Workplace Mediation

Conflict is generally most beneficial when the emphasis is on issues and problem-solving, and most detrimental when focused on personalities and competition. If fair rules of conflict are followed in combination with flexibility, a concern for others and an emphasis on finding solutions, conflict can be beneficial. The goal of conflict management is to minimize the occurrence and escalation of harmful conflict while allowing the useful forms of conflict to unfold.

How can this goal be achieved? Some behavioral responses to conflict, whether occurring at the earliest stages or after the conflict develops, can be thought of as constructive. These constructive responses have the effect of not escalating the conflict further. They tend to reduce the tension and keep the conflict focused on ideas rather than personalities. Destructive responses, on the other hand, tend to make things worse; they do little to reduce the conflict and allow it to focus on personalities. If conflict can be thought of as a fire, then constructive responses help put the fire out, while destructive responses fan the flames. Obviously, it is better to respond to conflict with constructive rather than destructive responses.

It is also useful to view responses to conflict not simply as constructive or destructive, but as differing in terms of how active or passive they are. Active responses are those in which the individual takes some overt action in response to the conflict or provocation. Such responses can be either constructive or destructive; what makes them active is that they require some overt effort on the part of the individual. 

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During Conflict remind yourself:

• It is not “me against you” but “us against the problem.”
• Our goal is not to win and lose, but to win and win.

Playback - Walk the group through scenarios where they are an outsider observing or the behavior is happening to them. Freeze scenes to freeze the action and discuss what is happening. Give students the opportunity to step into the role of the observer or one of the characters in conflict.

·         Scenarios – Repeat the exercise above across several different pre-chosen and scripted scenarios.

Support

1.    Comic Book Ad Exec  - We need a new hero. Someone new, that noone has ever seen before. But what kind of hero - what could their power be? [tap a kid, wait for answer, repeat it and go nuts with cheering] Yes, they _____, and they also [tap another kid, cheer]. So they ___ & ______ but what could we call them? [tap a kid, cheer] Yes - of course, _____. So they are named ________ and their powers are _______ & _________. So what shoud we call the comic book? [tap, cheer]. Yes, and we should make it a movie - who could play them in the movie [tap, cheer]. Absolutely - we have (title of the book/movie) featuring (the name of the hero) who has the powers of (name them) and the movie will star (name them). YES! This will be a huge hit - you save the day! [lead a giant cheer and guide them back their seats].

The key to conflict resolution is creating solutions to the problem. This could involved brainstorming to generate new ideas, devising creative responses to the conflict, or engaging others in the search for solutions. Although creating and agreeing on solutions requires time, energy and the cooperation of the other party, the benefits of conflict resolution for all involved and the organization as a whole are worth the efforts.

Before starting the conflict resolution process, however, it is necessary to establish the root of the conflict. That is, what are the underlying (usually unmentioned issues) issues at the center of the storm. One’s need for power, control, self-esteem, or revenge are often the real issues. One of the first steps then to conflict resolution us understanding what motivates one’s self as well as others and uncovering alternative ways to meet needs.

Anti-Bullying Outline

When you arrive at the school greet the admin staff & the contact person who hired FST (often

a rep of a parent committee). Find out if there are any pressing issues at the school around

bulling and ask what language, if any, they use to discuss bullying. What style of school is

this? Responsive classroom? Traditional authoritarian setting (children are at individual desks,

are only called upon to answer questions rather than offer ideas)? Montessori? Find out the

philosophy or mission of the school

Room set up: Have the students sit on the floor leaving enough room for you all the play. Try

to ensure the students are looking just at your playing area (avoid having windows behind you,

make sure they are not leaning on anything like cabinets that could distract them). Introduce

yourself to the classroom teachers as they come in.

Step 1: Into to Improv

Have someone (principal, parent rep or classroom teacher) intro you all. If they don’t know

what to say have them say something like “We are very lucky to have a group of actors from

FST who are here today to talk to us about something very serious, bulllying”.

