How To Give Effective Feedback To Improve Employee Productivity

How To Give Effective Feedback To Improve Employee Productivity

Every good leader must be able to provide their employees with effective feedback to boost morale and productivity. However, the main concern we discuss in this blog is that not all feedback is positive. Therefore, how can you provide negative feedback while maintaining a positive and respectful conversation with your employee?

The debate about how feedback should be given is not something new. For as long as we can remember, leaders and managers have been encouraged to provide their employees with constructive criticism and feedback every now and then.

Yet, many individuals find it difficult to give feedback, especially if it is negative. According to studies, how employees perceive feedback depends on their experience level.

Positive feedback is a morale booster; however, negative feedback and constructive criticism help employees improve the quality of their work and their performance. Hence, as a manager or a leader, there are many difficult conversations that you will have to partake in with your employees.

Managers who are able to deal with these conversations seamlessly and efficiently often have a productive, high-performing team. The question that arises here is how can you become better at conducting difficult conversations with your team?

When discussing your employees’ work habits and performance, grave issues like family crises, mental health issues, or changes in fatigue can sometimes come up. At this point, it is important for you to remain respectful of their issues while communicating your concerns.

If you are in the same boat and are looking for ways to understand how to provide your employees with effective feedback, check out our ‘Effective Feedback’ workshop. This course aims to help you learn to deliver feedback in a way that allows individuals the opportunity to change their problematic behaviour while still maintaining a positive and respectful relationship.

In this blog, we have listed the objectives of this course and briefly described how we will approach these objectives to help you become better at holding difficult conversations and providing feedback. At Mediation Services, we also offer other courses and workshops to help you perform better in your workplace.

Workshop Objectives

By the end of this workshop, you will be able to:

  • Engage in conversations that allow you to build and support positive relationships.
  • Engage in conversations that result in a behaviour change while still maintaining the relationship with the employee.
  • Understand the consequences of not being proactive when having these conversations.
  • Adjust conversations while dealing with an employee who tends to become defensive.
  • Respond to defensive energy.
  • Examine the results of feedback and performance evaluations.
  • Give feedback to reinforce positive behaviours.
  • Understand the impact of your tone and body language.
  • Describe problematic behaviour without judgement or evaluation.
  • Understand employees’ personal reactions to receiving feedback.
  • Develop an increased ability to screen and assess complex situations.
  • Determine the best way to make an approach when a difficult conversation is required.

Workshop Strategies

This workshop has been designed to help you approach life as a good leader. However, it will also help you become a good partner and a good community member. This workshop will help you learn how to affirm people for their strengths and let people know where they can do better.

Humans generally don’t want to make errors and be mediocre, which is why for most of us, it is difficult to understand competence and accept our errors.

This has been very aptly explained by Steven Covey. We maintain an ‘Emotional bank account’ with everyone we are in relationships with, whether it be our coworkers, family or friends. This account begins with a neutral balance. However, as the relationship progresses, we make deposits and withdrawals. In relationships, instead of dealing with units of monetary value, we deal with emotional units.

The emotional units that Covey speaks of are centred around trust. When we make emotional deposits into someone’s bank account, their fondness, trust, and confidence in us grow. And as a result, our relationship develops and grows. If there is a more positive reserve in our relationship, our tolerance for difficult conversations will be higher.

This workshop helps you assess yourself first to give you the potential to change your relationships for the better. We will teach you how to keep things simple yet effective.

Employees look up to their managers to understand what they are supposed to do and the courses of action that they need to take. This workshop will help you develop the required skills to do that.

About Us

Mediation Services in Winnipeg offers training programs to help you learn mediation and leadership skills. We conduct online zoom and asynchronous webinars for different issues. Such modules will help you to improve your communication and solve family, workplace, and personal conflicts. To check out our training courses, visit this link here or contact us for further assistance.

Adapting A Strength-Based Approach In The Workplace

Adapting A Strength-Based Approach In The Workplace

Over the past few years, we have seen a huge paradigm shift in professionals adapting the strength-based approach as opposed to the problem-focused interventions that were usually how several workplaces functioned.

But, what really is the strength-based approach? What are its implications? And how can you practice it in your workplace?

To learn more about the strength-based approach and how it can help you create a more productive environment in your workplace, enroll in Mediation Services’ Strength-Based Approaches in the Workplace workshop right now.

Our ‘Strength-Based Approaches in the Workplace’ workshop is all about helping you understand the philosophy behind strength-based processes in the workplace and learning the foundations of Appreciative Inquiry.

In this blog, we have explained some of the benefits of adopting the strength-based approach, as well as some of the basics covered in our workshop to give you a headstart.

Objectives Of The Workshop

After attending the said workshop, the participants will be able to:

       
  • Understand the philosophy behind strength-based processes in the workplace;
  •    
  • Learn why strength-based processes have become so significant;
  •    
  • Learn the foundations of Appreciative Inquiry and experience the inquiry process and contexts to use AI;
  •    
  • Learn the basic elements of SOAR (as compared to SWAT) and how to use it in strategic planning; and
  •    
  • Look at a number of strength-based inventories and their role in personal development, performance coaching and feedback.

