A comment from a workplace manager: "I can say for sure that quite often my day starts fine, but I am regularly pushed below that line because of other people's behaviour, and it's fine to say don't engage in it, but it's what most of my job is; dealing with people!"

Heard this before?

Then it's time for your workplace to engage Workplace Harmony…

A mediator is a ‘Conflict Engagement Practitioner’, a skilled, experienced and accredited mediator. They are external to the organisation and independent to the issues and understand how to constructively engage with conflict in any business.

Their role is ‘not about making nice – it is about coming to grips with what is wrong and ‘setting it right.’[1]…

At some point in a mediation, one person will ‘shift’ from presenting and defending their perspective to genuinely acknowledging the hurt, frustration, loss or other feeling of pain being expressed by the other.

To ‘move’ from a place of focusing only on one’s own opinions and perspectives, a place that has been a type of sanctuary for certainty and therefore comfort, requires one to lower their defenses and to step outside of their view of the past, which they may…

When good intentions don’t always deliver good outcomes

In mediation, I often hear one or both parties saying at some point, ‘I thought I was doing the right thing’ or ‘I thought you would prefer I did…’ or ‘I was just trying to do this in a way you might appreciate’.

What I am hearing is that each party believes they understand the other (or has been trying very keenly to) and adjusting their behaviour or approach accordingly. They show a sense of frustration. Despite their…