Week 7!!

Hi everyone! Welcome to my week 7 blog post!!

This week, I focused on making final edits to my 179D report: I added an outline section, organized my different report pieces, and started learning how to write an executive summary. I also described the parallels between my company’s mission to support energy-efficient building and the 179D’s environmental purpose. Finally, I did some research on how to write an effective executive summary and how to properly format a pitch-presentation. I will most likely be giving this pitch myself, which I’m a bit nervous about, but which has also motivated me to make it as close to perfect as I can.

Additionally, I’ve found that my conflict resolution research can be separated into two main theoretical categories: negotiation (also called ‘principal negotiation’) and ‘conflict transformation’. Principled negotiation deals with much of the substance I’ve read in ‘Getting To Yes’ – focusing on interests rather than positions, separating people from the problem, etc. Conflict Transformation deals with the underlying issues of a conflict, i.e. the negative perceptions that the opposing parties may have of each other. I’m intending to read another book, called “The Promise Of Mediation” by Robert Bush and Joseph Folger, to familiarize myself with Conflict Transformation. I’ve also done some light research into a few other conflict resolution theories as well, such as the Cooperative Model and the Human Needs Model, and I recognize that these theories are meritable as well. In fact, I believe several conflict resolution theories complement each other in many regards – I may even add another theory to my main research later on. Right now, though, I’m focusing on principled negotiation and conflict transformation because I’ve found that they align most with the interests of my project.

That’s all for this week, thank you for reading along!
~ Maria