Meeting Facilitation
It may sound strange coming from someone in my line of work, but I have never been a big fan of meetings. All too frequently, they happen without appropriate planning, and wind up lasting longer than they should, getting sidetracked by issues that are at best tangential to the meeting agenda, or not having a preplanned agenda at all. Don’t even get me started about meetings where nobody thought to invite the people who have the best knowledge of the situation being discussed.
It doesn’t have to be that way. With a decent amount of forethought, reasonable preparation and skilled conversation management, meetings can actually be productive. My services can help at any step of the process, from formulating the agenda and verifying that all essential players can participate, to running the conversation(s) and making sure agreements are clearly noted with next steps highlighted.
I strongly believe that every participant at a meeting has the right to have their ideas raised and understood by other participants. My job in running meetings is to ensure that those ideas are stated clearly and efficiently. Sometimes that means coaxing participation from a quiet member. Sometimes that means politely but firmly cutting off statements that seem repetitive, irrelevant, or needlessly hurtful.
Conflict Coaching
My services are not one size fits all. Not all conflicts are appropriate for mediation. Not all parties benefit from having to explain their perspective to an uninvolved stranger.
For these reasons, I offer a la carte services designed to help you help yourselves to manage your own conflicts. I can help parties successfully plan and hold their own meetings. I can help parties establish a way to follow up with each other after a meeting, and much, much more.
Please give me a call if you are in the middle of a fight, or you see one coming up, and you want to address it effectively and proactively.
Trainings/Workshops
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Just as healthy diet and exercise can prevent medical crises, healthy communication habits can stave off conflict.
Conflicts rarely appear out of the blue, even though it sometimes seems that way. They tend to build up over time. Little slights and miscommunications add up until the situation becomes explosive. In hindsight, we can tease out all the little bits and pieces that went wrong. But wouldn’t it be great if we could have figured it all out before the things got messy?
You can. I can help train you to communicate more effectively, recognize red flags earlier, and de-escalate a conflict before it blows up.
Talk to me about setting up a workshop suited to your family’s or organization’s needs. Possible topics include, but aren’t limited to Active Listening Techniques, Conflict Assessment, and Low-Impact Brainstorming.
