Conflict Resolution - Board Of Directors
Client Organisation:
Technology Company
Position:
Head Of HR
Context:
Following the dismissal of·a Departmental level Director, a decision made by the Head of HR and a Board level Director, it transpired that the dismissed Director was involved in a relationship·with one of the owners of the company. The repercussions of the dismissal placed significant strain on the professional relationship between the Head of HR and the owner of the company.
Ultimately, over a short period of time, communication broke down and the Head of HR felt unable to perform her role adequately and that her own role within the company was under threat.·A mixture of emotions in the Head of HR were preventing her from making a best effort at resolving the issue.·
Coaching Objectives:
To get the Head of HR into a state where she could communicate effectively with the owner of the company, challenging his thinking, communication·and decision making where appropriate. Also to look at the situation from the different perspectives of the people involved and gain insight into their motivations and how to best influence an outcome.
Format & Duration:
1 face to face session of around 3 hours. Numerous NLP tools were applied to gaining different perspectives on what had happened and, perhaps most importantly, achieving a stable state from which to communicate with the owner of the company. New Code 'State Building Games' were employed to develop a powerful resource state.
Outcomes:
During the coaching session the client had a breakthrough in her perception of how the company owner had responded to her previous attempt at communicating with him about the issue. Specifically, going through an exercise to see things from 'multiple perceptual positions' really provided an insight into why he may have been responding the way he was. Later she reported that the resourceful state built during the coaching session enabled her to communicate free from emotion. The professional relationship did recover to the point whereby they could work together without this event being an issue.
Comments:
Work place politics, personal relationships and affairs are not uncommon. The personal aspect means that there is increased emotional intensity. This increased emotion·can cloud·the perceptions of the people involved and make things appear unresolvable. From a coaching perspective however, and specifically from a New Code NLP perspective, having strong emotions to work with can actually make things easier. In working with state, strong emotions are like big handles that are easier for a performance coach to get hold of and manipulate. That is, it's often easier to change performance with respect to an event of great significance than one of little significance.