If you find yourself repeatedly witnessing a situation of inter personal conflict or tension between other colleagues, you have a choice: you can either turn a blind eye to it or you can try to help.

A few weeks ago I attended the 2015 annual conference of the International Ombudsman Association. It was the second time that I had participated in this conference (see here my report from last year) and, once again, I would like to share some of my experience with you.

The on-going campaign Respect@CERN was re-launched this year on Tuesday 5 May with a discussion forum led by Alan Richter, an expert consultant in ethics and diversity.

CERNese is the language spoken here: based on English and French, it’s a mixture of accents, pronunciations and body languages that go well together. CERNese is also an attitude: we make an effort to understand others and to ensure that other people understand what we say.

Very often, misunderstandings originate from the assumptions we make about people’s intentions, even where in fact there are no actual differences in thinking. Sometimes, speaking up is enough to resolve these misunderstandings… provided this is what both parties want.

When normal communication breaks down and there is no sharing anymore, office-mates can become ‘space invaders’. Very often, the situation can be resolved effectively by taking just a few simple steps...

New year, old problems? The best way to start 2015 is by not carrying over any frustration from 2014.

The winter break is a vital opportunity to leave behind the end-of-year workload stress, compounded by the rush to complete tasks in preparation of the year ahead, and focus on some genuine rest and recuperation.

In a previous Bulletin article we discussed the issue of how to deal with unwanted declarations of love.

“Ghosting” is the common term used to describe situations when a piece of work is done by somebody but credited to somebody else. Ghosting often occurs in creative fields, such as writing texts, music, developing graphic charters or translating.