Blog
Strategies in Multi-Party Negotiations (A Video Presentation)
HNMCP is fortunate to draw on the expertise of a wide variety of practitioners in seeking to understand and teach students about the nuances of alternative dispute resolution. One of those practitioners is Susan Carney Lynch, JD, DrPH, NREMT-P, a lawyer, public servant, and Fellow with Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative (ALI). Dr. Lynch has built a career…
Only a Game: How Elements of “Gamification” Can Enrich Online Dialogue
In light of the pandemic, dialogue practitioners are finding inventive ways to not only transfer dialogue online but also reimagine how traditionally in-person activities can be conducted online more effectively. A new way of making remote dialogue more engaging is to incorporate game-like elements to make the online experience more life-like. Carla Luna talks about…
How will the post-Covid office space change the way we manage conflict?
When the physical setups of our offices constantly remind us to be wary of one another, what will happen to our choices about how to handle conflicts at work?
Bridging the Virtual Gulf: Engagement Strategies for Online Facilitation
Imagine this. You are facilitating a local community meeting over Zoom. Although all participants have their audio and video enabled, about half are staring down at their cellphones while another participant (whom you recognize from two previous meetings) is single-handedly carrying the conversation. As a new participant starts to chime in, your virtual veteran cuts her off mid-speech. She mutes. This is facilitated dialogue post-COVID.
Can Dispute Systems Design be “Rapid-Response”?
Dispute systems design, when done well, emphasizes thoughtful, intentional engagement with stakeholders in order to develop robust conflict management systems. Is this approach useful during an acute crisis? A few days ago, a friend who works in a state court system sent the following email to me and a number of colleagues in the field of…
Finding the contours of our virtual lives
In-person interaction is now largely unavailable to us. Can digital connections ever be as rich? In visual art, the term “negative space” refers to the space around the subject of an image. M.C. Escher’s Sky and Water I provides a vivid example: the birds at the top of this graphic print start out as positive…
#WhatIsThisMomentFor?
There is no avoiding or downplaying the enormity of the changes we have all experienced in the past three weeks. From the large-scale patterns of our movement from place to place, down to the number of seconds we spend at the sink scrubbing our hands, it seems like the very texture of our ordinary days has…
When the pandemic ends, will we remain “distanced”?
When I first read the phrase, “social distancing”—in an email sent by one of our law school deans—my first reaction was a visceral sort of aversion. It seemed a particularly callous phrase, tinged with both sadness and a cold, clinical sensibleness. I have since learned that social distancing was not, in fact, a term made up…
Engaging Deep Differences Online
Originally published on the Indisputably blog as part of the Theory-of-Change Symposium . You can find all the submissions for the symposium here. As we approach the next election, we continue to confront important challenges about engaging across deeply felt differences. Our country remains polarized, and many feel disconnected from those whose views differ…
On the Road
Former HNMCP clients Heather Kulp (New Hampshire Judicial Branch) and Rebecca Price (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York) presented at the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution Conference in Minneapolis, MN, on April 9, alongside Clinical Instructor Sara del Nido Budish ’13. The presentation, “Trust the Process? Understanding and Learning from Party…
Client Spotlight: Heather Scheiwe Kulp
The systems design approach HNMCP takes is a substantial asset during the semester of the project. But for me, the skills I’ve learned from HNMCP—both as a clinical instructor but perhaps more as a client—render HNMCP a greater asset long after the students have submitted their final projects. They teach me, and others, how to…
Brexit and Peace in Northern Ireland: The Perils of Ignoring the Interests of Key Stakeholders to an Agreement
By Dr Ronán Feehily, University of Canterbury The imminent withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) has brought into sharp focus the likely impact that a “no-deal” Brexit will have on peace in Northern Ireland. A question that has emerged as part of the Brexit negotiations is: can negotiators maintain the…
Sharing What Divides Us
The first time that Ahmad was discriminated against at his local job center in Berlin, the official working there called him a “donkey.” The second time, the same official told him he should have his “brain checked out.” The third time, Ahmad was denied information before being thrown out of the office. After the sixth…
When Truth Isn’t Truth
I should start by acknowledging that it wasn’t as bad as it sounded. Rudy Giuliani’s infamous claim that “truth isn’t truth” was preceded by an attempt to distinguish “somebody’s version of the truth” from “the truth.” When interviewer Chuck Todd responded that “truth is truth,” Giuliani then stuck his foot in his mouth. No doubt…