Managing Conflict Mindfully: Don’t Believe Everything You Think

Leonard L. Riskin, Northwestern University School of Law

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Advance Praise for Managing Conflict Mindfully: Don't Believe Everything You Think 

“Len Riskin is a pioneer in bringing both mediation and mindfulness to the legal community. He is self-reflective, witty and seriously thoughtful—all qualities richly in evidence in his new work, Managing Conflict Mindfully: Don’t Believe Everything You Think. This is a guide book to our better selves—a road map to understanding and managing our internal and external conflicts with grace and skill. If we all followed Len’s thoughtful prescriptions for managing our stress, handling our emotions, and negotiating our conflicts, the world would be a seriously better place.

I have taught from Len’s writings for years and cannot wait to teach from this one as well.”
—Claudia Bernard, Chief Circuit Mediator Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (Retired), Independent Mediator, Trainer and Consultant

“We know that conflicts take place not only between us, but within us; that they make us feel bad; that we become confused and lose touch with who we really are; that we end up behaving badly toward others; that we forget what matters, and argue endlessly and aggressively about things that don’t. Now, thanks to Leonard Riskin’s brilliant, insightful and immensely useful book, there is something we can do about it. Managing Conflict Mindfully offers marvelous new tools, important not just for mediators and negotiators, but everyone who has slipped into conflict’s dark, downward spiral. He has written an exciting, energizing, practical book that can change your life, and I recommend it highly.”
—Kenneth Cloke, Founder and past president, Mediators Beyond Borders; author or co-author of 19 books on mediation, leadership, and management, including The Dance of Opposites: Explorations in Mediation, Dialogue and Conflict Resolution Systems Design; 2013) and Mediating Dangerously (2001)

“Managing Conflict Mindfully: Don’t Believe Everything You Think is a tour de force. Len Riskin juxtaposes and combines three quite different models of how humans behave in conflict and how they can move through it. Using real-life examples, and drawing on extensive literature, he illuminates the links between inner and outer conflict. Anyone who wants to better understand and manage conflict, inside and out, would benefit from this book.”
—Gary J. Friedman, Co-Director of the Center for Understanding in Conflict, co-founder of understanding-based mediation. Renowned mediator, trainer, and commentator. Author, Inside-Out: How Conflict Professionals Can Use Self-Reflection to Help Their Clients (2015)

“Managing Conflict Mindfully: Don’t Believe Everything You Think is a masterpiece written by a master practitioner, scholar and teacher of dispute resolution and mindfulness. Everyone should read this wonderful book. In our time of polarized politics, racial tensions, and endless conflicts, this book helps all of us learn to bridge our differences in sustainable ways. Riskin infuses his delightful book with helpful examples, insightful exercises, welcome humor, pearls of wisdom, and thought-provoking appendices. Based on his own research and building on that by others, this book pioneers a novel framework (and memorable Venn diagram) combining elements of three domains: negotiation theories, mindfulness practice, and Internal Family Systems. This is a one-of-a-kind book or treatise which offers interpersonal, intrapersonal, and professional life lessons. This book is a pure joy to read! There are roadmaps, reviews, summary boxes, and worksheets to help readers apply the frames, ideas, mindsets, perspectives, and techniques of this book. Don’t miss Len’s funny, priceless, and serious light verse poem about Managing Conflict Mindfully!”
—Peter H. Huang, Ph.D., J.D., Author of Disrupting Racism: Essays by An Asian American Prodigy Professor, and retired chaired professor, University of Colorado, Boulder Law School

“With Managing Conflict Mindfully: Don’t Believe Everything You Think, Leonard Riskin enriches our understanding of ourselves and our capacity to live a more fulfilled life. His many years of experience, wisdom and humor come together to formulate a method for managing conflict that is unique, accessible and deep, a rare combination. By brilliantly integrating insights and approaches to negotiation, mindfulness, and internal family systems, he helps us better understand why we do what we do and develop the tools to meaningfully relate to, manage, and resolve conflict. Don’t Believe Everything You Think emerges just when we need it most, offering us the opportunity not only to transform the quality of our lives, but to help the world become a better place.”
—Scott L. Rogers, J.D., M.A. Founder and director, Institute for Mindfulness Studies and the Mindfulness in Law Program at the University of Miami School of Law. Co-founder and co-director, University of Miami’s Mindfulness Research & Practice Initiative. Author, The Mindful Law Student: A Mindfulness in Law Practice Guide (2022)

“This book is a bit of a dream come true for me. To have an award-winning law school professor, who is also an influential expert in mediation and negotiation, bring my IFS model to those realms fulfills a vision. Len Riskin not only skillfully applies IFS to working with conflicts of all kinds, he combines it with mindfulness and negotiation skills to create an approach that invites each party to explore their full range of motives and emotions and then to lead their contentious interactions from a place of calm, curiosity, and even compassion for their opponent. His writing is clear and full of the kind of engaging self-disclosure that one doesn’t expect from a prominent lawyer, but which not only illustrates his points well but also serves as a model for readers’ self-exploration and disclosure. This is a paradigm-changing book that can revolutionize this important field.”
—Richard C. Schwartz, Ph.D., founder of Internal Family Systems and the IFS Institute. Author, No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma & Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model

“This book is a masterpiece—sophisticated, witty, and eminently practical! Professor Len Riskin—a revered figure in the field of conflict resolution—explains how the biggest saboteur to negotiation success often lies not in an obstinate counterpart but in the failure to manage our own psyche. He illuminates a powerful, humanistic path forward that draws on his wide-ranging experience as a lawyer, law professor, mediator, and Second-City improv student. I have had the privilege to teach with him for more than a decade and have observed firsthand the impact of his work: Countless individuals of all backgrounds have applied his ideas and completely transformed the way they deal with conflict. Read this book and the same might just happen to you.”
—Daniel L. Shapiro, Ph.D., Founder and Director of the Harvard International Negotiation Program. Co-author (with Roger Fisher) of Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate

“Renowned negotiation expert Len Riskin masterfully integrates negotiation and internal family systems theory with the latest thinking and practices on mindfulness. Riskin powerfully argues that knowing the right negotiation theory, while essential, is not enough; one must also know oneself. His years of experience teaching, researching, and practicing mindfulness combine to make Riskin an invaluable guide.

Anyone interested in improving their negotiation skills should read this book.”
—Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen, Co-authors (with Bruce Patton), Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most; co-authors, Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback

“Leonard Riskin is a lawyer, a law school professor, a seasoned mediator and trainer, and a long-time meditator. He is also a committed student of conflict—the conflicts large and small that arise in our work and personal lives, day to day. How can we learn to be more skillful participants in conflict? How can we achieve better outcomes and better relationships at the same time?

In this book, Professor Riskin takes us on a tour of conflict from multiple perspectives, including the habitual patterns of negotiation that we take that can lead to poor outcomes, as well as the psychological traps that prevent us from participating more skillfully. The exciting aspect of this book is Riskin’s in-depth description of the multiple and often conflicting perspectives on conflict we hold unconsciously, and the role habits of thought and emotion can play in blocking success. He doesn’t leave us there but provides a well-reasoned explanation of how traditional “win-win” negotiation strategies, combined with mindfulness practices used with the Internal Family System psychological model of our minds can lead to deeper and wiser insights into ourselves and others in conflict. The book, supplemented by a website, provides a broad array of readily grasped materials designed to take us deeper into the practice of conflict resolution.

This book is for anyone who deals with conflict, anyone. Scholarly yet accessible. A fine accomplishment from a master of the field.”
—Michael Zimmerman, Retired Utah Supreme Court Justice, attorney, mediator, and Zen teacher