Negociacion, Apuntes de Psicología

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THE LITTLE BOOK OF

STRATEGIC

NEGOTIATIO

N

1.NEGOTIATING IN TURBULENT TIMES

Negotiation is the most commonly used form of conflict resolution. It involves two or more people who communicate with one another in order to promote shared understandings, overcome diferences,reach compromises, or make mutually beneficial trade offs.

This book explores a dimension of negotiation: how changes in the context affect negotiating.

Changin contexts

Often negotiations occur in the context of established relationships or established social estructures. The interactions are governed by mutally understood norms and rules when there is a stable sense of reality. These are cultural understandings.

A stable settings provides mechanisms that support the negotiation process:

■ Mutually accept rules of behaviour

■ Shared norms of fairness

■ Relatively certainty that the negotiators have a shared future

■ Institutions (formal or informal) that can enforce negotiated agreements

During times of organizational and social change the mechanism that support negotiation are unclear fragile or completely missing. The parties negotiate in context in which there are likely to be

■ unclear or disputed rules of behaviour

■ competing norms of fairness

■ uncertainly that they have a shared future.

■ broken, non-existent, or controvertial institutions or mechanisms for enforcing negotiated agreements.

This book is for anyone who has encountered a situation where established negotiation practises seemed inadequate.There are two differente groups ofpeople concerned with issues of conflict resolution. One group, negotiation scholars and profesionals negotiators who think that negotiation is an finite game.

The other one the peace activists they view negotiation with deep suspicious.They see the world like an uneven playing field where powerful parties parties opress weaker parties. They overlook the option of negotiating strategically to transform conflict and change unjust social systems. Both groups would benefit from

■ The parties must agree that there is a conflcit or dispute

■ They must also agree that the conflict or dispute is amenable to negotiation

■ Finally each party must recognize the other as a legitimate negotiation partner.

We can say negotiation is easier if:

■ The parties agree about those parts of their context that are most relevant to the primary issue in their negotiations

■ The parties share tacit rules, norms, and expectations about how the negotiation will proceed

■ The parties recognize the legitimacy of the same potential arbiters if they reach an impasse in their negotiation

Practical implications

Sometimes there are problems meeting the necessary conditions for negotiation. Perhaps some parties see a conflict while others are unaware of a problem. This is particularly likely in cases of great power disparity or when the parties relate to one another only indirectly. In the other hand parties must use confrontational tactics to create the conditions for negotiation, although confrontation should be used carefully in order to avoid locking the parties into a sens of good and evil that prevents movign to the negotiation table. Agrresvie tactics impede the ability to work cooperatively with others in negotiation but sometimes can create the necessary conditions for negotiation.

3. CHANGES IN CONTEXT CAN CREATE

TURBULENCE IN NEGOTIATIONS.

Jean and Sam end their marriage

Sometimes parties use confrontational tactis to force another party to negotiate. To use that we need to understand the instability that makes it difficul for parties to recognize each other as negotiation partners and to reach agreement about negiable issues.

The complexity of an unstable situation will affect a negotiation. The instability in their relationship is most likely to manifest itself in disagreements over some combination of the following four areas:

■ Issue identification: What is being negotiated or what is negotiable?

■ What norms of behavior will govern the process of negotiation?

■ What standards of fairness will be used to help re-solve disagreements over issues?

■ What outside parties will be used to help resolve any impasse in the negotiation?

The types of activities most often associated with negotiation are bargaining, problem-solving, debate, and persuasion. To engage in these activities, parties use instrumental language and relational language. Instrumental language is rational and analytical the logic and bargaining. The relational languge is which we use to express connection or disconeection with others. Negotiators use thes two forms to create and sustain a relationship where they can solve problems.

The types of language we use to negotiate our shared reality are storytelling, metaphors, and references to powerful images or symbols. Storytelling also opens the space for grieving, which is an important part of any negotiation process in which the parties are coping with a changing context that involves loss.

The hard work of a corporate merger

Mergers are rarely a marriage of equals, and they are sometimes the result of hostile takeovers. When a merger is followed by reorganization and downsizing, employees watch closely to see which employees benefit and which employees suffer from the merger. The issues of corporate culture are most likely to emerge openly during the negotiations over which disciplinary appeals process will govern relationships in the merged company, but these issues will be at play in other discussions as well. If we think of the organization as a pyramid, with top leadership, middle management, and the workers, the merger was negotiated at the top levels, possibly with consultation at the middle management level, and with little or no consultation of the workers.

