The Handbook of Conflict Resolution (3rd ed)
Page 125
Module 3: Communication Behaviors
In an ideal collaborative negotiation, each side thoroughly communicates its perspective and arrives at an understanding of the other side. In reality, the unique and particular worldviews of individuals and groups often make our interactions very complicated. Although two people speak the same language and know each other well, they may feel that they do not really understand one another. Furthermore, conflict can exacerbate misunderstanding. When our buttons are pushed, our ability to communicate can become quite imprecise and problematic.
To develop collaborative skills and enhance understanding of the communication process, we introduce a second frame, which is grounded in a research tool known as behavioral analysis (Rackham, 1993; Situation Management Systems, 1991). We identify five communication behaviors that occur during negotiation:
1. Attacking
Evading
Informing
Opening
Uniting
The mnemonic for these behaviors is the familiar English language vowel series AEIOU. These categories encompass nonverbal as well as verbal communications. We employ only these five types of communication behavior because they amount to an easily learned framework for understanding core communication behavior in conflict.
At the beginning of the module, the trainers present and role-play a two-line interchange. An example of a context-relevant miniskit frequently used with groups of managers is an employee reminding his boss about his upcoming vacation. Each time the interchange is repeated, the boss responds by demonstrating another behavior. The trainers elicit from the group a description of the kind of behavior they are observing. Then the trainers label the behavior:
Attacking (A) is any type of behavior that the other side perceives as hostile or unfriendly: threatening, insulting, blaming, criticizing without being helpful, patronizing, stereotyping, interrupting, and discounting others’ ideas. It also includes nonverbal actions such as using a hostile tone of voice, facial expression, or gesture.
Evading (E) occurs when one or both parties avoid facing any aspect of the problem. Hostile evasions include ignoring a question, changing the subject, not responding, leaving the scene, or failing to meet. Friendly or positive evasions include postponing difficult topics to deal with simple ones first, conferring with colleagues, and taking time out to think or obtain relevant information.
Informing (I) is behavior that, directly or indirectly, explains one side’s perspective to the other in a nonattacking way. Information sharing can occur on many relevant levels: needs, feelings, values, positions, or justifications.
Opening (O) invites the other party to share information. It includes asking questions about the other’s position, needs, feelings, and values (nonjudgmentally); listening carefully to what the other is saying; and testing one’s understanding by summarizing neutrally what is being said.
Uniting (U) emphasizes the relationship between the disputants. This behavior sets and maintains the tone necessary for cooperation during the negotiation process. The four types of uniting behavior are (1) building rapport, (2) highlighting common ground, (3) reframing the conflict issues, and (4) linking bargaining chips to expressed needs.
After a presentation of AEIOU, the class returns to the small groups that were formed for the diagnostic case in module 1. The participants listen to the audio (or video) of the case. Together they fill in an AEIOU coding form (see table 35.1 for a summary of what is assessed) by identifying each comment as an attacking, evading, informing, opening, or uniting behavior. Within their groups, each member receives specific feedback on how his or her statements are perceived. Importantly, the type of behavior is identified by its impact on the receiver rather than by the intent of the speaker.
Table 35.1 Coleman Raider AEIOU Coding Sheet (Abridged)
Source: Copyright © 1992, 1997 E. Raider and S. Coleman. Permission has been given for use in The Handbook of Conflict Resolution. Other use is prohibited without written permission of the copyright holder.
Negotiating Styles
Attack: threats, hostile tones or gestures, insults, criticizing, patronizing, stereotyping, blaming, challenging, discounting, interrupting, defending
Evade: ignore, change subject, withdraw, postpone, table issue, caucus
Inform: reasons, justifications, positions, requests, needs, underlying positions, feelings
Open: listen quietly, probe, ask questions nonjudgmentally, listen actively, paraphrase, summarize understanding
Unite: ritual sharing, rapport building, establish common ground, reframe, propose solutions, dialogue or brainstorming
Each group has its own insights and, as a result, is often motivated to try new skills after people hear how they themselves sound. They also learn to give safe feedback by focusing on the impact the behavior has on them rather than assuming the intent of the sender. Self-awareness is heightened when a speaker finds that her actions have an unintended effect. This disparity gives her the opportunity to clarify or rectify her message. It also gives her a chance to think about how she generally comes across to others. It is clear from the debriefing of this exercise that the participants learn about the complexity of the communication process and its importance in maintaining a collaborative process.
We believe that for most trainees, this experiential learning is necessary, beyond cognitive understanding, for behavioral changes to take place. Multiple skills exercises combined with personal feedback motivate learners to produce the effort needed to change conflict behavior habits (Raider, 1995). Learners often describe this part of the course as a life-changing event. But because we know how difficult it is to integrate these skills and change one’s behavior, we believe that continued learning requires a supportive postworkshop environment, heightened self-motivation, and follow-up programs wherever possible. Empirical research into the long-term effect these workshops have on participants, in the context of supportive or resistive environments, would be very helpful.
