Skills Archives - Peacemakers

4 Negotiation Techniques You Can Learn From Children

by Ho Ting En

How many of us only think of professional negotiators and instructors when we want to learn more about negotiation? However, children themselves can actually be very good negotiators too! In this post, we will be looking at some negotiation techniques children use which we can adopt and adapt to be better negotiators.

Interestingly, a study conducted on preschool children who were presented with hypothetical conflict scenarios showed that 63% of them preferred negotiation as a conflict management strategy.¹ This demonstrates that even children as young as 3 are capable of a mature understanding of conflict management.² Of course, most young children will not be able to translate this understanding into concrete skills and they may also instinctively engage in positional bargaining. Nonetheless, here are four techniques we can learn from them.

(1) Be creative

Children are known to be imaginative. Childhood was probably the only period of our life when we ‘worked’ a different occupation every day or played with dolls that ‘transformed’ into mermaids.

We may already know that in negotiations, it is important to think creatively at the stage of generating options, so as not to box ourselves in. However, we can strengthen this notion by remembering how we were when we were younger. Children generally do not put down their ideas because they are “impractical” or “stupid”, at least not until they grow older and become influenced by peers and society. This quality is said to be the underlying reason for children’s special negotiating powers. Judgment hinders imagination, and imagination can be key to generating creative options that meet both parties’ needs in a much better way than a textbook solution. Therefore, we should not be afraid to be bold in playing with different possibilities and to really use our imagination without fear of judgement.

(2) Be direct about your needs

Young children are very direct, so a child often says, “I want this.” Adults are less straightforward, knowing that being too direct offends people and comes across as rude. However, clarity is important and sometimes, revealing your needs in a round-about manner is ineffective. As Fisher says in Getting to Yes, the chance of negotiation serving your interests “increases when you communicate them”. There is also less room for misunderstandings because the more openly we communicate, the less basis there is for suspicion. Imagine a husband who does not want to eat out because he is on a temporary healthy diet. He is probably better off being truthful than to reject all the restaurants the wife has suggested by saying that he dislikes their service.

(3) Play the repeat game

Children like to repeat other people’s words to irritate. We must have had at least one experience with a child who echoes us when we say, “Stop doing that!” Although this is typical childish behaviour, such parroting exercise is something we can actually replicate in negotiations.

However, our aim of repeating is not to annoy, but to reassure. This is because repeating parts of what the other person has said can show there is a common vision, which can be helpful in moving stalled negotiations forward. If two parties are negotiating over profit-sharing of a business, you can repeat that the partner taking the bigger risk should receive larger share, even as you disagree on how this risk should be calculated.³ At the very least, repeating the other person’s words can be a good way to summarise what you have heard to assure the other party that you have been listening.

(4) Find the right person to negotiate with

Finding the right person is a combination of checking out who would say “yes” and who has authority. Do you remember how as children, we look to the adult who is more likely to say “yes” because it increases the chances of getting what we want?

Similarly, as a negotiator, one way to increase success is to scope out the situation before making the first pitch, so as to choose the person who is more likely to react positively. Convincing one person first on the other negotiating team may also be a smart move in getting the eventual consensus of the entire team later. That said, a child will not ask his grandmother if he can have a dog if he knows that the true decision-making power lies with his mother. Likewise, we can approach someone who will say “yes” but should be mindful that it may not generate into a sustainable agreement if the person who says “yes” does not have authority or has no access to authority.

I hope this post has pointed out some of the interesting ways in which children can also be good negotiators. Perhaps the most valuable lesson we can draw from children is that they never give up. When they fail at one negotiation, they simply move on to the next one with just as much enthusiasm. At the end of the day, becoming a better negotiator is a process, and we can enhance this by learning from negotiations with those who are in the youngest and freshest phase of their lives. I hope this has been helpful!

To make sure you don’t miss out on regular updates from the Peacemakers Blog, please like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram.

Ting En is a graduate of National University of Singapore’s Faculty of Law. She studied Negotiation as an undergraduate, as well as Mediation for the Singapore Bar Examinations. She has an avid interest in working with children and has participated in many related projects, from organising sports activities for underprivileged children to giving weekly tuition at a children’s home. During her time as an undergraduate, Ting En was also part of the committee in charge of the Innocence Project Singapore.

Peacemakers offers the services of internationally accredited mediators with extensive experience in resolving local and international conflicts. If you are involved in a dispute, let us know your requirements via email at mediate@peacemakers.sg, and we will recommend you the mediators that best meet your needs.

Lessons from Negotiating with Children: Communicating Effectively and Building Relationships

by Ho Ting En

In this last part of a three-part series, we look at the interpersonal skills involved in a negotiation. This is a three-part series written based on the framework of the 7 Elements of Negotiation. For ease of reference and the convenience of readers, the links to Parts 1 and 2 are listed below:

Communication

Why is communication so important in a negotiation? Well, remember that in every negotiation, we are talking to someone who is not us. This sounds like I am just stating the obvious. However, conveying a message is not easy even for people with extensive amount of shared experiences. We carry our own assumptions and backgrounds that invariably influence the way we perceive messages we give and receive. In this regard, thinking about the way we communicate with children, with whom we cannot be more different from, forces us to evaluate the methods in which we convey our ideas. Here are 2 tips for better communication.

