In a recent blog, I discussed my use of feigned anger to help resolve a case. This prompted me to wonder whether the use of anger in negotiations is helpful or harmful. It seems that it can be both bad and good depending on the degree of anger displayed. In [Read More]
Standard I of the Model Standards of Conduct for Mediators is entitled “Self- Determination” and provides that each party is to make a free and informed choice as to process and outcome. Mediation is a voluntary process in which each party is to make her own uncoerced decision. Standard II [Read More]
In October 2015, I posted a blog about a then recent New York Times article on the benefits of anger in negotiations. In “The Rationality of Rage”, Matthew Hudson reviewed then recent studies indicating that in a balanced negotiation, anger tends to provide some leverage; it helped the angry negotiator [Read More]
In most disputes, when people get angry- it is a bad sign! It usually means that the dispute will NOT get resolved, and that one or the other party will leave in a huff. Indeed, neuroscience teaches us that when the parts of our brain that control our emotions are operating [Read More]
Have you ever attempted to calm down an emotional person? Our natural inclination is to deny the emotional content of what the speaker is saying by using logic and/or facts such as, "There is no reason to get upset", "Calm down", "You are over-reacting", "You have misunderstood", "Maybe it is [Read More]
Let us suppose that you are at a mediation or in some sort of negotiation and the other party has just said something that has gotten you so angry, you are ready to grab your belongings and storm out of the mediation/negotiation.What should you do: give in to your feelings [Read More]
In 2000, when I took my first mediation training class, my teacher discussed the five stages of loss and grief first proposed by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her 1969 book, On Death and Dying. The particular training course I was attending focused on divorce mediations and so the stages were relevant [Read More]