What Is A Strength-Based Approach?

A strength-based approach is defined as a practice that allows leaders and managers to build upon their employees’ strengths. It specifically requires you to see and portray your employees as resourceful and resilient, especially when they are going through a difficult phase at work.

This approach has its foundation in social work. However, it has recently been adopted for use with correctional populations to allow leaders and managers to focus on an individuals’ self-determination and strength.

One of the first books written on this approach was in 2005 by McCashen. It was titled Strength-Based Models in Social Work.

Scientific Research

The implications and results of the strength-based approach are backed by several scientific experiments, particularly in the fields of health, education and sports that point to the power of the mind to impact the future.

According to a study conducted by David Cooperrider:

       
  • 30-60% of subjects responded positively to Placebo (Healing occurring based on the belief that it will occur).
  •    
  • Children at school that were told they were gifted showed signs of immediate improvement.
  •    
  • Everyone has an inner dialogue. Unhealthy people have a 1:1 ratio of good: bad images. Healthy people have a 2:1 ratio of good: bad images.
  •    
  • One can find the rise and fall of culture via the internal dialogue of the culture itself.
  •    
  • Selective self-monitoring eliminates failure.

What Does The Strength-Based Approach Entail?

The whole process is based on two things:

       
  • Recognition
  •    
  • Appreciation

Recognition is all about giving good feedback based on the performance of the employee and the results achieved, while appreciation involves acknowledging someone’s inherent strengths. It does not focus on the person’s achievements, rather on their worth.

To learn more about how recognition and appreciation are important, check this TedX talk by Mike Robbins. The talk is based on his article “Why Employees Need Both Recognition and Appreciation.”

Domains Of Strength

Although every person has a set of unique strengths and weaknesses, according to statistics provided by Gallup, successful teams have an array of strengths. According to their research, there are four distinct domains of strength:

       
  • Executing
  •    
  • Influencing
  •    
  • Relationship Building
  •    
  • Strategic Thinking

It is not crucial for an individual or team to have an equal distribution of strengths from each domain. It is up to the leader or the manager to understand how to leverage what their team has to accomplish their goals.

Each domain is further defined using themes. These themes help in defining how each domain characterizes certain traits and strengths.

As a manager, it is up to you to identify the domains and themes of your employees’ strengths. Focusing on their strengths and leveraging them will help you lead them to success.

In the aforementioned Mediation Services Workshop, we help you develop the art of identifying another person’s as well as your strengths. We also help you create a team strength grid to help you keep track of your employees.

The Strategic Planning Process

Most strength-based approaches use the SOAR and appreciative inquiry. SOAR (vs. SWAT) stands for strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results.

It is a framework that focuses on devising and implementing a strategy based on:

       
  • Identifying strengths
  •    
  • Building strengths
  •    
  • Feeding creativity in the form of opportunities
  •    
  • Encouraging individuals and groups to share aspirations
  •    
  • Determining results

The framework is thoroughly taught in our ‘Strengths-Based Approaches in the Workplace’ workshop to help leaders and managers create a healthy and encouraging work environment that helps the employees connect with each other and the managers.

About Us

Mediation Services in Winnipeg offers training programs to help you learn mediation and leadership skills. We conduct online zoom and asynchronous webinars for different issues. Such modules will help you to improve your communication and solve family, workplace, and personal conflicts. To check out our training courses, visit this link here or contact us for further assistance.

Your Guide To Becoming More Assertive At Work

Your Guide To Becoming More Assertive At Work

Do you know what assertiveness or assertive communication means? Most people are not able to grasp the concept of assertiveness even though it is one of the most important traits to possess, especially in a workplace.

Assertiveness refers to effective communication or expressing oneself strongly, openly and tactfully. It encompasses being clear about what you feel, what you need and how it can be achieved.

Most of us are assertive in our home spaces, but when it comes to workplaces, many find it difficult to be assertive.

At Mediation Services Winnipeg, we offer several courses that can help you build your personality to become a better version of yourself. One of the workshops we offer is titled Assertive Communication, which is designed to help you understand assertiveness and improve your ability to confront constructively. By the end of the workshop, you will be able to apply your assertive communication skills effectively, especially in your workplace. To register for the workshop, click here.

Our course on assertive communication will help you learn how the objective of communication can be achieved in a way that is strong, open, tactful, effective, and also allows the other to respond. This skill is helpful in almost every walk of life as it can help you get through conflicts with your family, coworkers, friends and others.

Also Read: How Can You Benefit From The Mediation Services’ Assertive Communication Program?

Difference Between Types Of Behaviours

There are four main types of behaviours:

  • Passive
  • Passive-aggressive
  • Aggressive
  • Assertive

While passive individuals are extremely accommodating and are willing to go out of their way to understand and take care of others, passive-aggressive individuals and aggressive individuals tend to grudgingly acquiesce to others’ needs and seek to make sure their own priorities are taken care of respectively.

