Get More Time To Work on What You Want

Our Services:
Dispute Resolution, Facilitation, Strategic and Operational Planning, Public Involvement, Issue and Crisis Management, Fact Finding, Training, Process Design, Keynote Speaking, Bonus

Busy executives and professionals are in a position to lead but conflict takes time away from the other work you would like to do.

The Cooperation Company specializes in building collaborations and dispute resolution. When you need people to work together but things are not going well let us take the situation off your ‘To-Do’ list and move it to your ‘Accomplished’ list.

We are former government agency executives and professional mediators who work in teams to help your organization create opportunity from those times when the people around you are not working well together. As executives we know your work environment. As mediators we know how to resolve disputes. Together we know how to get people to work together.

The Cooperation Company is uniquely positioned to do this work. We operate as a neutral third party who knows your work environment but does not have a stake in the outcome. Using us establishes your process as credible. It is an efficient way to work around the skepticism that surrounds efforts to manage this work on your own. By hiring a neutral third party who does not take sides you send the message that people can trust your process because they are creating their own solution. Using this approach means,

	Reducing time and costs to do the work that needs to get done,
	Creating positive instead of adverse publicity,
	Building productive instead of antagonistic relationships, and
	Staying in the leadership position instead of risking loss of control to litigation or others who may be asked to intervene.

The Cooperation Company’s work is founded on the principle that resolving conflict and building collaboration is best achieved through effective communication and joint planning for the future. Deal with your increasingly complex and conflicted work environment by using our services to leverage your limited time into new successes. The Cooperation Company is able to help you with,

Dispute Resolution. When there is a dispute and you need the parties to agree about the way forward, despite their differences, some sort of formal dispute resolution is called for. Normally, all parties must believe the people running the process are impartial and that the discussions are confidential. Choosing which of the following services to use is, largely, a decision about how important it is to rebuild the working relationship among the parties along with getting a definitive decision about the way forward.

Mediation. When your solution must simultaneously find a creative solution and build positive future relations among the people involved we use mediation. These two outcomes are possible because the parties jointly determine the solution instead of having a solution imposed on them. We apply face-to-face, give-and-take meetings to open and improve communication among disputants. We gain their commitment to the process by having them define the agenda. And we ensure a durable solution by having them plan their future, together.

Conciliation. When the issue is small, it is enough for you to just create an agreement to move on, and it is good enough to just keep a positive relationship during the process we use conciliation. We meet separately with parties (usually by phone but occasionally in-person) to resolve their differences through bargaining; most of the time by seeking compromise and concessions. In conciliation the parties seldom, if ever, face each other across a table. We act as an intermediary using the telephone and the Internet for the needed conversations.
 
Settlement Conferences. When the goal is to plainly strike a compromise we use settlement negotiations. The parties are asked to make offers which we broker back and forth until there is a ‘good enough’ agreement—a solution that the parties accept with the stipulation to end the dispute. Normally settlement conferences are not concerned with maintaining a future relationship among the parties. The goal is settling not truly resolving a dispute.

Coaching. When your leaders need to get good at managing conflict or collaboration on their own we use coaching. We work with them to define the objectives they want to achieve and create an accountability framework that ensures progress. We then provide training, support, and advice to improve their effectiveness. We also use inquiry, reflection, requests, and discussion to have these leaders teach themselves from their own work and life experiences. We provide two kinds of coaching when your staff is placed front and center to resolve a dispute on their own; both focusing on ‘How to. . .” advice.

Long-Term Coaching. When a leader or group in your organization wants to gain or improve their skills we use long-term business coaching to help them.

Rapid Response Coaching. When a conflict hits by surprise we help you design a quick intervention to stabilize the situation and get things back on track. We typically use conference calling, e-mailing, and Internet sharing tools to help you analyze your need and devise an immediate intervention strategy.

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Facilitation. You get extra value when you hire us to facilitate meetings. Because we are also mediators you are automatically gaining expertise in dispute resolution should it be needed during the facilitation. We use facilitation when a group needs to co-create a solution. Before the event we spend considerable time with you to define the deliverables needed from your meeting. With you we design a meeting management and facilitation approach and create a detailed agenda. We act as a neutral party to run your meeting(s) so participation is robust and that your meeting does not get side-tracked by off-topic conversations, bogged down with trivia, or dominated by strong personalities. We help you create a comprehensive meeting record to firmly document outcomes. And we typically create a meeting evaluation so you can plan even better meetings next time. 

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Strategic and Operational Planning. When you need to look ahead and get ready for what is coming at you we use planning. When you need to decide what is the right work to do we use strategic planning. When your need is to design how to do the work right we use operational planning. Strategic planning is assessing your working environment for risk and opportunity, defining why you exist as an organization (usually creating mission and vision statements), and identifying what is the right response to these findings (goals and objectives setting). Operational planning is identifying what actions are necessary to carry out the strategic plan, deciding how accountability will occur, and defining what it takes to get the organizational behavior change needed to actually implement the plan.  

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Public Involvement. When it is time for transparent and accessible decision making we use public involvement. If there is a risk that stakeholders will try an end run, try to veto you, or if there is a chance that they will be surprised by your initiatives it is wise to involve them on your terms; otherwise you risk them involving you on their terms. We work with you to set specific public involvement objectives that are consonant with your mission, devise a communication strategy that gets the right information into the right hands at the right time, define and apply the right public involvement techniques and evaluate the process when complete.

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Issue and Crisis Management. When things ‘Go South’ and you need to quickly handle an outcry of anger and minimize risk we use issue and crisis management. We help you design and set up a rapid response capacity that includes a first, emergency response. Next comes creating a secure and credible communication system so you become the best, most reliable source of information, creating a search and selection process for ‘next steps’ after the emergency response, and then creating a long-term strategy to repair any damage that was done to your reputation, credibility, management capacity, etc.

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Fact Finding. When you need a neutral, outside researcher to examine what happened in an unwanted event or to do an evaluation of how well the status quo is working we use fact finding. Through interviewing, document reviews, reporting systems, bench-mark analysis, and Internet sharing tools we gather information, assimilate that information into meaningful patterns, and report our findings in accord with your objectives. Reporting is usually confidential to the executive who hires us but it can be an open record as needed.

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Training. When you want to transfer any of the skills above to larger segments of your work force we use training. Using adult learning principles and participant-centered curricula we teach principles and techniques your staff can use to succeed with the situations described above. 

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Process Design. When you want your staff to do any of the work described above but they need assistance getting started we use process design consultation. We work with your staff to, essentially, create written strategic and operational plans for the chosen task; emphasizing their role as leader of the activity. We remain available to coach and teach your staff during implementation should there be a need or if a change in circumstances dictates a need for large-scale revision of the process design. 

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Keynote Speaking – When you need to motivate your staff so they rise to the challenges in your work environment we use keynote speaking. Our most popular keynotes are,

• Leaving Your Mark—Managing Your Career to Achieve Great Outcomes
• Creating Better Futures—Conflict Resolution Skills Every Professional Should Know
• Staying On Message—Public Speaking When the Heat Is On
• Be Memorable and Be Quotable—How to Handle the Media Interview
• Staying Cool Under Pressure—Successful Issue and Crisis Management Skills
• Bonus — Use us for breakout sessions. Clients often take advantage of our presence to deliver a keynote to also present or moderate a breakout session at the same meeting.

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