Are you ready for the unexpected?
How do you respond when someone throws a wrench into your day? Here’s how one classical musician responded, after a Nokia ring tone went off in the middle of his performance… (thanks to my local fiddler/composer friend, Paul Gitlitz, for bringing this to my attention). (If the video not displaying, click here) I found this [...]
U Connect: The Art of Making Connections to Resolve Disputes
I published my 2nd e-book this week, on Amazon. It’s titled: U Connect: The Art of Making Connections to Resolve Disputes. It’s a consolidation of some my observations, along with insights I’ve culled from others, around “making connections”. Here’s the Table of Contents and here’s the Introduction section: “Disputes happen. How do we respond? One [...]
The Mediation ‘Sweet Spot’
A mediation is like a good holiday. Here’s why… —————————————————————- A weekend vacation trip does not give enough time to find the holiday ‘sweet spot’. Bruce Kirkby wrote a great article in last weekend’s Globe & Mail about the holiday ‘sweet spot’. As a veteran outdoors trip guide, he knows all about the magic and [...]
10 Holiday Gift Book Ideas for the “Mediator” in Your Life
I enjoy reading books. They are a safe way to explore the ideas and works of others. And, a really good book is inspiring. It seems to connect on a personal and emotional level; a connection that can motivate one to further thought and action. Here are ten of the books I read in 2011, [...]
I “don’t know” and I’m going to run with that
I felt crappy even before the face-to-face mediation began, this week. Fighting some seasonal bug, I was hoping the mediation would be a short one, no matter the outcome, and I would soon be on my way home, to a hot apple cider and a bed. It was not a short one. Yet, what kept [...]
The Cloud and Mobile are the Mediator’s future office
I mediated a trans-national business dispute last week. The mediation took place over several days, and was conducted online, over the Internet. There was zero physical paper exchanged. I worked from my laptop, from my home office. Essentially, all the software I used was based in the “Cloud”, and either free or low-cost. I’m grateful. [...]
It’s a Mediator’s World
I spent yesterday in Vancouver, at an all-day gathering with my court mediation colleagues. Part information sharing, part community building, always a learning experience… these types of get-together I really enjoy. There were a number of presenters during the day. I was one of them, on the topic of Collaborating on Business Development. That was [...]
Diversity: A pathway to connection, common ground and innovation
Diversity is a hallmark of innovative teams. One of the best ways to expand your own problem-solving capabilities is to diversify; apply a different lens, different perspective, to the problem. Traditional pathways If you’re a facilitator, you know how to build bridges between people’s differences, find common ground, as a stepping stone to joint solutions [...]
Grandmothers and Collaborative Learning
[Note: I originally wrote this post, and had it posted a couple of months back, as a guest blogger on Lorie Vela’s excellent Collaboration Ideas blog. Thanks Lorie. With children shortly returning to school, and parents, and others, occupied by thoughts of "good learning", I thought it might be timely to post it again, here.] [...]
10 Dispute Resolution Questions asked by a Rainbow Mediator
There are many ways to resolve disputes. Do a quick global tour of the dispute resolution landscape, and you’ll see just how many. It’s as if there is a rainbow of options. The rainbow mediator acknowledges the diverse approaches to resolution, and incorporates key elements into her/his practice. Kind of a think global, act local. [...]
