PROBLEM: Employee with 11 years tenure at company was complaining constantly about her new boss. The animosity escalated to the level that the employee formally filed a report about being harassed by her supervisor, who had even more tenure with the company, to Human Resources. Specifically, the employee complained about favoritism, not giving credit where it was due, personal animosity and inconsistent application of company norms and procedures.

SOLUTION: A combination of individual coaching for each team member, leadership coaching for the supervisor and a series of 3 short Cultured communication skills trainings succeeded in improving the work culture of this specific part of the company. The content they were taught includes confirmation bias, negativity bias, victim thinking, emotional intelligence, team communication and communicating across different communication styles. The supervisor had not been holding one-on-one feedback sessions for lack of time. Once she began 15-minute one-on-ones where she listened to whatever the employee had to say, the situation improved, even though the two individuals never became close friends.

After that success, the company engaged in a series of short Cultured communication-skills training for all of the finance/accounting departments as they worked through an 18-month software implementation process. The bi-monthly short trainings gave everyone the chance to think about how they were communicating under the stress of the change process, to learn stress management and practice more impactful communication.

This company went on to schedule several communication and culture trainings coupled with private coaching sessions.