Wish your team could JUST WORK TOGETHER instead of finding fault with each other?

Lower Stress, Happier Workplace & Higher Performance (In a Box)

Get the simple and effective solution for teams to self-manage conflicts and create a collaborative workplace!

Watching yet another meeting or project stumble and stall under the weight of niggling conflicts is an excruciating experience. 

When you’ve spent most of your day suppressing your own frustration to manage the frustrations of others — and all you’ve gotten done so far is to try to repair the cracks in team relationships, never mind make progress on resolving the conflict itself — it’s stressful for your team and it’s stressful for you. 

On bad days, it’s exhausting. Like you could burn out just from this alone, without touching on the rest of your duties. Even on good days, there are a few sore spots between team members that need to be soothed.

You could all be so much more relaxed, more collaborative, and more productive if only those conflicts were easier to defuse.

Or better yet, if they never got to be a big problem in the first place and your team could get out in front of those tiny issues before they blistered into conflicts that require an intervention!

If you’re thinking, “Yeah, right,” or “I wish…” then I’m here to tell you it IS possible. 

Your team can resolve their own conflicts, and even use them to generate better solutions to problems within a project or in the workplace as a whole.

It’s achievable, and not too hard to do once you and your team have the right tools and instructions.

Broken Trust & Broken Logic 

One of the most profoundly helpful principles I’ve shared with every team I’ve helped is that when trust breaks down, we typically make negative assumptions about other people’s motivations, which can create or escalate conflict.

Every negative assumption springs from a breakdown of trust, whether small or large. A breakdown of trust allows emotions such as doubt, fear, anger, or envy to overrule logic — and if they aren’t addressed, those negative assumptions quickly pile up and inevitably lead to believing the worst of our colleagues.  (This is why more than 1 in 4 employees have experienced workplace conflict escalating into personal insults, and 1 in 10 have had a project fail due to intense conflict.)

Trust is essential to preventing and resolving conflict of all kinds. And it can be difficult to fully trust someone who isn’t communicating their intentions clearly. 

Your team’s conflict problem is really a clarity and communication problem.

No-one can clearly communicate their needs, preferences, and priorities if they aren’t yet clear in their own minds. And no-one can ensure that needs are met unless those needs are clearly identified and communicated. Without clarity and communication, it’s difficult to move forward to a good solution.

Ask “Why” Before “How”

This is the essential premise behind every skill and process I teach. 

In more than 25 years working as a mediator and conflict coach, helping teams to develop their collaboration skills and resolve their conflicts, I’ve seen over and over that the first crucial step is to get total clarity on what matters most to whom. (With clarity at the point of the conflict’s origin, you and your team can even resolve it before there’s any opportunity for escalation.) 

All problem solving is about meeting needs that are not currently being met, or that we fear won’t be met. 

But most people jump right from “We have a problem,” to “Here’s how we could try to solve it”… and they miss out the crucial step of asking, “Wait, why do we have this problem?”

It’s not surprising — fast, decisive action is rewarded in most workplaces, so no wonder your team tends to want to move forward to the solution phase of the process as quickly as possible.

In a conflict, pushing forward to a solution without first finding out why the problem exists will only make the whole process take longer. 

(If that’s what’s happened in your workplace, you’re not alone. I’ve helped hundreds of teams to resolve conflicts that had already dragged on for more than a year before they came to me!)

In contrast, when we’re clear on what needs we’re trying to meet, not only are we more likely to succeed but we’re also more likely to find creative new ways to do it. And when we do choose and implement a solution, having that ready-made list of needs provides the exact evaluation criteria needed to measure and optimize the solution’s effectiveness.

How to Create Clear Communication in a Conflict

To achieve this seemingly magical state of clear communication and collaboration, you first have to develop an understanding of the common needs that drive conflict in your workplace. Once you know how to identify and address them, it gets SO MUCH EASIER — even if some of the individual needs you identify appear to be incompatible at first glance.

And to make that level of insight and action possible, all your team really needs is a relatively small amount of training plus the right clarity-finding tool. 

So that’s what I have for you, and you can get started today.

I’ll share with you the same strategies, tactics and tools I use myself — the exact approach I’ve used and refined and perfected over multiple decades of team conflict resolution and collaboration coaching. I’ve taught this approach to thousands of individuals and hundreds of teams, with excellent outcomes.

Designed for You & Your Team

Studies show that team members often wish their manager would do more to identify and address tensions between team members before they develop into full-blown conflicts. With my training and tools, you and/or your whole team can learn how to defuse tensions and avoid escalation. 

If you want to…

• Free up your team’s time and energy — as well as your own — by resolving conflicts sooner and more easily…
• Increase collaboration, productivity, trust, innovation, and creativity… 
• Reduce workplace stress, sickness, absence and performance issues…
• Cultivate the mental and physical wellbeing and professional development of your team
• Develop your skills to serve the entire team’s growth and success…

…then this is an ideal solution for your needs. And I’m happy to help.

Since leaving my law practice in 1996 to become a full time mediator, collaborative facilitator and conflict coach, I’ve mediated disputes and coached teams in a variety of contexts. I’m a certified MBTI practitioner specializing in personality type and its impact on conflict management. My passion and focus is interpersonal workplace and organizational conflict. 

