If you’re fascinated by the role that science plays in exploring and illuminating human behavior and decision making, the internet offers outstanding choices for the discerning reader and dedicated negotiator. I highly recommend the following sites:

Brains on Purpose. Lawyer and mediator Stephanie West Allen discusses the insights neuroscience offers into the resolution of conflict.

Cognitive Daily. This engaging and informative blog reports on the latest research on cognition, and also invites readers to participate in fun weekly studies.

Neuroethics and Law Blog. This scholarly blog serves as an interdisciplinary forum for discussion of legal and ethical issues involving the mind and brain. I look forward to its weekly ethics and brain sciences news round-up (like this one).

Neurocritic. This blog brings a critical eye to its discussions of neuroscience, devoted to “[d]econstructing the most sensationalistic recent findings in Human Brain Imaging, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Psychopharmacology”.

The Situationist. This blog has remained for several years an outstanding source for news and discussion on human behavior and the effect of situational forces on legal, political, and social institutions. An essential addition to your blog library.

Predictably Irrational. Dan Ariely continues the conversation he began in his superb book which counters our assumptions about how we reach decisions.

Sociological Images. A site that examines the meaning of images and the messages they convey about gender, race, and identity. It provokes reflection on what these images say about society and culture, while shocking us out of our complacency.

Neuroanthropology. Another blog that offers stimulating discussion across disciplines – anthropology, social science, philosophy, and neuroscience – as it considers the “cultural brain”.

Neuromarketing. The tagline of this blog, written by Roger Dooley, says it all – “where brain science and marketing meet”.

Neurotopia. A quirky and entertaining look at neuroscience. I just can’t resist a blog authored by someone known only as “Evil Monkey”.

Do you have favorite blogs about neuroscience, social psychology, or behavioral economics? If so, please feel free to tell me about them in the comments.

For those of you still on the fence about whether or not to join Twitter, the popular social media and networking site, there’s one reason why you might want to sign up, at least if you’re a mediation trainer: you’ll find out what the participants really think about the program.

Twitter conveniently allows users to search for updates containing particular words or phrases – a good way to monitor your brand, or get candid feedback about a program or services.

A compellingly attractive aspect of all forms of social media – whether blogging, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or others – is their relative ease of use.

Within moments, anyone with internet access and no technological ability whatsoever can leap confidently into the driver’s seat of social media. Thanks to user-friendly platforms like Twitter, Wordpress, or Blogger, social interaction online is a mere click of the mouse away.

This is not to say that social media is without difficulty or nuance. Each form demands observation of custom or etiquette. These themselves are no more difficult to master than the social media tools themselves, but even the experienced can trip up.

I’ve written this post to alert you to potholes in the social media highway that I’ve spotted (or broken an axle in myself) recently. I pass these on to you so you can avoid them.

Mistake No. 1. Blogger beware: misusing URL shorteners

For those of you unfamiliar with them, URL shorteners are handy tools online that allow you to shorten a lengthy URL to something more convenient. Popular URL shortening services include TinyURL.com, bit.ly, and is.gd. They come in handy for a number of purposes. Often long URLs can break in an email message, so a shortened URL avoids the risk of broken and unreadable links that could frustrate recipients of your emails. They are also useful for Twitter, which limits messages, including the URLs they contain, to 140 characters. URL shorteners come to the rescue, cutting down lengthy URLs to manageable size.

I recently needed to provide my mediation students with a link to an article by Professor Leonard Riskin on his grid system for describing mediator roles and behaviors. The original URL is the unwieldy:

http://www.gevim.co.il/image/users/89301/ftp/my_files/pdf/Grid.pdf

Using TinyURL.com, which allows for the creation of custom links, I reduced it to:

http://tinyurl.com/riskingrid

There’s a down side to using URL shorteners. Shortened URLs can be used to hide the identity of malicious sites, leading the trusting straight to phishing exploits or spam. (For more on that, please see Mistake No. 2, coming up in a moment.)

This ability of URL shorteners to hide the identity of sites also makes them antithetical to the social nature of blogging, which depend upon links to promote conversation between, and drive traffic to, blogs. Totally by chance, I discovered that a legal blogger mentioned a post on Mediation Channel. Usually Wordpress and Google Alerts tip me off when someone has linked to or referred to one of my articles, but not in this case. Puzzled as to why both my Wordpress dashboard and Google failed to alert me about this mention, I checked the link to Mediation Channel in the blogger’s post. Instead of using the actual URL for the post, the blogger used one generated by a URL shortening service. Curious, I checked to see whether the blogger had done the same for the other sites they linked to in their post, and saw that they had shortened links to other blogs as well. I did notice that in this and other posts the blogger used the original URL to link to hugely popular blogs or to the sites of prominent news media but used the URL shortener for less exalted blogs. Hmm.

