Conflict Management in Berlin for You and Your Team

• Does your team lack motivation?
• Are you spending more and more energy and time on misunderstandings?
• Smoldering conflicts are evident and affecting work?
• Errors, absenteeism or employee retention have become serious issues?
• Joy and humor at work are becoming increasingly rare?

• intercultural conflicts (whether east-west, north-south or country X and country Y: in the working world, cultural characteristics are sometimes noticeable when greeting each other and even more so when working together)
• Understanding of roles and tasks (e.g. due to lack of definition of responsibilities)
• Dealing with conflicts themselves (e.g. desire for harmony and thereby repressing the conflict versus desire for clarification on the other side)
• Communication of feedback or criticism (some people need it clearly, others need a subtle hint)
• Value conflicts (e.g. different understanding of reliability, punctuality, order, structure)
• Conflicts of fact (e.g. about the procedure for planning a project)
• Hierarchy conflicts (e.g. long-term employees with new employees)
• Relationship conflicts (the chemistry may not be right, but a way to work together can usually be found)

stage 1

Here, the mediators are first informed about the course of the mediation by the mediator. Common rules of conduct are also agreed, e.g

• let each other speak
• no insults
• attentive listening
• allow notes
• the mediator may intervene

The role of the mediator is to take responsibility for the process and to offer helpful interventions.

After agreeing on the rules, a joint mediation contract is often signed, which is binding for all parties involved.

stage 2

The mediator first collects all the issues of the conflicting parties – usually on a flipchart or a metaplan board. While the mediators present their points of view, the mediator makes sure that they speak one after the other, everyone gets the time he or she needs and, if possible, everyone has the same speaking time. He asks questions for understanding and completeness of all issues pertaining to the conflict.

stage 3

The point here is to find out what the actual interests and needs are behind the conflict: it is about feelings, needs, motives, interests and desires. The task of the mediator in this phase is to continue to ask questions, clarify and gradually restore direct communication between the conflicting parties. Sometimes it makes sense in this phase to agree on one-to-one meetings by mutual agreement.

stage 4

Now it is the challenge of the mediators to work out possible solutions together. Similar to a brainstorming session, the first thing to do is collect. Proposals and options are then discussed and only in the next step are they evaluated as to whether and which proposed solutions are appropriate for the agreement and whether they can also be implemented. The goal is to reach a consensus.

stage 5

At the end of a mediation, a concrete final agreement is usually written down, which may also be checked or even formulated by lawyers. The content is determined by the conflicting parties themselves, read out again by the mediator and signed by all those involved.

Conflict moderation is an independent concept of mediation and is used to resolve conflicts in a business or organizational context. She uses systemic advice and moderation in the sense of “mediation in conflict” as an approach to conflict resolution in organizations. Just as in mediation, the conflict moderator is committed to impartiality. The aim of conflict moderation is to clarify the relationship and conflict between all those involved. This then serves as the basis for the jointly sought solutions and agreements.

Various conflicts can be processed using conflict moderation, e.g

• Conflict between two people (e.g. in the context of leadership)
• Conflicts between several people (e.g. team conflict or between managers and employees or between managers and employees)

Participation in conflict moderation should be voluntary if possible. However, it is possible that it is obligatory in the context of a dependent activity as an employee.

• Clarification of injuries (of a psychological nature)
• Resolution of the conflict (a written agreement is optional)
• agreement among those involved. No judge or superior makes the decisions for the conflicting parties.