The Art of Negotiation: Crisis Management - Example

The art of negotiation: Crisis management Name Course Tutor Date Introduction Negotiation is the art of trying to influence people who have disagreed over certain issues so that they can come to a consensus and work together as a team. It is one of the ways of solving conflicts amicably to achieve collaborative goals by the two or more parties who have been in conflicts. In simple it is a dialogue between two or more parties intended to reach an understanding to resolve the point of difference amongst themselves to come up with agreement upon the courses of action. In this process, each party in the negotiation tries to gain advantage for themselves at the end of the process (Nierenberg, 1995, pg 14). In our daily lives, negotiation is done in governments, business organizations, legal proceedings, marriage process, among nations etc. Therefore, it is a common process that is used to end a misunderstanding. From this definition we can deduce that negation process comes in when there is a crisis. A crisis can be defined simply as a demanding situation that needs some urgency to return the conditions or situation back to normal. In other word, it is any event that is likely to lead to unstable and dangerous situation. Such an event is expected to be taken care of by the stakeholders so that it returns to normal without causing more harm and leading to more unstable situation to the community or organization. The process of controlling a dangerous situation that seems to be leading to dangerous unstable situation is what is called crisis management. In broader terms, we can define crisis management as a process that aims to identify the potential impacts that threatens an organization. This process tends to provide a framework for building stableness with the potential for effective responses that cushion the interests of the stakeholders not to suffer more harm. Modern society tends to encounter crisis in every aspect of life, and one of the ways that is commonly used to manage a crisis is negotiation process. We have seen that this process is used in governmental braches, business organizations, and family units to resolve conflicts amongst the competing parties. For example when the workers of a certain organization disagree with the employer this can be termed to be a crisis. Such a crisis can only be solved through negotiation. Elements and strategies of negotiation For the negotiation process to take place, several elements must exist. First, there must be two or more parties; these parties should be existing in one system (Shell, 2006, pg 23). The system should have common goal and policies. Secondly, the two parties must be prepared to reach on an agreement. The main purpose of the holding negotiation process is resolve conflict among the parties. Therefore, once the parties accept to be involved in a negotiation process, it means that they should be ready to reach to an agreement with competing parties. The third element of negotiation is that there must be some interests in common and some conflicting interests to resolve (Shell, 2006, pg 23). The parties involved in the negotiation process often are competing parties and either feels that its rights have been violated and it needs the other party to adjust to accommodate each other. Thus, at the end of the negotiation process, some issues that are bringing misunderstandings must be solved so that the parties can work together as a team or comfortably. The last element of negotiation process is that the parties involved must have freedom to meet each other’s needs (Dolan, 2006, pg 98). This means that that when the parties agree to hold a negotiation process to resolve a stalemate, it should be ready to adjust its stand so that the opponent party can share with it some privileges. The aim of holding a negotiation process is to reach at a consensus and for this to happen, the parties in conflicts should be ready to drop their principles to meet at a common ground with each other to strike a deal that would fair to all. The negotiation process has got different strategies the parties can choose one or more than one strategy that suit their case. Negotiation process tends to compare to mediation and arbitration (Shell, 2006, pg 76). . A neutral party is chosen; this neutral party listens to each side’s arguments and tries to help to come up with an agreement between the warring parties. The negotiator has several strategies he can use to make the negotiation process to be successful. One of the strategies of negotiation is distributive negotiation (Shell, 2006, pg 77). This is often called hard bargaining or positional negotiation. In this strategy, each party holds its demands firmly so that to force the other party to accept its stand. The term distributive means that there is a finite amount of the thing that is distributed or divided among the parties involved. Distributive negotiation is sometime called win-lose because one party will either win or lose. The second kind of negotiation is called integrative negotiation. It is sometime known as interests’ negotiation which aims at improving the quality of negotiated agreement through providing alternative to distributive strategy (Nierenberg, 1995, pg 54). Whereas the distributive negotiation seeks to have a fixed a mount of value to be divided between the parties, the integrative negotiation tend to create value, equity and fairness in the negotiation. This kind of negotiation much focuses on the interests of the parties other than the starting positions of each party. Integrative negotiation needs higher degree of trust and forming of relationships (Dolan, 2006, pg 102). Sometimes, it can involve creative problem solving that aims to attain mutual gains among the parties. Negotiation styles A part from the negotiation strategies, we also have negotiation styles. These styles are used by the parties to manipulate the opponents so that they may reach at a consensus. Some of these negotiation styles include; accommodation. (Nierenberg, 1995, pg 71). In this style, one party enjoys solving another party’s problems and preserving personal relation. The accommodators are said to be sensitive to the feelings of the other parties. The second style is avoiding, these is where one party decides to avoid the negotiation process because he thinks that when involved, some of his privileges would be lost. Thirdly, we have collaborating; these are parties who enjoy negotiation that involve solving tough issues in a more creative manner. They use the negotiation process to understand the concern and interests of others (Shell, 2006, pg 23). e also have competing