I could be wrong here (and I fervently hope I am), but it sure looks as if this blogger wanted to conceal the URLs of other blogs to avoid giving fellow bloggers the full benefit that linking provides the linker and the linked – two-way conversation, reciprocity, the brand building that using an actual domain name promotes, increased traffic, and search engine recognition. Too bad. This practice also thwarts people like me who like to mouseover links to see what URL they point to; that way I know where I’ll be heading when I click.

To put it in language that conflict resolution practitioners will recognize, blogging is meant to be a value-creating proposition, not a value-claiming one. The reciprocal linking that is the life force of blogging ensures that everyone wins – both the blogger who links and the blogger being linked to. I can only hope that this particular blogger’s practice is unthinking blunder and not deliberate choice. This is the first occasion I’ve had to observe this phenomenon, so I trust that this is not an emerging trend.

In any event, fellow bloggers, please don’t use URL shorteners for links in your blog posts. Otherwise, you risk diluting the power of the link – for you and for everyone else – and that’s a lose-lose.

Mistake No. 2: Clicking with abandon, not caution, on Twitter or Facebook

While social media sites can sometimes seem like idyllic utopian worlds, trouble lurks in the shadows. Twitter for example has been the frequent target of spammers and other digital vandals. An innocent message you receive from a friend might contain a link to a virus. I’ve been fortunate and have avoided trouble, but many of my connections on Twitter have not been so lucky.

Twitter has advice if you think your account has been hijacked or compromised, and Brickhouse Security Blog offers sensible tips on playing it safe, warning, “Don’t assume a link is ‘safe’ just because a friend sent it to you”.

I use Tweetdeck for managing my Twitter account and reading updates; it has a convenient feature that expands shortened links to reveal their true source. That may not always be enough to protect you, but it’s one line of defense. No matter what, click with caution.

Mistake No. 3. Annoying your LinkedIn connections with Twitter updates

Social media giants Twitter and LinkedIn recently announced that they’re going steady, good news for people who use both these networking sites. LinkedIn users can now feature their Twitter updates in their profiles, or post their LinkedIn updates to Twitter.

Unfortunately the instructions on linking your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts are not fully idiot-proof, as I recently discovered. Your LinkedIn connections who aren’t on Twitter may not fully appreciate getting your postings to Twitter as LinkedIn updates. If you decide to connect your LinkedIn and Twitter accounts, to limit what tweets appear in your LinkedIn profile, do the following:

1. Log in to your LinkedIn account
2. Go to “Accounts & Settings” (upper right-hand of the LinkedIn page);
3. Under “Profile Settings” locate “Twitter Settings”
4. Click on “Twitter Settings”. Click the option that says “Share only tweets that contain #in”. This will give you control over and limit the tweets that appear as a LinkedIn update.

(With a tip of the hat to Philip J. Loree, Jr.)

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Got gaffes of your own you’d care to share from your own adventures in social media? Please feel free to contribute in the comment section below.

Each month I dedicate a post to the discussion of a different fallacious argument. It’s part of my ongoing effort to help the world bicker better.

Here, friends, is this month’s installment.

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That diverting entertainment, magic, depends upon distraction to delight and mystify an audience. Magicians play their tricks not primarily with hats and rabbits but instead with our perception, directing our attention elsewhere as they nimbly palm the coin or make the assistant vanish into air.

In the hands of the skilled illusionist, magic is artistry. But in the theatre of argument, misdirection is nothing but a cheap trick. Allow me, reader, to introduce you to November’s Fallacious Argument, the distractingly odorous red herring.

A red herring is a device used in discourse to sidetrack attention from the original subject to another topic, preferably one that has no bearing on the discussion at hand and designed to inflame the emotions of the audience. Although the red herring flourishes wherever enemies of rational discourse may be found, it prefers to spawn during political election seasons. When large issues loom, the red herring is ready to divert attention from energy, health care, or social security to a $400 haircut or a candidate’s wardrobe. Handle with care: its smell is notoriously long-lasting.

(With thanks to Philip J. Loree, Jr., a fierce defender of rational discourse and a highly insightful ADR blogger.)

Year after year, Mediate.com remains at the top of its game, the very best resource bar none for news, information, and high-level thinking about conflict resolution and negotiation.