Assertive individuals, on the other hand, are flexible. They seek to build an understanding of what is important while respecting the rights of others as well as themselves. As a result, they come across as confident and satisfied.

Examining Your Style

To understand your behaviour style, you have to be very self-aware. However, many individuals are not self-aware, which is why they do not intentionally act the way they do. In the course mentioned above, we help you become more self-aware and mindful.

This way, you can examine your style and develop a proper strategy of becoming more assertive in your workplace. The modules in the workshop are designed to help you analyze your responses in certain situations. We also conduct certain exercises that allow you to spot behaviour styles in other individuals.

The type of behaviour you have in a workplace defines how other people perceive you. Hence, it is important to understand how you act around others.

Learn To Say No

There are three parts to assertive communication styles:

  • Interest
  • No
  • Options

In the first part, you have to acknowledge the interest of the other party. While talking to them, you can name their interests in a polite manner such that it shows you can understand their point.

The next step is to say no despite their interests if you cannot do what they are asking. State your problems and offer other options that might help them solve the problem at hand.

At mediation services, our team of experts help you go through each step in detail to curate a proper response while you are going through a situation without having to think a lot.

We perform certain hand-on exercises with you so that you know what kind of response you should have while dealing with colleagues.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this module, you should be able to achieve the following:

  • Increase your understanding of assertiveness
  • Develop a greater understanding of your own individual patterns: passivity, assertiveness, or aggression
  • Examine blocks to assertiveness
  • Increase your ability to confront others in constructive ways
  • Apply assertive communication skills
  • Learn and practice tactics for “turning up the heat”
  • Identify your own body language and notice the effect of body language on communication
  • Examine barriers to saying “No” and develop strategies for setting boundaries

About Us

Mediation Services in Winnipeg offers training programs to help you learn mediation and leadership skills. We conduct online zoom and asynchronous webinars for different issues. Such modules will help you to improve your communication and solve family, workplace, and personal conflicts. To check out our training courses, visit this link here or contact us for further assistance.

Mediation Services was established in 1979 as a project of Mennonite Central Committee Manitoba in response to a concern both for people victimized by crime and for the high number of people being incarcerated in Canada.

We began developing a new process in 1983 to refer select pre-trial court cases to mediation. This eventually led to a youth mediation project and an increased number of referrals from the justice system.

In 1992, we amalgamated with the Community Dispute Centre to become Mediation Services: A Community Resource for Conflict Resolution, with funding from Mennonite Central Committee Manitoba.

Throughout our development, we relied on volunteers to facilitate mediations and made training and apprenticeship development a priority. We developed rigorous standards for our mediators and have maintained our grassroots approach to conflict resolution.

Today, we receive between 300 – 500 court referrals a year to our Restorative Action Centre and provide assistance to many groups, individuals and families through our Community Resolution Centre. Our training initiative Resolution Skills Centre has grown into a vibrant program recognized for its high-quality peacemaking and conflict resolution teachings locally, nationally and internationally.

How To Effectively Communicate In A Culturally Diverse World

How To Effectively Communicate In A Culturally Diverse World

Communication is not only the way we talk to each other, but rather it also entails the way we make interpretations, create assumptions and form decisions. However, this is greatly dependent on our upbringing. As workplaces are rapidly becoming vast and businesses are expanding to include numerous cultures and various geographic locations, it is important to learn to effectively communicate with people from diverse cultural backgrounds.

A productive workforce is one that supports diversity along with balancing the pressures of management, time and cost. It is up to the leader or management team to create an environment that implements the necessary communication tactics in a culturally diverse organization.

Fortunately, there are many resources available that can help you understand the basics of dealing with a culturally diverse crowd. Mediation Services offers several courses that can help to build a respectful workplace and improve team resilience.

Why Is There A Need To Effectively Communicate?

Cultural diversity and conflict are universal realities. Hence, understanding how to deal with a culturally diverse crowd will increase the success in your workplace and your relationships. As a leader or a manager, it is important to recognize the cultural elements in conflict and gain a framework for working in cross-cultural settings.

Our environments are becoming increasingly diverse. This makes our workplaces interesting but also contributes towards increased tensions. The main reason behind this is diverse interpretations and world views. Many employees don’t really understand how to interpret certain gestures and ways of communication, since communication norms greatly vary across cultures.

Hence, over the years, cultural sensitivity has become an essential trait for maintaining a healthy, productive and respectful workplace.

If you are unsure regarding the approach you should follow when it comes to examining the dynamics and complexity of culture in a workplace, you can always enrol in one of our courses or contact us for more information.

