Negotiation is the best option to address our issues and problems?

What are the alternatives to negotiation?

Parties should evaluate the best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA), both before entering into negotiations and repeatedly during the negotiations, since they usually have the option of letting in the negotiation and other processes to address their dispute .

Parties working in the context of instability or change may be difficult to assess its Batna. Alternative dispute resolution options can be confusing. The negotiation process itself may seem risky and fragile because it lacks strong institutional support. In such cases, parties may need to build systems that support the negotiation process. In addition, negotiation can only be useful to address a small part of the great conflict, so that negotiations may have to be coordinated with other activities in conflict resolution, before, during and after the negotiators do their job.

If the parties decide to negotiate, they must be clear about the scope and limitations of the negotiation in a context of change and instability. They need to identify:

What problems or issues to negotiate.

What problems or issues to be addressed using other means.

What other groups or parties have to be prepared for the negotiation process and outcome of the negotiation.

How does this negotiation in the processes of management issues or problems, most concerning, and the changing context.

Jean and Sam End Their Marriage
Divorce is a form of legal process by the State through the courts. In this regard, Jean and Sam are working in a stable context that offers the choice between litigation and negotiation. The volatility of the situation does not arise from any weakness in the regulatory system of negotiation, but by its need to renegotiate their relationships and identities, while they are working through the legal issues of their divorce. Assuming you decide to try negotiation, Jean and Sam first need to make important strategic decisions.

You want to negotiate face to face or through their lawyers? Negotiating face to face allows the space to address the problem of redefining their relationship, which increases their control over the central source of turbulence in their lives. Face to face bargaining reduces the risk of miscommunication. You can also prevent the problem from a lawyer focusing only on the legal issues of rights and obligations without taking into account the issues of personal relationship. Moreover, divorcing couples who negotiate face to face are forced to juggle rational problem-solving and very emotional at the same time. So Jean and Sam must decide whether to use a mediator to help with the negotiation process.

If you use a mediator, they need to decide what kind of mediator for employment: a lawyer, a counselor or a mediator in the local mediation center? All options are available in many states. An attorney mediator may be less focused on long-term relationships, and community center, a counselor or mediator is probably less knowledgeable about legal issues. If you do not use an attorney mediator, Jean and Sam should consult their own counsel on legal matters. If you use an attorney mediator, they may choose to work with a counselor to address issues of their relationship.

Then there is the question Jennifer. The legal system does not build in the protection of their welfare, but these do not refer to the turmoil that is experiencing as a result of their parents changing relationship. How will you be prepared for the outcome of negotiations? Indeed, at 16 years, she have a voice in the negotiations? Jennifer may have opinions on a number of issues. For example, what restrictions are placed on parents when it comes to ask Jennifer to carry messages between them? If your parents find new partners, how they will be placed in your life? There is also the reality that Jennifer needs may change after the agreement is negotiated. How can parents work together to make parenting decisions that deal with these changes, and what role they play Jennifer in these discussions? Jennifer may be invited to express their preferences on some issues, either in mediation or in a counseling session. Jennifer including increases their sense of having some control over a situation of instability.

Jean and Sam have many options to successfully manage the following strategic challenges.

Creation of a bargaining process or a set of processes that balances and coordinates the financial and legal issues related matters.

Ensure that Jennifer needs are taken into account during the negotiation and the implementation of the agreement.

Jennifer’s participation in the process so that help them adapt to changes in their lives created by their parents divorce.

The hard work of a corporate merger
Acme-Zocon the merger and the subsequent reduction of the workforce have introduced instability in the labor-management relationship. Negotiations will probably take place as scheduled, but are not likely to be routine. The problems associated with the development of a new entrepreneurial culture, the losses associated with the reduction, and uneven acceptance of the merger within the organization will create problems for negotiators.

In addition, the parties must face the reality of the global economy. The threat that companies “exit” their relationship with workers moving to other countries has changed the balance of power between employers and trade unions.

In recent decades, many companies have received concessions from workers in order to “preserve its competitiveness, keeping jobs at home.” Sometimes, these concessions have been won through hard bargaining tactics to reduce the power of the union or even completely eliminate the union. Sometimes concessions have been achieved by changing the relationship between management and the union of the adversaries to partners. This latest tactic is to alter the identities and histories say new relationship, much the way Jean and Sam is telling new stories in the process of negotiating their divorce. All these questions and possibilities that loom on the Acme-Zocon negotiations, and are amplified by the instability created by the merger.

