Decision making

Brexit, Causes of Conflict, Communication, Conflict, Conventional wisdom, Creativity, Decision making, Dialogue, Dispute Resolution, Europe, Fear, General, Growth of the Field (Challenges, New Sectors, etc.), Interests, mediation process, Negotiation, Trust, Understanding mediation

(Bill Marsh Mediator)/ /15 Comments

  Perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised by the whole Brexit affair. I’m not talking about the result of the vote itself, but about the referendum process, the behaviour it engendered, and its aftermath. All the classic features were present. Classic features of what? Well, of binary processes. Those that offer a win/lose, yes/no, remain/leave…

Apology, Bias, Clients, Cognitive Bias, Commercial Mediation, Confidentiality, Decision making, Dialogue, Dispute Resolution, Impasse, Interests, Joint Sessions, mediated settlement agreement, Mediation Agreement, Mediation Practice, mediation process, Mistakes, Neuroscience, Perception, Scotland, Stages of mediation, Stories, Uncategorized

(Core Solutions Group) and (Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London)/ /Leave a comment

“Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar” “Traveller, there is no path, the path must be forged as you walk.” Antonio Machado, as quoted and translated in Daring Greatly, Brene Brown Those were two very long and eventful days. Though the prospect of reaching an agreement appeared remote – at best – at…

ADR, Communication, Confidentiality and Transparency, Conventional wisdom, Decision making, Developing the Field, Dispute Resolution, Due Process, Future of mediation, Growth of the Field (Challenges, New Sectors, etc.), Online Dispute Resolution (ODR), Online Mediation, Technology

(NZ Centre for ICT Law & School of Law, Auckland University)/ /2 Comments

I begin with two poetic images. One is from an 8th century Taoist poem – I asked the boy beneath the pines. He said, “The master’s gone alone Herb-picking somewhere on the mount, Cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown.” [Chia Tao (777-841)] And the other, more recent, from W H Auden’s poem “Law Like Love”: And always the…

Communication, Cross-cultural, Decision making, Developing the Field, Email, Future of mediation, Mediation Practice, Online Dispute Resolution (ODR), Online Mediation, Technology

(NZ Centre for ICT Law & School of Law, Auckland University)/ /Leave a comment

“Stand by your devices”; or “Access through the [virtual] looking glass” I take the first phrase of this blog title from a throw-away line in one of the recent comments by a student in my current Negotiation and Mediation class. The context is this: my university has implemented an Emergency Preparedness Teaching and Learning [EPTL]…

ADR, Communication, Conflict, Decision making, Humorous Pieces, Neuroscience, Online Dispute Resolution (ODR), Online Mediation, Skills, Tactics, Tips, Uncategorized, Understanding mediation

(Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy)/ /5 Comments

To the extent that a mediator’s job involves listening to people complain and engage in negative behaviour, mediators face a serious mental health hazard. Research shows that listening to ongoing negativity impairs the brain function of the listener. Yes! Listening can be bad for you if you have a whinging party in the room, and…

Arbitration, Business, Conflict, Conventional wisdom, Creativity, Decision making, Dispute Resolution, Efficiency, Greece, History of mediation

(FORARB/Charles University)/ /2 Comments

With the summer going on, many mediation practitioners are enjoying well deserved holidays. Yet for some of them, even this period of year is time for some pondering over dispute resolution. Should you be one of them, you may find the story of two half-brothers in ancient Greece as an interesting hint. This is the…

Communication, Decision making, Dispute Resolution, Ethics, General, Skills, Social intelligence

(NZ Centre for ICT Law & School of Law, Auckland University)/ /1 Comment

“The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.” The Devil’s Disciple, Act II (1901). G B Shaw I ended my previous blog post [http://kluwermediationblog.com/2015/05/26/the-mediator-as-ethicist/] by saying that there were a couple of aspects of ethics and mediation – beyond the…

Causes of Conflict, Commercial Mediation, Communication, Conflict, Decision making, Developing the Field, Dispute Resolution, Future of mediation, General, Governments/Public Sector, Impasse, Interests, Mediation Practice, Negotiation, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Public Policy, Scotland, Transformation, Uncategorized

(Core Solutions Group)/ /1 Comment

John Nash died this week, in a tragic car accident. John Nash was the Nobel-prize winning mathematician whose theory of non-cooperative games published in 1950 has been described as one of the top ten ideas in economics in the 20th century. His theory introduced and explored the concept of what is known as Nash equilibrium….

Communication, Decision making, Developing the Field, Ethics, mediation as a career, Mediation Practice, Understanding mediation

(NZ Centre for ICT Law & School of Law, Auckland University)/ /4 Comments

“Recall that ‘ethics’ and ‘morals’ have different meanings. Morality is part of ethics, but ethics is a larger and more inclusive notion. Ethics is a response to the question, ‘What sort of a person should I be and how should I live my life?’ while morality is an answer to the question, ‘What are my…

Communication, Conflict, Decision making, Developing the Field, Memory and Illusions, Negotiation, Neuroscience, short term memory, Skills, Tips

(Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy)/ /Leave a comment

Is it true that as we get older, we tend to forget things more easily? Or is it that some things are just less important? As negotiators and mediators, we often deal with complex layers of information that appear all too much for any one person to recall. So we enter the negotiation room burdened…