5 PerspectivesApril 2, 2012

Malibu in June? Yes, You Can – And Here’s Why You Should

Whether you’re traveling from Santa Monica or Sanibel Island, getting to Pepperdine for a few days of training isn’t easy, and I don’t endorse any class lightly.  That said, I’m happy to recommend a course I took last summer that’ll be taught again this June by Don Philbin and Doug Noll — because it’s just that good.

Philbin and Noll’s course, Preventing Bad Settlement Decisions and Impasse Using Brain Science, Game Theory, Animated Communication, and Micro-Interventions, is one of 15 courses offered in Malibu this June at the 25th Annual Summer Professional Skills Program put on by Pepperdine’s Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, and it has earned its place among Pepperdine’s top-tier offerings.

Two Fantastic Instructors

Whether you’re a mediator or an advocate, know that the Philbin/Noll duo combines two different backgrounds, two different perspectives, and two different accents to achieve a real, immediate change in those who take their course.  Doug Noll is an established keynote speaker, an author of several helpful and relevant books (like Peacemaking: Practicing at the Intersection of Law and Human Conflict), and a top-tier mediator, and his teaching partner Don Philbin is equally distinguished — you may know Don through his cutting edge Picture It Settled app, his often-cited Harvard Negotiation Law Review article, his on-point Twitter feed (@DonPhilbin), or his successful mediation practice.  But don’t just take it from me; one of Don’s recent conference attendees said:

In my role as the Executive Vice President, General Counsel of [x] I see and participate in many programs all over the world.  Don Philbin is clearly head and shoulders above the rest and presents one of the most entertaining and most informative programs on risk analysis I have ever seen.  Drop whatever you are doing and try to see him in action.

Preventing Bad Settlement Decisions and More

Philbin and Noll have agreed to cover several critical topics in the three-day course, most of which are neglected or underserved in mediation training.  I learned last June that they can deliver on their aggressive course description:

Most mediators operate on instinct, intuition, and experience. This session will elevate your practice — you’ll learn enough of the theoretical underpinnings of neuropsychology to gain clarity, understanding, and a driving purpose to kick your game up a notch. And you’ll get to immediately practice effective tools that will help you implement that theory in the working laboratory that is this advanced course.

Count on Philbin and Noll to cover some of the less intuitive topics that drive results in the negotiation context, like:

and, as you can imagine, a whole lot more.  Make it to Malibu this summer — you’ll be glad you did.

Categories: Education,Mediation,Miscellaneous,Negotiation

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