‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’ is thought to originate from mediaeval falconry! There are a number of variations on the theme – apparently in central Europe the saying is ‘a sparrow in the hand is worth a pigeon on the roof’! A number of cognitive biases are at play…
One of the privileges of mediating is to watch leaders at work. Every party, every team, has its leader(s). And as any mediator will tell you, the way in which they choose to lead during a mediation – and more widely during the conflict or dispute itself – has a significant impact on the outcome;…
My last blog reflected on an excellent mediation conference in Frankfurt on the Oder where the strength which comes from working together was clear. I started this present blog on the day that the EU agreed the terms of the UK’s departure from the organisation that has been such a significant part of Europe’s post-second…
“I hold to the idea that civility, understood as the willingness to engage in public discourse, is the first virtue of citizens.” Mark Kingwell, The World We Want: Restoring Citizenship in a Fractured Age, [Rowman & Littlefield, 2000] A recent email from a US-based group that specialises in facilitating public dialogues in difficult cases noted…
Mediation can be seen as a tool that facilitates better decision-making, particularly in disputes, but not only. The simple tools are focusing on interests, looking for common ground and mutual understanding, creating options that might satisfy many interests, and then weighing up those options to reach a decision. These tools are very simple in theory,…
In one of my recent cases, the question of impartiality appeared in quite an irregular way. It happened when I entered the mediation room where both parties were seated together with their lawyers. They were drinking coffee and making small talk. To my surprise, one of the lawyers looked quite familiar. Just for a moment,…
Bloomberg (not my usual reading fodder, I confess) carried an interesting piece a couple of months ago, entitled “Meet the Real Force Behind the Brexit Talks”. Yes, it was about Brexit (yawn) but it was about an unseen side of the negotiations. Opening with the line “In every negotiation the most important work is done…
“I’ve been trying to tell you, but you didn’t listen. You’ve got to go down more deeply and take more time, you’re rushing it and it’s too superficial. You’re hardly disturbing the surface. You’ll make no progress that way. And you are using so much effort. Relax. When you get into difficulty, you are expending…
In recent years, Vietnam has boosted its legal framework for commercial mediation. The story began with the promulgation of the new Civil Procedure Code 2015 whose Chapter 33 serves as the legal basis for the recognition of out-of-court mediated settlement agreements. Then, the Government issued Decree no. 22/2017/ND-CP on Commercial Mediation (“Decree 22”) detailing and…
Here in Singapore, along with the rest of the world, we await the Trump-Kim Summit scheduled for Tuesday 12 June. What can we expect? While we may have learned to expect the unexpected from these two leaders, Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un, recent media reports have highlighted one apparently predictable feature of Trump’s negotiation approach….
