The Handbook of Conflict Resolution (3rd ed)

by Peter T Coleman

  In spite of the parties’ efforts to approach integrative negotiation with a focus on interests rather than positions, the targets and walkaways set by the parties on key economic issues may be so far apart that no viable zone of agreement is envisioned. These differences may have been exacerbated by the parties’ inflating their negotiating positions or created by public declarations of their positions that make any concession making look like weakness.

  The issues themselves may be so complex—due to a necessary understanding of highly technical information—that negotiators cannot proceed without the advice of experienced professionals who themselves seriously disagree about facts, relevant data, and interpretations. Negotiations over environmental cleanup, pollution control, or the resolution of the many cases of financial fraud due to complex financial manipulations in the collapse of Wall Street in 2008 (e.g., credit default swaps, mortgage-backed securities) are common examples.

  Characteristics of the Negotiation Environment and Setting.

  By far, the major contributing sources of impasse that inhibit effective integrative negotiation are the characteristics of the issues and the parties. Two more factors also deserve brief mention: the characteristics of the negotiation environment and the setting. In the first case, parties may have different expectations about what they are negotiating, what is on the agenda, or whether they are negotiating the deal for the short term or the long term (Fortgang, Lax, and Sebenius, 2003). Renegotiation of existing agreements can also be a major contributor to impasse—either because an existing deal is about to expire, because one side believes that the existing deal needs to be reopened, or because one or both parties believe the existing deal has been violated and that consequences or sanctions should be imposed.

  In most cases, the passage of time has changed the environmental circumstances (e.g., balance of power, stability of markets) in ways that have changed the conditions under which new negotiations must now occur (Salacuse, 2001). In the second case, changes in the negotiation setting can also enhance (or decrease) the likelihood of impasse. Changing the location of a negotiation from biased to neutral physical space, or from more formal to more informal space, can bear on the likelihood of impasse. So can changing the timing of a negotiation and when certain offers are tendered or introduced in the sequence of offers and counteroffers. Finally, changing negotiators themselves—replacing more or less aggressive negotiators with more or less cooperative ones—can clearly lead to the likelihood of impasse or break that same impasse (Kolb and Williams, 2001, and their discussion of the critical role played by the shadow negotiation).

  Ways That Negotiators Can Resolve Impasses

  There are many ways that negotiators can work to resolve or break impasses and return to the bargaining table.

  Agree on the Rules and Procedures for Conducting the Negotiation.

  Elements of this conversation may include where the negotiation will take place, what items are on the agenda and in what sequence they will be discussed, who may be present at the meetings, what kind of time schedule and time limits will be observed, whether there will be procedural rules on who can speak, how long parties can speak, what kind of records will be kept, how agreements will be recorded, and rules of decorum for how the parties will conduct themselves in a civilized and productive manner (Dukes, Piscolish, and Stephens, 2000; Kolb and Williams, 2001).

  Find Ways to Reduce Tension, Negative Emotion, and Polarized Positions.

  Strategies here may include

  Separating the parties (temporarily taking a break or longer cooling-off periods)

  Clearing the air by letting the parties ventilate in a manner that discharges emotional tension while minimizing further escalation

  Using active listening techniques to ensure that one is both listening to the other’s issues and acknowledging the emotionality and personal meaning of those issues

  Agreeing to synchronize a series of moves that will allow the parties to de-escalate from the extreme positions they may have taken in earlier negotiations (Ross and Stillinger, 1991)

  Improve the Accuracy of Communication.

  Language is everything in negotiation. As negotiations move toward impasse, language becomes more emotional, more polarizing words and expressions are used, differences on issues become more positional and magnified, and parties stop listening to each other because they expect that they know exactly what the other is going to say. While reducing the negative emotionality may be integral to improving communication, parties can also use techniques such as role reversal and imaging (Johnson and Dustin, 1970; Alderfer, 1977) and explicit rephrasing of polarizing language (Donohue, Rogan, and Kaufman, 2011) in order to reduce the emotionally triggering tone of communication and to ensure that one fully understands the other party’s message.

  Control the Number and Size of Issues.

  A fourth approach to managing impasses is to control the number of issues in discussion. As conflicts escalate, the size and number of issues also tend to expand. Getting the number and size of issues back under control may be instrumental to restoring productive negotiation. Issue control can be gained by limiting the number of issues to be discussed in any given set of negotiations; finding ways to break big issues into smaller, more manageable ones; reducing the number of parties involved in the discussion; depersonalizing the issue and keeping personalities out of it; and being concrete and specific about the issues rather than allowing them to be stated as broad principles or precedents (Fisher, 1964; Fisher et al., 1991).

