15 | Q4 2022 Aug22565 Communication & Conflict Consultant of the Year 2022: Nicole Posner Leadership communication coach and consultant, Nicole Posner is inspiring leaders everywhere to break through boundaries, develop dynamic cultures, and build thriving businesses. We talk to Nicole to find out more about her work in the wake of her recognition in the Greater London Enterprise Awards 2022. Nicole Posner is a leadership conflict and communication consultant working with SME Business Owners and leaders to prevent conflict within their business. Nicole supports her clients understand the factors that drive and fuel conflict, how to address and navigate it, how to have difficult conversations and how to communicate more effectively. Her ethos is simple. If you are tuned in and acknowledge conflict triggers, it is easier to prevent them in the first place. And if you do find yourself faced with a challenging dialogue, good communication skills will help you steer through it without burning bridges. She tells us, “I work with clients who might see a stream of bad behaviours or poor performance yet feel ill-equipped or fearful to dive into these tricky interactions so they avoid them, brushing the issue under the carpet in the hope it might simply disappear”. She assures us…”It rarely does! The problem with avoidance is it always catches up with you and usually it’s escalated to a much more serious and complicated level to manage”. Or the issue could be with a business partner consuming them day and night. Without the right tools in place to know the best way to approach it, they make a hash of it and create a rift which is often irreconcilable. Sometimes the business owner is the problem. Their chaotic communication and bombastic style could be upsetting all and sundry yet they have little self-awareness of their own behaviours while they watch and wonder why their team members leave one by one. Nicole tells us: “Conflict is an expensive, disruptive and stressful business. There are tangible costs associated with it such as replacing employees, training new staff or ending a business relationships because the founders have fallen out. Or the less obvious but equally harmful costs to both emotional and physical health caused by worry and tension affecting the emotional wellbeing of those inextricably caught up in it. Nicole’s former career in PR and communications at a prestigious London-based PR firm, has proven invaluable in her current role and has helped to highlight the importance of effective communication and the damage that can be caused by toxic relationships in the workplace. Throughout her years she has experienced firsthand how messy things can get. Not just for those directly involved, but also the ripple effect on the rest of the team dynamics, client relationships, targets, emotional wellbeing, productivity, performance, and the bottom line. Nicole’s change in direction began as a Workplace Mediator. The foundation of her training was underpinned by exploring the psychology of conflict. Through years of frustrating mediations she realised that many issues she was facilitating were systemic of the culture of the business and that not much would change long-term unless the business owners or leaders took responsibility for their own actions (or lack of action) to cultivate new behaviours from top down. With this in mind, she realised she could make far more impact by working with the business owners or leaders so trained to become and Executive Conflict Coach to support them to manage conflict and their own communication with greater skill. As well as coaching she consults with businesses who are caught in a crisis and are unsure how best to navigate through it. Nicole shares: “Often they are stuck or at a cross roads, worried they will take a wrong turn and worsen a strained or tenuous relationship with a business partner. Or they might have attempted to manage a conflict with a team member only to find their intervention has incensed the situation. I listen carefully and support them to create a strategy and approach that feels manageable, working through any obstacles they envisage could be a stumbling block for them.” Today, Nicole is dedicated to helping business owners and leaders navigate conflict with less guess work and more clarity. The workplace is a new and slightly altered world post pandemic with the added pressures of the cost of living crisis creating fear and impacting the way we show up, there is even more opportunities for challenging and confrontational behaviours, be that of the business owners or those they work with. “Communication isn’t just the words you choose,” continues Nicole. “It’s the tone you use, as well as the baggage you bring from the last meeting. As a leader, you set the marker. You define the communication culture around you. And the more respectful that culture, the less conflict you’ll experience.” Recently, Nicole was recognised for her dedication and commitment to the cause in the SME News Greater London Enterprise Awards and bestowed with the prestigious title of Communication & Conflict Consultant of the Year 2022. Understandably proud, she is now geared towards a bright future of helping more and more businesses to navigate through stormy waters by focusing on improving communication to avoid conflict and championing a communication culture built on open and honest conversations.” Her new book, ‘and BREATHE…Prevent, Manage and Master Difficult Leadership Conversations in Business and Beyond’ is available to buy now on Amazon. Contact: Nicole Posner Company: Nicole Posner Web Address: www.nicoleposner.com Nicole Posner
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