Putting It All Together

From Peacebuilding

Content Processing Activity: Putting It All Together

Contents 1 Aim: 2 Time: 3 Participants: 4 Materials: 5 Procedure: 6 Example:

Aim:

• To have participants process content interactively

Time:

20-30 minutes or more, depending on the content to be processed

Participants:

At least 4-5 participants

Materials:

• Handouts prepared in advance by the facilitator, with content sections

• Flip chart paper

• Markers

Procedure:

I) Before the workshop, divide your lecture/content into 4-6 sections. Prepare a handout for each section. It’s important that you don’t specify the order of these sections (which comes first, second, third, etc.).

II) During the workshop, divide the plenary into groups of 4-6 people, depending on the number of sections you’ve prepared. Distribute a different handout to each group. Allocate a few minutes for reading and digesting the content.

III) Form new groups, with one person from each of the previous groups in each new group. The aim is to have people who’ve read all the sections in each group.

IV) Assign the task. Tell participants their task is to share what they know about the lecture and put it together. They should be able to present the whole content to the plenary. Allocate sufficient time.

V) Ask one group to volunteer to deliver their presentation to the plenary. Ask participants to join in with additions or questions if necessary.

Example:

You are designing a workshop on “Cooperation and Competition”, and you wish to process the following content with participants. Have a look at this lecture and see how it’s been divided. Each section is contained between horizontal line breaks. Participants are given a single section without knowing what comes before and after what they’ve read.

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Negotiation is an essential component of your life. Whether you’re dealing with your spouse over issues of common concern, discussing where to go on holiday with your children or bargaining at the fruit and vegetable market for a kilo of beans, you’re negotiating. You’re also negotiating when you ask your boss for a pay rise and when you’re trying to settle a dispute with your neighbour. Guerrilla leaders are negotiating when they sit round a table with government representatives, and so is a community leader who’s discussing what to do in his community with an international NGO (and the NGO representative is negotiating too).

Whenever you communicate with other people in order to get what you want – and the other person has either an opposing or a shared interest – you’re negotiating. Negotiation is a fact of life: like it or not, you do it every day.

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Have a look at this interaction between a customer and a shopkeeper:

Sasa (customer): This silver dish is very beautiful. It looks old. Elma (shopkeeper): Yes indeed, it’s very old. I’m glad you noticed it. It’s one of the best pieces we have.

S.: How old is it? E.: We reckon it was made at the beginning of the 19th century.

S.: How much does it cost?

E.: Well, sir… it’s a great rarity. I don’t know if we can sell it.

S.: What do you mean? Isn’t this a shop?

E.: Yes, but this is an extremely rare – and I would say unique – artefact.

S.: So how much does it cost?

E.: Well, if we could sell it (and I’d have to call the owner,) we’d never let it go for less than 2,000 dollars.

S.: 2,000 dollars for a dish? That’s unbelievable! Who do you take me for? One of those rich expatriates working for international organisations?

E.: Sir, as I told you, it’s something very special. I couldn’t consider anything under 2,000 dollars.

S.: If I were to buy it, I wouldn’t give you more than 200 dollars.

E.: Then you won’t buy it. It’s a beautiful antique, as you can see.

S.: Yes, yes… but it’s scratched in a few places, and the silver is tarnished. If it’s as rare and expensive as you say, you don’t seem to take much care of it.

E.: It’s just old. Listen sir, I might consider a serious offer, but 200 dollars is absolutely ridiculous.

S.: OK. I could go up to 500 dollars. That’s the maximum I’ll pay. Not one dollar more.

E.: That’s impossible! This dish is worth thousands of dollars. You could sell it for much more. I won’t accept anything less than 1,800 dollars.

S.: Come on! I know the game you are playing. Here’s 700 dollars, and the deal’s done.

E.: I’m sorry. That’s unrealistic. 1,600 dollars is my final offer. Take it or leave it. And I’m still not sure the owner’s willing to sell the piece. He probably wants to keep it in the shop.

S.: You’re giving me a hard time. I just want to give my wife a beautiful present for her birthday and you carry on asking for these ridiculous prices. ......(and so it goes on) What’s happening here? How would you define what Sasa and Elma are doing?

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Similarly, look at what happens between Michele and his wife, Anne:

Anne: I want to see my family in November. I think we should book plane tickets in time if we want to get a good fare. Michele: But we’ve been there twice already this year. Don’t you think that’s enough? Why don’t we go next summer?

A.: I didn’t choose to live in another country. We stay in Italy all the time, and we see your family every week. I think it’s right to go to Finland before the end of the year, and November would be perfect for my Mum.

M.: But not for us. I think we could go there by April next year at the earliest, and not before with all the things we have to do. Besides, the ticket’s expensive and I don’t think we can afford another trip like that this year.