What We Believe In

At Mediation Services, there are a few set beliefs that we follow. These beliefs form the basis of how we approach communication in an environment with cultural diversity. These are:

  • No culture is superior to another culture.
  • No culture or group is perfect.
  • We perceive and interpret actions and behaviours differently. Our perception is selective and relative.
  • We communicate all the time, whether we are intending to or not.
  • Pure 100% accurate communication is not possible.
  • Every interaction is intercultural communication.
  • Self-awareness, that is, knowing and articulating one’s cultural factors and identity, is essential and the starting place for understanding and learning cross-cultural communication.
  • Culture is extremely complex and a person’s individual cultural identity, as well as the group identity, is dynamic. It changes or evolves over time.
  • Cultural factors interact within an individual and the group.
  • Cultural evolution is happening continuously.

The Onion Metaphor for Culture

Culture is visualized using many methods. However, one of the most popular models is the onion model. It shows how culture has several layers. The onion model has further interpretations but the simplest one consists of five key layers.

  1. The outer layer represents politics, economy, environment, ecology and climate.
  2. The next layer is ways of earning a living and the way members of the culture spend their leisure time.
  3. The third layer is social structures such as family, work, religion and class.
  4. The fourth layer entails language of communication.
  5. In the centre of the onion are the underlying values and cultural assumptions which influence all of the other layers.

Foundation Of Culture

To analyze and effectively communicate in a culturally diverse environment, it is important to understand the foundations of culture. Some of the foundations that we work with include:

  • Culture is learned
  • Culture is shared
  • Culture is individual
  • Culture changes continuously
  • Culture is relative
  • Culture is contextual
  • Culture is visible and invisible

Learning to Effectively Communicate In A Culturally Diverse Environment

To effectively communicate with people from other cultures, the first thing you have to do is become culturally self-aware. This includes defining who you are and analyzing how others see you. After this, you have to define what is your cultural composition, and how you self identify.

At Mediation Services, our cultural diversity, communication and conflict course entails all these activities to help you adapt to cultural diversity.

About Us

Mediation Services in Winnipeg offers training programs to help you learn mediation and leadership skills. We conduct online zoom and asynchronous webinars for different issues. Such modules will help you to improve your communication and solve family, workplace, or personal conflicts. To check out our training courses, visit this link here or contact us for further assistance.

Dealing With Intergenerational Conflict In The Workplace

Dealing With Intergenerational Conflict In The Workplace

Many modern companies nowadays have a workforce that entails several generations, from baby boomers to Millenials and Gen Z. Where the new generation helps to bring new ideas to the business, old employees ensure that the company does not stray from its course of action.

However, along with the benefits of having a multi-generational workforce, companies nowadays also have to deal with intergenerational workplace conflict. With the new generation entering the workforce, on average, a company is now employing as many as five generations.

The differences between the generations and the way they like to work can cause rifts within the company culture if not properly managed. There is a need to overcome this divide and create a cohesive and well-immersed team that does not become affected by generational boundaries.

The duty of this lies on the head of the leader or the manager of the workplace. However, it is not an easy task to overcome and there is a need to employ professional help to ensure that the delicacy of the matter is taken into consideration.

Mediation Services Winnipeg offers several courses conducted by renowned mediators. One of these courses caters to intergenerational workplace conflict.

Objectives Of The Course

The workshop titled ‘Generations at Work’ has been designed for managers and leaders so that they can understand and tackle the conflict. Most of us are not receptive to conflict, which is why we may not understand what lies at the core of these issues. Keeping this in mind, we have designed a module that will help you reach the following objectives:

  • Learn the five generational work cultures in the workplace.
  • Identify their generational work culture and the challenges of working with other generations.
  • Examine the ways in which the five generations clash at work.
  • Understand ways to effectively manage employees from all five generations.
  • Understand what motivates you and other employees.
  • Learn how to adapt your leadership style to motivate others.
  • Differentiating between the “supportive coach” role and the “performance management accountability role”.

The Five Generations

The course mainly focuses on the five generations that are usually present at a workplace. These include:

  • Veterans 1922 – 1943
  • Baby Boomers 1943 – 1960
  • Generation X 1960 – 1980
  • Millennials 1980 – 2000
  • Gen Z 2000 – 2020

Based on this information, the course includes different activities and exercises that allow you to figure out the type of organization you are working at and what the required practices are to help all the employees work cohesively.

Difference In Core Values

What most people fail to understand is that the main reason for intergenerational conflict is the difference in the core values. Where veterans work with dedication, hard work and sacrifice, millennials and Gen Z focus more on smart work.

Veterans are a very practical generation, whereas newer generations such as Xers, Millenials and Gen Z are typically more skeptical, hopeful and cynical. Hence, this can cause conflict in the workplace.

Based on this, each generation has certain assumptions about other generations. According to baby boomers, veterans are dictatorial and rigid, while veterans believe that baby boomers are self-absorbed and don’t entertain the concept of privacy as one should.

Even though each generation has different values, none of them are wrong. Their thoughts, concepts and core values have been developed based on the era they lived in. Hence, it is important that we are all made aware of the generational differences to work efficiently in a multigenerational workplace.

One of the best ways to do this is via M.E.E.T communication. To learn more about how to effectively work with individuals from other generations, enrol in our course today.

