I saw a blog on the Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School’s web page written by its staff (January 12, 2017) entitled “How Mood Affects Negotiators”. It caught my attention because I had just witnessed this effect in two of my mediations. Recently, I held two mediations on [Read More]
First and foremost- Happy New Year! May it bring you health and happiness and quick and peaceful resolutions to all of your disputes. On my first day back in the office, I read the Kluwer Mediation blog (January 2, 2017). The author- Geoff Sharp wrote on “Chunking Up and Down- [Read More]
Although I have taken many many hours of training about negotiation, none of them has really involved what we witnessed during the Presidential election: extreme negotiations. In essence, both Mrs. Clinton and president-elect Trump were engaging in extreme negotiations with the American public in the hopes of becoming the 45th [Read More]
In connection with another blog post, I downloaded an internet version of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War translated by the Sonshi Group. In reading through it, I could not help but notice that many of its points relating to “war”, apply with equal force to negotiation, mediation and resolving [Read More]
Recently, I came across a report from the Harvard Law School Program on Negotiation entitled “Salary Negotiations”. (HLS_PON_FR_SalaryNeg_V03_031416_wf ) While it focuses on negotiating the best salary possible, some of its points are equally applicable to negotiations in general. In one of the articles, the authors make three important points: “(1) [Read More]
On Saturday, March 19, 2016, the Southern California Mediation Association held a Town Hall on two topics: mediator certification and mediation confidentiality. It is the latter that I wish to discuss. The Supreme Court of California has repeatedly held that mediation confidentiality as set out in California Evidence Code Sections [Read More]
As a mediator, I have often had a party tell me that she will not settle on the terms proffered because, “It is all about principle!” I take this with a grain or two of salt because I have learned that if the other party becomes sufficiently generous in the [Read More]
In last week’s blog, I mentioned one paradox (competition and cooperation) discussed by Bernard Mayer in his book, The Conflict Paradox (ABA and Jossey-Bass, 2015). A second one is avoidance and engagement. Like the first paradox, on superficial glance, avoidance and engagement appear to be polar opposites. But, upon deeper [Read More]
