Mediation Case Study: New on the Team

EU Mediation's case studies aim to explore the types of disputes that mediation can work well for. They are all based on real-life cases that our mediators have carried out.

This entry, which features Marcia and Mikko*, looks at the type of workplace conflict that can occur when new employees join the team.

* Names have been changed for confidentiality and privacy purposes.


The Backstory

Marcia joined the marketing team of a large multinational pharmaceuticals firm in Finland around six months ago. She came from a job heading the sales force in a computer company and had been working in the military prior to that.

In her first few weeks, people found that Marcia’s approach was undoubtedly direct and determinedly task-focussed. She wanted to shake up the current team, as she said that they needed more clarity of roles and more direction, and she especially wanted them to improve data collection and analysis.

Some of the team found Marcia a bit hard to take. She had a tendency to snap at people and to seemingly give orders more than to work collaboratively. The team had been used to discussion and collective decision-making, which was apparently at odds with Marcia’s preferred approach.

Marcia apparently had favourites among the team, and one worker, Mikko, was definitely not one of them. Mikko found that Marcia would shut him down when he spoke, would be dismissive of his ideas and suggestions, and would even ridicule his contributions in team meetings. Things came to a head between them after a tense team meeting, when Marcia asked Mikko to stay behind. According to Mikko, Marcia yelled at him for some things he had said in the meeting and became quite aggressive and even threatening towards him. Mikko walked straight out and went to speak to HR, alleging that Marcia was a bully and a tyrant.

HR spoke to Marcia, who largely denied that there had been anything wrong with her conduct. It was proposed that mediation could help mend the two’s working relationship. However, because some of Mikko’s allegations were quite serious, HR wanted to investigate his claims, including speaking to some others who had witnessed or overheard some of the exchanges between them.

In the end, Marcia did receive a verbal warning about some of her conduct, including about raising her voice, ridiculing Mikko, and treating people unequally. The company wanted her to improve, and gave her guidance about this, including asking her to come to some Conflict Coaching sessions with a member of the HR team. Mediation was then proposed and both agreed to take part.


The Mediation

The external mediator met separately with Mikko and Marcia, with a strict understanding of confidentiality. The two were then brought together. It was clear that both of them had concerns about one another’s conduct, and they had an ideal opportunity to express these things in the mediation session. They spent time exploring some of the critical incidents that had taken place between them and letting one another know about the impact of these.

At the end of the mediation day, the two were able to draw up a brief agreement about how they might conduct themselves differently. The agreement points covered how they would speak and listen better, how they would build more effective collaboration, how they would raise things if there were concerns, and the ways that management instructions should be given, received, and acted upon.

Both agreed that Marcia’s manager could see the final agreement, and that she would be asked to remain in support of the two colleagues to see that the agreement was maintained.


The Conclusion

Marcia continued to work with the Conflict Coach after that, and at the standard follow-up at six weeks post-mediation, both said that things had improved between them and, despite a couple of hiccups, they were optimistic that they were getting the working relationship back on track.


Get in touch

If you have a similar issue within your workplace, or if you would like some advice on whether mediation would be suitable, please get in touch with our team on hello@eumediation.net. Alternatively, you can submit a contact form here.