Resources

Resources

Interview with CMA’s senior associate Joel Gerschman for Business Essentials audio magazine.


Doing business with other parties is challenging enough, but even more so when you’re facing a counterpart with a game plan deliberately set to undermine you. All your best intentions for a win-win in a negotiating a deal can often be thrown out the window by dirty tactics from the other side. Joel Gershman of CMA Learning has some helpful tips on how to counter those tricks – and knowing they exist is the first step.

Give your mediation process a checkup


All experts, whatever their field, have clear and coherent theories to underpin their actions. For example, a physician doesn’t tell you that they are going to take their best shot at curing an illness. They have a sound understanding of human disease, based on years of research and testing, that informs their diagnosis and prescription.

Some reflections on a relational world view


In “The Promise of Mediation,” 2 the authors, Robert Baruch Bush and Joseph Folger, discuss, and ultimately advocate, a new organising framework for (western) society, referred to as the “Relational” world view. The purpose of this article is to explore the Relational vision, primarily through a comparison with the prevailing paradigm of Individualism.

Changing assumptions about mediation in commercial matters


This article suggests that parties and mediators in commercial matters tend to operate on the assumption that building relationships between the parties is secondary to settling the Substantive issues in dispute, and for this reason, the process of mediation is not realizing its full potential. The article offers a different perspective on the value of relationship in commercial disputes, and proposes a new process for mediating in these matters.

The Decision-Driven Organization


Many CEOs assume that organizational structure—the boxes and lines on a company’s org chart—is a key determinant of financial performance. Like generals, they see their job as putting the right collection of troops in the right places. If the battle is about innovation, for example, then the CEO’s duty is to create the best possible […]

Are You Solving the Right Problems?


How good is your company at problem solving? Probably quite good, if your managers are like those at the companies I’ve studied. What they struggle with, it turns out, is not solving problems but figuring out what the problems are. In surveys of 106 C-suite executives who represented 91 private and public-sector companies in 17 […]