tried and tested model has brought considerable benefits to clients with a high success rate at a low cost. To be able to provide such a service is, for Phil, the culmination of many years study and practice.

We may want to reflect on the fact that conflict resolution is often dependant on the tone parties use in the open discussion stage and words used in formulating agreement – i.e. it’s often written down. I hope to expand on this and its implications for mediation in later posts. Right now I’d like to think a bit about the impact of this in companies and mediators wish to promote diversity and, of course, meet the expectations of equalities legislation. 

I recently mediated in some difficulties experience by two colleagues with a long, and sadly unhappy, working relationship. Jo and Chris (not their real names) had worked together for nearly 6 years, had never really got on but recently things had got really difficult with the resulting fall out having a serious impact on the business, customers and morale of the team. Not an unfamiliar story. 

 Where things got a little tricky in terms of mediation was the markedly different needs of the parties in relation to the mediation session itself. Chris was very talkative and verbally adept, confidently expressing herself and highly analytical in what she saw was the cause of the problem. Jo was partially-sighted, more introverted in style and spoke little. Their highly different approach to speech and conversation was highly marked and it was a challenge to maintain a level of balance in the conversation. It would have been very difficult to decide how much time and encouragement Jo needed to express herself to match what Chris had said. Generally it seemed that Chris just had the “bigger guns” and I would guess that this how it had been throughout their working relationship. Chris style was perfectly reasonable – she just spoke more in a process which relies on speaking.

Of course I maintained my impartiality but I’ll acknowledge it was a challenge. When it came to exploring each party’s needs and interests, Chris had hers to hand whilst Jo struggled to express them. I’d be delighted if any other mediators have an answer to this?

 “Talk Yourself Out of Trouble”

Challenge and conflict in organisations can get more difficult in tough times – this course will help your managers to -

• Get key messages across succinctly and with confidence
• Handle direct challenges to their position
• Mediate in conflict between staff
• Have difficult conversations
• Understand the key behaviours for managers in a recession

 “Keep Your People Going”

The fear of redundancy provides short term motivation but creates a corrosive culture of fear – this course will help your managers to –

• Create discussion about the future, even in tough times
• Use team and project meetings to address the real challenges whilst focusing on success
• Engage with their staff as individuals and groups
• Build and maintain performance around what really matters to people
• Turn around despondency and a lack of commitment

 “Building Team Relationships and Morale”

Employees leave managers but stay for their teams – this course will help your managers to –

• Create a working culture of mutual appreciation
• Build engagement into day to day management activities
• Delegate  for development with skills and confidence
• Model good relationships  and high professional standards
• Learn how to intervene promptly in conflict situations

Hope that helps. Contact me to find out more

Phil