(1) Use short sentences:

We know long preambles do not work with children. This is why we break our sentences down into simple ones, and we instinctively speak in a succinct manner when communicating with children.

This technique is actually recommended for negotiations too. A negotiator should speak clearly to promote understanding. The longer the statement, the greater the chance of misinterpretation. One can avoid this risk by breaking complex messages into small parts and allowing pauses so that the other party can digest the information.⁴

(2) Do not trivialise the other side’s emotions; acknowledge them:

When a child reacts strongly in some way, telling the child, “I understand that you are angry, but…” may be more effective than saying dismissively, “This is nothing to get angry over.” Such a response acknowledges the child’s emotions with regard to his or her problems, which may take us one step closer towards resolution. In the same vein, we should not gloss over the other negotiating party’s position and feelings by trivialising them. Just as we acknowledge a child’s fears and insecurities, we should not ignore an adult’s emotions by thinking that they are necessarily insignificant. What we can do instead is to recognise that the feeling is valid, but that perhaps we can resolve and move past it for a successful negotiation.

One powerful form of acknowledgment of the other person’s feelings is an apology. A lesson we learn as children is that if we say, “I’m sorry”, our parents will not be angry anymore. Somehow, this is something we either forget or unlearn as we grow up. There is an example of a Columbia law professor whose 8-year-old son sat in his class because he could not find a babysitter. When the professor asked the contract class what the seller should do after having defaulted on delivery and the buyer stopped payment, his son spoke up, “I would say I’m sorry.”⁵ A classic contractual discussion on who is liable to pay damages turned out to be a valuable negotiation lesson.

Even if the other side is primarily responsible, we can still consider apologising for our part. The aim of this is to take responsibility for our share and our apology may bring about a corresponding acceptance of responsibility from the other side. This will then be a good step towards resuming a working relationship. However, an apology should be sincere. One quality of an effective apology in negotiations is that it should be the consequence of some analysis and introspection. If it comes off too spontaneously, it loses power and legitimacy.⁶

Relationship

Humans react, and what we do instinctively in a difficult situation is to act first, think later. However, as a quote from Ambrose Bierce goes, “Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.” Sometimes, it may be better to stop negotiating temporarily in order for the relationship between both parties to resume its functional state.

Children throw tantrums because they think this is how they can get what they want. In response, some parents utilise the “1-2-3” technique, which is a form of time-out. This supports the stopping of negotiation with children, which some of us may find surprising. However, this may be needed when the child simply has no interest in listening to any constructive arguments. In such situations, say firmly, “That’s one,” when the child whines. If he persists, say, “That’s two”. The final warning comes, “That’s three,” and the child is brought out of the room for a five-minute break. The point of this is to remove emotions from the discipline. Usually, the child returns with a glare but the fury has subsided and he is more likely to listen.

In situations when to continue negotiating is to create more conflict, a time-out to remove emotions is equally needed. Of course, in contrast to the “1-2-3” response where the child is taken out, here we are not removing the other party but ourselves from the emotional setting. It has been said that the easiest technique to minimise the impact of strong emotions is to interrupt the encounter with a short break. One way to achieve this is to suggest a coffee break. This removes negative emotions, and also provides opportunities for parties to cool down.

Where a break is not possible, some negotiators find that one of the most effective solutions is to remember the power of not reacting.⁷ William Ury inadvertently angered President Chavez on their first meeting when he was mediating between Chavez and his opposition in Venezuela. Instead of reacting, Ury waited for an hour until Chavez calmed down, before he started talking again. This time, Chavez was much more receptive to what Ury had to say. Similarly, rather than responding to the other side’s tantrums, it may be more powerful to exercise self-control and keep our focus on our objective of being in the negotiation.

Even as we are adults, we are still emotional beings. Thus, negotiating with children is a good reflection of negotiations which involve heightened feelings, difficult negotiators, or the inability to articulate the reasons behind our views. This is the last part of a series on lessons learnt from negotiating with children. I hope they has been helpful, and I wish you all the best with your future negotiations!

To make sure you don’t miss out on regular updates from the Peacemakers Blog, please like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram.

Negotiation / Skills - 10/19/2018

Lessons from Negotiating with Children: Generating Options and Finding Solutions

by Ho Ting En

In Part 1, we looked at understanding and obtaining interests of the other party to the negotiation. In this second part, we turn to the next step – generating options. This is a three-part series written based on the framework of the 7 Elements of Negotiation, which has been described in Part 1.

When we talk about option generation, we are looking at the process of brainstorming and generating variety of possibilities. At this stage, the key is to be creative and not limiting ourselves to only one idea as deciding on the option which becomes the final solution comes later. Here are 3 ways in which negotiating with children can hone our skill in this regard.

