Negotiating Accommodations with Faculty…with Confidence!!!

1. Negotiating Accommodations with Faculty…with Confidence!!! Adam Meyer University of Central Florida adam.meyer@ucf.edu

2. For this Presentation • Offer some thoughts on beneficial ways to communicate and negotiate • Primary context: Working with faculty • How to increase chances of getting what you want and what they want • Give ideas that may give confidence during those tough situations

3. Books to Reference • Crucial Conversations (Kerry Patterson et al) • The Speed of Trust (Stephen M.R. Covey) • Adversaries into Allies (Bob Burg) • Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving In (Roger Fisher and William Ury) • How to Have Confidence and Power in Dealing with People (Les Giblin) • Real Influence: Persuade without Pushing and Gain Without Giving In (Mark Goulston and John Ullman)

4. What are some of the challenges you experience or the emotions you feel when you need to negotiate accommodation outcomes with faculty?

5. Be Careful Where You Jump Each of us enters conversations with our own opinions, feelings, theories and experiences about the topic at hand. This unique combination of thoughts and feelings makes up our personal pool of meaning. This pool not only informs us but propels our every action. By definition, we do not share the same pool with someone else. --Crucial Conversations

6. An Important Key to Success The real key to successful human relations is learning as much as we can about human nature as it is, not as we think it ought to be. Only when we understand just what we are dealing with are we in a position to deal with it successfully. --Les Giblin

7. So what do you do?

8. It Starts Here! Genuine Genuine and authentic, not manipulation

9. Calm and Confident Act confident. Look confident. And you will find you begin to feel more confident. More important, your prospects will begin to have more confidence in you. If you believe in yourself and act as if you believe in yourself, others will believe in you. --Les Giblin

10. Set the Frame! In any interpersonal interaction or situation, a frame will be set. The only question is, ‘Who will set it – you or the other person?’ Make sure it is you. If needed, reset the frame by setting your own. -- Adversaries into Allies

11. Positive Frames are set by: • Smile • Gentle attitude and approach • Expecting someone else to be helpful • Having genuine interest in the other person’s situation and concerns • “What can I do to help you?” • Acknowledging the problem Beneficial whether in person or by email

12. Using the Harvard Negotiation Project as a Guide when Entering Conversations Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving In (Roger Fisher and William Ury)

13. Defining Negotiation Negotiation is a basic means of getting what you want from others. It is back-and-forth communication designed to reach an agreement when you and the other side have some interests that are shared and others that are opposed (as well as some that may simply be different).

14. Disability Office / Faculty Interests • What are some shared interests that disability offices and faculty have in common? • What are some opposed/varying interests?

15. Types of Negotiation • Soft Negotiation • Negotiator wants to avoid personal conflict and so makes concessions readily to reach agreement • Hard Negotiation • Negotiator sees any situation as a contest of wills and welcomes the battle necessary to win, holding ground as long as necessary

16. Principled Negotiation • Basis of the project • Look for mutual gains wherever possible • Insist that the results be based on some fair standards • Hard on merits, soft on people

17. The Common Negotiation Problem • Bargaining over positions • Each side takes a positon, argues for it and works toward compromise • Becomes a “save face” issue • Positions may not equal underlying concerns of those involved • Can easily damage relationships

18. It is critical to understand the role of accommodations, access and inclusion within disability office operations in order to effectively negotiate.

19. Accommodations are Positions • Suppose a professor is balking at the use of an audio recorder in class • Audio Recorder: A position; a means to fulfill the purpose (access) • What is the professor’s underlying concern behind the desire to not have the course recorded? • Ruins course dialogue? • Fear of information going public? • Something else?

20. What is your underlying concern/desire in recommending that accommodation? Where can mutual purpose (compatible goals) be found and what position/outcome would mutually address? • You want access and professor wants (same standards, a simple process, minimal work, a feeling of safety, etc.) • Does accommodation on the table make sense now? • Propose a new solution or a compromise?

21. For DS to be Successful… • Need to have a clear understanding in every situation of: • Why we do what we do (overall) • Why we want what we want (case specific) • What the course instructor wants and why

22. Barriers are Commonly Caused By… • Physical Environment • Process/policy • Attitudes of others • Lack of awareness/understanding

23. What is the Disability Office’s Ulimate Outcome? • In most cases  INCLUSION & ACCESS • Also essential: Exploring values, behaviors and beliefs

24. How DS Should Enter Conversations… • Enter a dialogue with the mindset that the end goal needs to be INCLUSION & ACCESS • Students have a right to INCLUSION & ACCESS, not to a specific accommodation

25. Defining ACCESS Designing an environment with inclusion in mind from the outset (proactive) OR Effective reasonable modifications to policies, practices, procedures and environmental barriers (reactive) in order to establish inclusion

