Building, Innovating, Resolving, Inspiring
​My name is Sarah Navarre;
welcome to my story:
"A shift in perspective unveils the unseen, illuminating the intricate web that connects all things."
Sarah Navarre
As a mediator at heart, I specialize in transforming conflict into innovative solutions.
"Challenges can spark creativity and lead to groundbreaking ideas. My approach fosters collaboration and empowers teams, communities or families to turn obstacles into opportunities for growth."
~Sarah Navarre
Mediation/Conflict Resolution
I am a highly empathetic and results-oriented leader with a proven ability to navigate and resolve conflict effectively. I possess a natural inclination towards peacemaking, consistently demonstrating the ability to remain calm under pressure and guide teams towards harmonious outcomes.
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Throughout my career, I have consistently utilized these skills to foster collaborative environments and achieve successful resolutions in challenging situations. Read on to see a few highlights.
Resolving Conflict in the Workplace
While working on an IT team, I encountered a team member exhibiting a negative and disengaged attitude. To address this, I focused on acknowledging and appreciating his valuable contributions to the team. I then empowered him to share his expertise with colleagues, fostering a sense of ownership and value.
This approach not only improved his morale and engagement but also enabled him to develop strong leadership skills. He subsequently assumed a leadership role within the team and across other departments, ultimately leading to a promotion and salary increase.
This experience exemplifies my ability to identify and nurture the potential within individuals, even in challenging situations, transforming them into valuable contributors and leaders within the organization
Resolving Conflict & Creating Opportunity in Groups & Group Dynamics by Implementing
Intelligent Swarming
Group dynamics and creating a new culture of intelligent swarming.
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Faced with escalating support tickets and unresolved outages across 15+ teams, I spearheaded the implementation of "Intelligent Swarming," an Agile methodology, to address these critical issues.
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Challenge: Teams lacked ownership, passing unresolved issues between each other.
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Solution: I, along with a Scrum Master, led a two-week sprint dedicated solely to resolving outages and support tickets. This involved cross-functional teams made up of 9-11 team members from three time zones (Ireland, US, India) working in a 24/7 rotation.
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Overcoming Obstacles:
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Resistance to change: I successfully addressed initial resistance from engineers by emphasizing the benefits of focused attention and knowledge sharing.
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Skill gaps: I facilitated knowledge transfer across the diverse skill sets within the rotating teams.
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Team cohesion: I fostered a collaborative and supportive environment, ensuring smooth handoffs and continuous progress.
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Success:
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Significantly reduced unresolved tickets and outage resolution times: Support ticket backlog decreased from over 80 open tickets to consistently maintaining fewer than 3 open tickets at any given time.
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Improved cross-team collaboration and knowledge sharing.
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Enhanced team morale and engagement across global teams, who prior to this effort did not know each other at all.
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Proactive response to major outages: During a global Akamai outage, the pre-established "Intelligent Swarming" team swiftly convened a virtual meeting to collaboratively address the issue, eliminating the need for late-night emergency calls and ensuring a timely and coordinated response.
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Presented this successful model to other business units during a VP town hall, demonstrating its potential for broader organizational impact.
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Peace at Home, Workshop
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Design Curriculum
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Create a Coordinating Workbook
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Teach the Workshop
As part of a 6-person team, I contributed to the development of the "Peace at Home" workshop. This initiative addressed the unique challenges faced by young married couples at Brigham Young University Hawaii, an institution with a diverse student body representing over 80 nationalities.
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Recognizing the cultural complexities inherent in inter-cultural marriages, the workshop aimed to equip couples with the knowledge and skills to understand each other, navigate conflict constructively, and foster harmonious relationships.
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The "Peace at Home" workshop continues to be offered today through the McKay Center for Intercultural Understanding & Peacebuilding, demonstrating its enduring impact on the BYU Hawaii community.
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Key improvements:
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Focus on impact: The rewritten version emphasizes the workshop's impact on the BYU Hawaii community by stating that it "continues to be offered today."
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Conciseness: Unnecessary phrases like "mainly has international students" and "made up of over 80 countries" are removed for brevity.
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Clarity: The sentence structure is improved for better readability.
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Professional tone: The overall tone is more professional and academic.
Mediation, Getting to an Agreement with Parties in a Small Claims Dispute
Mediation and conflict resolution, while related, differ primarily in their objectives. Mediation focuses on achieving a mutually agreeable and enforceable agreement between parties. In the context of divorce proceedings or small claims court cases, this translates to an agreement that both parties have input on and are willing to abide by.
In contrast, conflict resolution emphasizes repairing relationships and fostering understanding between the parties involved.When mediating small claims court cases, my primary focus is on facilitating a mutually agreeable resolution that both parties have actively contributed to.
A comprehensive documentation of this agreement is then submitted to the court for consideration
