Comprehensive Conflict Management Systems

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Organizations that take a comprehensive approach to conflict in effect strive to become ‘conflict competent’ organizations. What we mean by this is that in ‘conflict competent’  organizations there is an expectation that each individual will feel responsible for recognizing and responding to conflict and in exchange, trust the organization to provide him or her with the skills and confidence to do so. Issues and concerns can be raised safely and with confidence that they will be respectfully heard and responsibly addressed.

As a result, the organization will experience a decrease in the cost of conflict, increased productivity, strengthened relationships, and a recommitment to the organization’s mission. We have found that the most effective way to create a ‘conflict competent’ organization is by providing them with the necessary comprehensive skills, structure and organizational support, in effect a ‘systems approach’.

chiResolutions is proud to be the prime contractor for the U.S. Department of Interior’s Office of Collaborative Action and Dispute Resolution in support of its organizational Comprehensive Conflict Management System, CORE PLUS.  Interior is a true leader in the federal sector for its vision, scope and programmatic support of an agency-wide integrated conflict management system.  Check them out!

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Systems and Subsystems:

Skills:

Conflict management skills are a combination of effective communication, dispute resolution and cooperative problem solving. In a conflict competent organization everyone has certain basic conflict management skills and shares acommon language around conflict and awareness of rights and principles. Once adopted into the organization’s culture, these skills help prevent and manage conflicts that may arise in the future.
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Structure

Recognizing that not all conflict can, nor should, be prevented, we help your organization develop a structure for constructive engagement. The structure consists of sustainable processes and tools that enable the organization to recognize issues early, identify and address significant concerns or system-wide trends, and track the efficacy and efficiency of the system.

Most successful structures contain the following processes and tools:

Mediation:

First and foremost, mediation is a process designed to empower parties to resolve their disputes through dialogue with the assistance of a neutral third-party who manages the process. It’s an opportunity, in a confidential, safe environment, for parties to hear one another’s stories (possibly for the first time), uncover issues, and explore options for resolutions. Within an organization, mediation can restore, and even strengthen, essential relationships while resolving disputes.
chiResolutions’ mediators follow a facilitative, interest-based model to:
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  • Empower the parties to create their own solutions and clarify their own interests
  • Minimize the emotional costs and psychological harm that stem from conflict
  • Help the parties consider an alternative narrative to the issues and understand the interests of the other party
  • Draft clear, comprehensive, and concise settlement agreements and/or action plans
  • Resolve disputes between employees and their supervisors or managers, co-workers, team leads, senior executives – indeed most relationship dynamics within an organization

Facilitated Dialogue:

A facilitated dialogue is a structured conversation between two or more parties involved in dispute. While a facilitated dialogue shares many similarities to mediation, it is less formal and settlement is not necessarily the primary objective. Instead, the goal is to create a safe space where parties can engage in conversation designed to foster mutual understanding and respect of each person’s opinions and beliefs,develop trust, and make decisions about how differences of opinion could be managed in the future.
Our skilled team of facilitators will help parties:
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  • Develop the necessary skills to listen and engage effectively
  • Manage their emotions and respond intentionally, even when their buttons are pushed
  • Form a foundation for cooperative problem solving and enduring relationships
  • Increase their effectiveness by improving how they work together
  • Improve existing processes and structures

Facilitation:

Within an organization, meetings are an opportunity to provide information, encourage discussion, boost morale or inspire creativity, all with goal of keeping employees engaged, aligned, and productive. Poorly run meetings have the potential to create the opposite of the intended effect: reduced engagement, increased uncertainty, and decreased productivity.  Employees may even claim that meetings are infringing on their ability to get their job done, or complete their work during business hours.
To help ensure your meetings are effective and employees satisfied, chiResolutions’ facilitators will:
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  • Collaborate with participants to clearly define the meeting objective, agenda, and ground rules prior to the meeting
  • Implement a consensus-building process
  • Involve all meeting participants in the discussion
  • Keep the conversation on track
  • Deal effectively with disagreements and objections
  • Help the group identify clear action items and next steps

Ombuds:

An organizational ombuds is an independent, impartial, and confidential resource. Ombuds assist individuals and groups in troubleshooting options to help resolve conflicts and bring systemic concerns to the attention of the organization for resolution. Unlike most employees, an ombuds provides an organization with the unique combination of inside-outside help. This service is separate from the Medical Ombuds/Mediators that chiResolutions offers for healthcare providers.