(1) Do not be fixated with the end goal:

Most parents agree that having a well-prepared plan to reach the goal is good, but not fool-proof. Children will somehow cause these plans to go awry. Sometimes, we are so focused on the end point that we want to get there in the most direct manner. However, if you have interacted with young children before, you would probably know that you are not going to reach the supermarket by driving straight to the store. The kids may be distracted; they may want a detour for ice-cream; or they might want to ride their scooters there. You will end up negotiating with your children on how to reach there, but that’s okay. The route you ultimately settle on may in fact be the best route for bringing everyone happily to the store.

In the same vein, we should be well-prepared for a negotiation but be mindful not to restrict ourselves to only one fixed option in reaching the goal. For example, I may have received defective goods from a supplier. Instinctively, I may directly demand for compensation, which after all, seems like the fastest option. However, if I take a step back rather than being fixated on wanting to settle the matter, I might see other options, such as requesting the supplier to undertake rectification of the defects. I could also ask for a replacement batch. Perhaps, I can keep the goods which are satisfactory and return the defective ones to the supplier. After all, my end goal and interest is to end up with goods that are of good quality.

By being open to the possibilities, we may just end up discovering a new route and/or inventing an option which we would not have seen if our eyes were fixated on the end goal. Having more options also means more chances of finding a solution which meets both parties’ interests.

(2) Invite the other party into generating options:

Imagine a child who wants to use the iPad. Rather than taking it away, you can discuss with the child on what she is using the iPad for and when she wants to use it. This can lead to the child coming up with a list of “things to do” before she can use the device. When the child participates in this decision-making, she is more likely to feel involved and be invested in the solution.

Similarly, in a negotiation, it is not as effective if parties arrive at an agreement with only one side pushing the process. Instead, we can invite the other party in generating options with us. This increases sense of joint ownership over the ideas and may motivate us to reach an agreement more quickly. Thus, while a salesman typically throws out a few options, and the customer chooses one, it may be better if the customer is allowed to build on the solutions offered and jointly work with the salesman for improved options⁸.

(3) Being flexible

Children especially like to negotiate on the amount of homework they are given, or the work they have to finish in class. Sometimes, I give them different options. Do they want to finish 2 sheets of questions during lesson and take 2 sheets home? Or do they want to finish all 4 at home? Or do they want to stay back a little and finish all 4? During this discussion, the child considers different factors, such as their free time at home, the time spent waiting after class for parents to pick them up, or whether they are really tired that day or not. More often than not, we then arrive at an acceptable outcome for us both. Rather than imposing strict instructions on them all the time, I find that occasional flexibility can work well on children.

In a negotiation, we can also be flexible, for example in terms of quantity and deadlines, so long as doing so will not compromise any bottom-lines, the quality or the project itself. Say a supplier has trouble delivering just for the month of June, but will be able to make up for the shortfall in quantity in July. In such a situation, the buyer can consider being flexible and agree to an option of delayed delivery so long as this does not affect the buyer adversely. This is especially so if the relationship between the buyer and supplier is something worth maintaining.

Through Part 1 and Part 2, we can better understand how to derive Interests and Options, which are two elements that help us in reaching an agreement. In the last part, we will look at the elements of Communication and Relationship, which are more about soft skills and interactions with people.

To make sure you don’t miss out on regular updates from the Peacemakers Blog, please like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram.

Negotiation / Skills - 10/12/2018

Lessons from Negotiating with Children: Uncovering and Meeting Interests

by Ho Ting En

Have you ever thought that talking to children is either entertaining or just a chore? Well, turns out that one of the best learning opportunities to improve our negotiating abilities comes from negotiating with children. While parenting articles and books increasingly advocate negotiation with children as a way to teach them to think critically and weigh the value of options, such practice can actually also benefit us, the adults.

Negotiations with children allow us to better handle difficult situations, as they can similarly exhibit behaviour that mirror challenging adult negotiations. In this first part of a three-part series, we will look at how negotiation with children helps us obtain interests of the other party.

This series is developed according to 7 Elements of Negotiation, as espoused in the seminal book, Getting to Yes, by Roger Fisher and William Ury. This book focuses on principled negotiation, rather than positional bargaining. The latter is a negotiation strategy where parties hold on to a position and push for it, regardless of their underlying interests. On the other hand, principled negotiation focuses on looking at the interests behind the position taken. The 7 Elements – interests, options, legitimacy, communication, relationship, alternatives and commitment – offers us a framework upon which we can carry out principled negotiation.

Today, we will be looking at interests.

Behind every position taken, there is an interest. For example, “I want a pay raise” is a position, where the underlying interest could be wanting more recognition for the work done. Sometimes, it is easy to understand someone else’s interest, especially if it is obvious or if they offer to explain. However, often, most of us do not realise that what we are insisting upon are just positions, or we may just be unwilling to share our thoughts.

Given that children start requesting for things as young as 2, negotiating with them may have actually given us constant practice in trying to reach someone’s interest without sacrificing our own. Here are 3 tips to help you with your next negotiation:

(1) Ask questions:

Asking questions to children is second-nature to us because we know that they struggle to articulate their feelings. Hence, we take the initiative to ask, “Why are you sad?”