Come out and welcome them: We are from FST! I’m _____ & this is _____ we

are performers at the FST theater in Cambridge. We are comedians who perform

improvisation. Has anyone here ever heard of improvisation?

Let the kids give you a quick definition

That’s right - we make it up as we go along, and in order to do that we’ll need your help.

Throughout our time together today we are going to be coming to you for suggestions, when

we do just raise your hand and we’ll call on the folks who are being polite and great listeners.

Let’s try it: What did you have for breakfast today (call on 3-5 kids who are quite & raising their

hands). Great, now another one: What is your name? (call on as many kids as you want).

Awesome - most of those answers were different, and all of them are right - we could use any

of those things to inspire our scenes. At other times during our time together today we will

need volunteers to come up here and help out. If you want to come up just raise your hand and

we will get to as many of you as we can. So to get started, we want to show you how improv

works. We’re going to do some scenes for you, hopefully they’ll be funny so feel free to laugh!

To inspire our scenes tell me something someone did last night at home (or whatever you want

to get as an input).

Do a series of open scenes - about 3-5 scenes. They should be fast like 10 scenes about and

go out on a laugh. These are NOT about bullying, they are about showing them how improv

works and getting us street cred with the kids. Be funny.

Call scene and then recap: Awesome! Whenever we do shows people always ask if it is really

made up. They ask, “how can you do that with no script? How does it make sense?”. The

reason we can do that is because we have agreed to work as a team - we have agreed to

support one another. Who can tell me what support is?

Get definition of support. We are leading them from small answers to broader ones. Eventually

we want to recap by re-stating their correct answers (helping one another, being a good friend,

being there for someone - whatever they say) and then summing it up by saying: Support is

all of those things, it is about being kind, and respectful. The reason improv works is that

we agree to support one another. We agree to support each other as people, support

each other’s differences, and to support each other’s ideas. It works for improv, and we

believe that it can work here. If you all agree to support one another - to be kind and respectful

to one another - then this behavior we call bullying won’t have a chance to start.

So who can tell me what bullying is?

Get definition of bullying. Again, start small and get broader. Sum up by recapping their

answers (picking on people, hurting people’s feelings, hurting someone, being mean, whatever

they say) and then say: Exactly, bulling is all of those things, and all of it is about two

things, cruelty and power. Bullying is about being cruel on purpose, and wanting to have all

the power in a situation. It is about being mean, knowing you are being mean, and doing it even

though you know you shouldn’t.

Optional exercise: Have the kids stand up. Ask them to move to the left side of the room if

they’ve ever felt bullied. Ask them to move to the right side of the room if they ever bullied

someone. If nobody moves to the side of folks who have bullied talk about that. So some of

you feel like you’ve been picked on - we know it’s happening, but nobody thinks they are the

ones doing it - sometimes we don’t even realize we’re the problem, but we know it is coming

from somewhere. If someone is brave enough to go over to that side, praise them for being that

honest, and then say - there are much more of you on the other side of the room. Look at that.

Those of you over here should realize that you aren’t alone, and that you have lots of people

who can help you. And if you are the person on the “bullying” side, realize how it feels to have

all those ohter people over there, wouldn’t it be better to be on that side, the side where people

are supporting one another and helping each other out?

Today we want to talk about how each of you can choose today to support one another

and to make a choice to support kindness and respect instead of cruelty.

Step 2: Show them bullying:

Have any of you ever felt like you were being bullied? I know I have (raise your hand). It

doesn’t feel good does it? We want to show you what it looks like when someone is getting

bullied. This isn’t fun for us, or funny, but we think its important. So I need my friend ______

to agree to be picked on right now. Now, in real life we are all friends, but for these next few

minutes I am going to do our best to make my friend feel terrible. We are actors, but we are

doing this for real. Here we go. [play this as real as you can without scaring the kids. You don’t

want to use bad words but you do need to make this real for the kids, really let into the person

you are picking on. The idea is to make everyone feel uncomfortable. Don’t yell, but rather be

mean, you can even get physical like shoving if you think the kids can handle it - like for older

grades. When you have heightened enough that you feel it is over (the person will usually have

given up talking and look really desperate by then) call the scene. [I usually hug it out then]

How does everyone feel? Does that feel good? I know I don’t feel good. [ask the person who

was picked on how they feel].