Trying to move directly into problem-solving and bargaining when the parties have different feelings about the changes in their relationship is likely to evoke resistance to the negotiated agreement.

Making ecosystem management a reality

We have:

■ Parties that are internally divided

■ Loosely organized parties that are difficult to identify

Parties need to ask themselves:Is negotiation the best option for addressing our is-sues and problems?What are the alternatives to negotiation?

Parties need assses ther BATNA(Best Alternative to a negotiate agreement). Parties working in the context of instability or change may find it difficult to assess their BATNA. Al-ternative conflict resolution options may be unclear. The process of negotiation itself may appear risky and fragile because it lacks solid institutional support. In such cases, the parties may need to create relationships and systems that will support the negotiation process.

If the parties decide to negotiate, they need to be clear about the scope and limitations of negotiation in a context of change and instability. They need to identify:

■ What problems or issues they will negotiate.

■ What problems or issues they will address using other means.

■ What other groups or parties need to be prepared for the negotiation process and for the outcomes of negotiation.

■ How this negotiation fits into other processes for managing specific problems or issues, their larger relationship, and the changing context.

Jean and Sam end their marriage

Jean and Sam are working in a stable context that offers them the choice between liti-gation and negotiation. Assuming they decide to try negotiation, Jean and Sam first need to make some important strategic decisions. Do they want to negotiate face-to-face or through their attorneys? Negotiating face-to-face allows space to address the problem of redefining their personal rela-tionship, thereby increasing their control over the cen-tral source of turbulence in their lives. Face-to-face negotiation minimizes the risk of miscommunication. If they use a mediator, they need to decide what kind of mediator to employ: an attorney, a counselor, or a mediator at the local mediation center?

Jean and Sam have many options for successfully managing the following strategic challenges.

■ Creating a negotiation process or a set of processes that balances and coordinates legal and financial issues with relationship issues.

■ Ensuring that Jennifer's needs are taken into ac-count during the negotiation and when they implement the agreement.

■ Involving Jennifer in the process in ways that help her adjust to the changes created in her life by her parents' divorce

The hard work of a corporate merger

The parties must deal with the reality of the global economy. The threat that companies will "exit" their relationship with workers by relocating to other countries has shifted the balance of power between corporations and unions.

Management and labor representatives at Acme-Zocon can use their negotiations strategically to manage the in-stability in their context if they consider the following challenges:

■ Expanding their agenda to accommodate merger-related issues

■ Getting information from the various sectors in the company where the merger is being experienced differently

■ Making their negotiation one part of a larger process to address conflicts arising out of the merger so that Acme-Zocon reaps the full benefits of the merger

Making ecosystem management a reality

They have chosen to negotiate about a particular site and a limited set of issues: How can we craft an experimental project for cooperatively implementing and monitoring the effects of ecosystem management in this area over the next five to 10 years? This negotiation requires a delicate balance between caution and hope. The parties need to know that what they are doing here will not impose significant changes in the positions they and other parties not at the table hold about ranching in the Southwest. At the same time, they need to have some hope that lessons learned through this negotiation and the resulting experimental project might yield positive outcomes for what has been an intractable conflict.

The facilitators can help the parties manage the instability of their context by focusing attention on and helping them develop skills to meet the following chal-lenges:

■ Making sure the parties have delineated their agen-da and the scope of their negotiations clearly and carefully.

■ Helping the parties manage and balance the main negotiations with their behind the table negotiations.

■ Helping the parties work together across stakeholder group divisions in ways that respect their need to hold positive relationships with others who share their identity (ranchers, environmentalists, etc.).

Using agents need not create turbulence for the nego-tiators. Some principal-agent relationships are formal and highly structured, as in the case of an attorney hired by a client. The relationship is professional, not personal; it is contractual, not political. Other agents are selected through political processes that may be more or less formal and regulated.

When the relationship between principal and agent is highly political or informal, it is particularly im-portant to ascertain the agent's legitimacy.