However, the inability to articulate is just as relevant to adults, whose interests can be intangible or difficult to be described. Asking “why” helps us understand what is important to the other party. With people who do not want to disclose their interests, William Ury suggests in Getting Past No that asking “why not” could indirectly achieve the same effect. This is because people who are reluctant to share their concerns may instead be willing to critique. By getting them to comment on your approach, you obtain valuable information on what their concerns could be. Therefore, if you ask, “Why not do it this way?” and the person replies, “No! I have two jobs and I have children to take care of!”, you would have received the information you needed.

If the other side still remains silent, you can offer what you think their interests are. Children may be unwilling to divulge information, but they can nonetheless be tempted to correct someone’s misunderstanding of their interests. From personal experience of teaching young children from 3 to 8-years-old, I find that gently asking sullen children questions such as, “Are you sad because this question is too difficult?” is usually more effective than, “What happened?” The former question may prompt a child to reply that it was not because of the work but because he is hungry, while the latter may generate no response. This instinctive urge to remedy others’ misunderstandings is just as strong in adults. Try bringing their interests up and invite them to correct you. Remember however, that this approach aims to encourage responses by making proposals of your own. The intention is to trigger reaction and to acquire information, not to accuse or to force the other party to say ‘yes’.

**(2) Do not let the other party negotiate around you:**

Negotiating around someone is different from negotiating with someone. Children commonly negotiate around adults when they want their way. A child might persist in going for a sleepover at a friend’s house by protesting, “You said I shouldn’t sit around the house doing nothing!” You might have concerns about her safety since she is still young, but she may then retort, “I am old enough!” or “You allowed sister to go for a sleepover.” By ignoring your concerns, the child is exhibiting behaviour of ‘negotiating’ around the parent. In reality, the parent says, “Yes,” not because she sees value in the proposal but because she is tired of arguing.

Likewise, it is important to realise when the other negotiator is in fact working around you, rather than with you. Sometimes, we may face negotiators who belittle our alternatives, “NO way that’s going to work,” make personal insults, “Are you stupid?”, or even just flat-out refuse to cooperate by repeatedly saying, “No.” It may be useful to consider if you are given room to genuinely discuss your interests and options. Otherwise, you may risk agreeing to a proposal which does not give sufficient consideration to your interests.

(3) Do not make important decisions on the spot:

Some parents advise not making important decisions on the spot as it will be difficult to change your answer later even if you want to. Changing from “no” to “yes” may lead the child to think that what he did in the interim, such as crying, was useful. In the same vein, changing from “yes” to “no” may cause you to break a promise. To prevent both situations, tell the child honestly that you need some time to think and that you will answer by the end of the day.

This similarly applies to the negotiations where some like to play tricks by sneaking in a proposal at the close of discussions. When the other negotiator says, “So I assume warranty is included?”, refrain from saying “yes” on the spot just because of the pressure. This is because in so doing, you would have undermined a fair treatment of your interests, and changing your answer after the negotiation risks jeopardising the deal. As Ury said in Getting Past No, your worst enemy is your quick reaction. In these situations, do not be afraid to point out that you have suddenly been presented with an important proposal and that you either need more time to consider or both parties should re-open the negotiation.

This is the end of Part 1, where I have hopefully shown how negotiating with children helps us develop skills to obtain the other side’s interests while addressing our own. In the next part, we will discuss the process of generating options.

To make sure you don’t miss out on regular updates from the Peacemakers Blog, please like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram.

Negotiation / Skills - 10/05/2018

3 Ways Crisis Negotiation Skills Can Help Mediators Deal With Parties (Part 3)

by Therese Tiffany Ang

This blog post is the final of a three-part series focused on how crisis negotiation skills can be applied in the practice of mediation. For ease of reference and the convenience of readers, the links to Parts 1 and 2 are listed below:

In this entry, I would like to explore the influence techniques crisis negotiators use to disarm and redirect their parties in a relationship affirming way. By applying these techniques in mediation, mediators can help to transform conflict into collaboration, and options that previously seemed impossible can mutually be explored.

I end off the series by highlighting the importance of finding the “Black Swan” in any situation one faces. What are “Black Swans”? Don’t worry, this is something you will find out below.

Influence Techniques

The shift from being emotional or difficult to being collaborative must come from within the party himself. In trying to facilitate such a transition, influence techniques present a good indirect way of inducing change.

(1) Reinforcing movement towards resolution

The first influence technique is that of reinforcing any movement in the direction of a successful agreement – for example, a party’s cooperative behavior or a resolution of any ambivalence or opposition to an option. This subtly nudges parties to display more collaborative qualities.

There are a few ways in which one can reinforce movements towards resolution:

(a) Cheerleading/Comments of appreciation:

One way is to give clear comments of appreciation to parties for doing specific actions. For instance, in crisis negotiations, negotiators thank parties for lowering their weapons. Applying this to mediation, a mediator can thank a party for agreeing to explore an option suggested by the other side. As behaviour that is acknowledged tends to increase, doing so makes it more likely that the party thanked will start exhibiting more cooperative behaviour.