as a style of negotiating. This is where one party enjoys the negotiation because they would have an opportunity to gain something. Lastly, we have compromising style where parties who are eager to close a deal are ready to treat other parties fairly and equally. Such kinds of parties are important especially when there is limited time to seal a deal. Types of negotiators In the negotiation process, we often have three kinds of negotiators. First we have soft negotiators. These people see the situation and know that it is too close to competition, thus when it act arrogantly, it can loose everything (Shell, 2006, pg 23). Therefore, a soft negotiator chooses to take a humble approach and a gentle style of negotiating. The offers they make are not always of their best interests but they yield to other parties demands. The second kind of negotiator is hard negotiator (Dolan, 2006, pg 53). This kind of parties tends to use contentious strategies to influence the other party to yield to their demands. This people majorly focus of problem rather than the intention, motives and the needs of the people involved. The third type of negotiator is called the principled negotiator. Such individuals seek integrative solutions in their bargaining. They concentrate on the problem leaving motives and the needs of other parties. They always base their objectives on criteria other than power or duress. Elements of a crisis situation that needs negotiation There are three elements that must exist for a situation to be termed as a crisis. First, the unstable situation must be a threat to the organization in that when left unattended to, it can lead to the collapse the organization (Gottschalk, 2002, pg9) Secondly, the situation should be of surprise. This means that the situation should come unexpectedly hence finding the stakeholders unprepared. Then the last element is that a crisis is a situation that need a short decision making time. Since it is unstable situation, fast decision making is always required. Crisis management is related to risk management. Risk management is the assessment of the potential; threats and finding the better ways to avoid these threats, whereas crisis management is dealing with the threats before during and after the crisis has occurred. Crisis management is one of the new terms in management. Most of the successful modern organization knows very well that at one point, they would have to face a crisis. The management of the these organization try to predict some of the crisis that would occur in future and try to put some measures that would assist in managing the crisis. We said earlier that one element of the crisis situation is that it is strikes unexpectedly. However, a keen management can be in a position to foresee a crisis tat is coming to hit the organization in advance and prepares for by adopting some ways to avoid the crisis and putting some precautions so that when in occurs it can not be so severe. Typically, proactive crisis management activities involve forecasting the likely crisis and planning on how to deal with such risks (Gottschalk, 2002, pg22) For example when an organization is likely to suffer from financial crisis, the management should plan where to source funds to support it before the situation is back to normal. It is advisable that organizations need to have enough time and resources to complete the crisis management plan before the crisis strikes. Organizations that have a prior plan of managing the crisis tend to recover faster as compared to organizations that are found unprepared. In planning for crisis management, the management should evaluate the organization’s philosophy, strategies and policies. These three elements should be considered to maintain the organization’s image and also ensuring that the organization does not loose its focused goals. These Actions should be taken to try and minimize the damage in case the crisis would occur. Requirements for an effective crisis management team In the management of the crisis, there are about six information and management capabilities that are crucial during the crisis. The first capability is the ability to quickly gain the awareness of the scope and the nature of the crisis (Oracle.com, 2012,Pg3). When a crisis situation is being encountered by the organization, the management team should have a variety of information sources to enable it to determine the nature and the scope of the crisis. Some of the sources include the phone calls, emails to various respondents, news media and many more. To increase the in-depth understanding of the diversity of the crisis, the crisis management team need this diverse sources of information so that they it may have enough information to base on their decisions to manage the situation. Secondly, the ability to gather the necessary information to responds to the crisis. The crisis management agencies must be in a position to know exactly how it would get the information that could assist in managing a given crisis (Luecke, 2004, pg 24). Information such as the safety precaution set, the duration of the crisis and the expected costs of the alternative ways to reduce the damages. Efficient and successful collection of the necessary information often helps the agencies to avoid misinforming the people and also assist in eliminating the rumors that always emerge during the time of the crisis. The third capability the crisis agency management team should have is the ability to quickly deliver relevant information to other agency staff members (Oracle.com, 2012,Pg4). After gathering the necessary information, the agencies should not sit on the information but disseminating the information to all stakeholders so that they can play their part in rescuing the situation. Several ways can be used to distribute information to other parties within the organization. They include using the text messages, emails, automated voices and posters (Oracle.com, 2012, Pg4). When the team uses multiple channels of communication to other people within the organization to distribute the important information, the crisis respond is not hindered by the failure of the any individual channel. Moreover on the information dissemination, the team should also be in a position to quickly deliver relevant information to the general public the media and other agencies that are present (Goel, 2009, pg 12). When a crisis occurs, the agency team should be able to deliver the necessary information to various centers where it is needed. For example when there is strike and demonstration by the workers in an organization that is violent, the management should do all the means to inform the police sector as fast as possible