Mediation has taken me to many places – professionally, physically, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. Last week I was so fortunate to be doing six days of training in Tbilisi, Georgia, at New Vision University. Three days with students learning the skills of mediation and three days with young professionals reflecting on appropriate communication and challenging conversations inside the workplace.
We spend so much time at work, most of us in hierarchical workplaces, most of us with colleagues. Wouldn’t it be good if workplaces were places we enjoyed? That depends so much on how we treat each other there.
Without my own mediation training and practice I would certainly be doing this kind of more general communication training very differently, or probably not doing it at all. The focus of the training was on listening, appreciation, fair and useful feedback, clarity, our emotions – and on compassionate leadership.
Which the world needs so much!
Here are three photographs from that workshop in Tbilisi. The first is a simple enough proposition, but one I so often fail to put to myself (we so often … ):
This developed during the workshop to the more self-reflective and speculative:
It ended with this:
Thanks to Sopo Chachava, Sophie Tkemaladze, and all the participants in the training and workshop last week, and wishing you all the best in your remarkable efforts to promote mediation in Georgia.
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