About Us

Mediation Services in Winnipeg offers training programs to help you learn mediation and leadership skills. We conduct online zoom and asynchronous webinars for different issues. Such modules will help you to improve your communication and solve family, workplace, and personal conflicts. To check out our training courses, visit this link here or contact us for further assistance.

Why Is It Important To Build A Respectful Workplace Environment?

Why Is It Important To Build A Respectful Workplace Environment?

In simple words, a respectful workplace is one in which professionalism and integrity are displayed and the skills to communicate and recognize one another as equals are practiced.

An organization that has a respectful work environment encourages dialogue, promotes diversity and focuses on civility among all employees irrespective of their positions in the company’s hierarchy.

But if the workplace environment is disrespectful, conflicts may arise among the employees, reducing the workers’ productivity.

Conflict is something that can be defined as a sharp opposition or disagreement of ideas or interests in any organization and workplace where people come and work together. However, it is important to understand that conflict is a natural and normal occurrence.

In this blog post, we will talk about the benefits of a respectful workplace environment and how Mediation Services can help you build a respectful workplace environment.

Why A Respectful Workplace Environment Is Important

Workplace conflicts are normal, but if they are not handled properly, they can lower the teams’ morale, increase absenteeism and decrease productivity. Studies show that supervisors tend to spend a major part of their time resolving workplace conflict.

In many cases, the most common response to any conflict is the flight-or-fight response. This means that some prefer to avoid and run away from any workplace conflicts, while others prefer to resolve the issue.

In such cases, the feeling of discomfort is inevitable as the people involved in the conflict are often dissatisfied with the outcomes because no resolution is achieved.

But if you know how to resolve a conflict and build a respectful workplace environment constructively, you can turn a potentially destructive situation into an opportunity for enhanced performance, growth, and creativity.

You may have witnessed disrespectful behaviour happening in your workplace before. If you don’t intervene in such a conflict, it will erode the workplace productivity and morale. You as an individual and collectively as a group are responsible for the work environment you are in.

Hence doing nothing about conflicts in the workplace is no longer an option for employees and employers. Thus, you will have to learn how to build a respectful workplace environment.

Benefits Of Building A Respectful Workplace Environment

There are many benefits to building a respectful workplace. Here are some of the advantages of building a respectful workplace environment.

Respect Increases Employee Engagement

The biggest benefit of building a respectful workplace environment is that in such an environment, employee engagement is higher. Whereas in a workplace with little or no respect, there is lower attendance, more conflicts, and decreased creativity.

In a recent Harvard Business Review where almost 20,000 employees were interviewed, it was found that the best way to increase employee commitment and engagement is to build a workplace environment that demonstrates respect.

In addition to this, the study revealed that employees who said that their managers treated them with respect were 55% more reneged with work and organization than those who were not given respect.

This is what the Mediation Services’ course of building a respectful workplace environment will help you achieve.

Respect Will Boost Creativity

Companies and organizations with a high rate of incivility are less productive and creative than their counterparts. So if your company does not have a respectful environment, there are high chances of less work productivity.

According to a study conducted by Harvard Business Review, it was found that employees who are handled rudely by their leaders are 30% less creative than those who work in a respectful environment.

Another thing found in the study was that the employees who worked under a leader who treated them rudely produced 25% fewer ideas and were less productive.

So, if your goal is to increase your employees’ creativity, you should attend the online workshops of Mediation Services on building a respectful workplace environment.

The Costs Of A Disrespectful Workplace Environment

A disrespectful workplace environment causes adverse effects on the performance of your employees.

Here are some of the cons of having a bad workplace environment:

  • Higher rate of employee absenteeism
  • Higher rate of sick leave and short-term disability leave
  • Reduced productivity and reduced profitability
  • Increase in employee turnover
  • Increase in workplace stress
  • Potential litigation costs
  • Difficulty in recruitment and retention of employees
  • Decreased workplace morale
  • Strained workplace relationships
  • Reduced corporate image and customer confidence
  • Poor public relations
  • Decrease in the trust placed in management

Mediation Servicescourses can help you build a respectful and peaceful workplace environment where your employees will feel more comfortable and productive and help you avoid the aforementioned consequences of a disrespectful workplace environment.

Learn How To Build A Respectful Workplace Environment With Us

Mediation Services in Winnipeg will help you learn the art of building a peaceful workplace environment through their training programs. Our training course will help you resolve workplace conflicts.

In this training course you will learn how to:

  • Explore experiences of disrespect.
  • Learn how to effectively respond and recover as the source, target, and observer of disrespect in the workplace.
  • Gain insight into the person in authority’s responsibility in maintaining a respectful workplace.

We conduct online zoom and asynchronous webinars for different issues. Such modules will help you improve your communication and solve family, workplace, or personal conflicts. To check out our training courses, visit this link here or contact us for further assistance.

Change Management: Why It Is Important

Change Management: Why It Is Important

You might have heard the saying ‘change is constant.’ These three words pretty much entail everything there is to say about human lives. If you take a minute and reflect on what your life was like a year back, you will see how drastically things have changed in just one year.

