17/8/2022 Trump takes the FifthI’ve written a lot about what Trump has said and done over the years, particularly in respect of his negotiation style and strategy.
Unsurprisingly, one thing I haven’t written about is him keeping quiet... As mediators we spend a lot of time focused on how we can help parties to settle.
But sometimes the question emerges - is failing to reach a settlement an automatic failure? Is there something else that can be gained even where the parties do not settle? 4/8/2022 I’m so sorry I got it wrong.That got your attention, didn't it?
Because it means such a lot to us. Saying sorry within negotiations and mediations can be the start of a healing process, and the beginning of a discussion that leads to a settlement of the issue at hand. It depends on the colour of your shirt.
There is some great research around how our view of an opinion or a statement is massively influenced by who tells us it. And we’re not talking about the Devil or an Angel. We’re talking about people we just happen to see as ‘us’ or ‘them’. 28/7/2022 Communicate you IntentFailing to Communicate your Intent within a negotiation might mean a really bad outcome - it could mean the End of the World.
I’ve been really enjoying the latest series of Sideways on Radio 4 - Matthew Side’s examination of seeing the world differently. The current season examines the threat of nuclear war, and one episode mentioned how bad parties within a negotiation can be at signalling their intentions. In the case of the Cuban Missile Crisis, it nearly led to a nuclear war. 27/7/2022 Climbing Stairs in MediationIf life is like a box of chocolates, then ‘challenge’ can be like climbing huge, giant stairs, where the vertical part, the riser, reaches up above you. Like the Borrowers in a normal size house.
I’ve used the ‘stairs’ analogy with newer members of the team, those who are on a steep learning curve, for whom each new project delivers the same high level of challenge as the last one. The next stair is always the exact same level of challenge as the last one, and just as daunting as every other one. That can be so disheartening. 25/7/2022 “Res Ipsa Retainer”Back in the day when lawyers regularly used Latin, “Res ipsa Loquitur” covered the notion that a Court could infer negligence from the very nature of an accident or injury. Literally translated, the facts speak for themselves.
In the 1990’s Lawyer comedy Ally McBeal, one of the characters is asked if his client has a case. He replies “Res Ipsa Retainer” - effectively the fact that his client had hired a lawyer spoke for itself - they have a case because they hired a lawyer. I always loved the idea of that because, whilst in a true legal sense it’s total nonsense, in a practical day-to-day sense it’s totally true. My Naïve Realism means I know I’m right and you’re just plain wrong.
Yep, it’s as Black and White as that. In my own mind, at least. And yours too. What happens is that we all see the world through a lens but our brains tell us that we’re seeing reality. And the lens has a series of filters, biases, pre-existing assumptions, that means what we think we see might not actually be what we really see. WOW!!! That’s an amazingly descriptive way of describing the sting of a bullet ant.
And there’s more: “Once bitten, the pain lasts anywhere between five and 24 hours with symptoms described as waves of excruciating pain, temporary paralysis and shaking in the poisoned area.” So says Dr Justin Schmidt, the inventor of his own eponymously named four point sting pain index, whose own scale was insufficient to measure the bullet ant’s sting, so it got a 4+. And why on earth does he let them sting him? After over 40 resignations from his Government, and still hanging in there, I saw Boris Johnson was described by one Tory MP as being like a cockroach in a nuclear apocalypse.
I immediately thought of people I've dealt with in mediations; those who refuse to see the writing on the wall, those who believe if they keep saying no then they will, against all the odds, buy themselves some sort of leverage, or time for a miracle to happen. 30/6/2022 Get out of your Bias Blind Spot !!!There are numerous cogitative biases; assumptions and presumptions that our brains make that can tilt the way we view reality.
The bias blind spot is where we can objectively recognise those biases in others, but fail to see those in ourselves. Rather like the blind spot on the passenger side of a car, we’re not aware of it unless we do something to change our perspective. Research in America showed that 85% of participants in a survey thought they were less biased than the ‘Average American’. In fact only one participant thought they were more more biased. (Similarly, and in line with the analogy of a blind spot when driving, when asked if they were better than the average driver, 93% of American respondents ranked themselves above average). 24/6/2022 "Hope is optimism with a plan"I heard this in a podcast recently and it stopped me in my tracks. I rewound to listen to it again.
Now a lot of how much truth is in this statement depends on how you define hope and optimism, but the essence is that you need more than just a sunny disposition, and thinking it will all come right in the end. This chimed with me as a mediator, because especially in litigation you need a lot more than optimism about the available options if you are going to turn down the opportunity for a settlement. How often I've heard parties pull out blind optimism as their back-up plan if mediation fails to find a settlement. "The judge will see through him" (why? They will have a few hours at most listening to him being cross examined. It took you 15 years in partnership to see him as you do now) "Our expert will be believed" (why? Both experts have put forward compelling conclusions in their reports, the Judge might believe either, or find some middle ground) "He'll never take this to trial" (why? He’s already taken it this far, and you always swore blind he'd drop it before now.) And on and on the narrative goes. Often part of the journey for parties in a mediation is realising optimism isn’t enough. Three hours to get to a settlement is tight at the best of times, and I was getting nervous as we were arranging the mediation as one of the parties seemed fragile. I was concerned.
But I wasn't expecting the descent into a total emotional meltdown. The swearing, the statements that this had ruined their life, that their life was no longer worth living. And it went on and on. My heart went out to them. Every statement they gave was another reason to settle this matter and start to move on. But at which point did I have a responsibility to say that they were in no real state to make a decision with regard to settlement? 23/6/2022 Its a Shocker !!Put your hand on the table, touch the cables, I’ll turn the power on and you know you’re gonna get a shock but you’ll feel better for the certainty.
Researchers love electrocuting their subjects, There have been so many psychological experiments which literally involve shocking the participants. Think of Milgrim’s famous obedience experiment where someone in a white coat prompts the subject into ‘killing’ another subject by continually turning up the electricity every time they give a wrong answer. It seems when you want to know more about the human mind, researchers use electricity as a prop. More recent research has shown we hate uncertainty, so much so that we’re happier if we know we'll be electrocuted than have any uncertainty about it. |
Subscribe (below) to our free Newsletter for Negotiation Tips, Tricks and Training
AuthorRichard Marshall is an Accredited Civil and Commercial Mediator with over 25 years experience as a Litigation Solicitor, as well as being a qualified Solicitor-Advocate. He is the founder of Striving to Settle, through which he works as a mediator and provides negotiation training. www.strivingtosettle.co.uk Archives
August 2022
|
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Your subscription has been successful.