A.: No way. If you don’t want to see them, just say so. I’ll arrange the trip just for me and the kid.

M.: And what about the kid? Shouldn’t he be at school at that time? Why don’t we use the Easter holidays next year?

A.: I think we could postpone this trip until this year’s Christmas holidays at the latest.

… (and so it goes on)

These two interactions between people are similar inasmuch as each side takes a position and argues and defends it. Eventually each side makes concessions to the other in order to reach a compromise. Roger Fisher and William Ury (founders of the Harvard Negotiation Project) call this style of negotiation positional bargaining.

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Any means or method of negotiation may be judged by three criteria: its capacity to produce a sensible agreement, when possible; its efficiency – it shouldn’t be too difficult and time-consuming to reach agreement; and its capacity to improve the relationship between the parties, or at least not to harm it. For Fisher and Ury, positional bargaining is likely to score poorly on all three counts. When people argue about positions they tend to dig their heels in, or to radicalize their position, become defensive and identify themselves with it. The more they do this, the more difficult it is to change their position, at the risk of losing face. By paying careful attention to their – and the other side’s – position they tend to overlook the underlying concerns of the parties, as well as their interests or needs. Therefore, reaching a sensible agreement can become very difficult.

Positional bargaining can be very inefficient too. Consider the example of Sasa and Elma: each of them starts with extremely low (Sasa) or high (Elma) offers, knowing full well that if they have to make concessions to the other side to reach agreement, starting from an extreme position will increase the possibility of achieving a more satisfactory final price: e.g. if Selma’s first offer is 2,000 dollars, she’s more likely to clinch a deal at around 1,000 dollars than if she starts at 1,200 dollars. In other words, you’re likely to start from a position that’s very much in your favour, and you’ll stubbornly hold on to it and try and deceive the other person about your true intentions by making small concessions. This is inefficient and it will probably take a lot of time and effort to reach agreement.

Now consider the second example with Anne and Michele. This negotiation about when to go and visit Anne’s family may easily embitter them. It sounds like a battle of wills, and each of them reiterates what he/she will or won’t do. It doesn’t sound as if they’re looking for a solution that’s good for both of them; it sounds more like a battle. Anger and resentment are likely to be generated by such interaction. Most likely it will make their relationship worse rather than better.

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We’ve considered situations involving two parties. Let’s now consider situations where there are many parties, such as the General Assembly of Caritas Internationalis. Delegates from over 160 countries gather in one place to discuss issues of common concern for a few days. If all – or even some – of them dig into entrenched positions, reaching agreement over the issues at stake becomes impossible. In a simpler example, consider the situation of four housemates in their thirties. They share the house, so they have to make decisions on a number of issues of common concern on a daily basis: which colours to paint the walls; which internet connection to buy; when to organise a party and who to invite; which bedroom goes to whom, and so on. When these housemates resort to positional bargaining it may become very difficult to achieve what’s needed, and living together may also become unpleasant.

Many people tend to polarise positional bargaining towards two extremes. They recognise the cost of playing a hard game with the other party – especially in terms of their relationship – so they think it’s better to play soft. The following table illustrates the characteristics of these two extremes:

SOFT	HARD
Your consider the other party to be a friend	You consider the other party to be an adversary
Your goal is agreement	Your goal is victory
You make concessions to cultivate the relationship	You demand concessions as a condition of the relationship
You take a “soft” line on the people and the problem	You take a “hard” line on the people and the problem
You trust the other party	You distrust the other party
You easily change your position	You entrench your position
You make offers	You make threats
You disclose your bottom line	You mislead the other party about your bottom line
You accept one-sided losses to reach agreement	You demand one-sided gains as the price of agreement
You seek a single answer: the one they’ll accept	You seek a single answer: the one you’ll accept
You insist on reaching agreement	You insist on your position
You try to avoid a battle of wills	You try to win a battle of wills
You yield to pressure	You apply pressure

• Adapted from: Fisher, Roger, Ury, William, Getting to Yes – Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, NY: Penguin, 1991 (1981).

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Decades of experience of the Harvard Negotiation Project suggest that there is an alternative to positional bargaining. Rather than choosing between being soft or hard you can change the game. Every negotiation takes place at two levels: at the level of the substance at stake and at that of the process for dealing with that substance. The first level is about what you negotiate, the second is about how you do it. People frequently do not think of how they negotiate, they rather focus on what they want by it. The Harvard Negotiation Project suggests a different way of going about it, which they call principled negotiation. The method breaks down into four points:

• Separate the people from the problem;

• Focus on interests, not on positions;

• Generate a multiplicity of options for mutual gain before deciding;

• Insist that the result be based on some objective standard.

This lecture is adapted from: Fisher, Roger, Ury, William, Getting to Yes – Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, NY: Penguin, 1991 (1981).