Conflict Resolution

Front 1

Three Dimensions of Dispute Resolution

Back 1

Interests, Power, and Rights

Front 2

Define Interests

Back 2

- Needs, desires, concerns, fears, things one cares about.
- Underlie people's positions - tangible items they say they want.

Front 3

How do you reconcile interests?

Back 3

1. Probing for deep-seated concerns, devising creative solutions, making trade-offs and concessions.
2. Most common procedure is "negitiation" (the act of back-and-forth communication intended to reach agreement)
3. Another procedure is "mediation" (third party assists)
4. Negotiations focusing on intersts are "interest-based" or "problem-solving negotiation" (because it involves treating a dispute as a mutual problem to be solved by the parties)

Front 4

How do emotions relate to interest-based negotiations?

Back 4

1. Epxressing underlying emotions can be instrumental in negotiating a resolution
2. Particularly in interpersonal disputes
3. Hostility may be reduced if venting is done and blamed party acknowledges validity of such emotions or apoologizes.
4. Reduced hositility resolution becomes easier

Front 5

Determining who is right?
Define "rights"

Back 5

1. Some righs are in law or contract, socially accepted behaviors (seniority, reciprocity)
2. Rarely clear, sometimes contradicotry standards apply

Front 6

Prototypical rights procedure

Back 6

Adjudication - in which disputes resent evidenc eand arguements to a neutral third party who has the power to hand down a binding decision

Front 7

Two ways adjudication is provided

Back 7

1. Public: By the courts and administrative agencies
2. Private: By arbitrators

Front 8

Determining who is more powerful
Define "power"

Back 8

1. the ability to coerce someone to do something he would not otherwise do

Front 9

What does exercising power entail?

Back 9

1. typically imposing costs on the other side or threatening to do so

Front 10

To common forms of exercising power

Back 10

1. Acts of Agression - sabotage or physcial attack
2. Withholding benefits that derive from a relationshipo (as when employees withhold their labor in a strike)

Front 11

How is power shown in relationshipos of mutual dependence?

Back 11

e.g. between labor and management
1. Quesitons of who is more powerful turns on who is less dependent on the other

Front 12

What are the two power procedures?

Back 12

1. Power-based negotiations (typified by an exchange of threats)
2. Power Contests (actions to determine who will prevail)
*determining who is more powerful w/o distructice power contest is difficult because power is a matter of perceptions

Front 13

Interrlationship Among Interests, Rights, and Power

Back 13

1. Reconciliation of interests takes place within the context of the parties' rights and power
2. Determination of rights takes place within the context of power (one may win in court but unless enfoced disputed continues)
3. In the process of dispute resolution, the focus shifts from intests to rights to power and back

Front 14

Which Approach is best (power, rights, or interests)
What "Better" Means: Four Possible Criteria for comparing)

Back 14

1. Transaction Costs - costs of disputing (e.g. strikes on production, violence on propert) Time, money, emotional energy, resources consumed and destroyed, and opportunities lost
2. Satisfaction with Outcomes - parties' mutual satisfaction with the reslut
-depends largely on how much the resolution fulfills the intests that led them to make or reject the claim
- also depends on whether resoltion is believed to be fair
- preceived fairness of procedure and outcome
3. Effect of Relationship
- approaches taken to resolve may affect parties' ability to work together
4. Recurrence
- does approach have durable resolutions (fails to stick)
- does not prevent dispute from arising again

Front 15

Determining if rights or power is necessary

Back 15

- in some instances, intests-based negotiations cannot occur unless rights or power procedures are first employed to bring parties to the table.
- parties may not reach agreement on the basis of interests because their perceptions of who is right or who is more powerful are so different that cannont establish a range to negotiate
- Rights procedures may be needed to clarify rights boudary within with a negotiated resolution can be sought.
-

Front 16

Three types of rights and power procedures

Back 16

1. negotiation
2. low-cost contests
3. high-cost contests

Front 17

Low-Cost ways to determine rights and power

Back 17

1. Rights-based negotiation is typically less costly than a rights contest such as court or arbitration.
2. Power-based negotiation, marketed by threats, typically costs less than a power contest in which those threats are carried out.

Front 18

The goal: Interests-oriented dispute resolution system

Back 18

- rights and power procedures are often used when they are not necessary.
- challenge is to design a system that promotes the reconciling of interests but that also provides low-cost ways to determine rights or power for those disputes that connot or should not be resolved by focusing on intersts alone.
- Flip the pyramid

Front 19

Define Boulwarism

Back 19

-Lemuel Boulware, VP for GE
- Determined ahead of time what GE was willing to commit to wage and benefit increases and then formulate a complete "best-offer-first" package.
- Package was presented to union negotiators on a "take-it-or=leave-it" basic unless the union could showe that GE had made some miscalculation or that changed circumstances had intervened.

Front 20

Disadvantages of Boulwarism

Back 20

1. Be hesitant to adopt
2. Deprives the opponent of the opportunity to participate meaningfully in the negiotiation process.

Front 21

What do you do when presented with a Boulwarism style negotiation?

Back 21

1. don't automatically reject
2. evaluate item proposed
3. accept if reasonable

Front 22

What are the phases of negotiations?

Back 22

1. Information phase
2. Competitive phase
3. Cooperative phase

Front 23

Describe the information phase.

Back 23

1. Focus is on knowledge and desires of opposition.
2. Use open=ended questions to induce information
3. Try to learn as much as possible about intensity, planned strategy, and SW.
4. Decide ahead what to disclose
5. Don't focus entirely on opponents' stated positions

Front 24

Describe the competitive phase.

Back 24

once info phase ends, focuse usually changes from what the opposition wants to achieve to what each negotiatior must get for their clients.

Front 25

Strategies used in the competitive phase.

Back 25

1. principled offers and concessions
2. arguement
3. threats and promises
4. silence and patience
5. limited authority
6. anger
7. aggressive behavior
8. uproar
9 settlement brochures video presentations
10. boulwarism
11. br'er rabbit
12. butt and jeff
13. belly-up
14. passive-aggressive behavior

Front 26

Describe principled offers and concessions

Back 26

- negotiators should develop a rational basis for each item included in their opening positions
- est. high, but rational, objectives and explain their entitlement to these goals
- "principled" concessions for when changing positions

Front 27

Anger in competitive phase

Back 27

- can offend opponent
- disclose information accidently
- used to convince opponent of position
- quid-pro-quo approaches

Front 28

What is uproar in competitive phases?

Back 28

- attempt to gain adv. by threatening dire consequences
- many times threatens will not occur
- may have to call bluff

Front 29

Adv. of settlement brochures and video presentations

Back 29

1. Brochures often accorded greater respect than verbal
2. May create confidence and seize control of neg.

Front 30

What is Br'er Rabbit Approach?

Back 30

- Reverse psyc. begging them to not do what you really want
- Use: against win-lose opponents who do not evaluate their results