Writers Note: Despite its whimsical title, I’m afraid this blog entry is not. Do not read if you are not in a good mental or emotional place. Dear Santa, It’s been a few years since I last wrote. Many things have happened in between; some good, some bad. But November 2015 was hard. The Paris…
I would like to do something a little different from the usual monthly blog entry. I have in previous entries (July 2012 and July 2013) written about a peer mediation initiative that was the brainchild of my friend Aloysius Goh. The general idea is to teach 13-16 year olds how to resolve conflicts amicably in…
In February 2015, the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution organized and ran the Asia Pacific International Mediation Summit in New Delhi, India. I had the honour of presenting at a number of sessions at the summit and I would like to explore one of those sessions in this month’s entry. I was part…
It is the beginning of the school term at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore, where in this semester, I teach a Negotiation Workshop. In our first class yesterday, we played a pricing game based on the Prisoner’s Dilemma. There are many versions of this pricing game and it essentially introduces participants to…
I recently had the opportunity to co-facilitate a training workshop with Tom Schaub of CMPartners and re-acquainted myself with a model of challenges that face leaders today. This is a model that was created by Ronald Heifezt and is captured in the book “Leadership Without Easy Answers”. I don’t pretend to be an expert on…
I’d like to take this month’s entry to briefly review a book that was launched in Singapore in March 2015. The book is Mediation in Singapore: A Practical Guide published by Sweet & Maxwell. The editors of this book are Danny McFadden and George Lim (Senior Counsel) and boasts an impressive list of contributors ranging…
March was a sad month for Singapore. On 23 March 2015, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew passed away at the age of 91. Lee Kuan Yew was a controversial figure. He was the first Prime Minister of Singapore and he was also widely considered as the founding father of Singapore. He was well-regarded by many world…
I’d like to spend this month’s blog entry providing an update on a Singapore development. On the 4 March 2015, there was the launch of the State Courts Centre for Dispute Resolution by the Chief Justice of Singapore, Mr. Sundaresh Menon. At the same time, Thomson Reuters also launched their book “Mediation in Singapore: A…
I have a confession to make. I am a Trekkie. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, that means I am a fan of the television series and movies relating to Star Trek. To be geekily more specific, a fan of the television series and movies relating to Star Trek: The Old Series (with…
This has been a bad week. With the Charlie Hebdo incident in Paris, I found myself despairing about the state of the human condition. And I know that the issues are complicated. On the one hand, the right to free speech balanced off against the right to exercise free speech responsibly. On the other, whether,…
