engl i2M – die Innovations-Initiative für den Mittelstand
Mission
Conflict mediation
Client
Plant engineers
4,000 employees worldwide
Target group
2 executives in Germany, connected as interface partners
Question/Issue
- How can we restore the major process disturbances between the interfaces – along with personal feuds between the process partners – to a cooperative, appropriate and target-oriented communication after years of feud?
Activities
- Mission clarification with the superior executives
- Several preparatory meetings with the “protagonists”
- Meeting with both protagonists and the mediator
- Final meeting: both cooperation partners, their managers and the mediator
Factors for success
Diligent patient preparation in individual discussions in order to
- Eliminate accusations, allegations, insinuations, etc.
- Consistent focus on requests for future communication and cooperation
Diligent, patient and persevering negotiation of agreements
Duration of the project
6 months
Particular aspects during the course of the project
Organisational changes in the area of both partners have contributed to good cooperation in the future by reducing the interfacing areas.
Result
- Process safety: the partners are still not best friends, but cooperate again in the customers’ best interests.
- Astonishment of the superior executives about the unanimously positive result in spite of the long-standing stalemate situation.