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Mediation

Conflicts arise when people have different needs; or the basic conflict between workers and their work is not sufficiently solved. No one has been born for the work that he or she ultimately carries out. Work always is a compromise, not following one’s current needs. In exchange we get money. And if we work in a good company, we also get appreciation and satisfaction. How the fulfillment of work has to look in concrete terms is usually clarified by leaders. They are the natural mediators in the complexity that different needs and perceptions of the individual employees of an organization span. As human beings, however, they like to avoid conflict just as much as employees do. And at some point stable patterns of behaviour develop among each other, which we perceive as a conflict.

There need never be any conflict. But there is. And it cannot be rationally argued away. As systemic thinkers, we understand a pattern of conflict as a stable, cybernetic control cycle, a stable pattern of behaviour between at least two persons, which should not have arisen rationally or imperatively, but which nevertheless has arisen. Usually there is less to understand here than to appreciate.

We support your team, two or more employees or managers in leaving this cycle. We usually do this according to the following scheme:

1. Mandate clarification: we identify the conflict pattern, the participants, the goal of the mandate and derive a first draft of the cooperation.
2. We appreciate the past and establish the ability of the participants to work on their conflict.
3. We value and respect the participants and their construction of reality, but not the conflict pattern.
4. We work through the topic and shift the focus to the future collaboration.
5. We agree on supporting structural measures through which your team can establish a productive future in everyday working life.
6. We keep track on the conflict and review it 6 months later.