Findings Related to Mediation Skills

I wanted to share some findings related to a mediation skills class I just started teaching.

The advanced undergraduates and MBA graduate students identified "interpersonal misunderstandings" as a major cause of conflict within the businesses and organizations they worked.

They also observed that the supervisors and managers avoided getting involved in the conflict hoping, we guessed, that the employees could work it out themselves.

There were two observations as a result:

1.) the employees wanted their supervisors and/or managers to help them resolve the issues

2.) in many cases the conflict escalated in ways that was detrimental to the business or organization due to managements lack of involvement.

This is why I believe managers and supervisors need to learn mediation skills in the workplace.

What do you think?