Plaintiffs file lawsuits seeking “justice”. Defendants respond, stating they are seeking “justice” as well. Both come to mediation, seeking “justice”. When I am told this, that each side wants “justice”, I am not sure how to respond because I do not know exactly what that word means. An article by [Read More]
( John Nash died on May 23, 2015 in an automobile accident. He was a mathematician who won the Nobel Prize for his Nash equilibrium. While, initially, one may think that such a theory has nothing to do with resolving disputes, to the contrary, it has everything to do with negotiation and [Read More]
I have mediated over 1400 matters. Thus, I have seen parties approach negotiation in a myriad of ways; some appear to be “winging it” while others appear to have some sort of strategy in mind. The common thread appears to be “self-interest” or how can each party get the best deal [Read More]
Everyone enters into a negotiation with the intent to be honest. But- ay- that is the “rub”. One party’s (“Jane”) definition of “honesty” may be different than the other party’s (“Mary”). Why? Research has shown that one’s honesty will vary with the environment. As a March 25, 2015 blog post [Read More]
Well- we missed it! March 20 was International Day of Happiness. Evidently, it was created by a United Nations Resolution passed at its 118th plenary meeting on June 28, 2012, declaring March 20th of each year to be the holiday. As one might guess, the resolution was promoted by the [Read More]
Over the last few years, the trend in California has been not to hold joint sessions in mediation but, to conduct the entire mediation using separate sessions so that the adverse parties are never in the same room at the same time. (Sometimes they do not even want to meet [Read More]
Roaming around on the internet the other day, I stumbled across an interesting article on LiveScience.com about the effect of temperature on our psyches. Entitled, “5 Weird Ways Cold Weather Affects Your Psyche”, the author Laura Geggel discusses different studies showing that we react differently depending upon whether a room [Read More]
Snap Judgments. We all make them … and how they can lead us astray! This obvious point is made in a blog posted on March 2, 2015 on the Harvard Program on Negotiation’s blog website ( entitled "How Snap Judgments Can Lead Negotiators Astray In Negotiation Conversations" ). The unidentified authors [Read More]
