商務談判英語:What Dynamics Can Make a Multiparty Negotiation Effective? (2)

7. Disagree openly with any member of the group. If parties withhold their disagreement, conflict is forced underground, which may ultimately lead to an inability to reach consensus or to implement a plan to which all might agree. Disagreement can be productive without being offensive.

8. Make statements, then invite questions and comments. Diversity of viewpoints should not just be reserved for disagreeing with another, but it should also be invited from others: Encourage others to clarify their own understanding of your interests and needs.

9. Jointly design ways to test disagreements and solutions. Develop a process for confirming facts, verifying interpretations of events, and surfacing the reasons for disagreements so that problem solving can move forward. This process can be facilitated by anyone who is not directly involved in the central debate. We return to this point later in the chapter.

10. Discuss undiscussable issues. Groups often have a number of issues that they consider undiscussable: group members who are not performing up to expectations (or who are behaving badly) or challenges to a boss in the room. Getting these issues on the table may be critical for a group to be productive. One approach is to discuss openly the undiscussability of an important norm, rule, or problem and to state the implied consequences of discussing that topic openly.

11. Keep the discussion focused. Team leaders should make sure that the conversation stays on track until everyone has been heard. Develop an agenda, and have the chair manage the process to ensure that discussions don’t wander all over the map.

12. Do not take cheap shots or create irrelevant sidetracks or otherwise distract the group. Distractions, sarcasm, irrelevant stories, and humor are all distractions that take the conversation off task and off focus. Although some of this behavior is perhaps inevitable, both in groups that like each other a lot and those that have strong conflict, effective discussions try to keep these distractions to a minimum.

13. Expect to have all members participate in all phases of the process. All parties must be willing to contribute to all phases of the process – sharing relevant information, working to help arrive at a solution, or helping manage the process.

14. Exchange relevant information with parties not at the table. If outsiders are invited in as experts or important sources of information, they should be fully briefed on the ground rules for participation and asked to comply with them.

15. Make decisions by consensus. Although it is not always possible to make unanimous decisions, parties should strive for consensus whenever possible. We return to discuss “decision rules” later in the chapter.

16. Conduct a self-critique. Finally, in between decisions or major deliberations, if future negotiations are expected, parties should spend some time m a postmortem evaluating their process and effectiveness. Paradoxically, groups that do not work well together seldom take the time to evaluate their process, probably because they hope to avoid the anticipated conflict that might arise from discussing the dysfunctionality. Not surprisingly, not discussing the dysfunctionalities usually makes these dynamics worse.