Reflective Practice

Causes of Conflict, Cognitive Bias, Communication, Cooperation, Decision making, Dialogue, Dispute Resolution, Future of mediation, Mindset, Negotiation, Reflective Practice, Scotland, Transformation

(Core Solutions Group)/ /Leave a comment

“Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears.” Surely some mistake, I thought; shouldn’t it be the other way round? Swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning-hooks? It was during Evensong at the magnificent Liverpool Cathedral a few weeks ago that this reading from the Old Testament Book of the prophet Joel caught…

Argument, Conflict, Fear, Mediators’ Conduct, Personal Development, Reflective Practice, Violence

(University of New South Wales)/ /1 Comment

    For the past 2 weeks I have been teaching an intensive postgraduate class on interest-based negotiation. Most of the group were international students who, until now, had been undertaking their studies online and in their own countries. Despite this country’s reputation as a safe place many were finding Australia and Australian ways difficult…

Developing the Field, Mediation Practice, Mindset, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Reflective Practice

(University of New South Wales)/ /2 Comments

Insomnia drove me to a late-night television binge recently and I watched a rerun of  Pretty Woman, the 1990 movie starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. For those of you yet to see this movie, its great strength is that it offers lines that are useful for almost every moment of your life. ‘You must…

cross-border mediation, Due Process, Mediation Practice, Online Dispute Resolution (ODR), Online Mediation, Quality, Reflective Practice, Regulation

(Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy)/ /Leave a comment

Are you doing it online? A lot? Regularly? Just sometimes? Do you talk to others about it or keep it mostly to yourself? And, if you do talk about it, do you just flippantly mention it as a throw-away line that everyone should hear or do you really engage in deep conversations about what it…

Argument, Causes of Conflict, Cooperation, Decision making, Developing the Field, Dialogue, Future of mediation, Language, Mediation Practice, Philosophy, Reflective Practice, Scotland, The role of the mediator, Uncategorized

(Core Solutions Group)/ /3 Comments

The former British politician (and leadership contender when the Conservative Party was choosing Boris Johnson), Rory Stewart, is making a mark as an even more independent thinker than he was in the British Parliament. Recently, he hosted a three-part series on BBC Radio 4 entitled A Long History of Argument. It is worth listening to…

Bias, caucus, Caucus, Cognitive Bias, Commercial Mediation, Communication, Confidentiality, conlfict coaching, Decision making, Developing the Field, Dispute Resolution, Flexibility, Intuition, lawyers in mediation, mediation models, Mediation Outcomes, Mediation Practice, mediation process, Mediation Skills, Mediation Training, Negotiation, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Reflective Practice, Scotland, Stages of mediation, The role of the mediator

(Core Solutions Group)/ /3 Comments

It’s been a long time since I wrote a blog just about mediation practice. Other things always seem more important! However, as I was mediating this week, a thought occurred to me about a rather imperceptible but very real change in my practice as a mediator, which I develop here, albeit in a simplified way….

Conflict, conlfict coaching, crisis negotiatons, Go to the balcony, International Mediation, Mediation Practice, Negotiation, peace negotiations, Reality-Testing, Reflective Practice, Scotland, Ukraine

(Core Solutions Group)/ /Leave a comment

I have been musing about what a mediator might say to President Putin given the opportunity. That led me to compose a letter a few weeks ago, with which I have since tinkered. This is merely a thought experiment. The letter goes something like this: “Dear President Putin I write as a mediator, a peacemaker….

Mediation Practice, Mindset, Personal Development, Reflective Practice, Scotland, Uncategorized

(Core Solutions Group)/ /Leave a comment

At this time of year, it is good to reflect, to look back, and also to look forward. This is not always easy as we sense the clutter and complexity of life crowding in on us. I have had the uneasy experience in the past few weeks of clearing out the Core office, our administrative…

Conventional wisdom, Decision making, Evaluative Mediation, Improvisation, Intuition, mediation models, Mediation Practice, mediation process, Mindset, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Reflective Practice, Tactics, The role of the mediator

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

I was puzzled to get an email from a mediator thanking me for my recent post, which advocated using a unified conceptual framework of unbundled mediation interventions. The puzzling part was that she wrote that it helped to “validate my theory that ‘bundling’ of mediation models can be appropriate and effective in the right case…

Commercial Mediation, Community Mediation, Decision making, Evaluative Mediation, Family Mediation, International commercial mediation, lawyers in mediation, mediation models, Mediation Practice, mediation process, Reflective Practice

(University of Missouri Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution)/ /1 Comment

A quarter century ago, Professor Leonard Riskin published an article describing a grid of mediator orientiations including a facilitative-evaluative dimension.  Despite critiques of this framework, including by Riskin himself, many mediators, trainers, and teachers still use these concepts as mediation models, expressing strong feelings that one model is good and the other is bad. These…