Keeping the Peace. Teaching the Peace.

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What does a hostage negotiator know that mediators should think about?

It turns out there's a lot.

I came across an infographic on LinkedIn that caught my attention.

I was already familiar with Chris Voss, the former FBI lead hostage negotiator, and his teachings about negotiations.

On LinkedIn, someone broke down 7 negotiation tactics used by FBI hostage negotiators as taught by Voss. It reads like a checklist of everything we already do in the mediation room; although, I don't think mediators have thought about these tactics in the same way.

You can read the post at this link https://www.linkedin.com/posts/natanmohart_most-people-think-negotiation-is-about-talking-activity-7461011063719751680-sHQ0?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAAAA2TVwBQO0P0nLZtoDPkKXWosw6jh1YVA4

The one tactic that primarily hit home: the "That's Right" Trigger. When we summarize the other party's position so accurately, so completely, that they can only say "that's right." We know that moment. That's not just validation — that's the sound of someone finally feeling heard. And when people feel heard, they start engaging.

I'm also a fan of replacing "Why" with "How" and "What." Why always sounds like an accusation. How and What sound like curiosity.

The LinkedIn post discusses a framework built by Voss called "Tactical Empathy", which he defines as deliberately understanding your counterpart's feelings and what's behind them, then voicing that recognition out loud.

That's strategic.

His tool for doing it? Labeling -- using phrases like "It seems like…" or "It sounds like…" to acknowledge and validate what the other person is feeling. Not telling them what to feel. Just observing, without judgment, so they can set the burden down and start talking.

And I'm curious what you think. Is naming emotions disarming, or does it land as a technique?

[ksgrossman1]

The 3rd Essential Thing to Know to Become a Successful Mediator - Neutrality

Watch Keith's entire 5 Essential Things to Know to Become a Successful Mediator at: https://youtu.be/POmM6mhggmQ

Or Listen to Keith's entire 5 Essential Things to Know to Become a Successful Mediator at: https://on.soundcloud.com/uAnLlvRgTKjMbzZ89f

Find out more about Keith's PeaceShark Mediation Training Programs at: https://peacesharkmediationtraining.com

Peace, love & harmony!

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The 2nd Essential Thing You Need to Know to Become a Successful Mediator - The Skills

Watch Keith's entire 5 Essential Things to Know to Become a Successful Mediator at: https://youtu.be/POmM6mhggmQ

Or Listen to Keith's entire 5 Essential Things to Know to Become a Successful Mediator at: https://on.soundcloud.com/uAnLlvRgTKjMbzZ89f

Find out more about Keith's PeaceShark Mediation Training Programs at: https://peacesharkmediationtraining.com

Peace, love & harmony!

[ksgrossman1]

The 1st Essential Thing to Know to Become a Successful Mediator - The Role

Watch Keith's entire 5 Essential Things to Know to Become a Successful Mediator at: https://youtu.be/POmM6mhggmQ

Or Listen to Keith's entire 5 Essential Things to Know to Become a Successful Mediator at: https://on.soundcloud.com/uAnLlvRgTKjMbzZ89f

Find out more about Keith's PeaceShark Mediation Training Programs at: https://peacesharkmediationtraining.com

Peace, love & harmony!

[ksgrossman1]

The 5 Essential Things You Need to Know to Become a Successful Mediator

In this insightful video, Keith Grossman—a mediator, attorney, and legal educator—shares practical advice on becoming a successful mediator.

Drawing from his experience, he outlines five key essentials for aspiring mediators, emphasizing mediation as a consensual process where parties resolve disputes with the help of a neutral facilitator.

Find out more about Keith's Mediation Training Programs at: https://peacesharkmediationtraining.com

Peace, love & harmony!

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Mediation Training Online - Our Complete Program Review with Keith Grossman

Find out more about ALL of our Mediation Training Programs at:

https://peacesharkmediationtraining.com/our-programs

Change Lives, Make Money, Enhance Your Career!

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The 5th (of 5) Benefit of Becoming a Mediator

Find out more about ALL of our Mediation Training Programs at:

https://peacesharkmediationtraining.com

Change Lives, Make Money, Enhance Your Career!

[ksgrossman1]

The 4th (of 5) Benefit of Becoming a Mediator

Find out more about ALL of our Mediation Training Programs at:

Become a Certified Mediator in Florida. Our comprehensive training programs cover County Court, Circuit Civil, and Family Mediation.

Change Lives, Make Money, Enhance Your Career!

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The 3rd (of 5) Benefit of Becoming a Mediator

Find out more about ALL of our Mediation Training Programs at:

Become a Certified Mediator in Florida. Our comprehensive training programs cover County Court, Circuit Civil, and Family Mediation.