Features that make this site outstanding include:

• A vast library of articles organized by Section or searchable by Topic, Term or Author
• An archive of over 100 video interviews featuring conversations with giants in the ADR field
• A round-up of the best each week in conflict resolution blogging

Now Mediate.com announces it has reached a significant milestone: the publication of its 300th newsletter. Launched back in 1997, Mediate.com’s high-quality newsletter remains one of the best deals going: it’s completely free. If you don’t already, you can subscribe to Mediate.com’s newsletter, which arrives in your in-box packed each week with the hottest ideas and updates about ADR from around the globe.

Congratulations to Mediate.com on this impressive achievement. Thanks for being a dependably excellent resource, week after week, year after year.

What makes Deepak Malhotra’s and Max H. Bazerman’s 2007 Negotiation Genius: How to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Brilliant Results at the Bargaining Table and Beyond so highly readable are the memorable anecdotes of real-world negotiations it contains. Among my favorites is one that concerns a colleague of the authors, a “negotiation genius” identified by his first name only, “Chris”.

Chris’s firm was negotiating with a small European company to purchase an ingredient for a new health-care product. The two firms agreed on a price but became deadlocked over the question of exclusivity – the American firm did not want to invest in a product containing an ingredient to which its competitors would have access, and the European company refused to sell the ingredient exclusively to the American firm. The American firm, surprised by the stubborn refusal of their European counterparts to agree to an exclusive arrangement, offered more money and other incentives, but the European firm wouldn’t budge. Malhotra and Bazerman describe what happened next:

As a last resort the U.S. team called Chris and asked him to fly to Europe to join them.

When Chris arrived and took a seat at the bargaining table, the argument over exclusivity continued. After listening briefly to the two sides, he interjected one simple word that changed the outcome of the negotiation. With it, he was able to structure a deal that both firms found agreeable. The word was “why”.

Chris simply asked the supplier why he would not provide exclusivity to a major corporation that was offering to buy as much of the ingredient as he could produce. The supplier’s answer was unexpected: exclusivity would require him to violate an agreement with his cousin, who current purchased 250 pounds of the ingredient each year to make a locally sold product. With this information in hand, Chris proposed a solution that helped the two firms quickly wrap up an agreement: the supplier would provide exclusivity with the exception of a few hundred pounds annually for the supplier’s cousin…

Why didn’t the other U.S. negotiators ask this simple question? Because, based on their prior business experience, they assumed they already knew the answer…

Other factors, I suspect, may have been in play here, working against the U.S. negotiators. Etiquette and social pressures inhibit inquiry. From a young age we learn that “it’s not polite to ask questions”. As we grow older, we worry that asking questions will make us look stupid, singling us out for unwelcome notice by the group.

In defiance of these deep-rooted social and cultural taboos on question-asking, virtually every best-selling negotiation text urges negotiators to “get curious”. G. Richard Shell, author of Bargaining for Advantage, prescribes a process that he calls “Information-Based Bargaining”, which emphasizes the importance of question-asking and careful listening, lauding the “relentless curiosity” skilled negotiators bring to the table. Mediation trainers also encourage curiosity in their students, so that they can delve deep into the needs and motivations of parties locked in conflict. In their classic work, The Making of a Mediator: Developing Artistry in Practice, Bernard Mayer and Alison Taylor define such artistry as “a commitment to curiosity and exploration”.

If curiosity is so essential to effective negotiation and conflict resolution, can educators and trainers teach curiosity? That’s a question that Vanderbilt University Law School Professor Chris Guthrie considers and answers in “I’m Curious: Can We Teach Curiosity?” (PDF) (copyright 2009 DRI Press, Hamline University School of Law). Determined to go beyond the “glib references to the need for curiosity” in negotiation literature, Professor Guthrie offers a short primer on the scientific study of curiosity and proposes some curiosity-enhancing teaching strategies. He concludes with a link to an article that appeared in Psychology Today in September 2006, “Cultivating Curiosity“, by Elizabeth Svoboda, which recommends three tips on how to “flex your curiosity muscle“, whether you’re negotiating, mediating, or doing something else entirely.

Incidentally, Professor Guthrie’s article is one chapter in an outstanding volume on negotiation pedagogy, Rethinking Negotiation Teaching: Innovations for Context and Culture, a collective effort to rethink how negotiation is taught in the 21st century. Those curious to learn more about negotiation teaching can download Professor Guthrie’s chapter along with the others at the Hamline University School of Law web site.

Mediator, lawyer, writer, and all-around Renaissance woman Stephanie West Allen needs your help as she prepares to write an article on neuroscience transparency. What is neuroscience transparency? It’s what conflict resolution professionals tell their clients about neuroscience. You can contribute by taking her survey at her site, Brains on Purpose, a blog which explores the role that brain science can play in the resolution of disputes.