The formality of the agent-principal relationship and the agent's legitimacy with the party help determine the potential for agent- principal conflicts to disrupt interparty negotiations.

Parties capable of making quick decisions are in-clined to think other parties are stalling or negotiating in bad faith.

If the parties acknowledge and address these behind-the-table factors during negotiation, they can set more re-alistic expectations about how quickly a proposed agreement can be ratified or rejected. They can also increase the possibility of a successful outcome by helping each other figure out what kind of agreement they can each "sell" to their principals.

Structuring negotiations with agents and principals

When agents are negotiating on behalf of principals, they must consult with their constituencies during negotiation, If some of the parties are not well organized, or if they are operating with cultural norms about consultation that require lengthy deliberation, the timeframe for negotiation must be adjusted accordingly. Forcing the agents to work without adequate consultation with their principals is a big mistake.

Working with stakeholders who decline to negotiate

They need to pay close attention to:

■ Allotting adequate time for consultations with other groups.

■ Deciding when and how to consult with others.

■ Reaching a shared agreement regarding what information about their negotiations will be shared with others.

As with principal-agent relationships, the time required for consultation with other stakeholder groups will depend, in part, on

the structure of those groups, the speed with which they can act, and the coherence of their goals.

6. NEGOTIATION MEANING

Negotiating the context

In stable times, the shared sense of reality is enacted through institutions such as the courts, the schools, the political system, local elders, and bureaucracies. In times of turbulence, which are often brought on by changes that destabilize existing social systems, the parties do not share a sense of their context adequate to support negotiation.

In each of our three case studies, the context of negotiations is unstable in large measure because the parties gives differente meanings to their shared environment and to their relationships. Perception differences can usually be addressed through gathering or sharing information.

In unstable settings, the parties need to identify and wrestle with their worldviewing differences in order to create a sense of a shared reality that can sustain new re-lationships and new ways of living together.

Making room for storytelling in negotiation

Storytelling enters any negotiation when the parties use persuasion to make their case for a particular agreement.

The parties can spend time together and build positive interpersonal relationships, but if they don't focus on creating a story that embraces other possible relation-ships between human beings and nature, they will have a hard time negotiating intractable environmental con-flicts. The lack of attention to storytelling in negotiation is unfortunate. The dividing line between negotiating reali-ty and negotiating issues is never clear and bright. The processes are necessarily intertwined because there is great power associated with the process of "naming the reality" of a relationship

World-naming power and storytelling

The greatest power in any relationship is the power to name reality and entice, coerce, or persuade others to live inside the reality we have named. In negotiation, there is a risk that one party will impose a story that prevents the other party from speaking his or her sense of reality. This risk is greatly increased when the parties tell their

■ Make sure the general public is aware of public feedback meetings and structure those meetings so that persons not tied to stakeholder groups can par-ticipate.

■ Invite media to do in-depth stories about the issues to increase public awareness of the problems the negotiators are addressing.

Being realistic about the agreement

After long and difficult negotiations, the negotiators may be both exhausted and elated. In celebrating their success, they run the risk of overselling the agreement by saying or implying that all will now be well,the peace was won. The people may celebrate with them but quickly become disillusioned by the normal and in-evitable setbacks in implementing the agreement.

Mobilizing resources

Implementing agreements in complex cases is a longterm undertaking that involves mobilizing resources and coordinating the activities of multiple organizations and actors.Negotiators need to think about cultivating visionary leadership at all leves of the system.

Cultivating visionary leadership

The biggest challenge here is creating a sense of shared leadership. In times of turmoil, people often look for strong leaders who can "fix things." Insofar as the negotiators have taken on the role of community leaders in order to cultivate support for the agreement, others may want them to remain in leadership roles or assume more responsibility for the long-term success of the agreement than is realistic or appropriate.

Introducing and explaining the agreement

When introducing their agreement, negotiators need to be clear about what they have and have not negotiated. They should also help people understand how this small agreement will help promote long-term changes for the better. People act out of their stories more than their sense of logic.

Planning for resiliency

The turbulent context means that any negotiated agreement is going to encounter difficulties and setbacks. Negotiators can prepare for this by building into their agreement mechanisms for revisiting the agreement when problems occur.