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Book Review: Staying With Conflict: A Strategic Approach To Ongoing Disputes (6/01/09)
Jan Frankel Schau In his newest book, Staying with Conflict, Bernie Mayer urges “conflict professionals” to think of ourselves as specialists who are retained as allies in assisting disputants to develop a constructive approach to engaging in enduring conflict, which he contends is both healthy and omnipresent. A word of caution to colleagues who are engaged exclusively in mediating the litigated case: the book, if taken to heart, may call into question your/our own self-limiting roles.
Book Review: The Healthy Divorce: Keys to Ending Your Marriage While Preserving your Emotional Well-Being (4/10/09)
Joan B. Kelly This book is an updated version of
Between Love and Hate: A Guide to Civilized Divorce, originally published in 1992. At that time, I was troubled by the continuing portrayal by the American media and movies of American divorces as destructive, poisonous, hateful processes and behaviors reminiscent of
War of the Rose, and widely recommended Lois Gold’s book to mental health and legal professionals and separating partners and spouses to educate them about a better way to separate and divorce.
A Practical Bibliography of Books for the Mediation Practitioner (3/16/09)
Barbara Brown Early in my education and training as a mediator I started compiling a list of the books on mediation I wanted to read. Woody Mosten started me out with a list of must-reads. I bought those books, and they all had bibliographies. So I added the books in those bibliographies to my list. And so it went. I became enthralled by the sheer number of books on mediation and conflict resolution and decided that it might be helpful to other practitioners as well to have these works pulled together in one bibliography with consistent citation format. Here is the result.
Darwin As Conflict Theorist (3/16/09)
Luis Miguel Diaz Charles Robert Darwin (1809-82) has reemerged on the 200th anniversary of his birth as conflict theorist.We can learn so much from Darwin since his authority as conflict theorist is insuperable; the core of his work was theorizing about conflicting forces of nature. To follow are Darwin’s thoughts as recorded in his own words.
BOOK REVIEW: Staying With Conflict: A Strategic Approach to Ongoing Disputes by Bernard Mayer (Jossey-Bass) (2/17/09)
Daniel Rainey Bernie Mayer has an uncommon ability to draw an argument in a few strokes that makes figures in our field pop out in sharp relief. He did it with
Beyond Neutrality, generating a thoughtful and wide-spread discussion about the essential posture of the intervener. He’s done it again with
Staying with Conflict, this time bringing into sharp focus the question of whether the goal of “resolution,” a part of the name that we most often use to label our field, is in fact an impediment to effective assistance to parties in conflict.
Book Reviews of The Handbook of Conflict Resolution and The Handbook of Dispute Resolution (1/14/08)
Josefina Rendon The titles of these two books, Handbook of
Conflict Resolution (Conflict Handbook) and Handbook of
Dispute Resolution (Dispute Handbook), are so similar that professionals and students in the field(s) may confuse them if not comparing them side by side. This may be due to the fact that both are published by the same publisher, or perhaps it is that the words “conflict” and “dispute” in each of their titles are so similar that they are often used interchangeably.
Book Review: The Negotiator's Fieldbook (1/26/07)
Joe Epstein The Negotiator’s Fieldbook is an excellent and diverse anthology about cutting edge issues of negotiation, which reflects insightful effort by the editors in assembling thoughtful and well-researched articles by the contributing writers.
Ten Success Secrets from Top (Non-Starving) Mediators (11/27/06)
Dottie DeHart Yes, There Is Money in Mediation! It isn’t exactly easy to make big bucks as a mediator, but industry standout
Jeffrey Krivis says it is possible. In his new book, he has teamed up with some of his successful colleagues to share a few lucrative tricks of the trade.
Mediation Survivor’s Handbook: A Practical Guide to Mediation for the Parties (Book Review) (11/20/06)
Sharon Lowenstein I highly recommend this concise and easy-to-read book for newcomers to mediation. Directed specifically to those who, whether represented by attorneys or not, can expect to be the principal participants in family, probate, victim-offender, peer (school), small claims and other mediations where attorneys, if present, generally remain in the background. Filled with practical advice and tips, it takes readers step-by-step through the mediation process in each such venue. Professionals will want to recommend it to clients about to engage in mediation for the first time.
How to Make Money as a Mediator (Book Review) (11/11/06)
Mark Loeterman Many newly minted mediators have just completed the military’s equivalent of “basic training.” They have taken several classes on mediation and gained some experience mediating disputes, sometimes through a local court panel or community organization. Now, they are ready to quit an old line of work and dive into a career as a mediator. With this limited background and high hopes, the first question typically asked is “How can I establish a financially successful practice?” This book by Jeffrey Krivis and Naomi Lucks seeks to answer that question.
Book Review: How to Make Money as a Mediator by Jeff Krivis (9/04/06)
Charles B. Parselle So, how does one make money as a mediator? To answer this question, Krivis has turned to consider the habits of 30 highly successful people, comprising a Who’s Who of top mediators from Canada to New Zealand and across the United States, all of whom are liberally quoted in the book. Special Feature (PDF):
Introduction and
Chapter One
Beyond Reason: Using Emotions As You Negotiate (Book Review) (7/31/06)
Jan Frankel Schau Dealing with emotions has become an inextricable part of high level negotiations in mediation. Yet few writer’s have dared to cross the chasm between the psychological underpinnings for such emotion and the strategic use of emotions in negotiation. And none as brilliantly and insightfully as Roger Fisher (author of the acclaimed “Getting to Yes”) and Daniel Shapiro.
Improvisational Negotiation (Book Review) (7/03/06)
Rick Russell If a picture is worth a thousand words, a powerful story helps us make sense of our experience and captures truth in a way that nothing else quite can. This is a book of such stories.
Book Review: Improvisational Negotiation by Jeffrey Krivis (5/06/06)
John D. Baker This is a book review of "Improvisational Negotiation: A Mediator's Stories of Conflict about Love, Money, Anger - and the strategies that resolved them" by Jeffrey Krivis. This is an outstanding book of stories, strategies and methods that the author has tested and proven in thousands of mediations over a span of fifteen years.
Film Review: Thank You For Smoking Offers An Advanced Tutorial in Negotiation Strategies and Ethics (4/25/06)
Robert Benjamin The film forces us to focus on the nature of message ‘spinning,’ word twisting, and other communication and negotiation strategies used as much to confuse as to clarify. This is the stuff of advocating, selling, and persuading with which we are bombarded daily in our ‘infomercial’ society. In watching the movie, the viewer is obligated to separate the strategies and techniques of influencing from the purposes and ends to which they are placed in service. The fact that manipulative and deceptive strategies are used is less troubling than whether it is being done for good or ill.
Reading For Stretch (11/07/05)
Barbara Ashley Phillips Here's to open minds and open hearts. Let your reading and ruminating integrate greater recognition of newer, more creative, more life-serving possibilities. The more mediation gets institutionalized and formalized, the more difficult it is to think beyond present formulations. The sooner we start getting serious about nurturing our own personal growing edge, the better. Enjoy looking for ways old thinking creeps into your own daily life and work, and letting that go. It's up to us.
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