Not until I stepped in the Negotiation and Conflict Resolution class did I realise that conflicts, negotiations and therefore their resolutions are everywhere and happen every time in everybody’s life. I had perceived that they only happened in highly profiled talks such as those that involve rebel groups and the government or between ever-worrying states such as Israel and Palestine or America and Iran. I was wrong. I have learnt that so long as there are differences between individuals or groups of people conflicts will be present. As an aspiring diplomat, I had always been wondering about the best method I could use to solve conflicts suppose I am called in such situations. These questions ranged from calm business negotiations to reach the best price to those that involve competitive and adversarial means such as the use of threats, display of anger or irrational means such as bribing the arbiter. However, from my perception that negotiation and therefore conflict resolution involved at large part rebellious groups and governments or worrying nations, I had majorly perceived negotiation as a war. Therefore, for one to get ready in such kind of pursuits he was to prepare himself for skirmishes, ambushes, propaganda and frontal attacks. Again, I have been proofed wrong. Courtesy of this course, I have learned that integrity, objectiveness, emotional and rational empathy, mutual interest for the best alternative to negotiated agreement, effective communication to lead to mutual substance gain and good relationship will guarantee optimal solution that guarantee mutual satisfaction.
Through this course, I have been able to learn so superior principles of negotiation and conflict resolution that my previous perceptions have been washed away. I am now able to distinguish different styles of negotiation and identify where they fit appropriately. I appreciate that life is full of conflicts, and nobody can avoid them. With effective communication coupled with conflict resolution principles, it has been easy for me to solve some minor and moderate conflicts, and surprisingly, creating big values from them. The virtues of conflict resolution such as honesty, trustworthy, objectiveness, empathy and reliability have made everybody to develop trust in me as a person who is accessible, transparent and safe, and therefore there is no doubt that I have established so many networks and relationships with many people.
I remember recently how surprising it seemed to my father when I helped easily to iron out the differences between his shop attendants and several clients. Using the skills had learned in class I managed to draw everybody on the negotiating table until the conflicts were solved. I realised that earlier on the shop attendants had engaged everybody on hard-line positions that they maintained until everybody gave in or quit business negotiations. It was obvious that with such kind of a business that had so many alternatives for customers to buy and suppliers to sell goods and services, such tactics sounded crude or inhumane. Therefore, in the long run, there was no doubt that the business would lack such important stakeholders. Things were steeply easier for me, considering that I had understood every bit of concept in the Getting to Yes. ‘Getting to yes’ for mutual benefit was to involve, first, by the shopkeeper, who was now me, putting himself in the shoes of his clients so that he can remove any negative perceptions that the customers had formed. In this way, they could realise that he was around to serve their best interests for immediate results (Fisher, & Ury, William, 2006). Moreover, he was to ensure that his integrity is displayed at the greatest extent as possible. Obviously there were no points of arguing about immobile positions or bottom lines but helping the clients to reason with me so that the solution that benefit both of us can be found since our enterprises existed on mutual grounds. Therefore, with objectivity I had to ensure that alternative solutions provided were practical, in a bid to maintain the negotiation to a fruitful solution for mutual benefit. It was also important that we discussed others perception and the likely inconsistencies to make them explicit so that everybody in the discussion could be seen as honest, frank and not blaming the other (Barry, et al., 2004). Removing the bad perceptions about each of us freed everybody to participate in the discussion without fearing to lose. I also considered that for the discussion to be successful, values and culture was important because they were cases when customers were not willing to buy certain products since they were being packed together with others that their religion prohibit. Related to these were feeling and emotions, I and had to consider that various cultures attach various emotions on different values. The other consideration that followed was the mood of the whole negotiating environments; I had to keep it warm but cooperative for the solution to be found. In this regard, effective communication was just much important, as by it one could pass his message in just and honourable ways and could be understood in the same way. As already said, by focusing on the problem rather than people’s positions or bottom lines, the situation became favourable for all stakeholders to invent practical options. It was done freely through brainstorming while we insisted on best ways to select the best alternative to maintaining both substance and relationship. In this way, we managed to come up with the best price that parties could enjoy while keeping everybody’s business running and earning reasonable incomes as each other’s servant.
In some occasions, negotiations were very tense, imagining that some of the negotiators were very much powerful, owning big businesses than ours. Others were also rogue and had prepared to employ dirty tricks such as deception or threats to coerce me to adopt their position. However, I made them to be aware that I was much honest to help them find an objective solution that could lead for mutual benefits. Further, I had realised that having a standard code of procedure prepared by the inputs of all stakeholders was equally important. In some processes, I found the services of a third party being important so that all queries could answer with his moderation to the satisfaction of everybody.
However, a look into various case studies on the Israel-Palestine conflict, there is a high possibility that negotiators do not have the required science and art to solve such a dispute. Apart from lacking skills to frame issues into objective problems that can yield practical solution, they do not really understand or put into consideration contextual situations influencing such conflicts. Understanding the contextual situation of certain negotiating parties will make the arbiter understand factors that affect the situation and hence interpret clearly feeling or emotions of people in the discussion. Such arbiters have been doing very little to break bottom lines that negotiators put in case negotiations are called. In such inter-group situation where everybody is working very hard to influence each other, one should emphasize on each actor focusing on the mutually obtained objective solution. In this way, the conflict resolution session can be turned into value adding process whereby instead of parties competing to outdo each other so that one can claim all resources, they can both cooperate to expand the value of the existing resources (Bruneau, & Saxe, 2012).
Taking this course has been important to attain interactive and dialogue based methods of resolving conflicts. I can now build a common ground, establish a dialogue between the conflicting parties, apply practical skills, ensure representation and recognition and forge relationships due to constructive outcomes reached. However, from my own observation, studies in this field need to shade more lights on the extent at which cultural values will influence the negotiating processes. They should take into consideration that due to globalisation, people are learning in foreign countries, and there is no doubt that they will espouse a globalised culture. On the same note, there should be studies on how current market globalisation can influence the outcome of a negotiation process because countries of the different culture belong to same global trade organisations.
However, in the most of the class readings, the mood is like the other party in the negotiation always wants to behave rationally or willing to engage in interest-based negotiation, and he may have equal power. Such cases do not always arise because the opponent may be too powerful, or he may decide to use competitive or adversarial tactics, which cannot be resolved by the normal dialogue negotiation processes. In fact in some cases, some people have associated such negotiations with psychological wars, which may be precursors of the real wars. My opinion is that it will be important for one also to engage in the adversarial or competitive tactics, if the dialogue fails, so long as he is sure that the consequences are not costly as compared to those in persuasion. However, dialogue-based negotiation conflict resolution that takes into consideration the use of best alternative to solve a negotiated agreement (BATNA), mutual interest, objectivity and possibility with effective communicative tools to lead to mutual substance gain and maintenance of good relationship is the best (Lancken, 2007).
References
Barry, B. et al. (2004). The Role of Emotion in Negotiation: I laughed, I Cried, I Settled. The
Handbook of Negotiation and Culture.
Bruneau, E.G. & Saxe, R. (2012).The power of being heard: The benefits of ‘perspective-
giving’ in the context of intergroup conflict. Journal of Experimenting Social Psychology, 48, pp.855-866.
Fisher, R. & Ury, William.(2006). Getting to Yes. 2nd ed. New York: Random House
Business Books.
Jameson, J.K. et al.(2009).Exploring the Role of Emotion in Conflict Transformation.
Conflict and Resolution Quarterly, 27(2).
Lancken, S. (2007). Reflections on ‘tactics’ in negotiation and conflict management. ADR
Bulletin, 10(3).
