Once again, I am teaching Employment Dispute Mediation online to students in various professions, including Human Resources, union representatives, teachers, law enforcement, paralegals, etc. As in past classes, Active Listening is an important topic that most of them need to work on. I raise this issue as the Harvard Program [Read More]
An article in this week’s The Economist discusses the benefits of mindful breathing in reducing stress. It got me thinking that perhaps the parties in mediation should start the session with mindful breathing. The article “Can you breathe stress away?” discusses a meta-analysis published in Scientific Reports in 2023. The [Read More]
The Harvard Negotiation PON’s recent blog raises an interesting issue: in a negotiation should you set a goal? In “The Anchoring Effect and How It Can Impact Your Negotiation”, it answers “yes”. Noting that the “anchoring effect is a cognitive bias that describes the common human tendency to rely too [Read More]
The Harvard PONS blog posted (on December 3, 2024) a thought- provoking article by Katie Shonk entitled “Moral Leadership: Do Women Negotiate More Ethically than Men?” The answer is that generally, “yes”, “…women are generally less accepting of unethical behavior than men are and tend to behave more ethically than [Read More]
Last week, the news was full of a study about the effects of excessive heat on young children (coinciding with the start of school, no doubt), noting that it hits them hard. An article from the Harvard Graduate School of Education entitled "Excessive Heat Hits Young Children Hard” by Elizabeth [Read More]
Recently, 60 Minutes presented a segment on Story Corps and, more particularly, on its program One Small Step, which is “… a national effort to help bridge divides during a contentious election year.” (Id.) To do so, the program brings people of diverse, if not opposite, backgrounds together to spend [Read More]
Last year, I attended a memorial service online. The service meant a lot to me. The telephone rang, and rather than letting it ring and go to voicemail, I picked up and very quickly said I was attending the service and said goodbye. Even though the caller (“Jane”) was aware [Read More]
If you have paid the slightest attention to the news over the last few weeks, you have noticed that a heat wave is gripping most of the nation. Excessive heat warnings seem to be posted everywhere. Thus, a recent New York Times article entitled “How Heat Affects the Brain” by [Read More]
