Brown Bag Series: The Cost of Conflict

Ku’ikahi Mediation Center is preparing to host its next “Finding Solutions, Growing Peace” talk, part of the organization’s Brown Bag Lunch series.

Each third Thursday of the month, the series continues with a lunch-time talk story session. September’s event will be held on Sept. 17 at the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.

Diana Petropulos will be September’s featured speaker on the topic, “The Cost of Conflict: How to Calculate its Impact on Your Workplace.”

“Learn about the financial cost of conflict and the formulas for calculating its impact in your workplace,” said Petropulos.  “Consider the potential for turning destructive conflict into constructive problem-solving.”

Petropulos offers mediation, facilitation, and training services in the areas of mediation and workplace conflict, as a principal in ADRinACTION. She has developed and conducted workshops and training sessions throughout Hawai’i and formerly lectured at the master’s level at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa’s Human Resource Management Program. She has mediated hundreds of court cases for Maui Mediation Services and serves on its board.

“Unmanaged conflict is the largest reducible cost in organizations today, and the least recognized,” according to author Daniel Dana who wrote Prevention and Early Resolution of Workplace Conflict.

The event is free and open to the public. Interested attendees are encouraged to bring their own lunch as they participate in the informal and educational talk-story session.

To learn more about Ku’ikahi Mediation Center’s Brown Bag Lunch series, call Ku’ikahi Program Coordinator Gail Takaki at 935-7844, extension 4, or e-mail gail@hawaiimediation.org.