Change management is something we all have come across. However, most of it is directed towards organizations and businesses. These practices help managers and leaders prepare for, equip, and support change in the way their business operates. This is important but what about individual change management and adapting to change in one’s personal or professional life?

In the fast-paced world that we are living in, change is something that we have to deal with on a weekly basis, if not daily. However, most of us are unable to adapt to and manage change at such a fast pace.

If you are struggling with something similar, check out some of the modules that Mediation Services Winnipeg is offering. We have carefully curated workshops and training sessions that help individuals perform better in their personal and professional lives.

Our ‘Adapting to Change: Fostering Individual and Team resilience’ workshop has been designed to help you reflect on and process the impacts of this constant change and uncertainty on you and your team. We help you assess where you are at in the change process theory, strategize for moving through resistance, consider your communication plan for change management and find creative, innovative ways to meet challenges. Register today to become a better version of yourself.

Reality Of Change

Change is constant. Change equals life.

These are two things you cannot deny. Over the past years, the amount of change an individual deals with in their life on average has increased exponentially over the past few years.

The constant advances of technology, especially in information communication, have increased our exposure, making us deal with change more often than our elders. In addition to this, with the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to undergo massive changes in our lifestyles, forcing us to deal with unprecedented times.

Keeping this in mind, Mediation Services has curated a module to help you develop the “We are in this / will get through this together” attitude to improve your resiliency and help you understand change.

Being Mindful

Many people might have asked you to be mindful of the environment around you. They are right; being mindful is the fulcrum when it comes to dealing with change. But, how can one be more mindful?

As easy and as mundane it sounds, mindfulness is not something you can develop within a matter of days. You have to make it your second nature to incorporate it into your personality.

The module mentioned above helps you understand change by helping you become more mindful of the situation you are in. Only you can help yourself through change. People have the tendency to get stuck in a situation and unknowingly stay stuck, and this is where we help you.

We help you navigate your way through stagnancy and embrace change to live a better and more productive life.

Objectives

The objectives of this training course are to help you understand:

  • The definition and meaning of change
  • Stages of the change adaption process
  • External as well as the internal factors that bring about change
  • Your own personal style in relating and dealing with change
  • Myths regarding change management
  • Importance of resiliency
  • Impact of change on relationships
  • importance of preparation and support in effectively implementing and managing change initiatives

Conclusion

If you are scrambling with change and are unable to adapt to the small changes that you see in your daily life, our mediators and trained experts are here to help you deal with the situation and develop the right approach towards life.

About Us

Mediation Services in Winnipeg offers training programs to help you learn mediation and leadership skills. We conduct online zoom and asynchronous webinars for different issues. Such modules will help you to improve your communication and solve family, workplace, and personal conflicts. To check out our training courses, visit this link here or contact us for further assistance.

How To Deal With The Defensive Behavior Of Your Employees

How To Deal With The Defensive Behavior Of Your Employees

It is not uncommon for managers and HR professionals to deal with employees who do not take criticism well. Many people have reported that some of the hardest employees they have had to deal with are consistently oppositional.

These individuals have a habit of debating or ignoring any constructive criticism. Moreover, in an attempt to undermine the feedback, some employees are known to refuse to follow instructions they disagree with or create a constant stream of negative comments about new initiatives.

The anticipation of the attitude and the defensiveness that many receive from their employees is anxiety-inducing. Such an unhealthy atmosphere leads to the deterioration of the office atmosphere.

Hence, at this point, it is important to understand how to deal with such employees. As a manager or an employer, you have to understand what creates this defensive attitude. An employee may do this as a way to come off as strong and mask the fear of change. It is an aversion to anticipated conflict or the worry that they will look incompetent.

Fortunately, there are a few ways to deal with this issue. Mediation Services offers training for leaders that help them deal with defensive employees to build a respectful workplace.

What Needs To Be Done

If you are dealing with employees who tend to get defensive whenever someone gives them some feedback, there are a few things you need to learn before you start dealing with them. These are:

  • Learn to minimize defensiveness in feedback conversations
  • Learn to understand and manage your own anxiety
  • Learn the appropriate and helpful responses to defensive behaviour

What Is Defensiveness?

Before we move on to the actual topic of dealing with the defensive attitude of an employee, let’s take a look at what defensiveness actually is.

Defensiveness is defined as the physiological response to a perceived threat, including an attack on one’s ‘face’ or self-esteem.

Once the brain analyzes the threat and determines there is danger, it triggers various responses in our body, including the release of dopamine and corticotropin to activate the sympathetic nervous system. All of these responses force us to get rid of the danger of either moving to fight or flight.

However, the main issue here is that sometimes, the brain perceives things as a threat that are not. This leads us to try and manage a difficult moment with little to no access to the thinking part of our brain. According to research, once this process is triggered, it takes 20 minutes to 1 hour for our bodies to return to normal.

Defensiveness is often a result of two things:

  • What is communicated
  • How is it communicated

Even though we don’t have a whole lot of control over what is communicated as it is the requirement of the job, we can control how something is communicated.