26. How do we create access? Awareness of Relevant Disability Factors Addressing the Design and Facets of the Environment Essential elements Learning objectives Physical layout Policies and procedures Perspectives of others Attitudes of others Our Insight and Consultation

27. ACCESS and INCLUSION May Be… • Proactively designed • Our standard accommodations • A starting point often out of necessity • Accommodations have disability awareness but not environment understanding • Need to step back when necessary • A creative alternative outside the norm • A matter of shifting values, behaviors, beliefs, attitudes and/or level of awareness

28. Already available • Inclusive considerations already made • One-week take home exams • Professor rotates student responsibility to share notes with all students • Sign language interpreter and captionists automatically are provided at large campus-wide events, such as commencement and keynote speakers

29. Access may be at its maximum • Fundamental alteration to do something different • Ample time to complete the assignment • Test format needs to remain the same • Attendance policy cannot be modified • Group work is essential • Administrative burden

30. Our Role in the Process Determining, relative to our respective unique campus environments and specific situations, proactive design or effective modifications to policies, practices, procedures and environmental barriers that offer equal access and inclusion

31. When Focusing on Accommodations First and Foremost

32. When Focus on Access & Inclusion and All Related Possibilities…

33. Discussion • Do you focus on accommodations as a means to fulfill access? OR • Do you focus on inclusion and access with accommodations as one path to making access a reality? • Thoughts on access vs. accommodations mentality?

34. Wise Negotiation Agreements • Critical Aspects: • Meet the legitimate interests of each side to the greatest extent possible • Resolve conflicting interests fairly • Improves (or at least does not damage) the mutual relationship

35. 4 Points of Principled Negotiation • People • Separate the people from the problem • Interests • Focus on the interests, not the positions • Options • Invent multiple options looking for mutual gains • Criteria • Insist that the result/outcome be based on some objective standard

36. 1. Separate the Person from the Problem

37. We All Have Our Own… • Emotions • Values • Backgrounds • Experiences • Biases • Fears • Concerns • Interests • Perceptions • Perception and Reality confusion • Illogical conclusions • Egos

38. People Problems Exist Here… • Perceptions • Your Here vs. Their There • Conflict often lies not in objective reality but in people’s heads (varied perceptions and assumptions) • Need to take time to sort out • Ask questions and listen • Give people ownership in developing the outcome

39. Your Here When entering into any conversation, you can clearly see YOUR: • Positions • Facts • Intentions • Needs But the connection with others does not happen here

40. Their There To connect with others, it is ESSENTIAL to understand the other person’s: • Positions • Facts • Intentions • Needs You need the full picture to create the best outcome

41. If you try to see the other person’s point of view, you can often find a way to draw the other person willingly into even very sensitive conversations. -- Crucial Conversations Mutual Purpose and Mutual Respect Focusing on our similarities, not our differences

42. If you don’t know what the other person wants, how he or she really feels about a situation, what his or her peculiar needs are, you are out of touch with the person. And if you cannot touch him or her, you cannot move the person. Unless you know what the person wants and how the person feels, you are completely in the dark concerning his or her position. -- Les Giblin

43. 2. Interests, Not Positions

44. Progress is Found in Interests Behind opposing positions lie shared and compatible interests, as well as conflicting ones. We tend to assume that because the other side’s positions are opposed to ours, their interests must be opposed. A position is likely to be concrete and explicit; the interests underlying it may well be unexpressed, intangible and perhaps inconsistent. -- Getting to Yes

45. Interests Vary for Each Person • Seek to understand their interests and clearly appreciate them • Make your interests clear and alive • Focus on where you want to go (outcome), not where you have come from • Access for this situation vs. ADA Law

46. 3. Options, Options, Options

47. Invent Options for Mutual Gain 4 Obstacles that Inhibit an Abundance of Options: • Premature judgment as to what “is right” • Searching for the single answer (accommodation vs. access) • Assumption of a fixed pie (either I get what I want or do you, period) • Thinking that solving “their problem is their problem”

48. Shared Interest Increase Options • Shared interests with faculty always exist: • Access • Learning • Accurate assessment of achievement • Benefit all students • Do the right thing • ?????

49. For Options, Consider… • Asking the other person for their preference • Propose a variety of options and see which they might prefer • Modify options as needed • Wonder…if you were in their shoes: • Which option would you most desire? • Which option would you most fear? • Which option would you most dislike?

50. May Need to Help Save Face Many times the other person would gladly change his or her mind and agree with you, except for one thing. He or she has already made a definitive commitment, come out with a strong stand, and cannot change one’s position in good grace. To agree would admit to being wrong. --Les Giblin