Conflict Coach

Let me help you with . . .

• Employee rights
• Executive coaching
• Personal disputes
• Managing stress/emotions
• Dysfunctional dispute patterns
• Dealing with narcissists
• Tools for managing triggers
• Shifting from reaction to response
• Preparing for negotiation
• Breaking destructive patterns
• Exploring needs and interests
• Identifying legal issues
• Strategic documentation
• Brainstorming options for resolution

Not ready to hire a lawyer? Has an ongoing conflict in your workplace, at home, or with a debtor taken a toll? Are you struggling with a workplace investigation, probate matter, or discrimination dispute? We work together to help you find clarity, brainstorm your options and follow through to resolution. This may include giving you the courage and skills towards asserting your needs, helping you manage triggers, building a recovery plan for your organization, crafting a strategic email, or exploring backup options for legal recourse. Where applicable, I aim for positive changes in ongoing relationship dynamics.

With four basic conflict styles (director, avoider, compromiser, and collaborator), that makes for sixteen possible combinations between two conflicting parties! I help you control what you can control. Although we can’t control others, there are methods that better foster cooperation by the other party, always with parties’ conflict styles in mind.

Sometimes, my clients need to draft emails with what they *want* to say to the conflicting party, replete with justifiable anger and valid accusations. That’s okay! I’m listening and I will help them edit their text into correspondence that will be constructive, not damaging, to their ultimate needs, goals, and interests.

My conflict coaching role often draws upon one or more of the other functions outlined below in conjunction with my knowledge of conflict systems. I aim for a collaborative approach, which helps you build a bigger pie of desirable outcomes. However, I also help you navigate to resolution if the other party isn’t collaborative (whether or not they claim to be). I bring my knowledge of high-conflict personalities (HCPs) to the table, helping to validate your feelings of having been emotionally manipulated and gaslit and aiding in strategies to work with these difficult personalities.

Negotiator & Strategist

Let me help you with . . .

• Collaborative negotiation
• Traditional negotiation
• Exploring possible outcomes
• Navigating HCPs
• Non-collaborative bargainers
• Asserting your needs/interests
• Identifying possible legal leverage
• Managing triggers and stress
• Crafting your negotiation strategy
• Negotiation email/documents

Resolutions for many disputes fall under the umbrella of “negotiation,” even if you’re vying for your needs in a personal relationship. In old school vernacular, we think of negotiation as a push-pull, win-lose, battle of compromise or capitulation. This “fixed pie” may be split in half or one party may walk away with mere crumbs, depending on the innate conflict behaviours and attitudes of both parties.

I use proven, internationally-adopted, collaborative methods pioneered by professors at Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation to help parties better understand one another’s needs, identify common ground, and move through sticking points. In a nutshell, I aim to build a bigger pie.

Using my understanding of high-conflict personalities (HCPs), I adapt tone and tactics; for example, knowing where to pull leverage, consider things like saving face, set boundaries, and lay out objective criteria such as protections under the law. I identify parties for which collaborative negotiation is a poor candidate (such as insurance companies). I also consider whether there will be an ongoing relationship with you and the other party.

When I assist your correspondence, I help you put your needs and best interests forward while navigating the possible defensive triggers for the conflicting party that inhibit resolution. Strong, efficient, respectful, and clear communications drive success.

If you prefer, I negotiate directly with the other party, whether that be your HR department for severance pay, a debtor, or someone else. In this case, you are still involved at every step. You maintain control over your dispute.

Facilitator & Mediator

Let me help you with . . .

• Aid for difficult discussions
• Formal mediation
• Online mediation
• Conversational equality
• Exploring needs and interests
• Proven win-win methodology
• Functional dynamics
• Feeling understood
• Feeling heard
• Relationship dynamics
• Drafting settlement agreements
• Buffering gaslighting/manipulation

Using a proven, collaborative methodology that encourages interest-based, fair, and constructive communication, I guide parties toward positive, goal-oriented dialogue. I act as a neutral facilitator or formal mediator to reduce non-constructive patterns of interactions. I help you establish conversational equality whether your conflict style tends towards avoider, director, or compromiser. I guide parties away from language that provokes defensiveness and towards a respectful exchange where you feel heard. Without judging the validity of emotions, I help you manage them to keep conversations productive and on track.

Rather than debate positions and fling accusations, we’ll explore everyone’s needs and interests, as well as common ground and objective criteria, before mutually brainstorming solutions using a collaborative, “win-win” approach. All parties have the opportunity in a safe space to share what is important to them moving forward.

If any party in mediation exhibits a conflict style consistent with HCPs (such as narcissistic or borderline personality disorder), I work to keep the dialogue balanced, respectful, and free of verbal abuse. Sometimes this requires breaking destructive historical patterns to assure the other party has an equal voice and a safe space.

Mediation allows you to have control of your dispute in a way that lends itself to mutually-beneficial, sustainable solutions. Through participating with an open mind for understanding one another (even if parties don’t agree), creative and well-informed solutions can surface that break free of entrenched positions and a compromising, push-pull mindset.

If parties are in an ongoing business or personal relationship, I can coach you on how to have these difficult conversations in a way that avoids historically nonconstructive patterns.

Unbiased mediators play a strong role in today’s alternative dispute resolution landscape. Not only can it save you the high cost of litigation and make a better outcome within reach, but the legal system is not designed to dig into the roots of your unique dynamics. Mediation is also appropriate for nipping new conflicts in the bud before they snowball.

Whether you are tangled in a debate about a new fence with your neighbour or on the brink of a court battle over a seemingly-intractable estate matter, mediation can help.

Writer & Editor

Let me help you with . . .

• Business email & letters
• Personal email & letters
• Negotiation proposals
• Formal documents
• Requests for mediation
• Victim impact statements
• Executive-level recovery plans
• Resolution proposals
• Workplace complaints
• Reframing inflammatory content
• Dealing with HCPs and gaslighting
• Feeling heard and understood
• Avoiding defensiveness
• Staying on a constructive track

Documentation and Email: I assist you in creating clear, concise written communications that align with your goals and factor in the conflict nature of the recipient(s). To date, I have helped clients with documentation related to personal, professional, and legal (malpractice, personal injury, workplace retaliation, workplace discrimination, and probate) disputes.

When stakes are high—time, money, mental health, physical health, relationships, career—using a misguided tone and verbiage (such as instructing AI to make the tone sound “strong and legal”) can backfire. My education and experience help you achieve the sweet spot based on the layered context of your dispute and psychology of the parties.

When we are entrenched in conflict, the ability to keep correspondence constructive can suffer, especially when one is emotionally charged. Even if you are angry and frustrated, you can feel free to say what you truly want or need to say in your draft email, and I will edit it using language and customized strategies best serve your ultimate goal. Some clients find this process therapeutic.

I operate with the highest standards of discretion. All correspondence must meet with your final approval, and ultimately your voice needs to sound authentic. I work with you, but you have control of your dispute.

Before you press a potentially-regrettable <send>, let me help you refine your communications to decrease the chance of escalation, help you feel heard, drive toward a successful resolution, restore harmony, and create a digital trail that stands up to potential legal scrutiny.