Communication

Apology, Causes of Conflict, Communication, Creativity, Dispute Resolution, Guitar, Humorous Pieces, Mediation Practice, Negotiation, Scotland, Tips, Uncategorized

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‘Tis the season to be merry. And indulgent. ‘Tis also the season when favourite songs are compiled by well-meaning souls into apparently themed collections. In the UK, we have a long-running radio show called “Desert Island Discs” in which celebrities and others select their favourite pieces of music as they reminisce about their lives. The…

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

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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…

Causes of Conflict, Communication, General, Negotiation

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“Yes we speak of things that matter With words that must be said” [Paul Simon, “Dangling Conversation”] I’m posting this a litle earlier than usual, but we all know of the distractions that will only be compounded in the coming week. For about ten years, before we moved to Singapore, our Thursday morning breakfast conversations…

Cognitive Bias, Commercial Mediation, Communication, Creativity, Negotiation, Scotland

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Negotiating in Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar is an experience to relish. I’ve recently returned from three days in that wonderful city, helping lawyers, judges and mediators to expand the use of mediation in commercial disputes, inspired by the excellent work there led by Asiyan Suleymanoglu and her colleagues. Working with one of the pioneers of mediation…

Clients, Communication, Conventional wisdom, Dispute Resolution, Mediation Practice, mediation process, mediation traditions, Stages of mediation

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The recent blog entry by Matthew Rushton (23 August) is a reminder of what changes can and do happen across the diverse landscape of mediation, and of the ways in which the “classical” model of mediation is probably as much a fond memory as it is a consistent practice. In both practice and training, we’ve…

Bias, Causes of Conflict, Cognitive Bias, Communication, Conflict, General, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Trust

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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…

Communication, Conflict, Developing the Field, Dispute Resolution, Future of mediation, International Mediation, Mediation Outcomes, Mediation Practice, Negotiation, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Public Policy, Reform, Scotland, Skills, Transformation, Uncategorized

(Core Solutions Group)/ /1 Comment

This week, I have had the genuine privilege of contributing one of the key note addresses at the Annual Conference of the Arbitrators and Mediators Institute of New Zealand (AMINZ) in Wellington. It has been a terrific conference, superbly organized by the indefatigable Deborah Hart. The standard of the many and diverse sessions has been…

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

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“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

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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

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“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…