Readers may remember a post concerning game theory and negotiation strategy that appeared in April 2010. It has proven one of the most frequently visited posts in the past year.
A featured speaker on the panel reported in that post has contacted me to advise that many of his ideas have now been posted on YouTube. Those interested are encouraged to visit this site: http://www.youtube.com/user/fairoutcomes.
This post comes from the island of Luzon, in the Philippines, where a team from the Corporate Social Responsibility Project of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government has worked on a film documenting the tensions between operators of two hydroelectric dams and the communities that were inundated, destroyed and displaced during the construction of the dams.
One company ignored the communities and the other engaged them, and the difference is so palpable that you wonder why any company would ever do anything other than engagement. Read more »
A reader has brought my attention an obituary that appears in today’s New York Times. Eric Schmertz died on Saturday, December 18, 2010. His life, as summarized by Dennis Hevesi for the Times, is quite a lesson for dispute resolvers. Read more »
A sobering — even frightening — panel at the IBA’s Vancouver conference addressed negotiation in volatile, politically charged and dangerous circumstances — pushing the boundaries of mediation past the purely commercial, into a world where lives may depend on the skill and success of the negotiator or mediator.
Maritime pirates off Somalia, for example, do not rationally seek and underlying political or even monetary interests, and their behavior is not deliberative. Charles Crawford CMG reflected on his years of service in the UK Foreign Office and concluded that, in Somalia and in the Balkans, a terrorist’s irrationality is his strength. It’s like a bankrupt buying a suite at the Plaza, or a dog chasing a car: the pirate, the kidnapper and the terrorist seek to introduce chaos into order.
What are the principles of negotiation when the counterparty does not have an identifiable and rational underlying interest, and when the thing being negotiated is a human life? Read more »
