You are usually at a disadvantage for you will take over the boat in midst of the conflict storm without having the chance to prepare the crew and to check on the ship. Yet you are charged to navigate the vessel through all perils of misunderstandings, mistrust, and perceptions. It takes time to make sure…

We are living in an every expanding web of interdependence; built around trade, investment, cultural exchange, digital technologies, and global politics. In such an environment effective cooperation is an ever more crucial. Yet alongside this need there are equally strong drivers spurring on ever more competition for resources, markets, talent etc.  Both cooperation and competition…

“Within a multicultural democracy, debate within our own groups and communities must always be balanced by constructive engagement with members of other groups and communities. Citizens of a multicultural democracy must learn how to speak and be heard across difference . . . “ Alison Jaggar, “Multicultural Democracy,” Jnl of Political Philosophy, 7, No. 3,…

“As they sometimes say around Kyoto, ‘Don’t just do something. Sit there.’” The Art of Stillness, Pico Iyer Recently I had the good fortune of watching fellow blogger, John Sturrock QC, mediate. In the days which have followed, I’ve been reflecting on what I learnt from observing the mediation. What helped the parties in this…

Julian Baggini’s recently published book “How the world thinks” is a history of global philosophy, looking at how thinking has developed in different places and times. In the introduction he highlights the importance of not just seeing something from another’s perspective, but trying to see what they are seeing as well. As he puts it:…

Over recent years I have been fortunate to be able to travel widely for work, and everywhere I go I find time to visit places of worship and sit quietly or attend services – in mosques, churches, synagogues and temples. I listen, either to the silence, to my thoughts, or to the ritual. Recently I…

Online negotiators are often faced with the challenge of how to overcome barriers on communication. When in real life (or better, when in non digital life) body language, voice tone and appearance enrich the communication process giving more tools for both communicators to express and understand the message, therefore making any negotiation more fluid and…

I would like to begin this blog with a big thank you to Prof. Dr. Ulla Glässer and the European Viadrina University of Frankfurt an der Oder in Germany (the “other” Frankfurt, the one on the German-Polish border). Thank you for the Mediation Moves international workshop and conference, which took place the first weekend of…

When I first started getting seriously interested in mediation over ten years ago, the thought struck me that ‘Shades of Grey’ might be a good name for an organisation involved in this field. Thankfully, given a subsequent publication and film, I didn’t pursue it any further – although if I’d registered the domain name it…