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Many cases involve “personality clashes” or different people styles. Mediation is a perfect process to enable parties to understand these differences and find more effective ways of working together. One such case involved a clash between two senior employees; there had been a change to the senior management structure including a new CEO having been recently appointed. One senior employee felt that his role and status had been diminished whilst the CEO felt that the changes made best use of skills and experience. The conflict between them was beginning to impact on their relationship and trust was breaking down. There was a real risk of loss of key expertise to the company if the conflict could not be resolved.
The mediator met with each party individually initially and then facilitated a joint meeting. During the mediation, it became clear that there were differing personal styles which contributed to the way the dispute had escalated. In addition there were “cultural” difference between them which was also impacting and causing misunderstandings.
In the joint meeting, the parties were able to clarify a number of misunderstandings and (whilst they did not entirely agree) were better able to understand the other’s viewpoint and perspective. The parties were able to work out an agreement about how to adapt their working practices and communication styles to ensure that they avoided further misunderstandings in the future and to restore trust between them. The mediation was followed with some individual coaching sessions which included consideration of each others conflict styles (using TKI assessments) leading to increased appreciation of the impact of different styles and responses to conflict situations and how to manage these.