IOA Live Webinar

Avoiding Déjà Vu: Changing Organizational Culture While Institutionalizing the Ombuds Role 

Presented by: Dr. Susan S. Raines

Coaching individual visitors is an indispensable and foundational task of the Organizational Ombuds role. Yet many of the conflicts brought by visitors could be avoided through intentional efforts to change dysfunctional workplace cultures and behaviors at a deeper level. Low morale, disengagement, high turnover, workplace bullying, discrimination, sexual harassment, sabotage, and embezzlement are all symptoms of dysfunctional organizational cultures (Raines 2019). 

It is imperative that Ombuds diagnose the health of their organization's culture and design appropriate interventions to prevent unproductive conflict. As a side benefit, many of the tasks related to culture change initiatives raise the profile  and secure the institutionalization of the Ombuds office, highlighting the unique set of processes, skills, and attributes unduplicated by other units in the organization. Without attention to the root causes of organizational conflict, many Ombuds experience Deja vu, meaning they encounter a never-ending repetition of similar problems and parties day after day.

Course Objectives:

• Assess the sources of conflict within your organization. 
• Develop specific strategies to resolve the recurring sources of unproductive organizational conflict. 
• Increase the value of the Ombudsman's office to your organization. 
• Diffuse conflict resolution skills throughout your organization. 

  ---

Dr. Raines is a collaboration specialist and a Professor of Conflict Management at the School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding & Development at Kennesaw State University (KSU), where she helped to build the #1 ranked public university-based graduate degree program in Conflict Management.

She works to enhance team cohesion, create positive organizational cultures, increase engagement, reduce attrition, reduce litigation, improve organizational justice, empower diversity/equity/inclusion practices by managers, protect brand image, and enhance mission achievement and managerial skills within organizations. Dr. Raines proactively facilitates conversations designed to reach shared expectations within teams to reduce unproductive conflict between leadership team members, vendors, business partners and customers. Alternatively, she is called upon to mediate and facilitate between two or more individuals or divisions actively experiencing conflict (or corporate scandals) which negatively impacts mission achievement as well as the ability of people to enjoy their workplaces and teams. Life is too short, and our missions are too important, to leave problems at work unaddressed. Dr. Raines empowers clients with the skills, systems, and optimism necessary to solve vexing challenges in their work lives. Her passion is working across differences of all types to bring people together around a shared mission.

Dr. Raines has mediated more than 17,000 cases inside and outside of the court system, including hundreds of cases of employment and workplace disputes. She has worked with the International Monetary Fund (IMF),US Department of State, US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Volkswagen North America (VW), Yoshida Kōgyō Kabushiki gaish (YKK), United States Postal Service (USPS), US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Coca-Cola, Florida and Georgia Supreme Courts, Medical Association of Georgia (MAG), American Academy of Family Physicians, Georgia Department of Education (GaDoE) American Chemistry Society, Italian Chamber of Commerce, United Nations-International Organization for Migration (UNIOM), and more. She is the author of Conflict Management for Managers (2013; 2019), the co-author of Expert Mediators (2013) as well as more than 55 peer-reviewed publications and was the Editor-in-Chief of Conflict Resolution Quarterly (2008-2020).

Register Now

Webinar Pricing:

• IOA Members: Free + Access to the Recording 
• Non-Members: $225 (Live Webinar Only)

This course has been submitted for 1.5 Professional Development Hours that can be used for maintaining a Candidate for CO-OP® or CO-OP® Credentials pending approval. 

View the IOA Online Learning & Virtual Event Policies.