Karen Harold

Ms. Karen Harold, of Conflict Coaching Company, is uniquely qualified and experienced in the field of conflict and alternative dispute resolution (ADR). As a mediator, conflict resolution specialist, and former law enforcement officer, she brings a wealth of knowledge and experience with over 30 years of working within peripherals within human resources, labor relations, communities, non-profit organizations, family structures, and the criminal justice system.

Ms. Harold holds a deep, studied, and experiential understanding of how collaboration is unachievable without “healthy, cultivated conflict”. Ms. Harold has over 30 years of intense mediation experience from “all sides of the table”. She has the experience to empathize with the perspective of the law, the government, the business, the worker, the citizen to drive dialogue forward with acknowledgment of lessons learned from the past. For this reason, she is the go-to and accepted expert in mediation and conflict management theory and practice for California government and abroad while annually tapped for advisement and involvement in building conflict management programs and curriculum.

Ms. Harold, as a former law enforcement officer, is highly skilled and effective with emotionally charged disputes where one or more of the parties requires extra attention, or where the information is highly confidential, complex or sensitive. Ms. Harold has created professional models on conflict management utilized by various educational, professional and non-profit institutions covering anger styles, communication nuance, sources of conflict, reaction vs. response, with an clear emphasis on impact of conflict and related behavior As an executive coach empathy and firm direction provides the ability to relate to short-term tactical issues that involve internal self-talk and conflicting beliefs, as well as long term strategic vision that requires clarity and a strong, guiding hand.

Ms. Harold is a multi-faceted communicator that has the capacity advance and respond quickly in high stakes situations while sustaining the ability for one-on-one, empathetic communication responses that require the ability to look you in the eye, discover internal and external roadblocks, and simultaneously speak with a compassionate heart of a professional that you need to trust in order to get the job done.