We should be hospice workers for the dying as well as midwives for the new, says Graham Leicester, director of the International Futures Forum, we need to respect those who have a vested interest in the old ways of doing things while we grow new approaches at the same time. The combination of old and new gives us a platform for progress. We were reminded that good leaders often need to ride two paradigms with one bum….

These were among the themes at Core’s recent dialogue and supper featuring authors of chapters in our Thinking Differently book. Around 50 of us gathered and explored the future of mediation and how we can expand its use. Different tables discussed Litigation, IP and Insurance, the Public Sector, Organisations and Governance, Planning and the Environment and Workplace and Employment.

We did so by interspersing conversation with food, and plenary discussion with more intimate dialogue. We’ll be reporting more fully on the outcomes soon.

Of course, mediation is not new at all. Here, we are in a sense rediscovering the old in a new age. And, perhaps paradoxically, we were warned about the danger of building a new orthodoxy…..