"Behind every argument is someone's ignorance." -- Louis D. Brandeis

Rather than reacting to the other person's demands, use those statements as clues to underlying needs.

A co-worker demands you finish your work in a week. You respond that you will finish your work in two weeks as you...

Hate no one; hate their vices, not themselves. J.G.C. Brainard

Keep dislike of another person's views from shifting into dislike of the person.

When the other person argues with you, you may want to figuratively or literally push the other person away. We can all fall prey to disliking...

"People only see what they are prepared to see." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Find comfortable ways to raise challenging issues.

Once you decide to discuss a topic, then framing becomes important. This is especially true when the message will likely provoke a strong reaction. Foremost, reflect on the way the other...

"I don't like that man very much ... I'm going to have to get to know him better." -- Abraham Lincoln

Before jumping to conclusions about the other person, seek cultural clues in the conflict.

All interactions are cross-cultural in one simple sense. Each person brings different cultural experiences to...

Choice of attention - to pay attention to this and ignore that - is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be. -- W. H. Auden

Look...

In less than a week, our country will decide the next President of the United States. Having mediated and negotiated for many years, I am keenly sensitive to how the presidential candidates interact to deal with conflict and persuade others. What has particularly impressed me about Barack Obama is how...

It is not what we learn in conversation that enriches us. It is the elation that comes of swift contact with tingling currents of thought. -- Agnes Repplier

Approach the conversation as a craft to engage the other person with authenticity.

Conversation is an under-appreciated craft upon which we...

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. -- Carl Jung

The Invisible Wall

You have been there before. You are speaking with someone important to you - a co-worker,...

A man raises his voice to a woman at the table across from me at the Starbucks about Palin's lack of qualifications. The mothers huddled at my daughter's ice skating rink express horror at the even poll pie charts. My law school colleagues decry McCain's lipstick smears in their offices....

If you asked me a year ago whether I would be doing political fundraising today, I would have said no way. I have perceived such activity as an unsavory form of selling. I have always been uncomfortable asking people for money. I hated selling raffle tickets for my elementary school...