The work of Daniel Kahneman continues to provide a powerful lens for scrutinising human behaviour – useful for our human interactions in general and our life as mediators in particular. His work, with his late colleague Amos Tversky,  gave us the field of behavioural economics and Kahneman the Nobel Prize in economics. I have…

  The Daily Blogpost from the Harvard Program on Negotiation (PON) is always a great way to start the day. A quick read, it often turns something that I have been processing at the back of my mind into a more solid idea I can inspect and explore. This week, a particularly relevant post about…

I have in previous entries (July 2012 and July 2013) written about a peer mediation initiative called the Peacemakers Conference. The purpose of the Peacemakers Conference is to teach 13-16 year olds how to resolve conflicts amicably in a workshop cum competition format. This year’s Peacemakers Conference was held from 22 to 24 June 2021….

I have in previous entries (July 2012 and July 2013) written about a peer mediation initiative called the Peacemakers Conference. The purpose of the Peacemakers Conference is to teach 13-16 year olds how to resolve conflicts amicably in a workshop cum competition format. This year’s Peacemakers Conference was held from 20 to 22 July 2020….

Several months ago, I received an email from a university student named Madison. She had been trying to connect with an experienced mediator to learn about the work but hadn’t received any responses yet. We met up. Being around the same age, we found that we knew a lot of the same people and had…

I have in previous entries (July 2012 and July 2013) written about a peer mediation initiative called the Peacemakers Conference. The purpose of the Peacemakers Conference is to teach 13-16 year olds how to resolve conflicts amicably in a workshop cum competition format. This year’s Peacemakers Conference was held from 17 to 19 July 2019.   As…

Picture: Derek Gavey / Creative Commons A man walks into a bar …… I have to work quickly now because I can visualise readers reaching for the delete button. That’s because my six words have quickly taken you to an already constructed narrative. Before hitting delete there was probably a sigh; an eye roll and…

Mediation can sometimes be a lonely business – in one very specific way: when there is no or little qualified feedback and shared reflection. When I teach and train, I always get some feedback and often I get very precise feedback, and sometimes very warm and encouraging feedback. When I mediate disputes or moderate strategy…