What can a hostage negotiator teach you about resolving a commercial dispute? More than you might think.
At London International Disputes Week 2026, we hosted a panel bringing together Mark Lim, Partner and Head of Dispute Resolution at Lewis Silkin; Rebecca Clark, a mediator at Independent Mediators; and Kirk Kinnell, a professional negotiator (and former hostage negotiator) from Negotiated Resolutions. With ADR increasingly prominent following the Court of Appeal's decision in Churchill, the skills required to negotiate effectively have never been more relevant. We share some key themes from our discussion.
Stabilise before you solve
The instinct in any dispute is to push for a result. But the first lesson from crisis negotiation is the opposite: resist the urge to solve and focus on stabilising the situation. That means absorbing the stress and pressure rather than reacting to it, and applying calm, measured influence over time. In mediation, this translates into preparation: meeting the parties beforehand, listening to their story, explaining the process, and introducing the concept of compromise. That period of pre-mediation work often has a profound effect, allowing parties to cool down and arrive focused on resolution rather than reliving past grievances. Emotional drivers are present in every dispute. If you acknowledge them early, it paves the way for the ground to shift.
Start with connection, not solutions
Leave the solution to the end. Start with the connection. In practice, this means resisting superficial empathy, being honest and ensuring that the party you are seeking to persuade genuinely feels heard. In litigation and mediation, good negotiation is not necessarily about going in hard. It is about trust, and trust is built through behaviour, including respect, genuine connection and engagement.
Listen beneath the surface
What a negotiation appears to be about is rarely the full picture. A demand framed as money may really be about power, influence, or status. Skilled negotiators listen across multiple layers (facts, emotions, values, beliefs, motivators, context and impact) to uncover what is truly driving the other side. In commercial disputes, agendas are often fragmented: the legal team may want one thing, the commercial team another. A mediator can play a vital neutral role here, exploring those drivers separately and sharing them when permitted to create a safe space for candour.
Know who you are really negotiating with
Are you speaking to the right person? And in the right order? Layers of advisers, internal stakeholders, and competing interests can obscure the true decision-maker. Sometimes the interests of the corporate party and its representatives are not aligned at all; a senior executive may have a personal stake in the outcome that pulls in a different direction. One question cuts through the noise: "Who benefits from this situation continuing?"
Manage emotion with intelligence
Ignoring emotion does not make it go away. Neuroscience tells us that decision-making is both emotional and rational, and suppressing one side often leads to poor decisions and agreements that do not last. A practical approach is to name the emotion and acknowledge it, refocus on purpose, break issues into manageable pieces and reframe the dispute, not as one side against the other, but as everyone united against the problem.
Be agile and share the risk
Effective negotiators do not impose solutions. They attach risk to inaction and frame outcomes in terms of mutual benefit, establishing a common objective and sharing the risk. Sun Tzu's "Golden Bridge" principle applies: always allow the other side a dignified path to resolution. And remember that negotiations are often multilateral; sometimes there is more conflict within one party's own camp than between the opposing sides.
The bottom line
Whether the stakes are a hostage's life or a multi-million-pound dispute, the fundamentals are the same. Stabilise before you solve. Connect before you persuade. Listen for what is really going on. Find the true decision-makers. Manage emotion, do not ignore it. And above all, treat people with dignity, because it is the human connection that breaks the deadlock.
With thanks to Ivana Mensah, Trainee Secondee, for co-authoring this article.
