The debate over how to reform health care has quickly become volatile and often unproductive, with the media focusing on who brings the largest group of shouting protesters.
Professor Lawrence Susskind of the Program on Negotiation and the Consensus Building Institute outlines in his blog how to use a consensus building approach to improve the level of discourse at health care reform town hall meetings.
He suggests the following steps for congressmen and congresswomen who are about to host a town hall meeting:
- Begin by telling the audience that you’ve come to hear what they have to say, not to tell them what they ought to believe
- Select a dozen or so individuals who want to speak and give them access to a microphone, one at a time, for five minutes each
- Listen carefully, but don’t respond to what each of them has to say
- Once they have all spoken, play back the major points they raised to show that you have been listening
- Address each of the points they raised, either agreeing or disagreeing (within five minutes on each point), and explain why you hold the positions you do
- Distribute a short survey (created on the spot) to get everyone in attendance to indicate their support or opposition to each of the key points that was raised
- Announce that you will be publishing the results of the survey on your web site AND that will be commissioning an independent survey of all the residents of your district to see whether the views expressed at the town hall meeting are representative of your full constituency
If your goal is to hear what people have to say, this is how to proceed. If your goal is to convince people that they ought to believe as you do, a town hall meeting is an inappropriate format. Your need to put a written statement together (with appropriate data to support your arguments). If your goal is to build an informed agreement among contending interest groups in your district, you need to ask each group to select a spokesperson and invite those individuals, with the help of a mediator, to sort through their difference and see if they can negotiate a written agreement.
To read the entire blog entry, visit Prof. Susskind’s blog by clicking here.
Charles Dickerson /
These points are good, but when people have as their intent the sole objective to disrupt, the recommendations made here may not give the legislatures much traction.
Matthew Harrington /
If I could share with readers some ideas from our Negotiation Skills training that we offer. Hopefully it may help? First, we need to understand the concept of “shadow negotiation.” Shadow negotiation is the type of interpersonal communication and power plays that go on in the “shadows” or behind-the-scenes, which determine the amount of give-and-take there will be in the negotiation. For example, a co-worker who has done you a favor in the past might be expecting a return favor in the current negotiation without anything being said. It’s important when dealing with shadow negotiation to surface the rules and expectations being used in the shadows such as the expectation that compromise between two co-workers will be expected. Remember that a slight change in your position, such as surfacing what’s in the shadows, will create a dynamic shift in the negotiation. The question to be asked here is: what do each of us have in our minds that we need to surface before we begin negotiating? Negotiation is always about two things: substance (what people have to say about the issue) and the relationship (balancing the terms in the relationship such as equality and subordination). It’s important to realize that reaching resolution in the substance portion of the negotiation does not necessarily mean there is resolution in the relationship portion. Fisher and Ury in Getting To Yes, suggest “It is important to carry on negotiation in a way that will help rather than hinder future relations. The ongoing relationship is far more important than the outcome of a particular negotiation.” With this in mind, we should focus on what’s called integrative negotiation rather than distributive negotiation. Integrative negotiation focuses on “expanding the pie,” allowing for trade-offs and exploring issues from multiple angles – what we might call a win-win approach. Distributive negotiation is a win-lose approach which focuses on personal gain and ultimately can destroy the relationship. So let’s imagine we’re going into a negotiation. The first thing we need to determine is our BATNA: Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement. In other words, we must identify our bottom line and know exactly how far we’re willing to go in the negotiation. Our BATNA stays in our hip pocket and is not shared in the negotiation. Secondly, we need to be clear about what the other party wants from you. See if there are common goals between you and know what concessions you’re willing to make before you start. There is an expression - “come on like velvet” – which is very apt in negotiation. How you open the discussion and present yourself is critical. You want to exert control over the process by establishing the goals and ground rules, including the criteria that will determine that the negotiation is successful (remember to include both substance and relationship criteria). During this time, look to see if the other person is being open and direct, and if not, surface with a question (I sense that you have a concern that you’re not sharing. Is this accurate or are my feelings unfounded?). Throughout the negotiation, talk less and listen more. Try to trade what is “cheap” for you but valuable for the other person. If the negotiation is taking time and the other party starts to suggest a quick resolution that you don’t like, just wince and wait. The first person who talks after the wince will typically be the one who gives in. People generally will give more to people they like. So, it’s important to be likeable during the negotiation. That will happen if you practice “blending or mirroring” with the other person visually, verbally and conceptually. Blending reduces the differences between us, as we do this naturally with people we like. Just make sure that it’s not so obvious that the other person begins to notice; only do behaviors that would naturally occur if you were getting along. If the other person is good at pushing your buttons, interrupt and name the button being pushed. “When you suggest that I don’t care, it is not accurate. I care a great deal that both of our needs are heard.” Finally, if you’ve reach an impasse in the negotiation, try to figure out what criteria is causing the snag. Return to any previous agreements that have been made and try to expand the pie. Sometimes it’s good to remind each other of the impact on the relationship if agreement can’t be reached. If all that doesn’t work, take it off the table and ask for a time-out. Better to live to negotiate another day than destroy the relationship.