Eskhill & Co | Green House at Eskhill | 15A Inveresk Village | Musselburgh | EH21 7TD | Tel: 0131 271 4000
Integrating Difference - Constructive Conflict
Don't let conflict hold back progress. By integrating difference it can become the source of
innovation and creativity. We can all learn and benefit from the skills mediators use through
conflict coaching.
Mediating Ways and Conflict Coaching.
Most of us think about mediation as an intervention to resolve a dispute and if that is happening to
you our mediation service service can help out. But mediating skills are not only useful in bringing a
deviation from the state of harmony back to a new stable state. As we all know in real life harmony
is not the normal state but diversity and difference are the norm. Too often this develops into
conflict of a disruptive kind. However, if we accept conflict as the normal symptom of complex
reality then the skills of mediation are something we can learn as our normal response and not just
something we reach for in extremis.
This is the alternative viewpoint we have branded as mediating ways. If, in your work, diversity and
difference are the normal state of things then you will want this rich tapestry to contribute to
healthy organisational life. In our paradigm mediating ways assumes a wider role in which conflict
management is not just re-ordering the disordered but it is part and parcel of a positive
management and leadership culture which is custom-made for today's fast changing business
environment.
Ways we can help:
We can design programmes to help organisations to develop individuals and teams in the way in
which conflict can be recognised, managed and used creatively. These use the following
approaches:
Conflict Coaching
Conflict Engagement
Understanding personality and difference through the use of MBTI
Understanding conflict management styles
If we can learn to experience our conflicts as
journeys rather than wars, as challenges
rather than burdens, and as opportunities for
growth and improvement, we may actually
begin to anticipate with pleasure the next
chance we have to transform our conflicts
into satisfying communications, creative and
paradoxical problem solving, collaborative
negotiations and better relationships.
Kenneth Cloke & Joan Goldsmith
Resolving Conflicts at Work - Ten
Strategies for Everyone on the Job
Conflict Coaching
Conflict is not always a negative force
and yes, there is such a thing as
constructive conflict. Difference and
diversity are the root of change,
renewal and innovation. It is how we
deal with conflict which determines
whether it is creative force or a
destructive demon!