Managing Difficult Negotiations

1. Managing Difficult Negotiations Two Main Topics 1. Dealing With Entrenchment and Intractability 2. Addressing Collaborative Shortfalls

2. Conflict Management: Some Adverse Dynamics • Poisoned atmosphere • Closed or constrained communications • Blurring issues • Personalized conflict • Magnified differences, eclipsed commonalities • Retreat and entrenchment in positions; threats, lies, and counterattacks • Special problems with teams

3. Strategies for Dealing With Entrenchment and Intractability • Five basic strategies • Reducing tension and de-escalating conflict • Improving communication • Controlling the issues • Establishing commonalities • Making favored options more attractive • Details on each follow

4. Conflict Management: Reducing Tension and De-escalating Conflict • Allow venting, tension release e.g., humor? • Acknowledge their feelings. Use “active listening” • Separation for reflection and cooling-off • Synchronized de-escalation -- Graduated and Reciprocal Initiatives in Tension Reduction (GRIT)

5. Conflict Management: Improving Communication Accuracy • Problem: “blindness of involvement” -- less listening obscures commonality • Role reversal: From simply imagining to formal role-playing, devil’s advocate • Imaging: Share perceptions to reduce mistaken perceptions

6. Conflict Management: Controlling The Issues (“Anti-Snowballing?”) • Reduce number of parties • Control number of substantive issues(but keep in mind difficulties of single issues) • Use concrete terms instead of principles • Restrict precedents • Fractionate (“salami tactics” re issues, or in terms of time horizon) • Depersonalize: Be tough on problems, not people

7. Conflict Management: Establishing Commonalities • Superordinate goals stem from interdependency -- review them • Common enemies • Agreement on rules and procedures • Explore more integrative frameworks • Dimensionalize the problem • Increase number of dimensions • Construct an ideal case • Search for semantic resolutions

8. Conflict Management: Make Your Favored Options More Attractive • Fisher’s “demand dynamics” (Table 9.1). More emphasis on the offer’s value for their interests. Give them a “yesable” proposal • Ask for a different decision -- get specifics on which elements are okay or not okay • Sweeten the offer via stress on positive and incentives for acceptance (rather than intensify the threat) • Use legitimacy or objective criteria to evaluate solutions. Discuss the facts, data, logic that support a solution

9. Addressing Collaborative ShortfallsCoping With Difficult Behavior: Dirty Tricks (Again) • Above all, choose among options strategically • Respond in kind … but danger of escalation • Ignore them • Call them on it. Exposure may suffice! • Offer to change to more productive methods ; negotiate the tactics

10. Addressing Collaborative ShortfallsCoping With Difficult Behavior: When They Have More Power • Protect yourself. Keep your real interests in mind and remember that there are alternatives to agreement on their terms • Improve your BATNA • Formulate a “trip wire” alert system • Correct the imbalance • Take power (not often feasible) • Accept power if offered (why would they share it?) • Use a third party (e.g., mediator) to manage and balance power

11. Addressing Collaborative ShortfallsCoping With Difficult Behavior: The Special Case of Ultimatums • Exploding (or “fused”) offers are common in some contexts (“Act now!”) • Be skeptical. Scrutinize it: Is there some reason why it has to be “now”? • Some options • Make a counteroffer • Attempt to enlist offerer in problem-solving approach (address both sides’ interests) • Defuse it by “embracing” it -- Accept it contingent upon your condition(s) • Sometimes you don’t have options

12. Addressing Collaborative ShortfallsCoping With Difficult Behavior: Difficult People or Styles • Is it really difficult behavior, and why? • Coping: Recognize, understand, and cope • Six steps for coping • Assess situation realistically • Stop wishing they’d be different • Put some distance between you and difficulty • Formulate a coping plan • Implement the plan assertively • Monitor for effectiveness, modify as needed

13. Yours ID situations that provoke anger Decide on display/not Use techniques to reduce your anger Express anger in a nonaccusatory manner Avoid “the negotiator’s bias” (“I’m fair, you’re not”) Try to promote trust Theirs Acknowledge emotions Assess significance (is it an act, contrived?) Address their anger; apologize if apt? Respond strategically (take a break, use silence, concede a bit) Help them “save face” if loss of face is an issue Call a mediator? Addressing Collaborative ShortfallsManaging Emotions (Adler et al.)

14. Managing Difficult Negotiations: Summary • Various factors and avenues lead to difficulty/breakdowns in negotiations • The parties can take steps to try and get over conflicts and restart or redirect negotiations • If the parties’ own efforts fail, third-party intervention (e.g., mediation) may be useful. More later? (p. viii: See www.mhhe.com/business/management/lewicki)