Change Lives, Make Money, Enhance Your Career!

[ksgrossman1]

2nd Benefit (of 5) of Becoming a Mediator

Find out more about ALL of our Mediation Training Programs at:

Become a Certified Mediator in Florida. Our comprehensive training programs cover County Court, Circuit Civil, and Family Mediation.

Change Lives, Make Money, Enhance Your Career!

[ksgrossman1]

The 1st Benefit (of 5) of Becoming a Mediator - Conflict Resolution Skills!

Find out more about ALL of our Mediation Training Programs at:

https://www.peacesharkmediationtraining.com/our-programs

Change Lives, Make Money, Enhance Your Career!

[ksgrossman1]

Mediation - The Benefits, Costs, and Career Growth

Find out more about our Mediation Training Programs at:

Become a Certified Mediator in Florida. Our comprehensive training programs cover County Court, Circuit Civil, and Family Mediation.

Change Lives, Make Money, Enhance Your Career

[ksgrossman1]

How to Resolve ANY Conflict - Mediator Skills

Find out more about our Mediation Training Programs at:

https://peacesharkmediationtraining.com

Change Lives, Make Money, Enhance Your Career

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The 5 Benefits of Being a Mediator

Want to know why becoming a mediator could be a game-changer for you? 👍🏻❤️

I’ve got 5 powerful reasons that’ll open your eyes to the impact you can make!

In this video, I dive into how mediation sharpens your conflict resolution skills (for work and life), delivers fulfilling work that transforms lives, saves time and money for clients, offers incredible career flexibility, and promotes peaceful outcomes that make the world a better place.

Ready to discover how you can become a peacemaker?

Enjoy this video and explore my three Florida mediator training programs at https://peacesharkmediationtraining.com.

Let’s start your journey to creating meaningful resolutions together!

Keith

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Can We Unlearn What We Have Learned? 

For years, at night, I put my slippers in a particular spot next to my bed. I don’t know why I originally chose that spot, but that’s where I kept my slippers...that is, until now. 

I realized there was another spot that would work better for me in the middle of the night when I am groping in the dark for the slippers. So now, every night since I made the decision to move the location of my slippers, I get into bed, and I place my slippers…exactly where I put them for all those years.  

It’s a habit I’ve been unable to break. Sometimes I catch myself, and I move the slippers to their new location. Most times, I totally forget. 

Old habits die hard. 

There’s a song by Darius Rucker titled “Wagon Wheel”. During the chorus, I sing along, “Rock me mama like the wind and the rain; Rock me mama like a downtown train.” Wait, that's wrong. Damn, I did it again. It's supposed to be "southbound" train, not “downtown” train. 

I taught myself the lyrics wrong when I first heard the song, and now I always make the same mistake. 

Old habits die hard.  

There’s an interesting video of an engineer who taught himself how to ride a bike that had been modified so that the wheel and handlebars turned in different directions. Once he was able to ride the modified bike, he recognized he unlearned how to ride a bike the usual way. He learned a new skill and unlearned an old one. 

We should learn (and unlearn) from our past mistakes in negotiations and managing conflicts. If we have failed to achieve our goals in those situations, what can we unlearn and replace with a new habit or skill? 

If you want to go deeper and figure out the best ways to surround yourself with a successful and effective peacemaking network, subscribe to my email newsletter. 

If you know someone who can benefit from this post, please share it with someone who trusts you, and share PeaceShark.com, with them. You can learn more about me and what I do to help families at AttorneyGrossman.com. If you want more tips on relationships, negotiations, and resolving conflicts, register for my newsletter at KeithShares.com. 

If you like this content, follow me on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn and at the Grossman Law & Conflict Management Facebook page. 

Make it a great day. I’m sending peace, love, and harmony your way.

[ksgrossman1]

How Can Professionals Help Visual Thinkers In Mediation and Collaborative Divorce

One of the things I found fascinating in Jonah Hill's documentary about his psychotherapist, Phil Stutz, is Stutz’s use of index cards during therapy sessions. Stutz takes an active role in the therapy process, rather than just listening. The tools Stutz uses are visualization exercises, which are accompanied by index cards with hand-drawn illustrations. Stutz says the illustrations make the most complicated concepts into something manageable. 

I was aware that visual learners are the most common type of learner. Research shows that 65% of people are visual learners, which means they need to see information visually to retain it with the highest efficiency. Visual tools help them to understand and remember information quickly and efficiently. They also engage people more effectively. 

