Seeing you through
Viable business but creditors at the door?
Struggling to renegotiate a lease?
Stuck in a dispute with your co-directors?
Negotiating a new business partnership?
Complaints & grievances escalating?
Adnovar supports people and organisations to settle disputes and work through impasses with active negotiation and mediation.
Led by Nick Carley, we provide a personal, confidential service to help you get a handle on your situation and plot your way through. With smart, creative, commercially intelligent analysis, communication and relationship management, we provide the objectivity, independence and experience you need to negotiate positions you and your organisation can stand by in the years to come.
Adnovar draws on more than 30 years' of leadership experience, spanning multiple sectors and both commercial and charitable organisations. We can save you money, time, stress and hassle, seeing you through the crises or challenges that block your progress, or threaten the viability of your enterprise, to get you back on track and moving forward.
Contact us now for a free 30-minute initial consultation.
+44 (0)7831 117363
Bringing in a professional provides reassurance and accountability to the process, so you know, and can show, you really stood up for the interests of your business.
What we do
Negotiation & mediation
Negotiation involves those with differing positions on an issue moving back and forth to find a place that is acceptable and manageable for all parties. Having a personal stake in the outcome of negotiation can bring pressure and stress that limits the creativity needed to find solutions. Disputes and conflicts can raise strong feelings that cloud the process and block pathways to resolution. Employing a skilled negotiator, with prior experience and knowledge of the scope of possibilities, can help get and keep the process moving, saving you time and money, and potentially open up unseen opportunities.
Your negotiator is there to engage with other parties on behalf of you, to protect your interests and ensure the best outcome for you. Your negotiator will act as a critical friend, helping you take a step back, bringing alternative insights and strategies to your attention, and helping you think through positions and consequences in a systematic way, so you can make the most powerful choices available to you.
Mediation often comes into play when negotiation is not possible or has been attempted and agreement has not been reached. Your mediator is an independent third party who acts as the intermediary between other parties. The work of mediation begins with private consultations with each party, before proceeding to seek a mutually agreed solution, a process which may involve the mediator going back and forth between parties, or everyone meeting together.
Both processes are much less expensive than legal action. They both offer you much more control over the outcome, as legal action leads to court decisions made by someone else on behalf of all the parties.
Engaging a professional to take you through a dispute brings reassurance and accountability, so at the end you know - and can demonstrate - that you stood up for best interests of your business.
"I get a great deal of satisfaction from providing support and practical help to dedicated people in organisations facing difficulty."
Nick Carley
How we do
Property
A client was facing a potentially critical downturn in business and owed £50,000 in rent, with over 7 years left on their lease. The landlord agree to reduce the rent by £35,000 and let them exit the lease.
A client wanted to exit a lease but was over £20,000 in arrears. Through relationship building with the property-owner that helped them understand the client's position, agreement was reached to release the client from the entirety of their obligations.
Suppliers
A client was dealing with a struggling business and suppliers who were losing patience and cutting off crucial services. The company was viable, in the near term, if it could negotiate tenable positions on its debt. Generous extended terms were secured with key suppliers, amounting to an effective credit line of £100,000, with manageable payment schedules. This allowed the business to continue operating and weather a period of difficulty.
Partnerships and co-directors
A business needed help because the directors had fallen into a protracted and difficult dispute with the manager director, who had decided to leave the business, and legal action was being threatened by two parties. Mediation led to a mutually-acceptable agreement, including a handover period, sharing of commercial information and an agreed buy-out price for shareholding.
Complaints and grievances
A a disagreement and misunderstanding about management styles had escalated to the point where the parties could no longer work effectively together, impacting staff morale and overall company performance. Extensive and delicate negotiations resulted in the two parties recognising and setting aside intractable positions, and finding a new focus, based on identifying strengths, and prioritising their shared personal investment in the health of the organisation.
Mergers & acquisitions
A client was selling their business and struggling to establish what they considered to be a fair value, with pressure mounting to agree a sale with a potential buyer. Negotiating on behalf of the business, a sale was agreed that increased the price by 20% and improved the exit terms.
The team
I am an energetic entrepreneur with 30 years’ experience setting up and running businesses in a number of sectors including consultancy, IT, training, public relations, communications, community-consultation, and research and insight. I began my career as a youth worker and careers counsellor, and I have a bold, savvy but empathic approach to relationships, founded on active listening and working creatively with personal, financial and institutional constraints.
I am a very active chair of the board of trustees of a London-based charity, the Minster Centre, which trains counsellors and psychotherapists, where I have been chair of the board for six years and a board member for eight years, working closely with the Chief Executive on a range of issues.
Throughout my career I have been involved in handling and managing the sensitive negotiations that are part and parcel of the work of founding, maintaining, growing and crisis-managing businesses and organisations I have owned or worked for. It was with this experience behind me that I began offering my services and skills to others as a negotiator and mediator.
I enjoy problem-solving and conflict-resolution, as well as creative strategy work, and get a great deal of satisfaction providing support and practical help to dedicated people in organisations facing difficulty.
Nick Carley, BA (hons), MA, PGCE, PGCCS
Beth Carley, BA (hons), Msc, PhD, PGDip, MBCAP
I am an integratively-trained psychotherapist, and my work at Adnovar involves contributing my skills in analysing the personal and relational dynamics involved in negotiations and mediations to to identify directions and openings.
Prior to training as a therapist, I worked in profit and not-for profit environments in communications and governance, before undertaking academic research on community organising.