Skills

  Photo credit: Christof Häuser, via Nathalie Birli We mediators are accustomed to recognising empathy as an important part of our mediation repertoire which is consistently reinforced in our…

Ever since I took a course developed by Ronald Heifetz on Exercising Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, I wanted to reflect on how much mediation and leadership have in common.  As I…

Several months ago, I received an email from a university student named Madison. She had been trying to connect with an experienced mediator to learn about the work but hadn’t received any responses…

The Japan International Mediation Center in Kyoto (JIMC-Kyoto), which is the first Japanese international mediation centre, was officially launched on 20 November 2018. The centre has a panel of non…

A number of recent mediations have reaffirmed some essentials which I share here in the hope that they might be helpful to others: It’s not all about the money. Mr A had a very substantial claim…

  Alright, idiots, what's the problem? And don't waste my time! “Hi, I’m Rick. I’m your mediator for today. I can’t decide what happens in this dumb dispute or how you resolve issues. My job is just…

"Like poets, but with less time" The Deep End Getting to grips with mediation can leave students and trainees overwhelmed. That favourite training tool, the roleplay, throws most in at the deep end…

Last week I was reading an essay by the American novelist Jonathan Franzen, and was struck by the following thought: “The essay’s roots are in literature, and literature at its best […] invites you…

I was again privileged to be at the ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition in early February, which this time included a new event – an intergenerational round table, workshops for…