Conflict Resolution and Mediation Skills

Conflict Resolution and Mediation is a five-day senior workplace conflict course delivered by Mars Training Centre at international training centres in London, Dubai, Amsterdam, Cairo and Johannesburg — designed for senior managers, directors and executives whose roles regularly require them to address, mediate or resolve serious workplace conflict.

Conflict is not an aberration in senior life — it is a feature of it. Two competent leaders disagreeing over scope, two departments fighting over budget, a customer and a supplier on the edge of litigation, a senior team holding a grievance that has been unresolved for months: these are the moments senior leaders are paid to handle. Done well, they end with a workable outcome and stronger relationships. Done badly, they consume months of senior time and damage the business. This programme is built for senior professionals who want a deliberate approach to those moments.

Across five focused days you will work through the disciplines of senior conflict handling — diagnosing conflict accurately, managing your own state, structured conversation techniques, mediation between parties, and the longer-term work of resolving systemic conflict. The programme is delivered by senior practitioners experienced in workplace mediation, HR escalation and commercial dispute resolution.

What You Will Learn

• Diagnose the type, stage and dynamics of a workplace conflict accurately.
• Manage your own state and presence in tense conversations.
• Apply structured conversation techniques to defuse and redirect conflict.
• Mediate between two senior parties who are in genuine disagreement.
• Handle bullying, harassment and grievance escalations responsibly.
• Resolve cross-functional and team-level conflict before it escalates.
• Operate as an internal mediator within your own organisation.
• Recognise when conflict needs HR, legal or external intervention.
• Reduce the systemic causes of recurring workplace conflict.
• Coach others to handle difficult conversations themselves.

How You Will Benefit

You will leave with a practical conflict-handling toolkit, sharper self-awareness in tense moments and the confidence to mediate when others would escalate, together with a Mars Certificate of Completion.

Your organisation will gain a senior leader who closes conflict at the right level, reduces the time and cost of escalations, and creates the kind of climate in which honest disagreement is healthy rather than destructive.

Who This Programme Is For

This programme is designed for senior professionals, including senior managers and directors handling workplace conflict; HR directors, employee relations leads and HR business partners; heads of function leading large or matrixed teams; senior project, programme and transformation directors; senior in-house lawyers and grievance officers; senior commercial and customer-facing leaders managing disputes; senior public-sector executives handling staff or union issues; and family-business principals managing family and business conflict. The seniority floor is senior manager or director level and above.

How the Week Unfolds

Day one builds an accurate understanding of conflict at senior level: its types, stages and dynamics, and the diagnosis that determines what intervention is appropriate. Day two develops the structured conversation — the techniques that defuse, redirect and open a route out of a dispute, and the management of your own state while doing it. Day three focuses on mediation between parties, including the mediator's contract, process and neutrality when both sides are senior. Day four covers grievances, escalations and systemic conflict: bullying and harassment escalations, when HR, legal or external intervention is required, and the underlying causes of recurring conflict. Day five consolidates the week with coaching others, faculty feedback and a personal action plan.