Case studies
Providing a vocabulary to bridge conflict in high-pressure workplaces
Turning Moment provides mediation, training, coaching and facilitation services that support organisations, businesses, charities and volunteer groups to resolve conflict, reduce complaints and improve well being.
Turning Moment engaged Thomas as they needed a tool that would help them build trust quickly with their clients by helping them to relate to their situation.
Turning Moment
The Challenge
Conducting conflict resolution and mediation for a range of large organisations and charities, Turning Moment’s work is highly sensitive. “You are often dealing with people who are extremely upset, very angry, or sensitive to how they feel and worried about what’s going to happen” says Director of Turning Moment Dave Barrett.
“Something has gone wrong, and for whatever reason people are not able to resolve things normally”, continues Dave. “We have to come into a situation not knowing people, and get up to speed very quickly, so that we are in a position of trust. Ultimately, we need to get people to a point where they understand a dynamic in their relationship. When people have just had enough of each other, it can be very hard to start that process.”
The Solution
“What Thomas does is depersonalise the other person. It enables us to move into territory where we are talking about generalities in how people work”, says Dave. “What I like about Thomas is that it gives me a route in. For me to be successful in my role of supporting people, they have to feel safe and trust me. I use Thomas to accelerate the trust-building process. Quite often I will talk about my PPA profile to people. I will use the principles of the Thomas PPA to help me do that. That helps people to relate to the situation they are in".
"I use a lot of psychometrics in my work but I regularly come back to Thomas because it’s easy to grasp. What I like about Thomas is that it’s simple and it’s very quick. Particularly the PPA but all of [the assessments] really are quick to complete. With psychometrics it can be easy to lose sight of what you’re actually doing. The tool can become an end in itself. Whereas, what we want is to use them to move people’s thinking forwards and change how they feel about things. With Thomas, you can you get people to that place very quickly.”
The Results
Dave comments, “The world has changed. We had our best two years during lockdown, and I think that is because there is more angst in the workplace generally. Quite a lot of conflict is about unconscious patterns. In our work, we help people to see those patterns more clearly. We can use Thomas to help people understand where they are and how to develop their interpersonal skills.”
“I have a coaching session with someone this afternoon and I know by the end of the two-hour session they will have grasped the principles and be able to start thinking about how they relate to people. With other psychometric assessments it can take quite a while for people to understand.”
“By the time someone wants to pay for me to come in me to come in, the conflict has probably been going on for quite some time. A lot of people in persistent conflict at work are miserable. It can have a detrimental effect on their work, wellbeing and colleagues. The reason I do this work is that you can improve their working lives considerably. They go to work feeling better".
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