Poking the Bear (or not!) Lessons from the Negotiator's Toolbox
A week is indeed a long time in politics.
And this week we have seen a strange series of events playing out in the Love/Hate relationship that Australia has with China. Diplomats, exporters, universities and many others are troubled and finger-pointing. The media and Twitteratti are agog with excitement about all this fresh meat.
Politicians are being defensive – insisting that the Bear is a bully needing a good poke. There does not seem to be a Plan B apart from more righteous indignation or finding an excuse to build another cubbyhouse and disappear from view for a while.
We need to learn from this – it has already been a costly mistake and may become even costlier.
What could we have done differently and better? – Negotiation strategy at work
The strategic thinking tools offered by negotiation theory are universally helpful. In this case they would have taken us down the following path:
Reflect
Make the space between what happens and what we decide to do about it. All adult learning happens in this space. It is where we learn to build an independent plan of action rather than being drawn into an unthinking reaction.
Consult
Important decisions involving a broad constituency require us to identify stakeholders and skilled advisors. Consultation with them enables us to build a three-dimensional view of the landscape and to explore multiple perspectives of what has happened and why. Never surprise your constituency – it will come back to bite you and will prove an energy-sapping distraction.
Identify options
Brainstorming all the possible options always broadens our repertoire. Doing this with stakeholders and advisors gives us access to the richest range of possibilities. This includes exploring what we might do in concert with others (and alerts us to the negotiations we may need to undertake to secure consent for this) and what we have the power and opportunity to do alone. ‘Always’ and ‘never’ (as in – ‘you always have to stand up to a bully!’) do not serve us well and actually dissuade us from exploring possibilities.
Evaluate and choose
Negotiation theory helps us to choose by evaluating possible options against our interests and underlying concerns. We can explore and accept or discard each option by investigating to what extent it might meet our interests and take us to a good outcome. We may even decide, and sometimes this is the wisest course, to do nothing at least for now – a possibility well explored in the ever useful Getting Past No.
So how do we deal with The Bear?
My analysis is that poking this Bear is feeding the behaviour we experience as bullying. It is provocative. It builds a narrative of Australian leadership as angry and threatening.
There is a better strategy available.
It has 2 elements which together involve a form of Negotiation Jujitsu. I call it the ‘more in sorrow than in anger strategy’. Following this approach we can:
Reframe the attack and
Regain the narrative
So what might it sound like?
Here’s my suggested script:
‘I am saddened to see this cartoon.
Whilst it does not depict a real event, it reminds us that something terrible has happened on our watch and we cannot hide from it.
The fact that this terrible event involved so few of our service professionals, rather than the many, is no excuse.
While I find this cartoon distasteful and I would prefer it had not been published, it is a serious reminder that countries in our region and around the world expect better from us.
We need to show the world that we are also horrified and that we have made significant decisions to punish the unforgiveable behaviour and to dismantle the culture that allowed it to happen. This is already underway.
We are committed to rebuilding our reputation for integrity and trustworthiness and we ask for the support of our neighbours in Asia and our global colleagues. With your support we can overcome this terrible event and once again be proud of who we are as a nation.’
Further Reading
This article was published on 5 December 2020 on LinkedIn.
Ury, William, Getting Past No (Random House US, 1993)
Dr Rosemary Howell is the Principal of Strategic Action a business dedicated to providing tailored Mediation, Coaching, Facilitation and Skills Development services to business, government and not-for-profit organisations.
If you would like to talk with Dr Howell about your organisation’s needs please email rosemary@strategicaction.com.au
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