Some common responses associated with defensiveness include:

  • Sarcasm
  • Rigidity
  • Blaming
  • Shaming
  • Teaching
  • Preaching

Read More: Why Are Mediation Skills Important For Leadership And How To Learn Them

Diffusing Defensiveness

Now, as a manager or a leader at your workplace, it is your job to diffuse defensiveness. For this, it is extremely important to understand the state of mind of the employee. There are two main approaches to dealing with defensive behavior.

Defensive Climates

This strategy includes six steps:

  1. Evaluation
  2. Control
  3. Strategy
  4. Neutrality
  5. Superiority
  6. Certainty

Supportive Climates

The second strategy also includes six steps:

  1. Descriptive
  2. Problem Orientation
  3. Spontaneity
  4. Empathy
  5. Equality
  6. Professionalism

To learn more about how to apply these strategies in your workplace, contact us today.

What Can You Do When Someone Is Being Defensive?

If someone is responding defensively in your workplace, try to change your approach to the conversation. If you don’t, there is a chance that the other person will either become more aggressive or will completely shut down.

To rationally engage with the person, it is better to set aside your agenda for the time being and find something you both can agree on. After that, take responsibility for something, ask a question and then take a break from the conversation. Give the other person some time and tell them that you will pick up the conversation from here some other time.

How Can We Help Build You A Respectful Workplace?

Mediation Services in Winnipeg offers training programs to help you learn mediation and leadership skills. If you opt for our courses on dealing with defensiveness and building a respectful workplace, you will learn how to conduct feedback sessions with your employees while minimizing defensiveness as well as methods to control your own anxiety and stress.

The courses include reviewing case studies of disrespect and defensiveness. The ultimate objective is to learn to respond and recover from disrespectful behaviour while maintaining your authority.

We conduct online zoom and asynchronous webinars for different issues. Such modules will help you to improve your communication and solve family, workplace, or personal conflicts. To check out our training courses, visit this link here or contact us for further assistance.

How Can You Benefit From The Mediation Services’ Assertive Communication Program?

How Can You Benefit From The Mediation Services’ Assertive Communication Program?

Acquiring assertive communication skills can prove to be beneficial for you in building your self-confidence and self-esteem. Many people often overlook the importance of assertive communication, but it is something that everyone should learn, or at least consider learning its basics.

Assertive communication skills are essential to learning the dynamics of communication and avoiding passive-aggressive arguments. It can help you get your point across to others while respecting others’ as well.

This communication learning can help resolve conflicts more healthily, thus avoiding escalating them further. It can infuse helpful problem-solving skills in you to remain calm and find a solution.

It can help you gain the ability to ask probing and open-ended questions to yourself and communicate to others what matters the most to you. Several communication skill and mediation training centers such as Mediation Services in Winnipeg offer different courses on assertive communication.

Mediation Services in Winnipeg offers several courses to help you live a better and happy life by learning assertive communication skills. This blog post highlights some of the benefits of learning assertive communication skills and implementing them in your life.

What Is Meant By Being Assertive?

Assertiveness means being able to deliver your idea or what is important to you in a manner that also respects the other person’s point of view. Assertiveness might not be the best choice in every situation. Rather, it can make things quite risky in some cases. Therefore, learning assertive communication skills becomes important to tackle such situations.

Assertiveness gives you the ability to stand up for yourself by stating positively, assuredly, plainly, or strongly what you need or want. Assertive communication skills help you learn to communicate what you feel, why you feel that way, and what can be done about it while respecting the other party’s opinions.

How Can We Help You With Assertive Communication?

Mediation Services is offering a course on learning the skills of assertive communication. This course will help you learn the most important skills of communication and how to deliver your ideas to others without offending them.

It will help you learn how the objective of communication can be achieved in a way that is strong, open, tactful, effective, and also allows the other to respond. This skill is helpful in almost every walk of life as it can help you get through conflicts with your family, coworkers, friends and others.

Benefits Of Learning Assertive Communication Skills

It Helps Reduce Stress

Gaining control over your stress and not acting under its influence is something everyone must learn to do. This is one of the many benefits an assertive communication course can give you.

Learning assertive communication skills can help you process things in your mind and then communicate what matters to you. For example, you may not be ready to take on more work at your workplace due to the current workload that you are already handling. Therefore, instead of passively agreeing to more work, you can communicate with your boss about your concern and reduce your stress.

By communicating this with your boss, you will be able to complete your work with less stress. With professional and effective assertive communication training, you can learn how and when to speak for yourself.

This Training Helps Improve Your Communication Skills

Another great benefit of this training is that it can help you overcome communication gaps. Many people find it hard to communicate their concerns and emotions to others. This might also include their traits of lack of confidence or social awkwardness.

Trained mediators help to resolve such personality issues within a person. They assist you in overcoming such characteristics and refine your communication skills.

Furthermore, they can help you learn several techniques to lead communication in such conditions where both parties might not be on the best terms with each other. They can teach you how to communicate your point of view and understand the other party’s situation.