  Recognize That Some Negotiations Are Difficult Because They Are on Stressful Topics and Laden with Strong Emotionality on Both Sides

  Several studies and advice-giving resources (Weeks, 2001; Stone, Patton, and Heen, 1999; Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler, 2005) have offered advice on ways to structure difficult or crucial conversations so as to keep them on track and minimize the likelihood that they will become incendiary, emotional, or otherwise unproductive. These sources offer specific advice on ways to prepare for these conversations and how to manage the clarity, tone, and phrasing of language so as to minimize the provocative nature of what is said and keep the conversation on point, on message, and moving toward productive resolution.

  Create, Recreate, or Strengthen Commonalities between the Parties.

  Since impasse and conflict escalation often serve to maximize the differences between the parties, negotiators can work to establish, reemphasize, and strengthen what they have in common. Some examples of these commonalities may include

  Working toward superordinate goals, or goals that both parties desire but neither can attain without the help of the other (Sherif, Harvey, White, Hood, and Sherif, 1988);

  Working against common enemies, or outcomes that neither party desires and both must work together to avoid

  Creating common futures and expectations, such as vision statements, processes for ensuring participation by all key parties, principles and ground rules to be followed, and mechanisms for honoring and respecting agreements (Dukes et al., 2000)

  Removing the pressures of artificial deadlines or ground rules that are inhibiting a full and open discussion of the issues

  Work toward rebuilding trust between the parties so that ideas and information can be adequately shared in a way that will enable the expression of interests and exploration of options we described earlier in this chapter (see chapter 5, this Handbook).

  CONCLUSION

  In this chapter, we have reviewed a strategic approach to negotiation that can be used to resolve conflict effectively. We have noted the historical roots of documenting this approach as they arose in the practice fields of labor relations and international diplomacy. We also noted how the strategy evolved as behavioral scientists in the past fifty years sought to capture the essence of this strategy and move from a descriptive understanding of how it was being done to a set of prescriptive stages and steps for optimizing the process. We noted the five key steps that are critical to t
he effective execution of an integrative negotiation approach. Finally, we noted a number of ways that integrative negotiation may be difficult to execute effectively, and proposed some strategies for dealing with these difficulties. These problems may arise because of the behavior and disposition of the opposing negotiator, the nature and complexity of the issues under discussion, or the broader social and cultural context in which the negotiation is occurring.

  In closing, we make three additional points. First, this chapter has been highly selective in the approach to negotiation that we have recommended and the research supporting it. The past half-century has seen an explosion of research on negotiation strategy and tactics of all varieties (Schneider and Honeyman, 2006; Lewicki et al., in press) and in all contexts (legal, business, community, environmental, international, and cross-cultural). Moreover, not only did we choose to limit our review to integrative negotiation (and pass over much of the research on distributive, or claiming-value negotiation), but we also chose to limit our discussion to interpersonal negotiation: one-on-one efforts to resolve a conflict. Many negotiations are far more complex: negotiators are being represented by agents; negotiators are functioning in groups or teams where there are both within-group and between-group negotiation activities; there may be multiple individuals or groups seeking to achieve a collective solution; and parties may be working across cultural boundaries where there are some very different rules for how a negotiation is conducted. As the number of parties involved increases—both on our side of the table and around the table—the complexity of negotiation increases, as do the challenges of executing an effective integrative agreement.

  Second, we have not spent very much time in this chapter defining the nature of a true integrative agreement. While there are various checklists available for judging the quality of an agreement (e.g., satisfaction of the parties, addressing all interests, implementability of the agreement), in fact, the parties may never know how much new value was created and how much value was left on the table as a result of incomplete implementation of any of the steps we identified or because parts of the agreement required a distributive negotiation process to claim specific economic value. At its best, good integrative negotiation is most likely an iterative process, in which agreements are forged, doing the best that we can under the circumstances, and then adapted and reforged as interests and needs change, contexts and conditions change, and parties recognize new opportunities to work together to create (and occasionally claim) value. These renegotiations are apparent to all those in strategic long-term relationships: marriages, families, partnerships, and alliances in various relationship contexts.

  Finally, the greatest challenge to the future of integrative negotiation is to discover how to encourage and enable its use in a world where the problems seem to be more complex and intractable, the parties more polarized, and the public and private leadership more intransigent or cowardly to address those problems. How can multiple stakeholders work together toward finding common ground on issues like gun control, climate change, or environmental cleanup when even the suggestion of compromise (no less win-win) has been defined by all sides as violation of fundamental values or rights? While our understanding of how to design and execute good integrative negotiation might be reasonably sound when performed under ideal laboratory conditions, we have a long way to go to understand how to best implement these practices in the world’s most vexing social, political, and environmental problems. Much has been learned, but both research and practice still have significant work ahead.

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