Coaching

Great question! Just as in sports, coaches may be hired by individuals seeking to improve performance in a specific area to achieve personal or professional goals as well as by organizations seeking to improve team or individual functioning. Outside of sports, coaching is applied to a number of areas:

1. performance management (individual or group)
2. conflict situations
3. leadership capacity building
4. communications
5. interpersonal relations
6. team functioning
7. preparing for mediation
8. preparing for difficult conversations
9. and, many more

1. coaching is a structured process designed to help the individual accomplish any goal identified
2. it is a time-specific, action- and results-oriented process
3. the client, or coachee, identifies the goal(s) to be achieved during the coaching relationship
4. the coach keeps the client, or coachee, focused on behaviors that achieve the desired results

1. It's easy!
2. Just click here to complete the Coaching Intake Form and send to register@relationshipsthatmatter.com to schedule your initial consultation
3. Package plans are available and customizable to fit your needs
4. Coaching sessions are available live, via videoconference, and by telephone.

Mediation

1. The door is wide open here!
2. Just about anything can be brought to mediation when two or more people are challenged in their communications regarding an issue or issues that have become problems in their relationship, whether it’s in a business deal, at work, in the home, or in the community.
3. Mediation is a structured process facilitated by an impartial, third-party professional equipped to help participants navigate through difficult situations.
4. Mediation can be applied to almost anything but here are a few examples:
1. Family Matters: relationships trying to stay together, marriages moving towards separation and/or divorce, parenting plans post-separation and divorce, parent-teen relations, elder care, estate issues, and family business
2. Workplace Matters: employee relations, performance management issues, time and attendance, workload, group or team functioning, employee-management relations
3. Real Estate/Property:
4. Business to Business: customer relations, business partners, commercial disputes, personal injury, auto accidents, and much more

1. Mediation addresses both legal and non-legal issues. For non-legal issues, mediation can help address misunderstandings, miscommunications, and allegations that may not arise to the level of a legal or compliance issue. For legal issues, mediation may be mandated or entered into voluntarily
2. In today’s legal system, mediation is often used as a voluntary or mandated option available to parties as a means of trying to resolve issues between them, with or without legal guidance, before a judge, jury or arbitrator makes the decision for them. It’s routinely used as a required step in Family Law, Civil Cases and even Criminal Cases, particularly in the juvenile arena.
3. Mediation is a process that empowers the individuals in conflict to reach agreements for resolution between them, with the guidance of a qualified mediator, without having a decision imposed upon them as it would be if the matter went before a judge, arbitrator or jury.

1. This is a frequently asked question, so a good one!
2. Whether or not mediation is binding largely depends on the venue in which mediation is being conducted.
3. Having said that, what research shows is that the notion of “binding” has little to do with the success of the agreement being adhered to. Because parties in mediation generate options for agreements that they have identified and to which they mutually agree, the “success” of mediated agreements is far greater than agreements or decisions reached through arbitration where “binding” is attached.

1. Oftentimes, people are not quite sure of what to expect in mediation. First, the mediator does NOT make any decisions for the parties; the parties are responsible for reaching agreements to reach resolution of the issue(s).
2. The mediator will guide the parties through a structured discussion, often involving four or five stages like a road map for a conversational journey with a beginning and an end with some vista points along the way.
3. A mediation may last from a couple of hours up to several hours. Some may take only one session while others may need several sessions, the duration and number of sessions largely depending on the type of case and complexity of issues.
4. Workplace, Personal Injury and Landlord-Tenant issues are oftentimes characterized as single event mediations while Parenting, Divorce, or complex Business matters may require several sessions.
5. Most mediators, or their designated representatives, will conduct a pre-mediation session with each of the parties involved to prepare the parties to maximize their participation in the mediation event.
6. Most mediators, or their designated representatives, will also conduct a post-mediation follow-up with each of the parties to oversee their success in following through the mediated agreement, OR to generate options to revisit the issue(s) if the first attempt(s) at mediation were not successful in reaching agreement.

1. As noted above, any topic(s) or issue(s) may be presented for discussion at mediation.
2. But what facilitates the success of mediation is when each of the parties is able to clearly and succinctly articulate the issue(s), as they see it, needing resolution. This is where pre-mediation coaching can be particularly helpful to parties by a qualified conflict coach who is someone other than the mediator.
3. One of the hallmarks of mediation that makes it so successful is the element of confidentiality. Essentially, the mediator is bound by confidentiality as defined by state and local statutes that what is said in mediation remains confidential, aka “what happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas”. To support this notion, any and all parties engaging in mediation are asked to commit to confidentiality by signing a “Consent to Mediation” form. This creates an environment in which the parties feel they can openly and honestly address the issues before them without fear of retribution or other action taken against them.
4. Exceptions to confidentiality do exist as it pertains to the following:
1. fraud, waste, and abuse
2. threats of harm to another person
5. With the element of “confidentiality” in place with mediation, mediation has been proven effective in 80-90% when used to resolve conflicts or disputes between parties.

Counseling/Therapy

1. Any person has the potential to benefit from counseling. Through counseling and/or therapy, individuals have the opportunity to explore those issues that present challenge to them and explore how to reconcile those challenges through a variety of techniques and opportunities.

1. By law, a client (patient) is entitled to “confidentiality” when engaging the services of a licensed therapist.
2. Exceptions to confidentiality do exist and pertain to issues around the following:
1. child abuse
2. elder abuse
3. domestic violence
4. threats of harm to another person
5. fraud, waste or abuse

1. Good question!
2. Therapy technically involves a diagnostic process following the DSM IV guidelines that results in a diagnosis of the condition presented by the client, that may be used for insurance reimbursement purposes and authorization for certain treatment protocols. Therapy tends to be longer term in duration.
3. Counseling is applicable to the day-to-day challenges that develop in relationships at work, in business, at home or in the community.