Blog

Our monthly blog

Each month, we muse about some aspect of negotiation, gamification or philanthropy and its effect on our work and world. Comments welcome!
If you want to take part in the discussion, you are kindly invited to join our group 'Gamification and Negotiation' on LinkedIn.

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October 2023

ZEN AND THE ART OF NEGOTIATION: Lessons from a Silent Retreat

This month, I had the opportunity to attend a five-day silent “Zen Leadership” retreat.It was a sometimes difficult but also very beautiful time, and one that left me profoundly strengthened and grateful for what I experienced.

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September 2023

ARE YOU IN A RIGID ENVIRONMENT? A Tale of Transformation Through Play in Negotiation

In the world of negotiation, rigidity can often lead to stalemates, misunderstandings, and missed opportunities. But what if we could transform the negotiation process through the curiosity of play?

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August 2023

IN SEARCH OF A STABLE EMPIRE: Napoleon and cooperative game theory

I took the occasion of a short vacation on Corsica this spring to tackle a fairly hefty biography of Napoleon. And the question occurs to me: viewed through the prism of cooperative game theory, was this an “Unstable Core”?

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July 2023

THE DEBTS OF HISTORY: What do the Germans still owe Poland?

Rational Games was asked to attend a meeting working with the renewed Polish demand for WWII reparations from Germany.  How could we apply our collaborative “win-win” approach to negotiation to this lingering and very thorny problem?

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June 2023

THE TURNING POINT: When Competition Turns to Cooperation

“Are we looking at the same problem?” The above question seems simple & is yet so powerful. Why?

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May 2023

THE BEAUTY OF COMPETITION: Judging in the Warsaw Round

This month saw a highly enjoyable “gig” for me: participation in the team of jury “experts” at the Warsaw Negotiation Round (WNR).

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April 2023

WHEN STONES CAN SPEAK: The Power of Lego Serious Play

As a serious practitioner of teaching and doing negotiation playfully, I have for some time been intrigued by the apparently rather sophisticated series of training and certification courses on offer from Lego Serious Play.  

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March 2023

SURELY WE CANNOT LET HIM GET AWAY WITH IT: Peace vs. Justice in Ukraine

The dueling speeches in Moscow and Warsaw last week were nothing new, but vividly contrasted the divided positions not only of the two “principals”, again bringing up the central question: when will it be time to find a negotiated solution?

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February 2023

NEGOTIATING WITH ChatGPT: read to the very end!

Will I ever be made redundant because of AI? Those were my exact thoughts 10 years ago when I witnessed the rise of Machine Learning and AI startups and reflected on what I want to become in life.

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January 2023

BOARDING THE TRAIN OF HOPE: Introducing Our Latest Grantee

May I please take the occasion of our last blog of 2022 to introduce our latest grantee, the Train of Hope in Dortmund, Germany (TOH).

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