Page 74 - DMGT519_Conflict Management and Negotiation Skills

Conflict Management and Negotiation Skills

Notes In military orders are not subject to negotiation; in sports the referee’s decision is final, through
a player does not lose the right to challenge it risking punishment.
A solution can be hit through arbitration, if negotiation fails to produce one. Arbitration may be
another alternative to negotiation wherein a third party is designated to make decisions for the
two parties, who could not agree as one. This may not work always.

Because of its nature arbitration is also unpopular among the negotiators, as it requires the
parties concerned to handover their powers in the hand of a neutral party and hence lose the
opportunity to influence the decision in their favor, and moreover the decision of the arbitrator
has to be mutually binding. Thus it has some proximity to the decision by dictatorship.
Pendulum arbitration is more common. In this the arbitrator selects one or the other party’s
final positions and is precluded from forming a compromise between them. Such a mechanism
encourages the interested parties to move closer and closer to what they think the arbitrator
may consider as a reasonable solution, thus even increasing the probability of striking a solution
without the necessity of arbitration.

The most common alternative negotiation is persuasion. If the other party can be persuaded to
accept one’s point of view. It is often the first thing we try an keep on trying throughout the
negotiation. Unfortunately, the experiences show a very pessimistic picture of the success rate of
persuasion, provoking the feeling of frustration as people in conflict can seldom be persuaded
easily.
Self Assessment

Multiple Choice Question
1. Negotiation is a process in which:
(a) two or more parties try to resolve differences.
(b) two or more parties try to avoid differences.

(c) two or more parties try to create differences.
2. In the lose-win strategy:
(a) one party is satisfied and the other dissatisfied with a negotiated settlement.

(b) one party is prepared to give concessions, and the result may go one way or the
other.
(c) both parties are dissatisfied with the negotiated result.

3. Coercive power in negotiation is based on:
(a) the control over resources desired by others.
(b) punishment, authority and use of force, whereby others are compelled to behave a
particular way.
(c) a capacity to seek information and consider the ideas of others.
4. The four elements of the principled negotiation method are:
(a) purpose, intervention, opinions and criteria.
(b) people, interactions, options and criteria.

(c) people, interests, options and criteria.

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