Collaborative negotiation beats saying, "you must do this or else!" [1]
Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 11:03. Updated on Sunday, October 26, 2014 - 15:44.
Focusing on conflict in a negotiation is not helpful and we need to put it away for the sake of our community, Alana Billingham, a negotiation specialist, told a workshop on negotiation yesterday at the Fa'onelua Centre in Nuku'alofa.
"I can't persuade you that your core values are wrong," she explained. "We can't agree on conflict but we can agree that it is not doing our family or our community any good," she said. "We need to respect the other person's opinion, and put the conflict away for the sake of our community."
Alana introduced the concept of Collaborative Negotiation as an alternative to fixed positional Adversarial Negotiations. "You can trump adversarial negotiation every time if you are going to use the method," she said.
Dealing with threats
In the workshop on 'The Art of Negotiation' Alana told a group of about 20 local and regional participants that the problem with a fixed position that demands a fixed outcome, is that one party is demanding and asserting a position. "Saying, you must do this or else! There is an element of threat in it. It can lead to a Mexican stand off where you have a yes!-no!-yes!-no! situation, which is not helpful in a negotiation. ... By beating the other person down doesn't set-up a dynamic relationship.
"When you see this brewing you need to ask the other person: 'how are we to understand why is this so important to you?' When we understand why it is important then we can do something else. He is demanding it because he is afraid of something, so you can meet the real need without doing it the way he wants."
She stressed to never enter a negotiation without a "BATNA" or Best Alternative to No Agreement.
"How many times have we seen people making a big inflexible stand and then having to do it because they have left themselves nowhere else to go," she said.
Principled negotiation
Alana explained an alternative methodology called Principled Negotiation, which is a form of collaborative negotiation.
"Don't set up a power dynamic, treat everyone the same. Power is about what we need from each other and how we need it. Collaboration is to share power."
She said collaborative bargaining always wins over positional bargaining because it builds networks and partnership. "If we are willing to work together we can do much more."
Alana's visit was organised by the Pacific Island Private Sector Organisation, as part of the Pasifiki Trade Fair activities in Nuku'alofa this week. "I hope it is helpful and I would love to see change in the way the Pacific does business in future," she said.
Alana is a Media Associates' New Zealand specialist in negotiation, investigative interviewing,resolving conflict and people skills. The collaborative method she teaches draws on research from a Harvard Negotiation Project and Dr Dudley Weeks of the international organisation for Conflict Partnership Facilitation as a proven effective powerful method for negotiating a myriad of issues from personal grievances to major international disputes.