I’ve trained thousands of people to use conflict resolution, communication and collaboration skills. Over the past 25 years, I’ve developed unique skills and tools that take the problem solving process from “finding solutions people can live with” to “transforming relationships and preventing conflict.”  

As more and more people experienced the outcomes of my methods, some of my clients asked if I could provide a self-directed learning experience that their teams could undertake together. So I developed the solution they were asking for – and almost immediately, over 100 individuals signed up to use it!

They got great results and said they wished their colleagues had the same skills and tools. So I worked with five teams ranging in size from 6 to 24 to develop a 10-week program for whole teams. I’m now ready to pilot that program with 15 more teams.

How Collaboration In A Box for Teams Works

This pilot for teams includes all the training, coaching, tools and resources you need to transform your team’s experiences of conflict into collaborative problem-solving and progress. 

The pilot will run for ten weeks and will include a maximum of 15 teams of up to 24 people. Teams will choose times that fit their schedule. The Collaboration In A Box-Teams Pilot Training includes:

• 10-weeks of a team training program that will be private for each separate team -includes 7 hours of pre-recorded online content and 5 private 90-minute live online sessions with me to deepen the learning, reflect on insight, and have whole team discussions about how to apply it in your work together as a team.
• Each team member will receive their own (beautiful!) workbook and a Collaboration In A Box Card Deck (also gorgeous!), an innovative tool, delivered to your workplace.
• Special Pilot pricing! The launch cost will be $12000/team but teams in the pilot can take advantage of the special pilot cost – $5995 (plus hst) per team.

The Collaboration In A Box card deck gives your team an effective and easy-to-use tool to pinpoint the needs that must be met in any conflict, creating the foundation for satisfactory solutions.

The Collaboration In A Box workbook removes friction by providing ready-made worksheets and resources, giving everyone a place to keep their notes, ideas, questions, and answers.

You’ll learn how to:

• Prevent conflict at the point of origin so it doesn’t become a problem.
• Prepare for and participate in difficult conversations to make it easier to navigate to a successful solution.
• Improve innovation and decision-making so the best ideas surface and are recognized.
• Strengthen personal decision-making and problem-solving in all aspects of your work.
• Build team engagement and trust for easier, more productive collaboration.
• Create a high level of psychological health and safety in the workplace.

How much does it cost?

Less than the agonizing number of hours of your life you’ve already lost to workplace conflicts…

Less than the thousands of dollars a month you’d pay a conflict coach or consultant to work with your team in person…

Less than the couple of thousand dollars (and many, many hours of your time) you’d have to spend for an entry level conflict resolution certification…

MUCH less than the valuable time you still stand to lose, every workday from now until forever (or until your team develops the skills of collaborative conflict management…)

• Special Pilot pricing: the launch cost will be $12000/team but take advantage of the special pilot cost today – $5995 per team (up to 24 team members.)

Need to Know

How long does it last? 

The pilot will run for ten weeks and each team will choose times that best fit their schedule.

Training includes 7 hours of pre-recorded online content and 5 private 90-minute live online sessions with me to deepen the learning, reflect on insight, and facilitate your team discussions about how to apply it in your work together.

Will this work for me? 

Yes, the principles are the essence of conflict resolution in literally any scenario from workplace priority clashes to toddler tantrums to hostage negotiations. The training and Collaboration in a Box card deck make those principles accessible and actionable so that you and your team can resolve conflicts with ease and grace.

How many can take this program together?

You can sign up every single person in your team up to a maximum of 24 team members. Teams Pilot pricing is: $5995 pus hst. Each team member will receive their own workbook and Collaboration In A Box card deck.

Enrolling your team in training together is ideal because when your team has this highly effective skillset and toolset they all share, they’ll be able to repair damaged workplace relationships, defuse conflict before it escalates, and use any conflicts they can’t prevent as an opportunity to develop creative, collaborative solutions. 

Give them Collaboration In A Box:

• Training program to shift your team from conflict to collaboration, a mix of 7 hours of pre-recorded and 5 live 90-minute online sessions.
• Card deck collaboration tool to create clarity on the needs that must be met. There is nothing like this tool available anywhere else!
• Student workbook with ready-made worksheets and resources.
• 5 private 90-minute live online sessions with me to deepen the learning, reflect on insight, and have whole team discussions about how to apply it in your work together

Creating a more collaborative workplace culture doesn’t have to be a big struggle. It only takes a little guidance and support, with the right resources. 

But conflict breeds conflict, so the longer you take to start implementing a new process for resolution, the more work you’ll have to do to make it stick. If you already see clues of potential conflict problems in your workplace, now is the time to prevent them from escalating and to head off future conflicts before they arise.

And if things are going well at work right now, this is an ideal time to develop the skills to maintain and nurture those good relationships, prevent unnecessary conflict, and support a healthy work environment.

If your team is in crisis, though, this may not be the right fit for you! I’m happy to chat about whether now is the right time to introduce this program and tools, or whether taking another course of action may better serve your team first (I’m not going to sell you something else but I can definitely help you think about where you may need to look for what you might need before considering this program…)

Great to meet you! I’m Kirstin Lund, owner of collaborationschool.com, creator of Collaboration In A Box.

P.S. If you are thinking that Collaboration In A Box for Teams might be a great training for your entire team, you’re right! Let’s talk! I’ll gladly answer all of your questions so that you can make a fully informed decision. Book a call with Kirstin to chat about if this is a good fit for your team!