Dialogue

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

(Core Solutions Group / Scottish Universities Insight Institute)/ /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…

Communication, Conflict, COVID-19, Dialogue, Dispute Resolution, Future of mediation, Uncategorized

(Mediar360 - Dispute Resolution )/ /Leave a comment

Currently, Brazil is the second country with the highest number of cases of Burnout Syndrome. This syndrome (which was even included in the International Classification of Diseases of the World Health Organization in 2019) is defined as “emotional exhaustion”, and its main symptoms are related to anxiety and depression, a very common situation in today’s…

Below the line, Clients, Conflict, Cross-cultural, Dialogue, Experience, Fear, General, Language, Lawyers and Psychologists, Mediation Lawyering, Mediation Practice, Mediators’ Conduct, Mindset, Mistakes, Neutrality, omnipartiality in mediation, Perception, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Reflective Practice, Transformation, user perspectives

(Bill Marsh Mediator)/ /1 Comment

I am not really one for elevator pitches. But I did hear one the other day about creating impact in a very short space of time, and I was struck by its relevance to mediation. Essentially, the message was that the people we meet make up their minds about us based on two key criteria,…

Communication, Dialogue, Environmental disputes, Practical Challenges for Mediators

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

” . . . how are we to deal with this grief? People might react with despair, sadness, frustration, lack of control, hopelessness, and even apathy. It’s understandable, given the enormity of the destruction taking place. It’s understandable to feel powerless when faced with the news of another whale dying, another forest being decimated, or…

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

(Core Solutions Group / Scottish Universities Insight Institute)/ /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…

Communication, Decision making, Dialogue, Dispute Resolution, Language, Negotiation, Skills

(University of Missouri Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution)/ /Leave a comment

“Managing a Client’s expectations and advising them on a course of action turned out to be far more difficult than negotiating with the other Party.” So wrote newly-minted Indian lawyer Varsha Manoj about her experiences negotiating with her clients. Many lawyers in the US and other countries undoubtedly have similar experiences. Legal clients often experience…

Civil rights, Co-mediation, Communication, Conflict, Cooperation, COVID-19, Dialogue, Europe, General, Governments/Public Sector, insider and outsider mediators, Interests, International Mediation, Investor-state mediation, Mediation Outcomes, mediation process, Public Policy, Transformation, Trust

(Bill Marsh Mediator)/ /4 Comments

In a few weeks’ time I will come to the end of a two-year mediation engagement in South Eastern Europe. The conflict in question relates to environmental pollution. The issues are complex and heavily contested, and there are many stakeholders – government, city authorities, environmental groups, investors and business, to name a few. It has…

Communication, COVID-19, Dialogue, Environmental disputes, General, Reality-Testing

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

“We’ve come a long way since we last shook hands Still got a long way to go” “Come a Long Way”, Kate McGarrigle & Louden Wainwright III performed by Kate & Anna McGarrigle and others (including Kate and Louden’s children, Martha and Rufus Towards the end of last year, we took our 13-year-old granddaughter and…

Creativity, Dialogue, Reflective Practice, Transformation, Trust

(Bond & Bond Mediation / University of Wildau )/ /3 Comments

Christmas is a holiday and a time for reflection and relaxation for many around the world, so in this blog post I won’t focus on mediation as it is practiced and trained. Instead I make two recommendations for films to watch, both of which are centered around the theme of empathy. Both touched me and…

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

(Core Solutions Group / Scottish Universities Insight Institute)/ /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….