Negotiation

Communication for Diverse Settings

Michael L. Spangle, Myra Warren Isenhart

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781506319261
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Lingue e linguistica
• Subtopic: Studi sulla comunicazione

Negotiation is not formulaic. How we negotiate is determined largely by the context in which the negotiation process takes place. Negotiation: Communication for Diverse Settings provides the reader with a comprehensive overview of the negotiation process as it applies to a wide variety of contexts. Skillfully weaving practitioner interviews and real world examples throughout the book, Michael Spangle and Myra Warren Isenhart emphasize the day-to-day relevance of negotiation skill. The authors provide knowledge vital to successful negotiation in a variety of situations, including interpersonal relations, the workplace, shopping and other consumer settings, community relations, and international affairs. Discussions of the moral and ethical dilemmas of negotiation-as well as the detail provided in various sections, such as international negotiations will undoubtedly prove useful to novice and seasoned negotiators alike.

CHAPTER 1

FOUNDATIONS OF NEGOTIATION

Ours is an age of negotiation. The fixed positions and solid values of the past seem to be giving way and new rules, roles, and relations have to be worked out. . . . Negotiation becomes not a transition but a way of life.

— Zartman (1976, pp. 2-3)

Tom serves as vice president of sales and marketing for TriCorp, a major supplier of components in the computer industry. His department consistently exceeds sales quotas. Recently, his staff complained to the CEO about Tom’s outdated management practices, poorly targeted sales goals, and lack of responsiveness to staff suggestions about improving department processes. Tom says, “I’ve done things this way for 20 years. It’s working. Why change it?” Staff members threaten to quit unless Tom changes the way he works with staff. Coldness and antagonism dominate the staff meetings. Tom’s lack of willingness to negotiate with his staff fuels a breakdown of his staff’s morale and commitment to goals.

Ten years ago, Bob and Alice, an older couple, moved into a home in a quiet neighborhood where they chose to spend their retirement years. The lack of fences between back yards symbolized the kind of community spirit they wanted. Bob landscaped his back yard, complete with a hedge that bordered his property. As the years went by, the neighborhood began to change. About a year ago, a young couple, Sean and Tonya, moved in next door. Bob looked forward to the energy the couple would bring to the neighborhood. But during the spring, relations deteriorated between the neighbors. Sean measured the property line. He found that Bob had planted his hedge, now 3 feet high, 6 inches onto Sean and Tonya’s property. Because Sean planned to build a 6-foot fence between the homes, he wanted the hedge pulled out or moved back 6 inches. Bob wanted neither a fence between the properties nor his hedge touched in any way. He wanted a $1,000 reimbursement if anything was done to his hedge. Sean offered to pay for the fence he wanted, but he had no intention of paying for removal of the hedge. Bob steadfastly refused the offer. The relationship deteriorated to the point of going to court. Fortunately, they were able to negotiate a settlement with a court-appointed mediator, but the relationship remained broken.

Disputes were a common occurrence for Sue, a single parent. When her children were young, she could command obedience through threats of punishment, but now that her children are teenagers, she finds demands and threats ineffective. Although she threatens, they still come home after curfew. When they cut classes or get bad grades, she grounds them. But they sneak out at night. She refuses to give them money, so they steal it from her purse. Coercing, pushing, and threatening worked for many years, but now Sue possesses few tools to influence her children. The problems in this home began many years ago. Each day’s conflict looks new but actually has roots in unresolved, underlying issues that date back many years.

Although each of these incidents differs in content, they share a great deal in common. Each situation involves two or more parties whose interests are in conflict, who view others as the problem, and who are willing to endure great personal cost rather than give in. In addition, each engages in a set of moves he or she believes will force others into compliance. Unfortunately, in each of the cases, even if one party achieves its goal through forcing, the winners lose other things they also value. The vice president loses the loyalty of his employees, the neighbors lose a relationship, and the single mother loses the love and friendship of her children.

The cost of unresolved disputes can be high. In one large marketing firm, the CEO estimated a loss of $1 million a year due to lost contracts because his four vice presidents couldn’t get along. The dispute got so bad that three of the vice presidents would schedule board meetings while the other was away or, if he was in town, would occasionally forget to tell him when meetings were held. They’d just explain, “Oh, we just forgot to tell you.” In another company, five of six regional directors quit over a dispute with their manager. The CEO explained, “I can’t replace the manager because she’s been here for 30 years, and she’s not open to discussing her management style.” In an era where it takes 40% longer than in past years to replace employees, the cost of unresolved conflict and the turnover that results can be high.