(b) Nominalising actions into qualities:

Nominalising the actions of a party into permanent qualities entails a strategic manipulation of language where the mediator changes the verb describing the action into an adjective describing an inherent character trait within the party himself.

For example, where an emotional party has calmed down significantly during the course of the mediation, the mediator can say, “I appreciate how thoughtful and deliberative a person you are. You are a calm person who really thinks things through.” This suggests that the rational behaviour is a characteristic of the person that can be expected throughout the mediation.

(2) Calibrated questions

Interest-based problem solving involves coaxing, not overcoming; collaboration, not defeating. Mutual agreements are more likely to be reached if parties are involved in the problem-solving process and come up with the solutions themselves.

In crisis negotiations, negotiators achieve this by using calibrated questions to involve their parties: “How can I help to make this better for us?”, or “How am I supposed to do that?”. In adapting such questions to the mediation context where the focus is on how the parties can help each other meet each other’s interests, one possible question mediators can ask could be: “What can [Party B] do to help you achieve [Party A’s interest]?”.

Through asking these questions, the mediator implicitly asks the party for help, triggering goodwill and reducing defensiveness. More importantly, this gives that party an illusion of control, prompting him to use his mental and emotional resources to think about the possible challenges and obstacles his counterparty might be facing and coming up with possible options that might overcome them. In this sense, the mediator helps to subconsciously educate the party on what the problem between he and his counterparty might be, without creating more conflict.

Finding the “Black Swan”

Before, crisis negotiators assumed that hostage-takers would not kill hostages on deadlines because they were needed alive as bargaining chips, until William Griffin became the first actor in US history to prove this wrong.⁹ Today, many believe that even the most idealistic actors have underlying interests that can be negotiated with, but ISIS has encouraged its terrorists to take hostages not for the sake of negotiating any demands, but for the sole purpose of killing them.¹⁰

Every negotiation and mediation is a new experience, with new realities. We must let what we know guide us, but not blind us to other possible outcomes. In every dispute, there are likely to be pieces of information that, if discovered, would change everything. Voss, a former FBI hostage negotiator, refers to these pieces of information as “Black Swans”. For instance, in Griffin’s case, Griffin had no orthodox demands typical of most hostage-takers, and his note to the police included a line saying, “… after the police take my life …”.¹¹ Because these facts were not uncovered, the negotiators failed to see this novel situation for what it was: that for the first time, they were facing a hostage-taker who did not need his hostages alive to negotiate for things like money or transport. They were facing a hostage-taker who wanted to be killed.

“Black Swans” certainly also exist in mediation. To uncover them, mediators must always challenge their assumptions, put them out on the table, and listen to the response of the party in question. For example, when a party refuses to agree to a solution that appears to be in his interests, one may assume that he is merely being irrational or difficult to please. But it may actually be that that party is simply ill-informed, constrained by promises already made, or has hidden interests (emotional, substantive or otherwise) that have not been addressed. A mediator must not let his assumptions shut him off to these possibilities. Rather, one must always strive to uncover the “Black Swans” hidden from plain sight in order to ensure effective facilitation of the problem-solving process.

Conclusion

Most mediations will likely never be conducted in life-threatening crisis situations. But by incorporating the skills explored in this series into one’s skillset, mediators can become better at connecting with and managing the emotions of parties in a way that positively influences them into behaving more collaboratively.

I hope that this series has provided a useful introduction for the exploration of crisis negotiation skills and that readers might take the time to practice the skills learnt. Have fun, and good luck!

Therese is a graduate student from the National University of Singapore’s Faculty of Law. During her time as an undergraduate, she studied both Mediation and Negotiation as elective modules and trained youth in peer mediation at the Peacemakers Conference.

To make sure you don’t miss out on regular updates from the Peacemakers Blog, please like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram.

Mediation / Mediators / Skills - 08/08/2018

3 Ways Crisis Negotiation Skills Can Help Mediators Deal With Parties (Part 2)

by Therese Tiffany Ang

This blog post is the second of a three-part series focused on how crisis negotiation skills can be applied in the practice of mediation. For ease of reference and the convenience of readers, Part 1 can be found here:

3 Ways Crisis Negotiation Skills Can Help Mediators Deal With Parties (Part 1)

In this entry, I would like to explore two more micro-skills of active listening – emotional labelling and summarising.

(6) Emotional labelling

It is hard to separate people from the problem when their emotions are the problem. This is why, instead of trying to remove emotions from the picture, crisis negotiators strive to identify with and understand the feelings of their parties. In doing so, the aim is to increase their influence over those parties and guide them towards more collaborative problem-solving behaviour.

One active listening micro-skill that crisis negotiators rely on in this aspect is that of emotional labelling. This skill is an additive empathetic response that validates someone’s emotions by identifying and acknowledging those feelings, rather than judging or minimising them.