Stephanie raises an interesting question that ADR practitioners no doubt will ask themselves more and more. Increasingly I myself look for ways to apply discoveries from neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and behavioral economics to my own work, whether assisting clients to resolve their disputes or teaching people how to negotiate or mediate.

As readers of this blog know, the private practice of mediation in the United States remains unregulated by government.  Arguably, this absence of formal regulation, licensing, and credentialing does not diminish mediation’s standing as a profession.  It does, however, place weighty responsibility on the shoulders of U.S. mediators, collectively and individually, to protect the reputation of the profession and to build public confidence in mediation services.

Professional standards of conduct remind mediators to aspire to moral values or principles, and to strive for consistency between those values and practice.  But a professional ethos embraces more than the practice of mediation: those professional values should apply not to the delivery of services alone, but also to the business of mediation.

In May 2002, as part of a joint initiative, two respected institutions – the CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution and Georgetown University Law Center – drafted and approved Principles for ADR Provider Organizations (PDF).  These principles were created to provide guidance to “any entity or individual which holds itself out as managing or administering dispute resolution or conflict management services” and to encourage the responsible practice of ADR.  Among other things, they encompass values that include fairness, quality and accessibility of service, and competence of neutrals; and they emphasize the importance of establishing policies regarding confidentiality, internal or external ethical codes, and conflicts of interest. I have reproduced these principles below.

As I read these principles, the product of evident hard work and deliberation, I note that one essential ingredient is missing: diversity. In revisiting them today, mediators might draw inspiration for revisions from the example set by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Uniform Rules on Dispute Resolution, Rule 7 (PDF), which provides that:

Programs shall be designed with knowledge of and sensitivity to the diversity of the communities served. The design shall take into consideration such factors as the languages, dispute resolution styles, and ethnic traditions of communities likely to use the services. Programs shall not discriminate against staff, neutrals, volunteers, or clients on the basis of race, color, sex, age, religion, national origin, disability, political beliefs or sexual orientation. Programs shall actively strive to achieve diversity among staff, neutrals, and volunteers.

A 2009 version might emphasize the importance of measures that ensure that decisions relating to hiring, evaluation, and promotion of mediators are free from bias.

I invite you to read the principles yourself and ask: what would you add or change today to improve them for today and for the years ahead?

I.  Quality and Competence of Services

1. The ADR Provider Organization should take all reasonable steps to maximize the quality and competence of its services, absent a clear and prominent disclaimer to the contrary.
2. Absent a clear and prominent disclaimer to the contrary, the ADR Provider Organization should take all reasonable steps to maximize the likelihood that (i) the neutrals who provide services under its auspices are qualified and competent to conduct the processes and handle the kind of cases which the Organization will generally refer to them; and (ii) the neutral to whom a case is referred is competent to handle the specific matter referred.
3. The ADR Provider Organization’s responsibilities under Principles I and I.a decrease as the ADR parties’ knowing involvement in screening and selecting the particular neutral increases.
4. The ADR Provider Organization’s responsibilities under this Principle are continuing ones, which requires the ADR Provider Organization to take all reasonable steps to monitor and evaluate the performance of its affiliated neutrals.

II.  Information Regarding  Services and Operations

ADR Provider Organizations should take all reasonable steps to provide clear, accurate and understandable information about the following aspects of their services and operations:

1. The nature of the ADR Provider Organization’s services, operations, and fees;
2. The relevant economic, legal, professional or other relationships between the ADR Provider Organization and its affiliated neutrals;
3. The ADR Provider Organization’s policies relating to confidentiality, organizational and individual conflicts of interests, and ethical standards for neutrals and the Organization;
4. Training and qualifications requirements for neutrals affiliated with the Organization, as well as other selection criteria for affiliation; and
5. The method by which neutrals are selected for service.

III.  Fairness and Impartiality

The ADR Provider Organization has an obligation to ensure that ADR processes provided under its auspices are fundamentally fair and conducted in an impartial manner.

IV.  Accessibility of Services

ADR Provider Organizations should take all reasonable steps, appropriate to their size, nature and resources, to provide access to their services at reasonable cost to low-income parties.

