Reconciling the irreconcilable ? Lessons gained from negotiation and mediation in extreme environments

Engineers know very well that testing the resistance of materials or the robustness of a process is best carried out in extreme conditions. Bearing this in mind, Aurélien Colson, director of the IRÉNÉ research institute which he runs at the ESSEC business school, analysed the experiences gained from of the Négociateurs du Monde (Negotiators of the World) programme. Since 2002, this programme has been carrying out missions in countries and areas ravaged by civil war and mass violence including Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Horn of Africa, and the Caucasus. He tries to discover the operational lessons learned in terms of negotiation and mediation, and to identify the methods and techniques which were successful, and which can be applied to managerial situations.