There are two steps to emotional labelling -

(a) Detecting feelings: A lot of information can be gleaned from a person’s words, tone and body language. Crisis negotiators detect a party’s feelings by paying close attention to any changes these three areas undergo when that party responds to external events. For instance, if a party’s voice goes flat when a colleague is mentioned, there could be some animosity between those two.

(b) Labelling: Labels generally start with “it seems/sounds like …” instead of “I’m hearing that …”. The latter puts people’s guards up as it suggests that the asker is more interested in himself and is superimposing his impressions on them. It also makes the asker take personal responsibility for the words used and any offence they might cause. Conversely, when phrased as a neutral statement of understanding, an emotional label encourages a party to be responsive and elaborate on his feelings. Even if he disagrees with the label, the asker can distance himself from it by saying, “I didn’t say that was what it was, I just said it seemed like that”.

By giving emotions a name, the mediator shows that he empathises with how the party feels. This operates as a shortcut to intimacy - it establishes an emotional connection between the mediator and the party without the former having to agree with the validity of those feelings. Additionally, if the party’s negative emotions are running high, exposing those feelings to “broad daylight” defuses them as it makes them less frightening. When people engage in the task of labelling their emotions, the raw intensity of those emotions is lessened, and this helps to bring back a degree of calmness and rationality into the mediation.

If used well, emotional labelling enables a mediator to influence the party to become more collaborative and trusting. Labelling a negative feeling and replacing it with polite, solution-based thoughts induces the party to appreciate that the mediator understands what he is feeling and is making efforts to empathise with him. Indeed, such displays of tactical empathy have helped veteran police talk angry, violent people out of fights or get them to put down their weapons. By empathising with the parties involved, these police know that they can use those negative emotions as a platform to influence people to become more cooperative.

(7) Summarising

Summarising is a combination of paraphrasing and labelling - it is rearticulating the meaning of what was said and the emotions underlying those meanings. Through this, the party will know that he has truly been heard and understood by the negotiator, fortifying the rapport and trust that has been built throughout the entire process

The ultimate goal of using all the micro-skills discussed above and in Part 1 is to get the party to say, “That’s right”. In crisis negotiations, this has been observed to mark a crucial point in the negotiation where the party feels heard and acknowledged, showing that a connection has been established between him and the negotiator. This is when the negotiator gains the party’s “permission” to persuade him, opening the door to previously impossible solutions. The more a person feels understood and is positively affirmed in that understanding, the more his urge for collaborative behaviour takes hold. This is because sometimes, underneath all of the substantive demands and positions, people actually just want their feelings to be understood.

Jeffrey Schilling’s case is an illustrative example. Schilling was a 24-year old American who had been taken hostage after travelling near the base of the Abu Sayyaf in 2000. Sabaya, the rebel leader, demanded US$10 million in war damages for the oppression Muslim Filipinos had went through. No matter how negotiators tried to reason that Schilling had nothing to do with the war damages, Sabaya refused to listen. Then the negotiators changed their approach – they empathised with the group’s predicament, used mirroring, encouraging, and labelling to soften Sabaya up and begin shifting his perspective and finally, summarised his story and emotions. Sabaya was silent, and then he spoke, “that’s right.” From then on, the war damages demand disappeared, and Schilling ultimately escaped from the camp and was rescued by Philippine commandoes. ¹²

This concludes Part 2 of the series, and I hope that what we have explored thus far will prove helpful in helping you build rapport and trust with parties. In Part 3, I will be concluding the series by looking at some influence techniques crisis negotiators have used to help them disarm and redirect parties in a relationship-affirming way such that conflict is transformed into collaboration.

To make sure you don’t miss out on regular updates from the Peacemakers Blog, please like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram.

Mediation / Mediators / Skills - 08/03/2018

3 Ways Crisis Negotiation Skills Can Help Mediators Deal With Parties (Part 1)

by Therese Tiffany Ang

A meeting over the direction of a startup is going badly. A team member refuses to buy into the vision that the management has crafted, and it seems that the dispute will not be resolved. Just then, the CEO steps in. In a shift that seems almost magical, the member comes around and fully supports the new vision. I ask the CEO what he did, and he replies, “It’s something I read about in a book by an FBI hostage negotiator.” ¹³

Many of us have struggled to deal with difficult or emotional parties when trying to resolve disputes. When I read the above excerpt for the first time, it struck me that there was something that could be learnt from how crisis negotiators deal with their parties in high-stress situations. Crisis negotiations typically involve situations where parties are driven by heightened negative emotions (like anger and fear) at the detriment of rational thinking. Rather than aiming to separate people from their emotions, crisis negotiators place an emphasis on using skills that not only elicit the verbalisation of interests, but that manage and mould parties’ emotions in order to guide them towards collaborative problem-solving behaviour. Using this approach, many peaceful resolutions have been reached with hostage-takers, barricaded subjects and with those involved in suicide attempts.

This series of blog posts aims to see how crisis negotiation skills can be applied in the practice of mediation, and more specifically, how such skills can be applied to help mediators better deal with emotional or difficult parties in mediation.

