Conflict
Face what’s real.
Fight well.
Move forward.
Conflict isn’t the problem.
Avoiding it, mishandling it, or letting it simmer—that’s where the damage happens.
Conflict isn't the problem. Conflict is information.
It tells you where the stakes are high, where expectations diverged, where something that mattered wasn't said.
The problem is what you do with it. The avoiding, the managing around it, the letting it calcify into resentment while you keep the meetings polite.
I work with leaders, founders, and C-level teams who've reached the point where the usual conversations no longer land. Where what needs to be said stays trapped behind professional courtesy. Where everyone knows something is off, but no one knows how to name it without blowing things up.
You're in high-speed environments where every avoided conversation costs you—momentum, trust, talent, and ultimately, the thing you built together.
What's needed is not another meeting. Not another offsite. Not another framework.
What's needed is the courage to tell the truth..
Klärungshilfe is a recognized mediation method for organizational conflict, rooted in the work of Christoph Thomann and Friedemann Schulz von Thun. I am a certified mediator trained in this approach.
This is a structured, time-limited process that brings clarity to what's been left unsaid—so that leaders, co-founders, and C-level teams can move forward with honesty and integrity.
What it addresses:
The conflicts that started professional and became personal. The hurt that's been rationalized as strategy. The dynamics where trust eroded so gradually you didn't notice until it was gone. The executive team that's split—or worse, performing unity while quietly disengaging. The co-founder relationship where the dream you built together has become the thing tearing you apart.
Klarungshilfe:
When Collaboration Breaks Down
How it works
We create a contained space where what's unspoken can finally be said.
Where each person's experience gets heard—not defended against.
Where the patterns beneath the positions become visible.
This isn't about compromise or smoothing things over. It's about truth-telling. About getting real so you can decide what comes next.
The process
We meet in a confidential, structured setting—typically over several consecutive days, with the exact length depending on the size and complexity of the team.
Each person names what they've been carrying. Not just the conflict, but what's beneath it—the hurt, the disappointment, the fear, the fatigue.
I hold the space so that what needs to be said can be spoken and received. So that defensiveness can soften. So that the human experience underneath the professional positions can emerge.
We don't rush to solutions. We stay with what's real until clarity arrives.
Sometimes, Klärungshilfe clears the way for renewed trust and alignment. The relationship resets. The collaboration continues with more realness and honesty.
Sometimes, it makes space for a respectful and necessary decision to part ways. Not with bitterness, but with integrity.
Either way, it brings truth into the room.
Because real collaboration begins where pretense ends.
When Klärungshilfe is needed…
This is for you if:
Trust has eroded in the leadership team and the usual ways of talking no longer work.
The executive team is split—or quietly disengaging—and performance is suffering.
Conflict has become personal and no longer feels safe to address directly.
You're co-founders or business partners and the relationship that built the company is now threatening it.
You've tried other approaches and they haven't penetrated the real issue.
You want a structured way to reset—or to consciously and respectfully let go.
What Changes:
When conflict is faced with this level of honesty and structure, something shifts.
Not just in the immediate situation, but in how you relate going forward.
You learn that hard truths don't have to be destructive. That being seen—really seen—in your difficulty doesn't diminish you, it humanizes you. That you can disagree, even profoundly, and still preserve dignity. That conflict, when faced, can deepen intimacy rather than destroy it.
If the relationship continues, it does so with less performance and more presence. With clearer agreements and fewer unspoken grievances. With the knowledge that you can survive telling each other the truth.
If the relationship ends, it does so with less collateral damage. Less lingering resentment. Less distortion of what was real. More capacity to move forward without carrying the unfinished business into the next collaboration.
This is conflict as a potential turning point—not for drama, but for maturity.
The Question
The question isn't whether there's conflict. In any collaboration that matters, there always is.
The question is: Are you willing to be honest about what's actually happening?
Will you let it calcify in silence? Manage around it until someone leaves? Preserve the professional facade while the foundation crumbles?
Or will you do the harder thing—face it with clarity, structure, and the rare courage to stop performing and start being real?
Let’s talk:
If you're at the point where something needs to change, and the usual approaches haven't worked, let's have a conversation.
No obligation. Just an honest assessment of whether this process can serve what you're facing.
Read more about ⟶ Klarungshilfe