In recent years we have learned a lot more about what have become known as cognitive biases and how they may play a part in negotiation and mediation. These are mental shortcuts that save energy and get us out of tight spots that have evolved over thousands of years. Well over a hundred have been…
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…
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,…
In November 2009, John Kenyon published a blog entry titled “Mediation Jokes” with the first sentence saying, “There is much discussion on whether or not mediation is a profession yet one of the defining marks of a profession is when you can tell jokes about its practitioners.” With the passage of time, the practice of…
“It’s hard to beat Dark Side of the Moon” he said. “What a piece of music.” I agreed: “Did you ever see Pink Floyd play Dark Side live? I recall being at Earls Court in 1994.” “I was there too!” he exclaimed. For a moment or two, we reflected on the album’s seemingly relevant song…
Corona is managed under different circumstances around the world. These depend on resources and infrastructure, and also on political interpretations of the science and of the effects of spreading infection in society. There are also cultural factors that play a role here – concerning the political culture of a country and also the values that…
The International Commercial Mediation Competition made a brave online appearance this year – the 16th year in which the ICC has delivered the most important competition of its kind in the world. For 15 of these 16 years it has been my privilege to be part of this experience as the coach for my…
The Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy (“SIDRA”) issued the global International Dispute Resolution Survey: 2020 Final Report (the “SIDRA Survey”) on 3 July 2020, which studied the preferences, experiences, and perspectives of legal users (lawyers and legal advisers) and client users (corporate executives and in-house counsel) with regard to, among other mechanisms, international commercial mediation….
For readers who are new, the “Neuro-Linguist’s Toolbox” series is an ongoing series focused on using Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) in our practice of amicable dispute resolution. The first section focused on rapport (the first of which can be found here). The second section focuses on matters of self-care and personal improvement for mediators (the first…
By the everyday miracle of Zoom, Carrie Menkel-Meadow spoke from her LA office to a Glasgow conference with a worldwide audience. Wrapping up ‘Learning by Doing,’ the UK’s first conference devoted to mediation clinics, her keynote described the inspiration for a whole career: a colleague in her legal aid office in the 1970s. While Carrie…
