The Tao of Negotiation: How You Can Prevent, Resolve, and Transcend Conflict in Work and Everyday Life

One of my hats says "mediator" on it. And in that capacity, I count this as one of my most useful books.It's not exactly about mediation, or at least it's not a how-to book for mediators. At bottom it's about how to nip conflicts in the bud by not letting the dangerous sort of conflict arise in yourself in the first place.That's what makes this such a helpful book for mediators. Joel Edelman is convinced that it takes two people to let a conflict get out of hand; if _either one_ of them is ready, willing, and able to try to resolve it, it will usually resolve. And as a lawyer who helped to pioneer the field of mediation, he's got plenty of experience to support his claim.There's plenty of good advice in this well-written book (and by the way, Mary Beth Crain shares credit for its well-written-ness). In essence it amounts to this: external conflicts arise because, somewhere, there's an internal conflict we've allowed to get out of hand. And in order to get it back _into_ hand, we may have to do some difficult inner work. We're generally not as self-aware, and therefore also not as aware of each other, as we probably think we are; the signals we think we're receiving from other people are often echoes of the vibes we're putting out ourselves.At any rate, this book isn't just for mediators. It's for anybody at all who wants some practical/spiritual advice about dealing with, and preventing, the toxic sort of conflict -- the poison-spewing kind that demands a "win-lose" outcome. Win-win resolutions are generally possible, but only if we each take responsibility for our own thoughts and actions and don't make our satisfaction depend on what the other person does.Good stuff. Trust the process.