What's next? Mediation Skills for Managers
- paul08129
- Jun 18
- 2 min read
Last time, I said:
‘The first word on conflict management’ is ‘collaboration’.
As I’ve said before, there’s no collaboration without conversation. So the first series of the ‘Investing in Conversation’ podcast (which ended last week) was all about laying foundations. Across the ten shows and the posts which came from them, we (including my guests) looked, in quite general terms, at how:
· the essential elements of communication and conversation and
· the contexts in which we use them,
can create, escalate – or reduce conflict.
While I plan the next series, here, I want to revisit some of those elements and add a couple more – and look at them all in the specific context of mediation.
They are all essential to a professional mediator – but whatever your field, they can help you and your team:
· Resolve the resolvable,
· Prevent the preventable and
· Manage the manageable.
There’s no magic to any of them. Most are skills you use all the time – and have done for so long, you take them for granted. That’s perfectly natural – and it’s fine – unless it results in a ‘blindingly obvious obstacle’.
If you haven’t seen my definition of one of those before, it’s something so dazzlingly self-evident, we don’t bother looking for it – so we don’t see it, until we fall over it and land in a hole – which HURTS!
stepping back from what you do every day gives you a chance to avoid those, by:
· Looking at your interactions from a fresh perspective,
· Reminding yourself of things you may have forgotten you know and
· Seeing gaps in your knowledge or practices.
We’ll start, next time, with the question:
‘How are you listening?’
In the meantime, if you need help with any aspect of conflict management at work – including boosting your skills, come and talk to me! All my details are on the website:
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