Conflict competence and mediation at work

Conflicts at work are often not addressed openly, or only too late. They show up earlier in other places: a decision is postponed, a conversation takes place through third parties, a commitment is not kept and nobody asks about it. Anyone who can name what is wrong at this stage will not need mediation later on.

A constructive and forward-looking way of dealing with conflict can be learned. You do not need to train as mediators for that. It is enough to learn practical tools for your own working day in order to improve communication and conflict competence in the team.

How it works

Two days of seminar. Fundamentals, techniques and exercises on your own cases. Participants work with situations from their own working day, not with textbook examples.

Half a day after three months. No further input, but the question of what has proved itself: which conversations went differently? Where did it not work, and why? What else is needed?

Content

• Causes and dynamics of conflict, and how to recognise the early signs
• Principles of mediation and their practical application in everyday working life
• Communication techniques: questioning techniques, active listening, visualisation, structuring a conversation
• Conducting conversations in difficult situations: preparation, structure, dealing with emotions and resistance
• Exercises on the participants' own cases

Format

For groups of six to eighteen people. In person, online or hybrid. In German or English. Billed at my daily and half-day rates; the rates are listed on Costs. An overview of both in-house seminars can be found under Seminars and Workshops.

Experience

I have been teaching for five years on the conciliation training programme of ARGE Baurecht and am a lecturer at German universities, for example the University of Potsdam. At Osaka University I taught two mediation programmes as a guest lecturer.