by Ulla Virtanen, TAKK
“Lift the cat on the table”
Workplace conflict is no one’s daydream. And for a Finn, a workplace conflict certainly is something to stay far from and hush about… What if someone is a professional in finding the conflicts and helping to create solutions? Such a person cannot be afraid of the conflicts, but rather be motivated in bringing out the reasons behind the conflicts and mediating the birth of the optimal solution to the cause. As the Finns say: ”Let’s lift the cat on the table” or in proper English, ”Let’s talk about the elephant in the room”. Anxiety of a conflict is like a big dark cloud in the blue sky, cold and heavy on the shoulders and throwing a big shadow on everything.
Work Community Mediator is a training programme starting in TAKK again in the fall 2017. To me, it sounds like a heavy and a wonderful package of mediation competence for the workplace – and life in general. Work Community Mediator is a listener one-of-a-kind. This person is the neutral ground, the one who listens to everything without any leading of the conversation, for both sides. Conflict mediation is not rocket science, but a technique and a skill to learn. Which makes the programme so rewarding!
Just a thought: If conflicts are like cats, we should rather solve them before they become elephants (on the table).
TAKK International 