Module 4: Stages of the Negotiation
For life and for training purposes, we think it is useful to have a sense of the general order of an ideal collaborative negotiation. Although there is usually a back-and-forth flow to the negotiation process, it is useful to break it down into stages for training purposes. In module 4 we posit four stages:
Ritual sharing
Identifying the issues (positions and needs)
Prioritizing issues and reframing
Problem solving and reaching agreement
Although we present the stages linearly, we acknowledge that unless both parties want to be collaborative and are equally competent in collaborative skills, most real-life negotiations do not follow this simple pattern. However, this is not to say that they cannot.
The minilecture by the trainers starts this segment, using a video of a rehearsed bare-bones negotiation (see Figure 35.4): one in skeletal form that places each element and behavior in its ideal spot within the framework of the four stages.
Figure 35.4 Colman Raider “Bare-Bones” Model
Source: Copyright © 1992, 1995 E. Raider and S. Coleman. Permission has been given for use in The Handbook of Conflict Resolution. Other use is prohibited without written permission of the copyright holder.
Ritual sharing involves preliminary and often casual conversation to build rapport, establish common ground, and pick up critical background information (such as the other’s values), which may affect the negotiation. Uniting behavior predominates during this stage.
Identifying the issues has two phases: identifying the positions that frame the conflict and clarifying the needs that drive them. Informing and opening behaviors predominate during this phase, the first being used to tell where you are coming from and the second to understand the other.
Prioritizing issues and reframing has two parts. Prioritization is needed if there is more than one key issue and an order must be established (through a mininegotiation) for manageable problem solving. Refr
aming invites the parties to engage in creative problem solving around needs. It is characterized by a neutral and inclusive question, such as, “How can we satisfy the needs of A while also satisfying the needs of B?”
Problem solving and reaching agreement, the final stage, are characterized by brainstorming (using the informing, opening, and uniting behaviors) that facilitates fresh, novel solutions to the now shared problem. Humorous and even apparently absurd ideas are encouraged because they increase open-mindedness and often inspire clever solutions. Uniting and opening behaviors are used to diffuse any perceived attacks, highlight common ground, and reiterate the objective: to find mutually satisfying solutions. The negotiators then choose from the brainstormed list those solutions that are feasible and timely and that optimize the satisfaction of each party’s needs and concerns. Success depends in part on maintaining a continued collaborative, positive climate that encourages creativity.
As stated earlier, the trainers present the stages as a linear progression, but real-life negotiations rarely flow so predictably. A good negotiator develops the ability to identify the essence of each stage to diagnose whether the essential tasks embedded within it have been accomplished and to feel comfortable with the surface disorder. As certain needs are addressed, others may surface. Recognition and processing of all of these needs is necessary for a good and sustainable agreement.
After the stages have been covered, participants practice their own bare-bones negotiation. Trainers explain metaphorically that this is more like a map of the territory than the territory itself. As with maps, we must make a mental leap from a symbolic portrayal to what is seen when navigating the real landscape. The more clearly the underlying structure and process of bare bones are embedded in our thinking, the more effectively we as negotiators can deal with the variations that occur in actuality.
The bare-bones framework is the most prescriptive in our training. Therefore, great caution has to be used by the training team to make sure that examples used to illustrate this module are context relevant in form and substance, so that the model is seen as doable in various cultural contexts. The participants analyze conflict cases taken from their own lives and then present a skeletal and ritualized performance in front of the whole group. Each step is abbreviated, thus revealing whether the role players really understand the essence, or bare bones, of the conflict. The trainer coaches the role players and gives feedback at each point of the process. It is in this way that the role players and other participants begin to internalize all the previously learned material.
Module 5: Culture and Conflict
From its inception, our training model has woven the topic of culture throughout the process of teaching and learning negotiation skills. Our original audiences were made up of managers from multinational organizations eager to learn how to negotiate across borders. Building on the work of Weiss and Stripp (1985), Hofstede (1980, 1991, 2001), Ting-Toomey (1993, 1999, 2004), and others, we facilitated the trainees’ learning through readings, video clips (e.g., Griggs Productions, 1983; Wurzel, 1990, 2002;), and role plays to understand and internalize cultural variables such as high- or low-power distance, high- or low-communication context, individualism or collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and polychronic or monochronic time.
One role-play exercise has been particularly instructive and enjoyable for the participants. The group is divided into groups of four. One pair from the foursome is instructed to create a fictitious cultural ritual based on the Hofstede dimensions. The other pair comes to the role play unaware that they are entering a “new culture” and, as a result, experience a simulated form of culture shock as they interact with the classmates who have taken on different persona. The experience is videotaped and then reviewed by each foursome, with much laughter. The educational point is made that it is ideal to know the rules and norms of another culture and, at a minimum, to avoid negative judgments in order to have a successful negotiation.
