Small Business Coaching & Mediation

Improve Your Business Support From A Business Psychologist Offering Executive Coaching and/or Mediation Services

At Your Place of Business, at Our North Andover Location or Remotely.

When conflict exists between you and another person, counseling can benefit your relationship. This is true with business relationships as much as it is with personal relationships. After all, you often associate with your coworkers for eight or more hours every day.


At Andover Counseling Center, we can help you work more effectively with your partners and employees. Acting as an impartial third party, we can help you communicate better, resolve business conflict, and grow your business.

Contact Us

Counselor Talking To Couple — North Andover, MA — Andover Counseling Center

Benefits of Our Coaching or Dispute Resolution Services

Maybe you are embarking on a start-up business venture. Or maybe you already have a successful small business yet struggle to resolve differences among your employees. Whatever your situation, you and your partners likely experience difficult and stressful employee situations. Differences in goals and personalities among employees can create tension in a business.


Dr. Janice Goldstein meets with members of your staff at your place of business or at our north Andover office. She evaluates and defines the nature of the issues affecting the workplace. She will strategically design an intervention to address the issues so that you can better work together to address interpersonal problems in the business. She'll also set goals with you so you can measure your progress.

Reasons to Choose Andover Counseling Center

We care about the success of small businesses and want to see your business thrive. Issues that are not addressed in small businesses tend to undermine the effectiveness and productivity of its staff. Addressing issues as they arise minimizes conflicts and makes for a stable working environment.

Our counseling service has more than 20 years of experience helping resolve business conflict in the Merrimack Valley. We specialize in small-business interventions as well as individual, couples, and family therapy. We are experienced at helping people perform well in a work or school environment despite disabilities or setbacks.

Information About Dr. Goldstein’s Approach

Dr Janice Goldstein is a trained mediator with both a Psychology doctorate as well as a Master of Business degree. She utilizes both these skills to help businesses solve personnel/management issues that affect the overall health of the company.


Mediation is a proven effective technique for solving many of the issues that confront a business environment. Her interpersonal skills and knowledge of how businesses work combine to create a powerful tool within that environment. Mediations are scheduled by appointment on site and are time limited and situation-focused. Please feel free to contact Dr Goldstein with any questions that you may have about this intervention.


Five Strategies to Help Small Business Owners Battle Burnout

By JOYCE M. ROSENBERG

AP Business Writer


NEW YORK (AP) — Small business owners can struggle with burnout when they try to do too much by themselves and for too many hours in a day. Those who have found themselves burned out have developed strategies aimed at preventing a recurrence.


Among them:

— Set limits. When Victoria Bogner gets home after a day at the financial advisory firms she runs, her phone and laptop go into a separate room; she doesn’t answer calls or emails while spending time with her two young children. And, Bogner says, “I’ve trained my clients and staff that, unless there’s a big emergency, I’m not working on the weekends.” Bogner, CEO of McDaniel Knutson Financial Partners in Lawrence, Kansas, was burned out five years ago from working 60-plus hours each week.


— Delegate, delegate. Paul Altero and Bill Hart tried to build and run Bubbakoos Burritos restaurants themselves and then realized they were burning out. The partners, whose company is based in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, were so exhausted they considered giving up on their plans when the chain had grown to eight locations. They began making big hires — managers, construction supervisors, an administrative assistant — and got back their energy and momentum.


— Learn to say no. Candace Barr burned out after taking on too much work in her resume business, Strategic Resume Specialists. She realized that not only was she exhausted, but she couldn’t deliver the high quality expected by clients paying $1,600 to $1,800 for an executive-level resume. She began turning down some business. “It was hard for me to say no and it’s still hard for me to say no,” Barr says, but she recognized she had to do it.


— Make R&R a priority. Owners need to schedule periodic breaks and vacations — and not spend their time off staring at a laptop and emailing on their phones. Annemarie Fowler schedules break times every day, including 15 minutes for coffee every morning and half an hour of reading for pleasure at the end of the day. Fowler, owner of the online learning website Speak Confident English, burned out after trying to keep up with her clients around the world, even in Australia, half a world away from Fowler’s home in Omaha, Nebraska.


— Watch for the warning signs. Dentist Ben Dancygier has had periodic burnout, and recognized it when he developed some typical symptoms: “My body ached. I was exhausted, moody, eating poorly. I was putting everything, everyone, the business first and foremost and hadn’t taken any days off.” Dancygier, owner of Valley Pediatric Dentistry in Hopewell Junction and Jefferson Valley, New York, has felt burned out several times in the 18 years since he started his practice, usually when he plunges into a new project.


www.eagletribune.com

Mediation: An Effective Tool for Business Dispute Resolution

While mediation is often thought of in the context of personal or family disputes, few small businesses owners realize that mediation services are available to resolve business-related disputes as well. As an alternative to costly litigation, mediation offers businesses a less expensive and quicker way to resolve civil disputes that also aims to preserve relationships.

What Mediation Is, What It Isn't

Simply put, mediation is an efficient, cost-effective process of problem-solving where the disputing parties work together to find a solution. That said, it's sometimes easier to explain what mediation isn't.


Mediation isn't like litigation. Litigation involves a system of rules and limitations that has evolved over centuries to ensure procedural fairness amongst disputing parties. It often involves lawyers to speak for the parties and help navigate those rules, and ultimately, a judge or jury to decide the outcome. Litigation has value and is often necessary, but it's not the only way.


Mediation isn't a system of rules, but rather a means of communication. It does not involve document filings, discovery or court appearances, and it doesn't require a long wait or high costs. Instead, mediation is a less formal, accessible, flexible process that usually involves the parties meeting together with a mediator in a neutral setting to work out the issue.

Business partners mediation — North Andover, MA — Andover Counseling Center

The Mediation Process

The mediation process begins when both parties agree to mediate, and then agree on a mediator. Typically, before the mediation begins each side prepares a summary of the issue for the mediator to review, or each party meets with the mediator individually to provide background.


Once the pre-mediation details are completed, a meeting date and a neutral location is chosen, which can be a set of boardrooms, an office, or even an online space. What happens next is entirely flexible, and can be arranged according to particular needs.


While relations may be strained at the outset of the mediation process, a good mediator can eventually get parties talking to each other, can help identify common goals, and ultimately find a resolution that works for all.

Why Mediate Instead of Litigate?

The outcomes of mediation can be powerful for a number of reasons. First, in mediation the parties themselves have input, and the resolution becomes more meaningful and effective when all sides mutually contribute to it.


Additionally, litigation can be polarizing, whereas mediation aims to preserve business relationships. Whether the dispute is with a valuable client or an important supplier, mediation focuses on resolving the matter in a way that keeps relationships intact. Mediators help shape the discussion to promote respect and common goals, and generate creative ideas to resolve the dispute. When not confined to the parameters of a potential judgment from the court, parties are free to come up with their own unique solutions.


Mediation also encourages the open flow of information in a way litigation cannot. The goal is resolution, rather than the best positioning for trial. Disclosure is important if parties are to fully understand each other - and once parties have had a chance to fully discuss issues, resolution becomes a real possibility. Even if the mediation doesn't fully resolve the dispute, afterward parties often gain clarity, improved communication or even partial solutions. Should litigation be pursued in the future, it can be better streamlined.

Finally - and perhaps most significant for small businesses' bottom lines - mediation is timely, immediate, and a fraction of the cost of litigation, which means less disruption to day-to-day business operations.


Source: https://smallbusinessbc.ca/article/mediation-effective-tool-business-dispute-resolution/

Share by: