Mediation
“We choose to work with people and organizations in conflict. We know we can help and that energizes us.” – Mary Orton
Mediation is a process in which a neutral person, the mediator, helps all parties in conflict to resolve their disputes. Mediators have no power to impose a decision or settlement, and have no stake or interest in the outcome.
We will help you transform skepticism and conflict into mutual understanding, creative solutions, and trusting relationships. We often obtain dramatic results, particularly in situations of tough, long-term, and seemingly unmanageable conflict.
With particular expertise in environmental and public policy conflicts, we will help you resolve today’s conflict, and also transform your ability to manage and resolve future disputes.
We are highly experienced in projects involving exceptionally diverse stakeholders with conflicting and strongly held views.
We are particularly interested in ensuring that high-quality scientific and technical information is properly integrated in collaborative processes.
Professional mediation from TMOC enables the participants to
• Have a say in how the mediation process unfolds.
• Discover all the information needed to make a good decision.
• Have their interests and concerns heard, and to hear others’ interests and concerns.
• Participate in developing the best possible solutions to the dispute.
• Engage with others in deciding which solution would best serve the interests of all parties to the dispute.
• Make their own decisions about whether to come to an agreement with others, depending on their interests.
Ethics and integrity are important to us at The Mary Orton Company. Click here
to see the standards of the Association for Conflict Resolution by which we offer mediation services.
Facilitation
“Tell us the procedural outcome you want – consensus, collegial discussion, input, mutual learning, etc. – and we will design a process that has a good chance of getting you there.” – Mary Orton
A professional facilitator designs a meeting process with the group’s desired outcome in mind. While remaining neutral as to the content of the meeting, the facilitator ensures that the agreements made are sound by designing good decision-making processes.
We will help you get the job done by engaging everyone in a process that makes sense. Together, we will transform challenging and unproductive meetings into collaborative and productive outcomes.
For example, you might need consensus on the relative priority of a large number of items with complex interrelationships and lots of uncertainty. While no one can guarantee consensus, we can design a process that has a strong likelihood of accomplishing this, in a way that is effective and even pleasant for the participants.
Expert facilitation from TMOC can help your group
• Choose the decision type (consensus, majority rule, etc.) that is right for each decision.
• Make better decisions together than one person alone could make.
• Be committed to the decisions they make.
• Improve relationships and increase openness.
• Listen to everyone in the room and build on each other’s ideas.
• Learn how to manage their own conflicts, behaviors, and relationships.
Ethics and integrity are important to us at The Mary Orton Company. Click here
to see the standards of the International Association of Facilitators by which we offer facilitation services.
Public Participation
“We can really help when stakeholders dislike and distrust the decision-making agency as well as each other.” – Mary Orton
“Public Participation is any process that involves the public in problem solving or decision-making, and that uses the public’s input to make better decisions.” (http://www.iap2usa.org/ethics)
We will help you make sensible and durable decisions that meet the needs of your agency. We make it possible for you to integrate public values with the best science and technical expertise. In doing so, we enable agency staff and stakeholders to develop relationships of mutual trust and openness.
We are passionate about good public policy and about enabling all those whose lives will be impacted by public decisions to have a voice in those decisions.
Public participation services from TMOC can help you
• Improve relationships between stakeholders and agency staff.
• Allow your technical staff to do what they do best, while we design a process that allows them to interact productively with the public.
• Make good decisions that will last, because they address the needs of all participants, including those of the decision-makers.
• Have pleasant public meetings that give you the input you need.
Ethics and integrity are important to us at The Mary Orton Company. Click here
to see the standards of the International Association of Public Participation by which we offer public participation services.
We also subscribe to the Core Values
of the International Association of Public Participation.
Organization Development
“We are passionate about improving people’s work lives.” – Mary Orton
Organization Development focuses on increased productivity and employee satisfaction …
… through systemic change and root-cause problem solving …
… by collaborating with organizational leaders and their groups …
… to improve the human processes through which they get their work done.
(Many thanks to Michael F. Broom, Ph.D. and Edith Whitfield Seashore, M.A., for this definition.)
Managing change in a complex organization is difficult – and it’s constant. Resistance to change is normal and universal, making your job even harder.
We will help you define your change goals, and then align your intentions and actions with your goals. We will help you define what support is needed in the organization for the change to occur, and then increase that support until it reaches the tipping point.
Together, we will increase your organization’s relevance and viability. You will enhance your ability to successfully manage change, now and in the future.
We can provide you and your team with
• Skills enhancement in the areas of collaboration, planning, decision-making, and leadership.
• Team development.
• Coaching for optimum performance and personal development.
• Strategic and operational planning.
• Problem solving and process improvement.
• Interpersonal and team conflict resolution.
• Culture identification and change.
Ethics and integrity are important to us at The Mary Orton Company. Click here
to see the standards published by the Organization Development Network by which we offer organization development services.