Video clips and exercises like this are debriefed by using our filter check model (see figure 35.5). For example, one of the video clips from Going International, Part Two shows a businessman from the United States (Mr. Thompson) waiting for his Mexican counterpart (Sr. Herrera) in an outdoor café in Mexico City. Mr. Thompson reacts negatively to the late arrival of Sr. Herrera (to whom he is trying to make a sale), apparently assuming the lateness is some form of disrespect or power play.
Figure 35.5 Coleman Raider Filter Check Model
Source: Copyright © 1992, 1995 E. Raider and S. Coleman. Permission has been given for use in The Handbook of Conflict Resolution. Other use is prohibited without written permission of the copyright holder.
The video captures elegantly and with humor how monochronic and polychronic individuals can misunderstand each other.1 Sr. Herrera, the polychronic of the two, is late because he is greeting important people along the way. He also does not want to get down to business until he has gotten to know something about the man with whom he is doing business. Mr. Thompson, though, is driven by the task, always looking at his watch and pushing to get the contract signed—so then he can go out and have a good time!
By working through the filter check chart, participants come to see that the misunderstanding displayed is based on cultural assumptions (filters) of the meaning of time, task, and relationships. Neither way is the right way; they are just different. Of course, it is noted that “when in Rome, do as the Romans do,” and certainly so if you are in a lower power position, as a seller typically is relative to a buyer.
For audiences of educators, we use role-play simulations such as melting pot or salad bowl to surface issues of class, race, and gender. The disputants in this case are two groups: the Black Teachers Caucus (BTC) and the predominantly white school governance committee at an urban high school in New York City. (This case is based on a real conflict that Raider mediated; it is also discussed in the Introduction and chapter 1 of this Handbook.) The BTC demands a black seat on the governance committee, claiming that the student population is predominantly of color. The governance committee rejects this demand for a “race-based” seat, countering that representation should be by academic department, not by racial or ethnic identity group.
One way to use this case is to divide a group of four into sides A and B. In round 1 of the negotiation, each side presents its point of view, while the other side tries hard to listen and paraphrase the underlying needs it is hearing. In round 2, sides A and B switch and repeat the negotiation, following the model of constructive controversy (see chapter 4 in this Handbook). This technique helps not only to move the conflict toward resolution but to get participants to realize how difficult it is to step into the shoes of the other side. This technique might be unworkable if the gap in worldviews is too vast, perhaps due to the participants’ emotional attachment to the issues or their inability to take another’s perspective.
Module 6: Dealing with Anger and Other Emotions
To effectively work with emotions that arise during conflict, a negotiator must have good listening, communication, and problem-solving skills. This section outlines how these skills can be employed to direct emotions into a positive and productive component of the negotiation process. Anger is our main focus because it presents one of the biggest challenges to resolving conflict.
A Philosophy for Dealing with Anger.
The philosophy we present to participants is that if someone blames you, states his position inflexibly, confronts you, or attacks you:
Avoid the defend-attack spiral and ethnocentric and egocentric responses. Assume that the other has a perspective different from yours and that you need to find out where he is coming from.
2. Listen actively. Your needs are more likely to be heard by the other if he knows through your active-listening behavior that you have understood his needs.
Continue to change the climate from competition to cooperation by acknowledging that there are differing perspectives at play, each with part of the truth.
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br /> Work with the other as a partner to solve the problem.
To build awareness on this topic, participants read an essay in the training manual covering such topics as the relationship of anger to unmet needs, anger as a secondary response that masks more vulnerable emotions, the attack-defend spiral, and additional destructive and constructive responses. Sometimes in the workshop, participants form groups of four to discuss the essay. Members offer examples from their own lives, sharing situations in which they themselves were angry or were dealing with another person’s anger.
Skills Practice.
A key exercise we use in building skills in this area is a round-robin, with one side of each negotiation team working competitively and the other collaboratively, and with one side moving from group to group and the other staying put. In the first round, the traveling partners are competitive. This means they can use attacking and evading behaviors to act angry, patronizing, and unfair. They are encouraged to make their attacks personal if possible. The stationary partners take on the role of skilled collaborative negotiators. They work to change the climate by using predominantly opening, and some uniting, behaviors to draw out the needs, feelings, and concerns of the others. This round lasts for ten minutes. The goal of the exercise is not to reach an agreement but simply to build readiness for negotiation by changing the climate. In the second round, all the traveling pairs rotate to the next table. The group reverses roles so that the stationary pair is now competitive and the traveling partners are collaborative. In the final round, the traveling pairs move to a third table, where a new foursome attempts to solve the conflict by having both sides use collaboration.