Begin wherever you are.
Both books are self-contained. You don't need one to read the other — but reading both builds a complete picture of the Dynamic Mediation model, from intellectual foundation to practical application.
Dynamic Mediation
Practical Strategies for Complex Disputes and High-Conflict Situations
The intellectual foundation of the Dynamic Mediation model. This book argues that mediation, as a field, has been limited by the same reductionist thinking it was designed to overcome — categorizing approaches into separate styles and missing the complex, dynamic nature of conflict itself.
Drawing on Cybernetics and Systems Science, the book introduces a new vocabulary for understanding conflict: equilibrium, feedback loops, disturbance, viable systems. These are not abstract concepts — they explain precisely why certain disputes escalate, why certain interventions make things worse, and what a mediator must actually do to move a social system toward sustainable agreement.
The book begins by examining the debates around Transformative Mediation, using them as a lens to understand why the field has resisted the kind of holistic thinking it needs. It then introduces the foundational concepts of Cybernetics and Systems Thinking as they apply to conflict, building through the nature of learning, emotion, and negotiation toward a complete design of the Dynamic Mediation process.
The final chapter presents the Dynamic Mediation model as a visual diagram — five concentric layers, not stages, representing the simultaneous dimensions of every well-run mediation — and maps every technique in the book to the layers it engages.
Best for: Dispute resolution researchers, advanced practitioners, academics, and anyone who wants to understand the intellectual architecture behind the model before or alongside applying it.
Dynamic Mediation at Work
The practitioner's guide to Dynamic Mediation in workplace settings. This book takes the theoretical framework of its predecessor and gives it operational form — concrete techniques, practical toolkits, and extended case studies drawn from the full range of workplace dispute contexts.
The book is organized in four parts. Foundations in Context (Part I) gives you the lenses to see workplace conflict at a deeper level — the workplace as a system, how conflict escalates, the distinction between conflict and dispute, and why the mediator's role is fundamentally one of change management. The Dynamic Mediation Process (Part II) walks through the Unfreeze–Move–Freeze framework step by step, richly illustrated with workplace scenarios and practical techniques you can use immediately.
Workplace Applications (Part III) applies the full framework to four specific dispute types: team and peer conflicts, management–employee disputes, union grievances and collective bargaining, and organizational change and restructuring. Each chapter provides an extended case study and a practical toolkit. Mastering the Practice (Part IV) addresses advanced techniques, ethics and professional boundaries, and the complete Dynamic Mediation model.
Throughout the book, four running case studies develop in growing complexity: the Reeves Tech team conflict, the Carter promotion dispute, the Local 412 and Graystone collective bargaining impasse, and the Meridian Health merger. You meet these people and organizations in the first chapter and follow them through the entire book.
Best for: HR professionals, mediators, people managers, labour relations specialists, organizational consultants, and anyone who manages conflict as part of their professional work. No prior reading required.
Which should you read first?
A guide for new readers
Start with Dynamic Mediation at Work. It covers everything you need to apply the framework immediately and contains a clear, accessible introduction to the underlying theory — without requiring any prior background in cybernetics or systems science.
Dynamic Mediation (2022) provides the full intellectual architecture — the cybernetics foundations, the academic research, the philosophical grounding of every technique. If you want to understand the "why" at a deep level, start here, or return here after reading the practitioner's guide.
Read both. Dynamic Mediation gives you the theoretical foundation; Dynamic Mediation at Work gives you the operational tools. Together, they give you a complete understanding of the model — why it works and how to use it.
Have questions about the books?
Contact us directly and we will be happy to help you find the right starting point for your context.