Acme-Zocon management and labor can mitigate the impact of instability after the merger in their negotiations if we recognize the full scope of problems and issues facing the company. To do this, they will have to think very differently about their agenda and purpose of their negotiations. Rather than negotiate only in the workplace and disciplinary procedures wage and benefit packages, the parties may also consider how they might take this opportunity to address other problems related to the merger. The expansion of its agenda this will require careful collection of information. Thus, the parties could think of making a pre-listening of the project negotiated with the rank and employees and executives to discover some of the challenges and issues related to the merger of Acme Zocon and corporate cultures. A project can also listen to show the level of satisfaction, concerns or dissatisfaction arising from the merger and layoffs.

Management and labor representatives Acme-Zocon can strategically use their negotiations for the management of instability in their context, should consider the following challenges:

Expand its agenda to include issues related to the merger.

Getting information from the various sectors of society, where the concentration of living differently.

Make your trading a part of a broader process to address conflicts arising from the merger to Acme Zocon-harvest all the benefits of the merger.

Making ecosystem management
Process of dialogue between farmers, environmentalists, and federal agency personnel have been going on for years in the Southwest. The participants often complain that these dialogues will not lead to action. Alternatively, participants think they are negotiating, and then one group or the other backs out of the process as they are about to reach an agreement. The latter problem arises from a lack of clarity about the differences between dialogue and negotiation, the lack of attention to it on the table, and lack of checking whether the participants are really willing to negotiate. This demonstrates that great care must be taken in any negotiations to set realistic expectations, clear guidelines for participation and mechanisms for validating the procedures as they progress.

Negotiators in our case study projects are veterans of dialogue, relationship building activities and measures for confidence building. As a result of participation in such other dispute resolution processes, we now identify themselves as a “radical middle” that is prepared to “reject the acrimony of recent decades that has dominated the debate over livestock grazing on public lands, and has given little but resentment among people who are united by their common love for the land and should be natural allies. ” They have chosen to negotiate on a particular site and a limited set of questions: How can we develop a pilot project for cooperation and implementation of monitoring the effects of ecosystem management in this area over the next five to 10 years?

This negotiation requires a delicate balance between caution and hope. The parties must know what they are doing here will not impose significant changes in the positions that the other parties at the table and not on keeping livestock in the Southwest. At the same time, they need to have some hope that the lessons learned through this negotiation and the subsequent pilot project could produce positive results for what has been an intractable conflict. The limitation of the negotiations for a regional approach to land management experiment is the key to full participation and buy-in of the parties without falsely inflate or expected to create a sense of unacceptable risk. Ensure that parties are indeed committed to try something radically new is also important, and this will need attention throughout the negotiation, because the pressures affecting other parts of the negotiators for calculating risk and their commitment to the process.

The balancing act between caution and hope is complicated by issues of identity. Participants may be willing to identify with a radical center, but few of them are willing to cut all ties with other groups. Required by other groups if these negotiations fail, and that the groups need to address the major conflicts over grazing on federal lands. Furthermore, successfully implementing a negotiated agreement may require the involvement of other groups in the pilot project, which will depend on the ability of federal agencies to maintain a flow of funding and clear mandate for the project over the next five to 10 years. Includes working with other parties to communicate clearly about the limitations of the project and the creation of mechanisms for the involvement of others as the negotiations and the progress of the experiment.

As with many environmental multiparty negotiations, the facilitators have been hired to help manage the negotiation. Facilitators can help the parties to manage the volatility of its context, focusing on the care and help them develop skills to meet the following challenges:

Ensure that the parties have outlined their agenda and scope of its negotiations with clarity and detail.

To assist the parties and the balance of the management of negotiations with its principal behind the negotiating table.

Assist the parties to work together across the divisions of interest groups in ways that respect their need to maintain positive relationships with others who share their identity (ranchers, environmentalists, etc.).

Preparation of the parties to educate others and make them participate in the pilot project, once it has been negotiated.

Assist the parties to address the effects of turbulence created by the actions of other parties who are not on the table.

Practical implications
The parties in our case studies are more likely to succeed in creating and sustaining a negotiation process if it is coordinated with other processes of negotiation to address conflict. Jean and Sam may want to use a counselor and a mediator during the negotiations over their divorce. Dialogue processes that involve other stakeholders may need to continue with the negotiations. The parties may agree to negotiate a problem, but reserve the right to sue each other over other issues. These limitations should be as clear as possible when they begin negotiations to avoid bitterness and resentment later.