Is your organization or work unit as high functioning as it could be? Are there tensions simmering beneath the surface, or even bursting out in the open? Unresolved conflict saps energy, kills morale, and leads to cynical attitudes, high turnover, or counting days to retirement. As an expert in both conflict resolution and group facilitation, Suzanne works within and between groups so they can improve collaboration, communicate effectively, reach optimal decisions (even on complex issues), and maintain or rebuild trust.
She starts by conducting an assessment involving individual or group interviews and review of relevant information. The interviews often help relieve emotional tensions and get participants opening their perspectives. The assessment enables Suzanne to identify and frame the issues and build an agenda. She then facilitates dialogue and decision making to solve problems, set up collaboration mechanisms as needed, improve working relationships, and help all involved work together productively. She has facilitated leadership retreats, strategic planning, problem-solving and prioritization sessions, and mediated differences within teams as well as between units that have to collaborate closely.
While Suzanne can help any kind of organization, she has the most experience with the following:
Federal government agencies*: Despite the wealth of smart, capable federal employees who usually work together well, problems can arise. These can stem from bureaucratic complexity, overlapping or conflicting mandates, new laws and regulations, the need to coordinate across “silos,” the tendency to work around difficult individuals (creating dysfunctional patterns), changes of administration, loss of institutional memory, and public and media scrutiny. Suzanne has helped bring about sound decisions, solid plans, and effective working relations in the midst of these challenges.
Academic faculties and administrators: Faculty members are highly autonomous, for good reasons. Most will say they just want to carry on their research and teaching and stay out of management issues, but in reality, if they are not happy with a decision, they can stand in the way. Moreover, while scholars don’t need supervision per se, leadership in this arena is actually harder: the leader has to build consensus and cohesion so that the department or program can move forward in a unified direction. Suzanne has helped faculty groups and administrators tackle management issues and disagreements so that all can focus back on their core work of generating knowledge and educating students.
Professional service firms: As with universities, service firms such as medical practices, law firms, and consultancies have highly autonomous partners and associates who mostly say they want to focus on their client work. They are under constant pressure to maintain billable hours or revenue targets. But some management issues are inevitable, such as determining the firm’s strategic direction, identifying what kinds of clients or projects merit investment of marketing resources, determining priorities in hiring, allocating compensation and rewards for performance, and providing opportunities for junior practitioners to grow. Any of these can generate disagreement and discord. Suzanne has helped a variety of service firms reach the necessary degree of consensus so that the firm can move forward with a unified sense of direction.
Nonprofit organizations: People who choose nonprofit careers are passionate about the cause they stand for or the services they provide. They have chosen to prioritize these in their lives over making money. Yet nonprofits are hardly immune to breakdowns in communication, trust, and cooperation over the full range of issues from purity of the organization’s stance toward the cause to compensation and supervisory practices. In fact, these challenges may be even harder in the nonprofit arena, where expectations for self-sacrifice are high and where the ethic of service may bump up against the demands for financial sustainability. Suzanne has helped nonprofits make decisions and solve problems in ways that take account of realities while staying true to core values and enabling staff to work together effectively in serving the mission.
K-12 education: While teachers’ unions provide procedures for collective bargaining and grievances, most school districts have no established mechanisms for handling disagreements among staff, or between staff and parents. Suzanne can help resolve these uncomfortable tensions, and can also provide facilitation for collaborative decision making around policy changes or initiatives at the district level. She also has been working with the Conflict Center as a contract instructor for restorative practices, and can blend these practices with her vast facilitation and mediation toolkit as needed for work with adults.
*Ghais Mediation & Facilitation, LLC, is registered in SAMS as a woman-owned, small business and accepts credit card payments. Most projects can be done within the current limit for micro purchases.
“Suzanne offered reflective analysis and constructive interventions that have helped our organization to grow and thrive.”–Nick Saenz, Board President, Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area
“Thank you so much for your masterful facilitation of our retreat. It had to be a challenge to make this work in a telework environment, but you hit the home run. The multi-media presentation and your ability to keep the conversation on point with comments and questions were great.” –Analyst, a US federal agency
“Suzanne was adept at listening and working with individual concerns, while facilitating the entire group toward a common vision and practical ways of working together.” –Patrick Myers, Park Ranger, National Park Service