As in the traditional interest-based approach, crisis negotiators typically begin by identifying a party’s interests by building rapport and trust. This first entry focuses on one commonly used technique – active listening.

What is Active Listening?

Active listening is listening and responding to a person’s feelings in a manner that shows genuine concern and empathy. In mediation, this skill is helpful in two ways:

(1) Informative: The mediator can collect vital information about the party’s interests and strategies.

(2) Affective: The mediator’s demonstration of empathy helps to defuse any negative emotions the party might have. It also builds rapport and trust so that the mediator can subsequently influence a collaborative behavioural change in that party.

Micro-skills Used in Active Listening

In order to optimally benefit from the informative and affective effects of active listening, negotiators use a large variety of micro-skills. We will explore five of them in this entry.

(1) Open-ended questions/statements

Open-ended questions and statements can be used to clarify information and to help mediators demonstrate to the parties that attention is being paid to them and their feelings.

A good open-ended statement is non-judgmental and shows interest in the party’s story. Questions like, “Sounds like you had a rough time. Can you tell me your side of the story?” are more likely to build rapport between the mediator and the party so that the former can gain more information about the latter’s interests and concerns, which are crucial for facilitating collaborative problem-solving. In contrast, factual questions like, “Did you really supply a defective good?”, typically diminish rapport significantly and tend to only result in unhelpful “yes/no” answers.

(2) Effective pauses

Silence can be extremely helpful if used strategically. For instance, if used after an open-ended question, an effective pause allows the party to collect his thoughts and encourage sharing. As crisis negotiators have found, this is particularly important when parties are overwhelmed with emotions. This is because people in such circumstances tend to have more to say, but need a longer time to process their thoughts.

Effective pauses can also be used after an emotional outburst to defuse heightened feelings of anger, hurt and frustration. When utilised strategically, such pauses can sometimes be more helpful than direct intervention because they give parties the space to ventilate their emotions. Eventually, like a swamp being cleared out, even the most emotional people can be calmed down.

(3) Minimal encouragers

Brief, well-timed encouragers like “and” and “yes” indicate that the mediator is paying full attention to the party and wants to know more. They help create room for explanation without forcing parties to close-up to defend their position.

(4) Mirroring

Mirroring is a sign that people are in sync and developing the kind of rapport that leads to trust. Crisis negotiators focus on mirroring the last few words said by party. This has proven to be effective in facilitating bonding and in getting parties to keep sharing information, because it triggers their instinct to sustain the process of connecting by elaborating on what they just said.

(5) Paraphrasing

While mirroring is effective, using it too often may give a party the impression that the mediator is merely parroting his concerns. To prevent this, another technique that mediators can use is paraphrasing, whereby the mediator uses his own words to repeat what the party said.

Paraphrasing goes one step further from showing that one is listening – it demonstrates that an active effort is being made to understand and connect.

This brings us to the end of Part 1 of the series. I trust that it has given you some food for thought. In Part 2, I will further look at two other essential micro-skills of active listening – emotional labelling and summarising.

To make sure you don’t miss out on regular updates from the Peacemakers Blog, please like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram.

Mediation / Mediators / Skills - 07/14/2018

What Street Fighting Can Teach Mediators

On 17 April 2018, Marcus Lim published a blog post on the Kluwer Mediation Blog entitled “What Street Fighting can Teach Mediators”. His blog post is reproduced in full below.

Today I want to talk about why mediators should care about EVO Moment #37.

For those of you new to the eSports (“electronic sports”) scene, there is an annual tournament, the Evolution Championship Series (“EVO”), that focuses exclusively on fighting games. Such games typically have players battle each other with unique characters, with the first player able to deplete the opposing character’s health bar being declared the winner for that round. Inspired you might say, by humanity’s historical fascination with arena entertainment.

EVO Moment #37 is the name of a video clip that refers very specifically to one such fight between two legends in the field of Street Fighter, Daigo Umehara (Japan) and Justin Wong (USA), that took place during the semi-finals of EVO 2004, almost 14 years ago.

Deviating slightly from the usual trend of just reading a blot post, I’d like to invite you, the reader, to take just about 1 minute of your time to watch the clip in question. I would advise you to watch with your volume tuned up to not more than 50%, since there is a deafening roar from the crowd towards the end.

But before you do – here’s some quick context for readers who have no interaction whatsoever with fighting games.

This is a screenshot of the first few seconds. There is a picture-in-picture of the actual players and venue, although you can ignore that for the most part of the clip.

There are a couple of important elements on-screen that newcomers should take note of:

First, keep in mind that Daigo plays Ken, the character on the left of the screen while Justin plays Chun-Li, on the right.
There are two small “V”s under each of the health bars, indicating that each player has won 1 round already for this match, which is set as a best-of-3. Thus, whoever wins this round, will take the match.
On either side of the huge number “47” (the countdown timer) are two long bars that stretch to the end of the screen. These are each character’s health bars. The first character to have his or her health bar deplete completely loses the round.
You will see that Chun-Li has a significantly longer yellow portion of her bar than Ken’s, which means she has almost close to 100% of her health remaining, while Ken is close to being knocked-out.
Basically Daigo (Ken) is in a terribly disadvantageous position. All Justin (Chun-Li) needs to do, is land a few more hits and even if Daigo tries to ‘block’ all of them, he will still take some damage, likely knocking him out.

