Gini Nelson’s Engaging Conflicts

I’m reviewing The Negotiator’s Fieldbook: The Desk Reference for the Experienced Negotiator, Christopher Honeyman & Andrea Kupfer Schneider, Editors (ABA 2006), through the rest of 2007 and into 2008 (it has 80 chapters, more than 700 pages of substantive text, and something for everyone, from novice to expert!). I’m reviewing the book because it’s hot, hot, hot. More about the book and its editors here.

This week I’m reviewing two chapters both written by Dan Shapiro — his bio is at the end of the reviews of the articles.

Identity: More than Meets the “I”
Daniel L. Shapiro. Here’s the annotation from the book’s Table of Contents:

How can you expect to get good results in a negotiation if you give little thought to who you really are, and to who your counterpart is? Shapiro analyzes the research on identity, showing how you can predict the likely reactions of your counterpart to some kinds of proposals — as well as your own propensity to avoid some kinds of proposals that might be to your advantage. This chapter should be read in close conjunction with the chapters on internal conflict, psychology and perceptions.

Dan introduces us to identity-based negotiation, which recognizes an individual’s 3 levels of identity: (1) intergroup identity, focusing on your group affiliations, beliefs, and shared values; (2) intrapersonal identify, the story you tell yourself about yourself; and interpersonal identity, also known as “relational identity,” the way you conceive of yourself in relation to someone else with whom you are interacting.
He identifies two mistaken assumptions about identity that can negatively impact the negotiation process and outcome, specifically: (1) that a negotiator’s identity is constant across time; and (2) that a negotiator’s identify is constant across context.

Concerning change in identity across time, it’s a constant of being human that we change as we have new experiences, and that those experiences change our sense of ourselves. Concerning change in identity across contexts, we co-construct ourselves in response to who the other person is, and how the other person acts and reacts to us. More:

[R]elational identity’ consists of two main elements: autonomy and affiliation. Autonomy is the freedom to choose your own actions. When the other side’s negotiator ‘tells’ you where to meet for lunch or gives you ‘the final proposal’ without first consulting you on it, your autonomy may feel impinged. Affiliation is a sense of interpersonal connection. You may feel closely affiliated to some colleagues, whereas affiliation may be difficult to build with others.

The degree to which a negotiator feels a sense of autonomy and affiliation typically varies with context. A lawyer may feel a great amount of autonomy in advocating for a client’s needs. Yet the same lawyer may feel very little autonomy in advocating for her own needs in her relationship with her husband at home. Likewise, a lawyer may feel a great deal of emotional openness and affiliation toward a friendly client, while feeling anxiety about disclosing even trivial personal information with an angry client.

Dan proposes a better assumption: that negotiators can choose ways of acting that enhance negotiation. The primary tool is self-awareness, developed through mindfulness, giving us more options of choosing the behaviors that satisfy more of our interests and needs. We can learn to negotiate better by becoming more aware of how “we” are different, or think, feel and act differently, at different times and in different contexts.

Untapped Power: Emotions in Negotiation. Here’s the annotation from the book’s Table of Contents:

Too many negotiators and mediators an “emotional issue” sounds like one with no real substance to it, yet one that’s liable to damage the situation at any moment. Shapiro shows how unsophisticated that view is. Emotions, recognized and unrecognized, regularly trap professional negotiators as well as clients, when these emotions could have been anticipated and dealt with constructively. Not only that, but there are positive uses of emotion in negotiation.

Dan suggest reasons why emotions constitute a risk to negotiator efficacy– they may divert our attention away from substantive matters; they may open us up to being manipulated; they may make it difficult to think clearly; and, unless we are careful, they will take charge of us. At the same time, emotions are unavoidable (they are part of being human), and suppressing them can make things worse.

Thus, it’s important and advisable to use emotions to move you toward your negotiation goals, by understanding the information they communicate (e.g., they signal and promote urgency); and by enlisting positive emotions to motivate collaboration which results in better results and greater sustainability of the parties’ commitments.

Daniel L. Shapiro, Ph.D. is Associate Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, and is on the faculty at Harvard Law School and in the psychiatry department at Harvard Medical School/McLean Hospital. he specializes in the psychology of negotiation. He co-authored with Roger Fisher the book Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate (Viking, 2005). Dr. Shapiro founded and directs the International Negotiation Initiative, a Harvard-based project that develops psychologically focused strategies to reduce ethnopolitical violence. This initiative has advised the International Criminal Court, the U.S. government, and others. Dr. Shapiro’s international experience includes training Serbian members of Parliament, Mideast negotiators, Macedonian politicians, and senior U.S. officials. He developed a conflict management program that now reaches nearly one million people across twenty-five countries.