Conflict, Power & Persuasion

About Conflict, Power & Persuasion

Conflict, Power & Persuasion explores how people navigate conflict, negotiation, power, persuasion, and peace when the stakes are high. Through conversations with leading practitioners, scholars, and thought leaders, each episode offers insight, stories, and practical tools to help listeners understand conflict and negotiation more deeply, influence more wisely, and make better decisions when it matters most. Learn more at ciian.org.

Publisher

Canadian International Institute of Applied Negotiation

Category

education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

17 Aug 2021

Latest episode

25 Aug 2026

Latest episodes

27 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   25 Aug 2026

   Olivier Sibony- Beyond Bias: What Noise Reveals About Judgement, Systems, and Conflict

   Olivier Sibony is a professor, author, and advisor whosework focuses on strategic decision-making and the design of better decision processes. He is a Professor of Strategy at HEC Paris and an Associate Fellow at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School. Before moving into academia, he spent 25 years with McKinsey & Company, where he was a Senior Partner and held leadership roles in the firm’s strategy practice. He is the author of You’re About to Make a Terrible Mistake!, and the co-author, with Daniel Kahneman and Cass Sunstein, of Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment. His recent work examines human decision-making in the age of artificial intelligence, including what AI may improve, what it maydistort, and where human responsibility still matters. In this episode of Conflict, Power & Persuasion, Olivierhelps unpack a topic that sits right beside cognitive bias, but is probably much less familiar: noise. Some topics discussed include: • How Olivier’s work as a strategy consultant led him tostudy why smart people make bad decisions. • Why real-world mistakes are rarely caused by one isolatedbias. • The target analogy from Noise, and how it helps explainaccuracy, bias, and unwanted variability. • Why judges, doctors, forecasters, mediators, negotiators,and other professionals may reach very different conclusions from the sameinformation. • Why noise often goes unnoticed unless we deliberately lookfor it. • Why the difference between rules and standards matterswhen drafting policies, agreements, and other decision frameworks. • Why mediation and negotiation raise a difficult question:what exactly is the target we are trying to hit? • How AI may reduce some forms of judgement error whileraising hard questions about dignity, accountability, procedural justice, andhuman responsibility. And much more. Links and Resources ·       Olivier Sibony’s Website (https://oliviersibony.com/) ·       OlivierSibony’s Books (https://oliviersibony.com/books/) ·    Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Daniel Kahneman, OlivierSibony, and Cass R. Sunstein (https://oliviersibony.com/books/noise/) ·       You’re About to Make a Terrible Mistake! by Olivier Sibony (https://oliviersibony.com/books/youre-about-to-make-a-terrible-mistake/) ·       OlivierSibony’s Recent Work on Human Decision-Making and Artificial Intelligence (https://oliviersibony.fr/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)

2. 

   26 Nov 2025

   The Mafia Economy: Power, Governance and Influence in the Shadows - with Federico Varese

   Federico Varese is a Professor of Criminology at the University of Oxford and a Senior Research Fellow at Nuffield College. His work focuses on organised crime as a system of governance, examining how criminal groups emerge, expand, and adapt across different societies. He has written extensively on the Russian mafia, Italian mafia groups, Somali piracy, the migration and evolution of mafia organisations, and the use of social network analysis to understand criminal behaviour. His recent projects include research on gang governance in the UK, cybercrime markets, illicit financial networks, and the global market for substandard medicines. He is the author of several books, including The Russian Mafia, Mafias on the Move, Mafia Life, and Russia in Four Criminals.  Federico’s research and commentary have appeared across leading media platforms, including The Economist, the BBC, The Guardian, and The New York Times. In this episode of Conflict, Power, and Persuasion, FedericoVarese takes us inside the hidden machinery of mafia governance; how these groups rise, rule, and reveals their negotiation and power strategies along the way. Some topics discussed include: • What counts as organised crime, and the three core functions these groups serve in society. • How mafia organisations like the Ndrangheta end up performing state-like roles in protection, dispute resolution, and governance. • The global scale of organised crime, and why tens of millions of people live under the rule of criminal governance. • How weak justice systems, slow courts, and limited access to social services create conditions for organised crime to take hold. • What the origins of mafia groups reveal; from shifts out of feudal systems to the shared rules and doctrines that underpin membership across cultures. • Why effective reintegration after conflict is critical to prevent armed groups from entering into organised crime. • What Federico’s research on mafia behaviour reveals about negotiation, from informational power and credible commitments to trust, respect, reputation, and the ways criminal groups influence others without relying solely on violence. And much more… Links: Federico Varese’s Website : https://federicovarese.com/ (https://federicovarese.com/) Mafias on the Move (book) : https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691128553 (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691128553)Mafia Life: Love, Death and Money at the Heart of Organised Crime - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0791KTC9K (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0791KTC9K) Russia in Four Criminals (latest book):https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DFDPDWM7 (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DFDPDWM7) Latin America Citizen Security Survey on https://www.iadb.org/en/news/citizen-security-latin-america-and-caribbean (https://www.iadb.org/en/news/citizen-security-latin-america-and-caribbean)

3. 

   23 Jun 2025

   Sue Williams - The Hostage Negotiator’s Playbook for Business and Security

   Sue Williams, former hostage negotiator, shares her experiences from high-stakes international cases, revealing the overlap between crisis negotiation and strategic leadership in an interview.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Spotify

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 45 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

59

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

76

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Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.