Inherent in interpersonal, family, work, and community relationships is a growing need to manage relationships more effectively. The cost of broken relationships, employee disputes, and community violence continues to grow, and new ways for resolving differences are needed. Negotiation is one option to transform conflict into problem solving or compromise. It offers an opportunity for people to reduce tensions caused by their differing views of the world. Negotiation provides an opportunity to create change and overcome resistance to change without having to use threats, make demands, or attempt to coerce.

Because our modern work is filled with many complex challenges, knowing how and when to negotiate has become a fundamental skill for success. A single all-purpose success formula about how to negotiate is an illusion. To become effective, we must develop depth of knowledge about contextual factors and the ability to adapt our strategy accordingly.

COMMUNICATION AND NEGOTIATION

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Historically, negotiation was based on self-interest, and tactics involved strategic influence. Parties selectively shared information to achieve an advantage, treating others as adversaries. Claims about knowledge, reports of truth, and bottom-line needs permeated each side’s approach. Achievement of short-term goals held priority over the impact of long-term outcomes. Thus, a sale might be closed at the expense of a long-term business relationship, or an argument between neighbors might be settled at the expense of any further contact. The emphasis was on selective sharing of information to create an agreement with little regard for the underlying social processes. Although parties were unaware of it, their interactions influenced the level of trust they held in each other, the way power was experienced, the extent to which each would be open with information, or the kind of relationship that developed.

In a society with complex layers of values, interests, and needs, negotiation has needed to become more than strategic influence or manipulation disguised as negotiation. Deetz (2001) argues that the information-transfer orientation of industrial society is shifting to a society in which negotiation produces a codetermination of understandings about perceptions, knowledge, interests, and outcomes. Negotiation serves as a special type of communication in which parties (a) engage in reasoned discussion and problem-solving processes and (b) develop shared understandings that serve as the basis for agreements. Negotiation becomes a means to facilitate relationships based on dialogue and agreements based on understandings.

Communication serves a valuable role in this process. When differences of opinion or conflicts occur, negotiation serves as a tool for enabling or constraining parties as they consider courses of action. The choice of words can accentuate differences, which further polarizes parties, or emphasize similarities, which closes the psychological distance. Negotiators can accentuate their points or manage the intensity of emotion by slowing their rate of speech or lowering their volume (Neu, 1988).

Negotiation can serve as a tool for managing the dialectical dimensions of conflict displayed in tensions about autonomy or connectedness, openness or closedness, independence or dependence, and control or yielding. Negotiation provides a method for guiding parties through a process that focuses discussion more on understanding and meaning and less on blaming, control, or who gets authority over what. Putnam (2001) explains,

Negotiators work out their interdependence, not only through exchanging proposals, but also in the way the parties enact and manage dialectical tension. Interdependence, then, is not simply a dimension of all conflict situations; rather it is a dynamic feature of conflict worked out through the bargaining process. (p. 6)

The goals with which one begins a negotiation may be different from the goals achieved. For example, two neighbors negotiating a problem dealing with trees hanging over the fence may not agree about what to do with the trees but may establish enough trust to discuss other issues. A manager negotiating an issue with an employee may not reach agreement but may establish a dialogue about role, authority, and cooperation. Putnam and Roloff (1992b) point out that negotiators “uncover systems of meaning” that influence subsequent messages and communication patterns over time (p. 7). Each negotiation is about more than a single outcome.

The case of the U.S. Forest Service attempting to resolve a 15-year negotiation with the friars of the Atonement in Garrison, New York, provides an example of parties who began with strategic influence and later turned to negotiated understandings to resolve their differences (Box 1.1). The friars held a weak position in their attempts to prevent the Forest Service from creating a land buffer for the Appalachian Trail, but the Forest Service had problems of its own. The public relations fallout for closing down a shelter for the homeless and ill could have serious political implications. Both parties needed to maintain good relations while achieving outcomes they could live with. It was not until both parties agreed that land needed to be protected from development and that they could trust each other that interest-based tradeoffs occurred.

Communication’s role in negotiation is captured in various definitions of negotiation provided by scholars:

“A form of interaction through which (parties) . . . try to arrange . . . a new combination of some of their common and conflicting interests” (Ilke, 1968, p. 117).

“A process in which at least two partners with different needs and viewpoints try to reach agreement on matters of mutual interest” (Adler, Graham, & Gehrke, 1987, p. 413).

“An interactive process by which two or more people seek jointly and cooperatively to do better than they could otherwise” (Lax and Sebenius, 1991a, p. 97).

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Box 1.1

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CONFLICT OVER SACRED LAND

In 1898, Franciscan friars purchased a 400-acre forest site along the Hudson River that bordered the Appalachian trail in Garrison, New York. There, 130 priests...