Thinking Clearly

Clarity doesn’t require certainty. It requires discipline. “Trust, but verify” sounds simple. It isn’t. In negotiation, blind trust is risky. Total skepticism is paralyzing. The work lives in the middle. Trust keeps the process moving. It allows information to flow. It signals good faith. Verify protects the outcome. It checks assumptions. It keeps you grounded in reality. The mistake I see most often is treating this as a personality trait: • “I’m a trusting person” • “I don

Not every mediation ends with a deal. The best ones till move the process forward. Negotiators often believe that if a deal is not reached during mediation, then the mediation failed. I disagree. Settlement is one measure of success, but it is not the only one. A well-run mediation can create meaningful progress in ways that are less obvious but equally important. It can: Increase understanding Clarify interests and priorities Identify true deal breakers Narrow the issues Tes

This morning, Ollie and I went for a walk in Medellín. The air was crisp, the light soft, the park already alive. And then, inevitable dog poop. My immediate reaction was annoyance. My inner voice didn’t hesitate: People are so irresponsible. It felt satisfying. Clean. Certain. And then another question surfaced. Are people irresponsible? That stopped me. What did I actually know? I knew dog poop was left behind. That’s it. I didn’t know who left it. I didn’t know whether the

Certainty is the end of curiosity A funny thing happened to me today. I asked my AI assistant to draft a response to an email. I uploaded screenshots of the original message to provide context and ensure everything was accurate. The output was thoughtful, clear, and usable. Then I caught a mistake I did not expect. The person’s name was misspelled. I went back and asked what had happened. The name was clearly visible in the screenshots. There seemed to be no reason for the er

When the lights go out, who holds the power? Recently, I found myself facing what appeared to be a straightforward problem: an electrical issue in my apartment building. The inconvenience was real. Access, safety, habit, and routine were all disrupted. But the true challenge was not technical. It was strategic. Whenever you depend on someone else to resolve a problem, especially when a contract governs the relationship, you are in a negotiation whether you recognize it or not

Less is often more Recently, my cousin was visiting from Sweden and needed a shoe repair done quickly. It was December 22, two days before Christmas. We walked into a repair shop without calling ahead. The person behind the counter listened, smiled kindly, and said he couldn’t take the shoes. He was already at full capacity and couldn’t meet the turnaround time she needed My cousin didn’t argue. She didn’t get frustrated. She simply said that it was a very small repair and as

The good fight A few years ago, a colleague and I were asked to design a training program for judges and conciliators in another country. The stakes were high. We were both deeply invested in adult learning and determined to deliver something that did more than check a box. We wanted the program to matter. The months that followed were intense. We each had a clear vision of what the training needed to accomplish and strong opinions about how to get there. We argued about stru