V.   Disclosure of Organizational Conflicts of Interest

1. The ADR Provider Organization should disclose the existence of any interests or relationships which are reasonably likely to affect the impartiality or independence of the Organization or which might reasonably create the appearance that the Organization is biased against a party or favorable to another, including (i) any financial or other interest by the Organization in the outcome; (ii) any significant financial, business, organizational, professional or other relationship that the Organization has with any of the parties or their counsel, including a contractual stream of referrals, a de facto stream of referrals, or a funding relationship between a party and the organization; or (iii) any other significant source of bias or prejudice concerning the Organization which is reasonably likely to affect impartiality or might reasonably create an appearance of partiality or bias.
2. The ADR Provider Organization shall decline to provide its services unless all parties choose to retain the Organization, following the required disclosures, except in circumstances where contract or applicable law requires otherwise.

VI.  Complaint and Grievance Mechanisms

ADR Provider Organizations should provide mechanisms for addressing grievances about the Organization, and its administration or the neutral services offered, and should disclose the nature and availability of the mechanisms to the parties in a clear, accurate and understandable manner. Complaint and grievance mechanisms should also provide a fair and impartial process for the affected neutral or other individual against whom a grievance has been made.

VII.  Ethical Guidelines

1. ADR Provider Organizations should require affiliated neutrals to subscribe to a reputable internal or external ADR code of ethics, absent or in addition to a controlling statutory or professional code of ethics.
2. ADR Provider Organizations should conduct themselves with integrity and evenhandedness in the management of their own disputes, finances, and other administrative matters.

VIII.  False or Misleading Communications

An ADR Provider Organization should not knowingly make false or misleading communications about its services. If settlement rates or other measures of reporting are communicated, information should be disclosed in a clear, accurate and understandable manner about how the rate is measured or calculated.

IX.   Confidentiality

An ADR Provider Organization should take all reasonable steps to protect the level of confidentiality agreed to by the parties, established by the organization or neutral, or set by applicable law or contract.

1. ADR Provider Organizations should establish and disclose their policies relating to the confidentiality of their services and the processes offered consistent with the laws of the jurisdiction.
2. ADR Provider Organizations should ensure that their policies regarding confidentiality are communicated to the neutrals associated with the Organization.

ADR Provider Organizations should ensure that their policies regarding confidentiality are communicated to the ADR participants.

I often find myself wishing I lived in California, if only to be able to regularly attend the magnificent events the Southern California Mediation Association plans and presents each year. These programs showcase the talents and intellectual achievements of some of the greatest thinkers and leaders that the field of conflict resolution can boast.

This past weekend attendees of SCMA’s annual conference fell under the spell of the magisterial Kenneth Cloke, who spoke eloquently about “conflict revolution” and the role that mediators can play in effecting global change. Victoria Pynchon has kindly posted Cloke’s PowerPoint presentation on her negotiation and ADR blog, Settle It Now.

Reading his presentation, I was moved by the power of Cloke’s words. If you read them, too, no doubt like me you will shake your head with weary recognition as you ponder the elements of demonization, mechanisms of moral disengagement, and the early warning signs of fascism. Alternatively, you will nod with approval as you read about the proposals for change that Cloke lays out – the 12 conflict resolution methodologies, the Mediators Without Borders 12-step program to address conflict systematically, and the personal choices in social change.

But I am also left uneasy, troubled by questions that have haunted me for many months. And I raise these questions now, not in disrespect or to impugn the message that Cloke delivered to mediators this past weekend.

There is no doubt that our inspiring leaders and, yes, our foot soldiers, too, command prodigious skills in negotiation and persuasion.  Why then do negotiation and conflict resolution remain in such disrepute here in the U.S.? Why, despite the Ivy League credentials and access to the corridors of power that the best and brightest among us enjoy, have we failed to influence political discourse on American soil?  We remain mired in incivility, fallacy, and fear, as daunting problems confound and oppress us, whether health care, climate change, unemployment, or threats to national security.

Negotiate with terrorists? Okay. But first we’d better figure out fast how we can talk with our opponents here at home.

At the start of each month, I highlight some selected posts from prior years.

November’s trip in the wayback machine yields these articles:

November 2008

• To err is human: how do we keep our feet out of our mouths in the first place?
• Testing for negotiation skills, creativity: an LSAT for the 21st century

November 2007

• Lawyers, Pakistan and democracy: is it time for a Nobel Prize in law?
• Myth or fact: are attorneys the best mediators?
• How to turn a simple misunderstanding into all-out war: a mediator’s advice
• In weighing the Uniform Mediation Act, Massachusetts mediators may be poised to repeat mistakes of the past

November 2006

• When in Rome (and Paris and Tokyo): avoiding the international faux pas
• Change of perspective: maps brings new ways of seeing

November 2005

• Deconstructing Harry: A legal scholar examines the role and rule of law in the world of Harry Potter