The accidental mediator

Natasha and Luke have never got along well. Now Natasha has complained to her manager, Tina.

Tina suggests setting up a meeting between Natasha and Luke. During this meeting, Tina will be taking on a mediation role. There are five steps we’d advise her to take. You can use the same strategies to resolve minor conflict in your workplace.

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Problem solving case study

Lissa had a problem. She wanted to buy a house. But she didn’t want to sacrifice her lifestyle to the mortgage repayments.

Here’s the steps we’d take Lissa through to sort out her situation. You can use the same steps to solve problems in your life.

Work out the real scope of the problem

Critically evaluate the extent of the problem. Then describe the problem in one sentence. This helps you narrow down the issue you are working on. In Lissa’s case, the problem was summarised in the words “I want to buy a house but I don’t think I can afford the mortgage.”

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Staying safe during change

Simon’s team was falling apart. Melissa and Terrence weren’t speaking to each other. Arguments between Dee and Sandi were a daily event. Now Brett was threatening to resign if Simon didn’t sort the team out.

Simon attended a workshop on Building High Performance Teams. There he learned the importance of setting norms for team communication. Back at work, he used five steps to do this. You can use the same steps to create communication ground rules in your team.

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Handling team saboteurs

Scott’s attitude was a problem for the whole team. He was never happy with anything. He sabotaged team meetings with sarcastic remarks and dismissive body language.

Now Scott was playing with his phone, rather than participating in a brainstorming session led by Chris. Here’s how we’d help Chris deal with Scott’s behaviour. You can use the same strategies to respond to passive aggressive people in your workplace.

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Great service – more than a smile

Dan taught his staff to smile at customers. But still his customers were complaining about bad service.

Dan asked Think Learn Succeed to help out. We watched his team in action. Their real problem was a lack of systems. Without proper standards and procedures, service was inconsistent. Service personnel were struggling with inefficient systems and excessive workloads. No-one had time to stand back and address the source of customer problems.

Here are the steps we used to solve Dan’s problem. You can use the same strategies to establish a robust service strategy in your business.

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