our shared vision.

We — Nora Sevbihiv Sinemillioglu and Paloma Rodríguez Carrington — founded frameshift in 2019 after discovering that we shared a common goal: we wanted to support people coming from all over the world to Berlin to work and live. We seek to help new arrivals, and long-time residents, with complex and sensitive issues including conflict resolution, cultivating professional leadership, and team-building. We also work to enhance cross-cultural communication and connections.

As we both have experienced cultural conflicts and challenging work environments while living far away from home ourselves, we understand the value of working with a supportive group of professionals with international experience to work through the difficulties that crop up. We work to become for others the helping hand that we needed when we were getting started. 

our core values.

Intersectional feminism, anti-racism, gender diversity, inclusivity and sustainability are core values, and frameshift is a project determined to build these ideals into the daily lives of people and institutions.

While we cherish our ideals at frameshift, we realise that everyone is on a journey, and we do not seek to ‘perfect' people. Instead we hope to begin discussions, and to create environments where people feel safe and motivated in sharing their experiences, hopes, and concerns.

Our goal is to help our clients reach their individual goals, be those personal or professional.

a human approach.

frameshift brings a unique, dynamic, and, most of all, human approach to building interpersonal and group connections. We place our academic and professional backgrounds as anthropologists and certified mediators at the service of clients seeking to create ways for diverse groups of people to make connections and actively shape their relationships.

We provide inclusive, tailored mediation, coaching, training, and moderation for individuals and groups. Our approach is heterodox, combining cutting-edge insights from communication science with non-judgmental, personalised environments to ensure that organisations and people can negotiate the complex circumstances they encounter in work and life.

In our work we build on our own diverse life experiences and cultural heritages – we have each grown up across cultures and have lived and worked in more than nine countries, including France, Mexico, Syria, The Netherlands, Turkey, and the United States.

With the services offered at frameshift we aim to foster healthy communication and relationships.

languages.

We offer services primarily in English and German, but we can also assist our clients in Arabic, Dutch, French, Spanish, and Turkish as required. We serve all communities, but note that our international background places us in an ideal position to assist expat and migrant communities.

what we bring.

Neutrality — we strive for personal and professional neutrality in all sessions. As facilitators, we offer a clear framework for discussion and encourage all participants to engage. We do not participate in these discussions ourselves. We merely oversee the conversation’s structure.

Empathy — we assume that people have good reasons for their actions, no matter how contradictory they may seem sometimes. We take people’s needs seriously, tolerate ambiguity and always treat our clients with empathy.

A good atmosphere — we help create a friendly, welcoming atmosphere by supporting clients in establishing and adhering to clear discussion guidelines.

Flexibility — with structured discussions, teams and individual clients can revise, edit, and alter the goals of a session as circumstances require. We can help by highlighting or managing these points of inflection in discussions.

Clear structure — it is our job to ensure that conversations and discussions are structured so that our clients can focus on what they want to share.

Time management — we keep an eye on the clock and make sure to plan well-timed breaks.

Creative methods — we introduce appropriate techniques and exercises for more effective discussions, problem-solving, and decision-making.

insert or delete.

The term ‘frameshift’ comes from the world of genetics and biology. A frameshift mutation in biology describes the insertion or deletion of a particular DNA sequence that changes the way that sequence is read.

Using this as a metaphor for our own work, we seek to help clients make the necessary changes (insertions and/or deletions) to see matters differently, and to use such insights to create positive outcomes for themselves and those around them.

change of perspective.

The DNA metaphor is only one part of the story. Frameshifting also evokes the world of art and creativity, moving a work of art in relation to its frame can drastically change what a viewer sees, even what a work means.

This lexical joining of art and science reflects our own approach, which combines intuitive relational elements with insights from the social sciences.