Causes of Conflict, Cognitive Bias, Creativity, Cross-cultural, Dialogue, Economics, Framing, Language, Mediation Practice, The role of the mediator, Uncategorized

(Core Solutions Group)/ /Leave a comment

Erisology has been defined as the study of disagreement – where people are no closer to understanding each other at the end of an exchange than they were at the beginning. Sound familiar? Eris was the Greek goddess of discord.  The term was been coined by John Nerst, a blogger in Sweden, who is interested in…

Cognitive Bias, Communication, Cross-cultural, International Mediation, Mediation and Society, Neuroscience, Trust, user perspectives

(Core Solutions Group)/ /1 Comment

In recent years we have learned a lot more about what have become known as cognitive biases and how they may play a part in negotiation and mediation. These are mental shortcuts that save energy and get us out of tight spots that have evolved over thousands of years. Well over a hundred have been…

Business, Communication, Cooperation, Dialogue, Economics, Governments/Public Sector, Mediation and Society, Public Policy, Trust

(Core Solutions Group)/ /2 Comments

Given Peter Drucker’s memorable observation, how valuable an asset is trust in shaping a culture? What role could mediators play in strengthening it? From a purely economic perspective there appears to be a strong relationship between levels of trust and output per head (as the chart below from ‘Our World in Data’ demonstrates). As with…

Book Review, Business, Causes of Conflict, Cognitive Bias, Commercial Mediation, Dialogue, Economics, Governments/Public Sector, Mediation and Society, Partnering, Public Policy

(Core Solutions Group)/ /Leave a comment

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions” was a saying I heard quite a few times while growing up, as another childhood wheeze bit the dust. I returned to it while reading Michal Sandel’s recent book ‘The Tyranny of Merit’, in which he takes a very critical look at the notion of meritocracy….

Business, Communication, Cooperation, Creativity, Dialogue, Economics, Mediation and Society, Partnering, Policy, Trust, Uncategorized

(Core Solutions Group)/ /Leave a comment

Might we get better results in many of the tasks we undertake if we gave more thought to the way we do things before focusing too early on what to do?  As mediators we know that spending sufficient time on the process of problem solving and negotiation pays dividends in terms of the content. There are…

Business, Cooperation, COVID-19, Dialogue, Economics, Mediation and Society, Public Policy

(Core Solutions Group)/ /Leave a comment

“in the wreckage left behind by the coronavirus pandemic, a new era is beginning. What does it hold?….What is clear is that the old economic paradigm is looking tired. One way or another, change is coming.” The Economist This quote relates to the way in which economies are managed at a macro level – where the…

COVID-19, Dialogue, Economics, Growth of the Field (Challenges, New Sectors, etc.), Mediation and Society, Public Policy, Uncategorized

(Core Solutions Group)/ /1 Comment

“Value will change in the post-covid world. On one level, that’s obvious: valuations in global financial markets have imploded, with many suffering their sharpest declines in decades. More fundamentally, the traditional drivers of value have been shaken, new ones will gain prominence, and there’s a possibility that the gulf between what markets value and what people…

COVID-19, crisis negotiatons, Dialogue, Economics, Environmental Mediation, Game Theory, Governments/Public Sector, International Mediation, Mediation and Society, Public Policy

(Core Solutions Group)/ /1 Comment

So ended a recent article in the FT by Martin Wolf on the economic response needed in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. In it he argues that Governments acting in the collective interest must be the buyer of last resort as well as the lender of last resort to prevent the economy imploding as…

Creativity, cross-border mediation, Dialogue, Environmental Mediation, International Mediation, Public Policy, Scotland, Transformation, UN and International Organizations

(Core Solutions Group)/ /Leave a comment

The start of a new decade offers a great opportunity to reflect and plan. There is a growing consensus that the 2020s will be crucial in transforming the way we live and work if we are to have any chance of ensuring the planet is able to accommodate our species. Nearly everything we do is…

Business, Cognitive Bias, Creativity, Economics, Efficiency, Environmental Mediation, Game Theory, Mediation and Society, Public Policy

(Core Solutions Group)/ /Leave a comment

If the natural resources of the planet and its capacity to cope with our waste are finite, is it reasonable for mediators to be encouraging people to search for positive sum solutions which can benefit all parties to a negotiation? If you can achieve a win-win in one case could it, on a global scale,…