Such skills will help you in the long term and find proactive solutions for any problem that may arise in your life. This skill is of great help in resolving workplace conflicts. Therefore, assertive communication can help in preventing conflicts of any type.

It Increases Self-Reflection

Understanding and regulating your emotions, needs, and behaviour are important to value yourself. Learning assertive communication helps you learn how to self-reflect and check for biases that might be causing the problem. With self-reflection, you can identify the problem-causing traits and minimize them.

Furthermore, it also helps you find such similar traits in others so you can help them reduce such toxic traits. Therefore, assertive communication can help you understand yourself so you know you are saying the right thing.

Get Professional Assertive Communication Training With Us

Mediation Services in Winnipeg offers assertive skills through their training programs. Our training course on assertive communication helps you learn how to:

  • Increase your understanding of assertiveness.
  • Develop a greater understanding of your own individual patterns; passivity, assertiveness, or aggression
  • Examine blocks to assertiveness
  • Increase your ability to constructively confront others
  • Apply assertive communication skills
  • Learn and practice tactics for “turning up the heat”
  • Identify your own body language and recognize the effect of body language on communication
  • Examine barriers to saying “No,” and develop strategies for setting boundaries

We conduct online zoom and asynchronous webinars for different issues. Such modules will help you improve your communication and solve family, workplace, or personal conflicts. To check out our training courses, visit this link here or contact us for further assistance.

Covid Conversations – How To Deal With Opposing Views

Covid Conversations - How To Deal With Opposing Views

Nobody enjoys confrontation. It is always easier when everyone gets along and has the same views. Unfortunately, we do not live in a Utopia.

There are many instances where the people we work with or live with will have opposing views, especially on polarizing topics. Most of us end up having conversations on the topics that lead to more divisiveness, angst and apprehension. Or, we avoid engaging in what we think might be a difficult conversation. Avoidance can bring up feelings of resentment and frustration. This is not a sustainable approach.

It is natural and common for disagreements to become emotional. To have a more productive conversation about a polarizing topic, one needs to recognize when emotions are taking over. Moreover, as Stephen Covey put it in his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,”

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

One of the trending polarizing topics that we are all faced with is COVID-19. What makes this topic so highly charged is that it is ever-present. The impacts of health and safety guidelines or public health requirements impactl our day-to-day activities and decisions.

Not everyone is equally affected by the pandemic, but everyone has a certain point of view that they believe in. This does not mean that other people’s views are wrong or invalid.

Hence, the main question that arises here is how can you say “I fully understand your opinion but disagree with you” without creating a rift? How can you have a productive conversation about what you think or how you live? Perhaps most importantly, how can you maintain a healthy and functional relationship with someone you disagree so strongly with?

This is where we can help you. Mediation Services has been conducting training on conflict resolution, building a respectable workplace, managing unresolved issues and much more. Our newest webinar is on ‘A Roadmap to Existing Together with Opposing Views.

The webinar will be hosted by none other than our lead trainer Janet Schmidt. She has been in the industry for more than three decades and has experience in both the public and private sectors. Check her TEDx talk here to learn more about her.

What Will You Learn?

This webinar has solely been designed to help you to have a productive conversation that puts your relationship with the other before your opinion about the issue. The goal is to understand the other person’s opinion and voice yours without creating feelings of unease. Here is what you will learn in the webinar.

Digging in to find underlying wants, needs, fears and values

In a conflict, people typically name their opinion about an issue. They may also name some of their wants which support what they think or feel about the issue. They are less likely to name their needs and are even more reluctant to state the values that have shaped their opinion. Often strong fears or concerns is what has shaped an opinion.

Asking about the fears or concerns is one way to uncover values. It is here that it becomes easier to make a connection and to release judgement of the other.

To help you demonstrate this ability and truly be curious about what led to the other person’s point of view, Mediation Services has designed special exercises and activities that will be conducted during the webinar.

Approach The Conversation With A State Of Curiosity

The act of engagement and interest is extremely important when it comes to dealing with a range of concerns and interests. You have to be genuinely interested in the other person’s viewpoint.

This will not only help to keep the conversation on track but will also help you go further to a productive conversation rather than arguing or lashing out.

Other Learning Objectives

In addition to the above-mentioned objectives, some of the other traits that we expect you to possess by the end of the webinar include:

  • Recognizing the needs and values of the conflict and categorizing them accordingly.
  • Recall and apply proper strategies for defusing anger, respectfully end a conversation that is not going well.
  • Identify the interests that are common, different, and incompatible.
  • Learn to navigate around incompatible interests to prevent any angst.

The training is designed with several modules. You can work through the learning at your own pace and use the worksheets to prepare for engaging in difficult conversations.

We also conduct online zoom and asynchronous webinars for different issues. Such training will help you improve your communication skills and navigate family, workplace, and personal conflicts. To check out our training courses, visit this link or contact us for further assistance.

If you have questions,
please don’t hesitate to call.

1-204-925-3410

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