Session Description:

In the US and many other countries, community mediation is an approach to conflict resolution in which the community is integrated into the mediation center and the mediation center is integrated into the community.  Community mediation is a grassroots social change movement that transforms communities one conflict at a time.  In order to really transform communities, the center needs to be more than just a service provider.  Yet centers often fall short of these lofty ideals as funding cuts and high staff turnover make keeping the doors open seem like a Herculean effort and everything else seem impossible.  This Webinar will bring to life the 9 Hallmarks of Community Mediation outlined by the National Association for Community Mediation.  We will discuss how simple, every day choices further integrate a program into a community and how longer term goals can be reached.

Read more and register (it's free!) [HERE]. 

Negotiation strategies to make 2016 the year you get the pay you deserve

...We thought you’d like that idea. So we pulled together all the negotiation tips, advice and strategies we’ve collected from a battery of experts to help make this the year you get the compensation you deserve.

Practice makes perfect: Eldonna Lewis Fernandez, a retired Air Force master sergeant and negotiation expert, is a big advocate of the negotiation practice run — not in a real job setting, of course. At a yard sale. Seriously. “You just make offers, and at first, if you’re not used to it, it may feel kind of, ‘Oh, I don’t like that.’ But those are low-stakes environments,” Fernandez said at the NAWBO national conference last year. “You do actually need to do negotiation to get good at it.” That practice helps give you confidence going into a real negotiation situation.

Read more on this tip and others [HERE]. 

WHY USING YOUR POWER IN A NEGOTIATION ISN'T ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA

JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN GET WHAT YOU WANT DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD. THE BEST NEGOTIATORS ACHIEVE THEIR GOALS AND FIND A WAY TO BENEFIT EVERYONE.

...In general, though, negotiation isn't done in isolation. You will have to deal with the firms you negotiate with again in the future.

Read more [HERE]. 

Researchers discovered a psychological trick that will make you a better negotiator

…New research suggests that one key strategy for winning a negotiation involves bringing some emotion to the table. Specifically, disclosing some personal information can elicit sympathy from the other party and help persuade them to see things from your perspective.

...Half the candidates were told that gaining the other person's sympathy is a good way to succeed in a negotiation; the other half were told that it's wise to remain professional and make rational arguments.

Results showed that candidates told to elicit the recruiter's sympathy scored...

"Feeling the emotion of sympathy also helped information and communication between the parties so that they could come up with really out-of-the-box, creative solutions that they wouldn't have otherwise. So sympathy was sort of a social lubricant."

Read the full article [HERE]. 

Conflict resolution is a much better investment than war

Lori Draper/ADN.com ...Consider just one of the peace-building organizations that exists today, Search for Common Ground. This group works internationally to address the root causes of violence, alongside those who are directly affected by violent conflict, and they are making a difference. They are working to implement peace-building processes, collect the data and measure their effectiveness -- and they are improving their processes all the time. On the ground training in collaboration, mediation and communication is transforming would-be warlords into peacemakers. For the price of four hours of the war in Afghanistan, Search for Common Ground could be funded for an entire year. For the cost of one year’s budget for the Department of Defense, they could be funded for 15,000 years! Talk about a strategy that would provide a good ROI.

...There is a bill about to be introduced in Congress that would solidify recent gains in the peace-building field and strengthen our national ability to avoid the next military entanglement, the next terrorist threat, and the next ethnic or religious conflagration.

Read the full article and learn more about the bill in Congress [HERE].