What did you all notice about them? How did they change during that scene?

[let the kids tell you a few things - they looked sad, they looked scared, etc. then ask them to

explain how we could tell they were feeling that way - how did they LOOK? point out how they

changed physically - how they moved differently, etc.]

So now we know what it looks like when someone is being bullied. So if you see that

happening in your classroom, at recess, wherever you are - you know someone is in

trouble. What can you do to support that person?

[lead the kids to three answers: Go over there and stick up for your friend, Go over there and

get your friend and walk away, Get a grownup]

That’s right - you can support your friend - you can be a good friend - by doing one of

three things: Walk over and defend them - hey, leave my friend alone. You can walk over

and help them move away - say “Do you want to come over here and play”, and if it looks really

serious, or if folks are getting physical Get a grownup right away.

What could the person do that is getting bullied? My friend just stood here - why? [ask the

person you just picked on]. Sometimes people are too scared to move, or they think it won’t

help to walk way. What could you do if this is happening to you?

[ask the kids, let them give ideas leading to three key things: Say something (defend yourself),

walk away, get a grownup]

That’s right - there are 3 simple things you can do if you are in that situation: The first

one is Say Something. There is research that says that more than 50% of kids who were

picking on someone say they didn’t know they were hurting someone’s feelings. More

than half of the kids that pick on other kids don’t realize they are doing it. That means than

more that half the time, if you just say something, it will stop. More than half the time just saying

something like, “I don’t like that” or “You’re hurting my feelings” will stop it right there.

If that doesn’t work - walk away. I know it’s hard, and it takes a lot of courage to walk

away, but it is the next best step.

And if that still doesn’t work, get a grownup. Look around. The grownups in this room are

here to keep you safe. They want you to feel safe, secure and comfortable while you are here.

If you don’t feel that way, tell them. They are on your team and they can help.

Step 3: Let them Stop the Bullying:

So now we know what bullying looks like and we have some simple things we can do if

it happens. So I need some help. I need one person to come up here and help us out.

[pick a grown up for this first one - a teacher or parent in the room so they can demonstrate for

the kids how this should go - then we can use a kid next time].

Great - what’s your name? Okay, my friend & I are going to do a scene, and when you feel

like their behavior has crossed a line - has become bullying - I need you to stop them by

clapping really loud [demonstrate]. Can you try that for me? Awesome. So when you stop

them, my friends will have to make a new choice, and I’ll help you out if you need it. To get

them started what is something that you love to do in school [ask the crowd. Start the scene.

This is played like Shoulda Said. The actors make a new choice when they are stopped. If the

volunteer doesn’t stop at a point that is clearly bullying stop the scene and go over to them and

ask “was that okay?”, “why didn’t you clap?” and remind them they are in control of stopping this

behavior. This should be fast, they get the idea quickly. So no more than 2 minutes]

Awesome - thanks so much - big round of applause for _____ [guide them back to their seat]

So who can tell me some things they say in that scene that were NOT okay?

[let them tell you, discuss why they weren’t okay]

Okay - so it is pretty easy for us to stand up here and clap to stop the scene - the world

stops and then we get to make a new choice. Does that happen in real life? No. In real life

we don’t get to clap and have everyone stop. But we DO get to make new choices. Each

one of you has the power to choose to be supportive, to choose to be kind, to choose

not to be cruel. Your choices are what makes the difference. And if you slip and say

something or do something you shoudn’t - you can’t clap and stop the world, but you

can choose to make it better. You can choose to stop, you can choose to apoligize.

