Works
- The Mediators, 1983
- When Talk Works: Profiles of Mediators, 1994
- The Shadow Negotiation: How Women Can Master the Hidden Agendas That Determine Bargaining Success, 2000
In Tactics of Organizational Politics
Ideas
Moves and turns. Alongside the negotiation over issues runs a shadow negotiation over how the parties will treat each other. When a counterpart makes a move that puts one down or off balance, Kolb and Williams describe turns that answer it: interrupting the exchange to reset it, naming the move openly, correcting the claim with another account of the facts, and diverting attention back to the substance. Caveat: The list of four turns was confirmed through a secondary account by a colleague of Kolb's; some summaries describe more.
How mediators work. Kolb's study of labor mediators, and the profiles in When Talk Works, describe, through close study and interview-based profiles of practicing mediators, how mediators actually go about managing disputes.
What it explains
Kolb explains how a person on the receiving end of a put-down or a procedural squeeze can restore standing in the moment, and how neutral third parties steer agreement by managing the process. Both show that how a conversation is conducted shapes who prevails in it.