By Ian McDuff of the Klewer Mediation Blog

...I want to do here is revisit a puzzle I explored a few years ago in an article in Negotiation Journal on culture, time and negotiation [Negotiation Journal 22: 31-45]. I want to revisit this, in part, as the puzzle hasn’t gone away – not that I expected it to; and in part as the number of “hits” on this article suggest that others have at least an interest in the role that time plays in mediation and negotiation, especially when it’s clear that time is itself mediated through a cultural lens. The puzzle, in brief, is that time appears to be both something we all share, whether it’s the precise marking of the passage of time through watches, smart phones, public clocks, or the broad rhythms of the days marked by sunrise and sunset; and, it’s also something that we do not share or perceive in the same way, whether those differences are as large as a reading of history or as precise as frustrations over punctuality.

The further difficulty with this apparent incompatibility of time perceptions and the framing of priorities that goes along with it, is the judgment that we add. Even the simple use of a word like “late” carries with it an interpretive weight:...

...For the purposes of mediation, I think we can narrow these to four categories of time perception and usage, though in saying that I’m aware that this, too, is a way of managing information and time! These categories are:

1. Time management: central to the mediator’s task, at least on the “standard” model, is an indication to the parties as to how the action will unfold, if not in substantive terms then at least in temporal terms. The very idea of a sequence and flow of inquiry which most of us will be familiar with is time-bound.

2. Time and memory

3. Readiness and time

4. The mediator’s understanding of parties’ perception of time

Read the entire article [HERE].