Being involved in a lawsuit or even just in a dispute can be stressful, worrisome if not anxiety ridden. Believe it or not, being the mediator trying to help the parties resolve their dispute can also be stressful, worrisome, and anxiety producing. The mediator never really knows what is going [Read More]
Readers of my blog probably realize by now that one of my favorite topics is cognitive biases which “…refer to a range of systematic errors in human decision- making from the tendency to use mental shortcuts. “( “How Common Mental Shortcuts Can Cause Major Physician Errors” by Anupam B. Jena [Read More]
As one might suspect, mediations are more likely to end in settlement when the participants are in a good mood or are happy. Parties in bad moods make a mediator’s job more difficult; their overall negative outlook on life turns even the best settlement proposals into “bad deals”. So, when [Read More]
It seems that implicit biases are all around us and are inescapable: they appear even in the language we use in our writing. A study (“The sex of researchers affects the language of research papers.” ) discussed in the Science and Technology section of the January 9, 2020 edition of [Read More]
One of the latest blog posts from the Harvard Negotiation Project notes the importance of understanding body language in negotiations. Written by the PON staff and posted on January 30, 2020, “Using Body Language in Negotiation” analyses three situations in which analyzing body language may improve the outcome of your [Read More]
Last week, I posted a blog about an article in the New York Times discussing the lost art of active listening. (“Are You Listening?”). It seems that my blog post was very timely because NPR just published an article on the loneliness of Americans. (“Most Americans Are Lonely, And Our [Read More]
One of the first things a mediator in training is taught is to listen, really listen what the parties are saying. Aka “Active Listening”! Well, it seems that the need and ability to listen is a trait that many in the general population should also learn. A recent article in [Read More]
In 2018, I wrote a blog about mediating in “good faith”. It involved a mediation in which defense counsel admitted that she was there ONLY because the court had ordered the mediation; her client was not inclined to settle or to offer anything in settlement. This posed the question: was [Read More]