Now off you go, here’s the link to the YouTube video of the clip. I’ll wait.

Done? Awesome wasn’t it? Oh, you’re not sure what happened? Didn’t we establish Daigo was likely to lose, how did he avoid getting hit for so long?

You see, in this version of Street Fighter, there is a special game mechanic called ‘parry’, that allows any character to negate all damage from an incoming attack, only if the defending player hits either the ‘forward’ (for high and middle attacks) or ‘down’ (for low attacks) command input on their joystick at the exact moment of impact.

That’s right – not only are there two types of parry commands, you have to time it just right as well with no margin for error. In addition, the flurry of moves that you saw Justin (Chun-Li) pull off at the end is known as a “Super Art”, a long string of multiple attacks with varying height that is executed in an instance. Failing to block or parry the first attack means you will automatically be hit by the remainder of the 10+ attacks in the Super Art.

With this new knowledge in-hand, you might want to take another look at the clip – this time, with an even deeper appreciation for why the crowd went wild the way it did, watching live a first-hand display of amazing split-second reaction and timing.

Whew – that was a lot of work just for a 14-year old clip. Hopefully you found it entertaining and insightful (if you never knew about the intricacies of fighting games before) but hang on, how is this relevant to mediation again?

3 Moves made by Masterful Mediators & Street Fighters

With Ready Player One hitting the screens recently, I was hit by a huge wave of nostalgia and then I came across EVO Moment #37, a clip that I had watched umpteenth times in the past.

As I read more about the iconic moment, I realised that what looked like a display of impromptu reaction was actually just the natural conclusion of hours upon hours of preparation work.

You see, Daigo knew that there was a strong chance going into the tournament in 2004 that he would have to fight at least one or more players using Chun-Li. He also knew that his character, Ken, would be at a disadvantage trading blows with Chun-Li, whose attacks were faster and had a longer reach. So Daigo invested hours into his preparation to ensure that he would be able to parry Chun-Li’s Super Art, should he find himself needing to do so.

This then, is the first move – preparation.

Whenever I observe my mentor and friend, Professor Joel Lee, teach or train mediation at the National University of Singapore, or in his capacity as an Affiliate Partner with CMPartners, I will always remember his emphasis on preparation. Good preparation is about knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses; where likely points of conflict will arise and how we plan ahead what moves we will make to deal with them.

The second move is framing.

It would not do Daigo much good being able to parry Chun-Li’s Super Art, if she never used it in a position that would win him the round. Remember I mentioned before that Daigo and Justin had already won one round each? It is actually worthwhile going back to watch those two rounds in detail, or read about it here. Daigo was only able to pull off his magnificent counter-attack because he had already primed Justin over the two earlier rounds into specific reactions. In this case, Daigo wanted to set a strong frame that whenever Justin thought he was in a stronger position, Justin should take the initiative. This is not strictly speaking the most sensible move for Justin since his health advantage allows him to wait out the timer and win on a timeout.

Likewise, as mediators, a lot of our best moves are made well in advance, when we frame issues and concerns well. As Joel likes to say, an ounce of framing is worth a pound of re-framing (I think that’s right, I grew up using the metric system but using grams and kilograms doesn’t have quite the same poetic effect). As mediators, if we want parties to get comfortable saying yes to the bigger issues, then we should start working on getting them agreeing on smaller ones. On this note, we often refer to the agenda as the parties’ first agreement and this has a lot more meaning to it than many people realise.

The third move is patience.

The problem with planning is that we never end up using them the way we planned. Often there are too many variables that get in the way and we give up our preparation for the sake of wanting to be relevant to the moment. Daigo could have abandoned his strategy at any time during the match, especially when his health dropped precariously low. I know I would if I was in his position. You can barely see Daigo’s health at all, it is a sliver of a pixel when Justin unleashes Chun-Li’s Super Art! Thankfully, Daigo did not panic and had the patience to wait it out, placing his faith in his preparation and framing.

As mediators, how often do we tell ourselves right after hearing the opening statement from the parties, “This is hopeless”? I have had co-mediators who would turn to me right after the opening statement to say, “The parties’ opening positions are too far apart; this will never settle we might as well call it off”.

We must be patient. We are brought in to help parties when they are in conflict – is it any surprise they would not be anywhere near settlement at the opening stages of a mediation? Remember our training, explore the parties’ interests, treat all responses as information and maintain curiosity. Sometimes it may seem that we are close to running out of options, just like Daigo’s health bar, but it is in that precise moment that we may find the right opportunity to get a settlement.

Preparation, framing and patience. By placing these familiar concepts in an unfamiliar light, hopefully you might derive some new insights of your own.

Here’s to each mediator having your very own EVO Moment #37.

Mediators / Skills - 05/14/2018

Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy