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Everything is Negotiable

Negotiations are one of the most complicated human activities. They involve tactical strategy, mental acumen, defined expectations and adjustable concessions. The reason to negotiate is to resolve a difference. Parties involved in negotiations communicate in order to reach a conclusion. Each party tries to gain an advantage for themselves. Ideally, negotiations result in mutual benefit or mutual loss, but this isn't always the case. Cohesiveness, problem solving skills, facilitation, conflict dissipation, and mediation are each important to this process. Moreover, a resolution becomes more complicated as parties are added to negotiation.

To explore the fundamentals of negotiation, this workshop focuses on a physical exercise. Students split into two groups. The groups "face-off" with a blue line of duct tape on the floor between them. The workshop leader takes each group outside and gives them opposing instructions. One group is asked to coerce members across the line. The other group is instructed not to cross the line. Neither group knows their opponent's goal, which is sometimes referred to as "information asymmetry".

Many opponents start the game very serene and civil, doing their best to charm their way to their goal. The game soon results in several tug-of-wars. Hands are grabbed. Arms are pulled. For many, the game boils down to a physical contest. Several of the opponents end in an impasse, a situation in which neither party achieves any desired outcome. Only one group of opponents realizes that a tug-of-war doesn't efficiently solve the problem they confront: both sides will benefit equally from equal loss. The two straddle the blue line together, one foot each in the other's territory.

We discover that the edifying goal of this game is not to "win" because the game has no winners. The more useful goal is to reach a mutual and excepted loss, in other words a compromise. The facilitator stresses the point that negotiators need to be aware of assumptions and need to challenge them. In addition, we are asked to remember that human beings all too often assume conflict when there is none.

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