And for everyone else who sees this happening: you can choose to do something. You

can choose to stop it, to support a friend, and you can all choose to not let this cruel

behavior go on at your school.

Step 4: Let them hear from a bully & a victim:

I believe that no kid gets up in the morning and decides to go to school and be mean. I

just don’t think it happens. I believe that you all are great kids and that you don’t mean

for this stuff to happen. Things get out of control. And when that happens I always

wonder how we got there - what were people thinking. In this next exercise we’re going to

hear what people are thinking when they get into these situations.

So I need another volunteer. [choose one a kid who can handle this - they will have to be able to

clap and then point to who they want to hear from] Okay, you are going to do the same thing we

saw earlier - when you see behavior you don’t like clap [practice]. But this time, you can choose

which person you would like to hear from to find out what they’re thinking.

[the goal here is not resolution, it is supposed to get worse. when you are stopped and asked,

explain your thoughts in real words and feelings - how did you get there, why did you say or do

those things, what was your motivation? the person working with the student will call scene, but

if it is going on too long call it - remember these have to move fast - don’t let conflict simmer -

get it out there at the top]

Great job ______ [guide them back to their seat]. Who can tell me some things they noticed

[get a few brief comments]

So it is easy to see how quickly things can go from being fine, to getting out of control.

Neither of them meant for it to get that far, but it happened. You all realized that stuff wasn’t

okay.

Step 5: Let them make better choices:

You see and hear when things aren’t right, so now let’s help my friends make better

choices. I need another volunteer. [choose one, explain the clap] but this time, when we

freeze them, you and your friends are going to help us make better choices [assign the other

actor who hasn’t done this yet to work with the student. Get an inspiration for the scene. When

you are frozen they will give you a new choice to resolve the conflict. you have to keep creating

new conflict withing the scene so they can keep correcting you. this one should resolve.]

Awesome job! [guide them back to their seat].

Okay - so we’ve seen this behavior, we heard what causes this behavior - what the people are

thinking, and we have all had a chance to give us better choices.

Step 6: Recap

You guys know what this behavior is, so you know what it looks like. So who remembers

what we can do it we are in this situation? [let them answer we are looking for the three that we

said earlier then recap] That’s right: Say something, walk away, and get a grownup.

And what can we do if we see this happening to someone else? [Let them answer then

recap] That’s right - Walk over and defend your friend, walk over and help your friend walk

away, and get a grownup.

Each of you can decide today to make a difference. Each of you can decide today to

choose support over cruelty. And if you do that - if you all make a pledge today to

support one another - we won’t have to worry about this bullying behavior anymore.

Make this a place of support and you will have a bully free zone. I know you guys can do

that.

Optional: if there is time do the superhero game

If there is not time: Thank you so much everyone - you all have done a great job - give

yourselves a round of applause!

Step 7: Show them what Support feels like:

Comic Book Factory: [this is a cross between Ad Exec and Pillars] We’ve talked a lot about

support today and we want to show you how good it feels when someone is really supporting

you. So I need three volunteers [choose them]. For this scene you all are going to help us

out. We make comic books but we need your help. For this scene you all are going to help us

find the newest, best superhero for our comic book. Whatever you say (make it appropriate for

school) will be right - there are no wrong answers. And when you give us your answer we’ll let

you know it is right by cheering and applauding - we are going to go nuts. [to audience] Your

job is to cheer like this is the best idea you have heard in your lives - every idea is awesome!

Let’s try it [lead them in a wild cheer].

Great, so here we go.

Okay guys, comic book sales are dismal, and if we don’t come up with a new comic book

character soon we’ll have to shut down. We need a new hero. Someone new, that noone has

ever seen before. But what kind of hero - what could their power be? [tap a kid, wait for answer,

repeat it and go nuts with cheering] Yes, they _____, and they also [tap another kid, cheer]. So

they ___ & ______ but what could we call them? [tap a kid, cheer] Yes - of course, _____. So

they are named ________ and their powers are _______ & _________. So what shoud we

call the comic book? [tap, cheer]. Yes, and we should make it a movie - who could play them in

the movie [tap, cheer]. Absolutely - we have (title of the book/movie) featuring (the name of the

hero) who has the powers of (name them) and the movie will star (name them). YES! This will

be a huge hit - you save the day! [lead a giant cheer and guide them back their seats].

