Point Counter Point Resolution Consultants
300-533 Victoria Avenue S4N 0P8 Regina, SK, Canada

Wishing a Happy Holiday Season and Happy New Year to all of our family, friends and colleagues!!

A new article at Point Counter Point https://www.pointcounterpoint.ca/blog/index.php

I am off to Boston on Sunday to take a course from the Harvard Law School, Program on Negotiation. The Master Class in Negotiation. As usual, they loaded us with reading to do before we get there. Excited!

Greetings folks. I thought I would let you know what I am doing. I am currently in the middle of an online seminar, 6 months in duration with William Ury and Thomas Hubl. I am sure most of you know William Ury - the Getting to Yes guy. I did not know Thomas Hubl, but I can tell he has a huge following. He is a bit more challenging to put in a box. I guess you would call him a spiritual leader. The course is called Meditate and Mediate and there are 690 people from accross th...e world that beam into the sessions. It is a remarkable course. For starters, it is a pleasure to listen to William talk about getting to yes, the power of a postive No, going to the balcony and reframing, making the pie bigger. All stuff we learned about last June. We also learned about clearing one's mind. Rinsing oneself of our own concerns, allowing us to be clear and centred. That is where meditation comes in. Thomas pushes my buttons. I used to meditate as a kid and now it is good to start up the discipline again. It works. I fee better, more focused when it is part of my life. Thomas however speaks of higher minded things. He beleives in world wide meditation as a means of achieving peace. His followers engage in this all over the world. William's teaching is that we are part of the "third way". As mediators we step into a dispute where we are faced with two opposing "ways". We are the third way. We are peacemakers. In the seminar, William talks about his work with the Columbian government regarding their decades old civil war. He also has been engaged in mediation efforts with North Korea. Yesterday I watched an added video where Thomas and WIlliam met online with Dr. Flavia Valguista, a professor of law at the University of Buenos Aries. Her talk was to discuss what she called "cosmic law". I might have called it universal law, but her point is that all law is grounded in love. (Stay with me). Foundational laws that support love of children, family, partners, fairness in the broadest sense, and justice. She called this vertical or cosmic law and says that it is the foundation of the law of all cultures, whether Indigenous, or European, Muslim, Bhuddist or Chrisian. William characterised this as laws founded in Yes. Horizontal laws are laws of No. This are the "thou shalt not" kinds of negative laws that help us preserve cosmic law. I am intrigued. As members of the third way, isn't it our role to allow people in dispute to accept the cosmic law. If we can pull our clients away from their dispute and allow them to understand common good.

Wishing all of our family, friends and colleagues a healthy, happy and safe Holiday Season and a safe and prosperous New Year