After watching the Stutz documentary, I started to think about how professionals can help visual thinkers in mediation and Collaborative Divorce methods. Of course, professionals can use visual tools to communicate ideas and information. Visual tools help the parties think creatively, reframe challenges, and imagine solutions. This website has a number of templates for visual frameworks. 

In an article, Mediator Geoff Sharp writes, "Visual thinking is an essential skill for the modern mediator – visual thinking takes advantage of our ability to see – with our eyes and with our mind’s eye – in order to discover ideas that are otherwise invisible, develop those ideas quickly and intuitively, and then share those ideas with other people in a way that they get." 

Here are some ways visual aids can be used in mediation:  

Use visual tools 

To help parties organize their individual thoughts beforehand 

To capture a predictable step that occurs during mediation 

To bring transparency to the stages of mediation, Collaborative Divorce and collaborative problem solving 

To challenge positions and reframe the parties 

Use a whiteboard as a tool for visual thinking. You can use it to analyze finances, prioritize issues, list options for going forward and assist with risk analysis by listing direct costs, irrecoverable costs, and consequences of not settling. You can even use it to display visual metaphors. 

You can incorporate charts, graphs, and symbols, as well as pictures into the mediation discussions. During divorce mediations, I tend to frequently illustrate the PEACE acronym (Parenting; Equitable Distribution; Alimony; Child Support; Everything Else) and the Stages of Grief.  

Lisa Arora, mediator and visual strategist, uses visual templates in her mediation practice for collaborative problem solving. She says, "Here’s the magic of how using a template encourages a collaborative dynamic. People contribute more when they can see they’ve been heard. By capturing their important thoughts on paper, it helps parties stay focused on the information that matters to solving their issue(s)." To read more about how Arora uses visual templates in mediation, you can read this article she wrote on LinkedIn. 

Interestingly, when using images to discuss a conflict, people tend to direct their focus toward the image. They wind up expressing themselves less emotionally. 

Make it a great day. I’m sending peace, love, and harmony your way. 

[ksgrossman1]

As mediators, how can we guide parties to smart decisions? 

In my last blog, I discussed mediation clients who are having difficulty deciding what to do in mediation. Because of these difficulties, they find ways to make decisions easier or to avoid making the decision at all. 

How do they make decisions easier? The answer is in the decision-making process and the decision-making tools they use. As mediators, we can help our mediation clients when we understand these processes and these tools and work with them to make decision-making more comfortable. 

Most of the processes and tools our clients use to make decisions are not used consciously and strategically. Although in a slightly different context, it is helpful to know Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman states in his book “How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market” that 95% of all purchasing decisions are made subconsciously, not consciously. 

People are not used to consciously making decisions for themselves, so they rely upon methods they have developed, and they typically stick to those methods once they are developed. 

They could use one of the following processes: 

Decide without discussion. It could be a decision based on research, reviewing the costs associated with the options, and listing the pros and cons. It could just as easily be a coin flip, an impulse decision, or a gut feeling. 

Decide after discussion. This could also be a decision based on research, analyzing the costs, and analyzing the pros and cons. The decision maker reviews the information with others before deciding. 

Decide based on peer pressure. To decide quickly and easily, many people just do what social norms or “herd mentality” tell them to do. They think they’re making a decision, but they’re really allowing others to decide for them. As the mediator, it’s helpful to understand who are these “others”. 

Delegate decision-making authority. Some people simply don’t want to make the decision. They try to find ways for another person to decide for them. The other person they try to assign could be a family member or friend. It could even be their attorney or the mediator. Of course, this method is not exercising self-determination, a keystone of the mediation process. 

Underlying all decision-making is understanding that in the end, people make decisions based on emotions. Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio found that we need emotions to make decisions. His finding is based on a patient Damasio observed who could no longer generate emotions, and, as a result, couldn't make basic decisions. The patient's IQ had not changed. Damasio says, "His finding provides evidence that our decisions aren’t based solely on logic. Instead, emotions work subconsciously to guide us." 

As mediators, we can help our clients be more comfortable with making decisions by showing them respect and empathy, by alleviating their confusion, and by reinforcing their ability to decide.  

If you want to go deeper and figure out the best ways to surround yourself with a successful and effective peacemaking network, subscribe to my email newsletter. 

If you know someone who can benefit from this post, please share it with someone who trusts you, and share PeaceShark.com, with them. You can learn more about me and what I do to help families at AttorneyGrossman.com. If you want more tips on relationships, negotiations, and resolving conflicts, register for my newsletter at KeithShares.com.  

If you like this content, follow me on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn and at the Grossman Law & Conflict Management Facebook page. 

Make it a great day. I’m sending peace, love, and harmony your way.