So how did that feel? It feels pretty great when you know you are supported, right? Did you

all feel how much fun that was and how great that felt? When you choose support that is the

kind of classroom you all can have - you can all feel that good every day.

Choose support over cruelty and you will have more fun, have more friends, and have a

better year - and we know you all can do that! Thank you so much, you guys have been

great - give yourself a round of applause!

Emotional State Cues

• Facial Expressions
• Difficulty staying in control
• Avoiding Eye Contact
• Tone of Voice
• Body Posture

Directly acknowledge other’s emotions

• Never say one is wrong to feel the way they are feeling
• Encourage the other person to express their feelings
• Express your sincere desire to understand
• Be accepting and respectful

Before speaking, be sure the emotions are worth expressing

• Will expressing my emotions be beneficial to the conflict resolution process?
• Am I providing the other person with useful information about how I feel and why?
• Once expressed, is there something that the other person can do about how I feel?

Confront the conflict constructively

• Communicate frankly and openly with the other person.
• Show your sincere desire to resolve the conflict.
• Address the problem. Be Direct but not aggressive.
• Work with the other person to resolve it.

New Choice

New Choice is an easy short form game to play and it explores making ‘new

choices’ during a scene. This game requires two improvisers and a facilitator. It is also

possible to play have a walk-on or another improviser enter half-way through the scene

to change the dynamics. To begin get an ask-for to inspire the scene. This can be a

location, object, role, line of script, theme, occupation, or anything else the improvisers

can explore to derive the content of the scene. Typically, the ask-for or audience suggestion provides the improvisers with a starting point just as ECM is designed to

orient elicitive workers in applied conflict work and keep the participants on the same

page (Innsbruck, 2014). In addition, the suggestion provided is used to demonstrate the

content was not preplanned and elicits the topic from the group. The content is

autobiographical and reflects the state of the group. The two performers begin the scene

and at any time the facilitator can call-out “new choice” and the last word, expression,

sentence, movement or choice that took place should be altered in some way. The

facilitator has control to decide the number of times new choice is said in a row or the

frequency, as well as the item in question. When the facilitator stops calling “new

choice” the performers continue the scene in the direction of the last choice made as if

the previous choices did not happen, and the scene continues. The possibilities of new

choices can differ in subtle ways or take the scene in a completely different direction.

The creative aspect is exploring different directions or choices in which a person could

act. Elicitive conflict transformation seeks to increase the number of viable options a

person perceives and can act on. The improviser’s “limit-situation” presents a moment

to make “limit act” choices (Freire, 2000: 99). I used to play several variation of this

game for example, ‘more specific/less specific’ or focusing in on any particular variable

which can be modified. The idea is to generate creative options in any situation. Short

form games are often 3-7 minutes in length.

Dynamic Conflict Resolution

• Balance your position with an acknowledgement of common ground
• Agree to Disagree, Establish where disagreements can co-exist.
• Brainstorm to create solutions that are advantageous to everyone concerned.
• Select solutions that best meet all parties’ needs.

Brainstorm every possible Solution

• List every idea no matter how unrealistic. Do not evaluate them, just list them.
• Expand on each other’s ideas
• Have some fun! Developing and exploring silly solution will create laughter, reduce tension, and contribute to a positive atmosphere.

Evaluate the Alternatives

• Use the pros and cons
• Avoid Winners and Losers. Select the outcome which most effectively serves the organization
• Be willing to compromise. Remember: you’re looking for a solution, not a victory.
• Establish what needs to be done in order to implement the solution (who will do what, when, where, and how).
• Share the decision making.