About the time Charlie Irvine was penning his recent post about mediator assistants, a mediation colleague here in New Zealand was saying farewell to his own assistant as he cradled him in his arms. You see, my mate Paul Hutchison, one of New Zealand’s foremost mediators, is blind and Digby (“the biggest dog in the…
According to commentator Rachel Maddow in her book “Drift,” the way the United States goes to war has gradually become more secretive and less democratic. She observes that in the last half century, the decision to go to war has become too easy. This is contrary to what the Founders of our nation had in…
Talking to Dr Gilbert Wong Senior Superintendent, Commanding Officer, Police Negotiation Cadre, Hong Kong Walking into Gilbert Wong’s office is like stumbling into Aladdin’s Cave – a treasure trove of memories and stories of his 21 years in the Hong Kong Police Force. Amongst his library of books on crisis negotiation, psychology, counselling, psychotherapy and…
Czech Innovation: “Mediation Assistants” Fascinating visit to the Czech Republic recently. I was asked to provide the training for a group of ‘mediation assistants’. Never having heard the term before I was intrigued. I flew to Prague (stag-night capital of Europe) and after a reasonably terrifying drive through a rainstorm arrived in in Hradec Králové,…
Over the last number of years I have been educating mediators in a variety of settings, professional and academic. In anticipation of a new training venture due to kick off later this year, which should be a bit of a “green field site” in terms of curriculum design and implementation, I have decided to reflect…
Many mediations are 80/20 – that is, 80% of the day spent in dialogue and debate with not much sign of movement and, as evening gathers, 20% frenetic activity. So it is not unusual for the parties to sit together for many hours and ask towards the end of the day “are we any nearer each other?”…
I write here about two contrasting experiences which have, for me, underscored the richness of the mediation process. In one mediation, involving business partners with an ongoing management issue, one of the protagonists (A) suggested bringing in another partner (D) who was not perceived to be a part of the present problem, simply to observe,…
“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves. . . Do not now look for the answers. . . At present you need to live the question.” Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet At the heart of the idea of mediation is the aim of…
Earlier this month the Supreme Court of Canada issued its unanimous decision in Union Carbide Canada Inc. v. Bombardier Inc., 2014 SCC 35. The reasons of Mr. Justice Wagner deal with an unfortunate situation in which Bombardier, which had been suing Union Carbide for more than a decade seeking CAN$30 million related to allegedly defective…
In his now famous Stanford Commencement Address in June 2005, Steve Jobs remarked: “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life…. [and] to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.” One of the choices that we all…
