About

Ben ZieglerWelcome!

I’m Ben Ziegler, a collaboration & conflict management specialist based in  Victoria, BC, Canada.

This website has served as my personal blog, since 2009. On it you’ll find 400+ posts, primarily focused on my communications, collaboration, and conflict management interests.

HOW I CAN HELP

As an independent consultant, I help SMEs and nonprofit organizations deal with their collaboration and conflict management challenges. I’ve done this work in a variety of capacities; including: consultant, mediator, facilitator, advocate, coach, trainer, speaker.

Challenges I’ve helped address; include:

  • Interpersonal skills development; communications, collaboration, conflict management, x-cultural, virtual
  • Dispute resolution
  • Destructive behaviours
  • Team dynamics
  • Respectful workplace issues
  • Labour-management conflict
  • Building consensus across stakeholder groups
  • Negotiations support
  • Education and training

While conflict is inevitable, I also see it as a growth opportunity, for the individual and/or the organization. For the organization, effective responses to differences can improve staff engagement and loyalty, workforce performance, customer service, and employee recruitment. When I can, I promote Your Conflict Advantage.

My core belief is that good things can happen when diverse people can come together, feel safe in the process, and have constructive conversations about things that are important to them.

A BIT ABOUT MY  EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS

I”ve resolved 600+ business, workplace and community disputes, served as a mediator and mentor (12 years) in the BC Court Mediation Program, and contracted as an online mediator with eBay and Consumer Protection BC. I also served as a system design consultant to multiple BC Government online dispute resolution initiatives.

As a workplace consultant, I undertake communications, collaboration and conflict management assignments and workshops, locally and internationally; e.g. as a volunteer advisor with Catalyste+, a Canadian NGO.

For six years, with IdeaConnection, I led global virtual teams of diverse problem-solvers competing on innovation challenges. Typically, I facilitated a team of five. Each team member (chosen from around the world) brought unique expertise to solving the problem.

I’m certified by the Workplace Fairness Institute, and certified in the Conflict Dynamics Profile®.

From 2019-2024, I was also led a regional advocacy program serving low-income seniors throughout the Greater Victoria Region. This successful program operated out of a terrific local nonprofit, Quadra Village Community Centre, with whom I was employed on a part-time basis.

As a volunteer, I have facilitated support groups for Family Caregivers of BC (including starting up BC’s first men’s support group), and  served on a variety of local boards and committees; including: seniors advocacy, restorative justice, neighbourhood associations, health reform.

In earlier times, I spent many years in the information systems consulting, and in the construction business.

LET’S CONNECT

You can send a note to me through my contact form, or call me at 1-250-516-3936.

Thanks for being here,

Ben