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chiResolutions has highly-skilled ombuds who will:
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  • Provide a safe, informal place for employees to raise concerns without fear of formal action being taken
  • Serve the organization as an independent and impartial voice
  • Assist management in navigating and addressing broader organizational needs and making changes when needed
  • Empower employees to take responsibility for creating a better workplace
  • Function as a central information and referral resource for policies, procedures, systems or structures within the organization

Conflict Coaching:

Conflict is a naturally occurring phenomenon that has the potential to improve situations, relationships, and outcomes. While most of us have plenty of experience in conflict, many of us are ill equipped to manage conflict constructively. Enter conflict coaches. During a series of one-on-one sessions, our coaches address the unique behaviors, thoughts, and patterns that keep employees stuck, teach them the skills to manage difficult situations, and most importantly, empower them with the confidence to succeed.
chiResolutions’ conflict coaches work with individuals to:
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  • Learn to view situations from a conflict lens
  • Uncover their own, and the other person’s, needs and goals
  • Identify and evaluate their choices for moving forward
  • Develop confidence about managing conflict and achieving their goals
  • Increase their conflict management skills so that they can con structively engage in the conflict
  • Decrease the escalation of confrontational situations• Successfully prepare individuals for difficult conversations such as potentially upsetting employee feedback

We can also assist your organization in implementing an internal conflict coaching program to bring this skill set in-house.

Strategic Visioning and Planning:

Success begins with a clear vision and a well-defined plan. Why? Because these tools serve as the roadmap for where the organization would like to go, what actions need to be taken, and how to recognize if and when it is successful. While this might sound simple, or even obvious, a strategic plan requires management to answer some big, fundamental questions that will shape and guide who the organization serves, what it does, and its underlying motivations. When done effectively, the result is a high-functioning, productive, and satisfied organization.

Our strategic planning services will help you to:
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  • Set an agenda based on priorities, deadlines, and agreed upon outcomes
  • Identify assumptions, risks, and environmental factors to be incorporated in the strategic plan
  • Ensure all employees and other stakeholders are working toward common goals
  • Align employees with the organization’s mission
  • Systematically coordinate and align resources and actions with mission, vision, and strategies throughout the organization

Change Management:

It’s not a matter of preventing change, but how you respond to it. We can never know the future, but it is good business practice to be prepared for possibilities. In order for an organization to ensure sustainable, long-term success, it must prepare for both intentional (leadership, technological infrastructure, organizational structure, new products or services) and unexpected change (global or national crisis, natural disaster, loss of funding or profit).

At chiResolutions we help leaders reduce the negative impact to organizational operations and customer support during any major transition by:
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  • Systematic diagnosis of the current situation in order to determine the organization’s need for change and also its ability to change
  • Envisioning and articulating the desired future state
  • Planning, testing, and implementing all aspects of the transition
  • Defining and instilling a new organizational culture
  • Coaching and facilitating leadership through their planning cycles
  • Building consensus among stakeholders throughout the process

Support: Last but certainly not least!

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This is what we call “integration and alignment” and it involves the combination of communication, leadership, coordination, safeguards and evaluation. We know that the success of a CCMS is dependent on an organization’s leadership to “lead by example.”
As your organization continues to thrive and grow, chiResolutions recommends conducting organizational assessments that will: benchmark how connected to and invested in the CCMS employees are at that given point in time; identify opportunities to move forward; and send a clear message to employees that leadership is aware of their concerns and factoring them into creating a more satisfying work environment.
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Here’s another way of looking at Comprehensive Conflict Management Systems.