IDRS’ Training Workshops on Communication, Decision-Making, and Conflict Resolution
IDRS offers a series of leadership training workshops that are designed to improve people’s ability to communicate with one another, to collaborate in decision-making and to manage and resolve their disagreements in a constructive and mutually satisfying (win-win) manner. These competencies are essential in an increasingly culturally diverse work force and society.
This series of workshops consists of the following: (a) Intercultural Communication & Negotiation Skills and Processes; (b) Advanced Negotiation Skills & Team Preparation; (c) Mediation/Peacemaking Skills & Processes; and (d) Advanced Mediation & Certification Training
In each IDRS workshop, instructional strategies are interactive and may include mini-lectures, demonstrations by trainers, small group discussions, simulations, role-plays, self-administered questionnaires and instructional videos. A high degree of emphasis is placed on experiential learning. We believe practicing the new skills under the trainer’s watchful eye will reinforce each individual’s understanding of the concepts taught in each course.
Intercultural Communication & Negotiation Skills Workshop
We like to say that this workshop prepares people to get more of what they want, more often. But it is not about banging someone on the head and forcing them to “agree” to your demands. People will agree when they see that is in their interest to do so. Your job is to practice your powers of persuasion while also listening to what the other side’s interests are, and proposing ways to satisfy those interests while not sacrificing your own vital interests.
The segment on “intercultural” communications does not focus on any one culture but rather provides “tools” for dealing effectively with all cultural differences, defined broadly to include ethnic differences and differences in religion, gender, generation, education, income, social status, historical experiences, etc,
This three-day workshop promotes age-old concepts of consensus-building that Indian tribes and other traditional societies utilized for thousands of years to support what is today called “win-win” decision-making. You will learn how to: talk and listen respectfully; persuade and convince and influence; define a negotiation process which is safe and predictable; identify interests, issues and proposals; defuse anger and disruptive behavior; identify common ground; break impasse; identify power resources and create leverage; advance and exchange proposals; and craft agreements that are fair, lasting and enforceable.
The workshop is for everyone at all levels of the community and organization. The skills learned will improve communication and decision-making in the family, in the workplace, in an organization and in government. This workshop is a prerequisite to the Advanced Negotiation Skills Workshop, as well as the Mediation and Peacemaking Workshop (described below) that IDRS also offers.
Advanced Negotiation Skills & Team Preparation
This three-day workshop is designed to help prepare tribes, agencies and other organizations that are preparing to enter negotiations with another entity. IDRS trainers/coaches help the organization properly prepare prior to the face-to-face negotiation sessions, operate effectively during the negotiation process, and successfully bring closure (agreement) to the process. This includes working with the organization’s leaders in: identifying interests, assembling a well balanced and representative negotiation team, defining team roles, developing consensus and a system for communications within the team, facilitating preliminary and regular strategy meetings between the negotiation team and the organization’s final decision-makers, developing proposals for agenda items and procedural ground rules, developing a series of alternative substantive proposals and supportive data/rationale that justify these, and crafting a negotiation strategy that maximizes the organization’s potential leverage.
Mediation /Peacemaking Skills & Processes
This intensive three-day workshop is designed to build on the lessons learned in the Communication and Negotiation workshop. The training focuses on how, as an impartial third party, to minimize, manage and resolve differences among other people. The training offers new perspectives and skills on how to enlist and engage people in collaborative problem-solving; take ownership of the problem, process and solutions; break down complex problems into manageable parts; get parties to identify their interests in ways that can be satisfied; separate substantive from emotional issues; create settings that lend themselves to open and respectful discussion; generate options; and formulate agreements which are explicit, fair, legal, enforceable and lasting.
This workshop is intended to train mediators. However, it is also designed to teach people mediating skills. It is particularly useful to people who work in intermediary roles (e.g. directors, department and program managers, personnel specialists or committee or Board Chairs), who must balance differences among competing interests and get people to work effectively together. Reconciling the differences between staff members, departments, Management, Boards and the community is but one example. The skills and techniques taught in the workshop are also useful to department managers and line supervisors who must manage and resolve employee grievances and disputes in the workplace. Completing this workshop is a prerequisite to taking the Advanced Mediation Workshop.
Advanced Mediator & Certification Training
This three-day workshop is for people who have completed the first two workshops and have decided that they would like to become certified and placed by IDRS on its Panel of Professional Mediators.
This workshop builds on the negotiation and mediation principles and concepts that are learned in the preceding workshops. Primary emphasis is on obtaining more practice with more complex and challenging role-plays and direct feedback from experienced mediators who serve as trainers and coaches during the training. A segment of the advanced training deals with “ethics of a mediator” and provides up-dates on state laws that address disclosure, confidentiality and other issues pertaining to mediation.
How Do You Arrange For IDRS To Conduct Training Workshops In Your Community and Organization?
Call the IDRS office in Sacramento and speak to one of the trainers:
- The trainer will ask you to describe your training needs, the number of people you would like to participate in the training, the number of days and sessions you are interested in, when and where you would like to schedule the training.
- The trainer will discuss a variety of options we have to tailor the training to your specific needs, what we can cover in the amount of time you want to spend, the availability of our trainers in the upcoming months, and a “ball-park” cost figure for trainers’ fees and travel costs.
- The trainer will follow up on the telephone conversation with a letter outlining the parameters of the training workshop(s) as we understand them, specific dates available, along with a proposed budget.
- Once you have decided to enlist IDRS to conduct the Skills Training Workshop(s), the Executive Director will send a proposed contract for services requesting your signature and a retainer of 25% of the total budget amount.