and come to assist in contain the situation. Therefore, the ability to use multiple channels of communication is quite essential in saving some situation that would have brought more harm to the organization. Another thing that the management agencies should have is the ability to quickly respond to the ongoing changes in the crisis over time (Oracle.com, 2012, Pg4). The team should only gather information once and disseminate it and sit there quietly. It should continue gathering information in every change that takes place and deliver this information to the relevant parties for actions to be taken. For a crisis situation to be contained, there should a continuous communication among the stakeholders to share the knowledge and skills on how to deal with certain conditions. Challenges in negotiation when managing a crisis Some of the common challenges faced by the negotiation team managing the crisis include inadequacy of the modern communication tools. Communication technology tools such as phones, computers, radio and many more are very much important when a crisis strikes (Redy et al,2008,pg 5). Sometimes when a crisis strikes, these tools tend to undergo breakdown due to the damages done n the infrastructure. For example when there is a bomb blast, the communication lines such as land lines, satellites tend to be destabilized. Such a situation brings a lot of confusion and dilemmas because the communication lines that are relied upon are not in use. This becomes a challenge when other modern communication tools have not been installed in the organization. The second challenge that is experienced during the negotiation process in managing a crisis is lack of common ground. One of the biggest coordinating crisis responses is developing and maintains mutual knowledge that all the members of the team can share (Redy et al,2008,pg 5). This challenge arises when the team is spread to other parts of the world. For example, when a crisis occurs in a multinational corporation, it becomes a challenge to the negotiation team to coordinate all the branches of the corporation in foreign nations due to some physical barriers and differences in economic policies of the countries. The two important mechanisms where the common ground is established are the experience and interaction. Therefore, where the branch management are far apart, it becomes difficult to establish a common ground in managing a given crisis that has emerged. Another challenge that is encountered in crisis management is the breakdown of the information flow. This is a challenge that often affects the inter-team coordination (Redy et al,2008,pg 5). Due to technological issues, the information flow can easily breakdown thus, the message can not reach the receiver in time from the sender of the information. This is a common challenge because during the crisis situation, every one is busy the communication tools may be inadequate hence the right and urgent information is slowed to reach the receiver. This challenge tends to slow down the process of response to the crisis. Lastly, inadequacy of the resources to facilitate the negotiation process is always a challenge to the crisis management team. In most cases, the crisis that are encountered within organizations tend to surplus the funds put a side in managing the crisis incase it occur (Redy et al,2008,pg 6). Therefore, the team managing the situation hit another crisis within a crisis inadequate finance. When the crisis is so diverse, a lot of man power ought to be deployed to contain the situation. This man power has to be deployed with money. Moreover, the equipments to use to counter the situation might be too expensive. Thus, inadequacy of both human and financial resources becomes a challenge to the crisis management team the time when the crisis strikes. Conclusion The negotiation process in managing a crisis is one of the modern methods in management that has come in place recently. A crisis is unexpected situation that hit the organization and when not control, it may make the organization to fail. We have different types of negotiations and each type has its own way of responding to it when managing it. It is advisable that the organization try to predict the crisis that are likely to occur within the organization so that necessary measures and actions are put in place so that when the situation comes, there would be less damage. During the process of crisis management, a lot of the challenges are encountered by the crisis management team. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the team to analyze the situation so that it can establish the best way to solve the situation to restore it to normal. Companies, governments and other organizations should take the precautionary measures so that when the crisis comes, they do not suffer a lot of harm. Bibliographic references Adl.org. Crisis management. The art of crisis management. Accessed on web 30th April 2013. Retrieved from http://archive.adl.org/security/crisis%20management.pdf. Boin, Arjen. (2008)./ Crisis management. Accessed on web 30th April 2013. Retrieved from http://politicsir.cass.anu.edu.au/staff/hart/pubs/46%20t%20Hart.pdf Dolan, John Patrick. (2006). Smart negotiating. McGraw-Hill Companies. USA. Goel, Suresh. (2009). Crisis management: master the skills to prevent disasters. Global India publications. India. Gottschalk, Jack. (2002). Crisis management. Wiley. USA Luecke, Richard. (2004). Harvard business essentials. Crisis management, master the skills to prevent disasters. Harvard business press. USA. Nierenberg, Gerald. (1995). The art of negotiating: Psychological strategies for gaining advantageous bargains. Barnes &Noble books. Oracle.com. (2012). Customer relationship management and crisis management: Proven emergency response strategies for the public sector. Accessed on web 30th April 2013. Retrieved from http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/crm-and-crisis- management-wp-1560491.pdf Shell, Richard. (2006). Bargaining for advantage: Negotiating strategies for reasonable people. Penguin Group US. USA. Redy, Madhu et al. (2008). Challenges of effective crisis management; Using information and communication technologies to coordinate emergency medical services and emergency department teams. Accessed on web 30-th April 2013. Retrieved from http://www.personal.psu.edu/sap246/spaul_IJMI_InPress.pdf Reid, Janine. (2000). Crisis management. Planning and media relations of the design and construction industry. Johns Wiley &Sons. USA. Samid, Gideon. Crisis management training. White paper. Accessed on web 30th April 2013. Retrieved from http://www.agsencryptions.com/bipsa_crisis_g7n28.pdf Read More