We have been asked to support numerous organisations in a variety of ways when relationships at work have floundered or, in some situations, failed all together. It is our belief that every attempt should be made to reconcile any workplace relationship not just because the legal process requires it but because it is the right moral and social action to take.
We have found that early positive intervention brings rewards to all concerned, but it is not uncommon for line managers to lack the skill or the will to make such positive interventions: as a consequence we often find ourselves dealing with situations that are months (and sometimes years old!). When asked to support in these circumstances we have found that mediation is a very positive route. We subscribe very much to both parties being ‘enabled’ to communicate, and further believe that the most sustainable outcome will come from the desire of both parties to make the necessary and appropriate changes.
We have also grown to realise that it is often an ‘ignorance’ that has caused the difficulty to arise in the first instance; i.e. that an individual has behaved in a certain manner because they have believed it was how they were expected to behave, and as a consequence they failed to understand why the other person felt humiliated, undermined, bullied or harassed. In these circumstances we believe that it is not sustainable to just advise an individual that they need to ‘change their ways’, but to support them further with coaching sessions to ensure that the organisation has enabled the individual concerned to have all the information that they need in order to ‘change their ways’ most effectively.
For example, following a mediation between two managers who spent all their time ‘competing’ with each other with a view to seeing who could get the best resources or the bigger budget for their respective teams, we developed a coaching plan for each of them to enable them to realise that the strength of their teams - and thus the achievement of the wider organisation (ever more important in these difficult economic times) - was paramount. This meant that individual sessions were conducted in relation to values and attitudes, resolving conflict and developing empathy skills to name but a few. As a result of this progressive intervention, we have worked with both the managers and the organisation to help them achieve a more positive and dynamic management team that is built on trust and collaboration as opposed to ‘gate-keeping’, disunity and behaviours that undermined the management team. We took great vicarious pleasure from the cultural change that this intense, and often challenging, piece of work achieved.
Although we have provided an overview and example of how mediation and coaching can be used conjointly, we also undertake them as separate functions when the need has arisen.