Fortunately, there are 4 steps any business can take to impement a conflict managment program.

All size companies now have more of an awareness and a willingness to manage conflict in the early stages. They recognize they can decrease the potential for conflict and litigation if they are proactive. A conflict management program would anticipate likely problems and provide a system for managing them. The goal is to build a system that enables people to “learn the art of dealing with conflict.”

Creating a conflict management program requires the following steps:

1. Assessing the existing conflict management system.
2. Designing a conflict management program that matches the needs, culture, and financial ability of your business while setting realistic targets and goals.
3. Implementing a program in a timeframe and a manner that fits the organization and its current priorities.
4. Evaluating the program by identifying and creating appropriate benchmarking within an appropriate timeline.

What can we learn from this article on Israel & Palestine about negotiation strategies? Plenty.

There are three points that the article presents that anyone would find helpful in tough negotiations.

First, the Israelis and Palestinians have decided to move backwards to communicate indirectly through a mediator. It’s a positive negotiation strategy to recognize that what you’ve been doing isn’t working and a change is needed. If in you’re negotiations you get bogged down in positions (instead of interests and concerns), and you allow the personalities to overshadow the problem, you need to explore another method of communication.

Second, both Mahmoud Abbas and Binyamin Netanyahu need to save face with their constituencies. In order to keep your negotiation arguments relevant and focused, you must be able to analyze the interests and concerns of the person you are negotiating with. You must know what problem they are relying upon you to fix in a way that makes them popular. If you don’t make your negotiating partner comfortable, you will not be able to move to a discussion on interests and concerns.

Third, the use of a mediator will hopefully move the parties back towards meaningful progress. The book Getting to Yesis primarily devoted to the idea that you should not negotiate over positions; rather, you should focus on interests and concerns. A mediator helps parties develop an acceptable procedure and benchmark for advancement that’s separate from their independent positions. by Roger Fisher and William Ury

There are 5.5 ways to negotiate against yourself, which I detail below.

Before entering a negotiation, you must be prepared to argue both sides. You have to be objective and be able to criticize your own position. Law school Professor James W. McElhaney, writes, “There is a natural burden of proof for virtually every set of circumstances you can imagine. People, hearing the story of any case, automatically test it against their attitudes, their beliefs, their life experiences. And if the facts of a case don’t mesh with people’s “inner scripts,” they either figure there is more to the story, or it didn’t happen the way you say it did. … And once they think they understand what did and didn’t happen, it’s difficult to get them to change their minds.”[1]

When you negotiate against yourself as part of your preparation, you are forced to determine what are your real interests and concerns. Therefore, follow these tips before entering the negotiations:

1. Objectively criticize your own position and analyze the weak points
2. Determine your true interests and concerns
3. Start exploring what position you want to take in the negotiations
4. Determine whether your position truly meets your interests and concerns
5. Prepare your response to any objections

     5.5 Explore other possible positions as options if your primary position isn’t successful in the negotiations.

 http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/24895/herzliya-diary/

http://www.mediate.com/articles/lutringerR1.cfm?nl=245#

In order to keep your negotiation arguments relevant and focused, you must be able to analyze the interests and concerns of the person you are negotiating with and apply your arguments to that person’s interest and concerns. This requires answering four questions: 

1. What are the things the other person wants from you?
2. What problem are they relying upon you to fix?
3. How do they think you can improve their situation?
4. What are the two or three most compelling reasons that your position addresses their interest and concerns?

If you fail to address the other person’s interest and concerns, they shall tune out, and your negotiation will most likely be unsuccessful.

http://training-time.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-workplace-conflict-can-be-positive.html

It’s conflict resolution vs. conflict management.

In my opinion, the real goal for the business owner is conflict management, not conflict resolution. A goal of eliminating, avoiding, and suppressing conflict is an unrealistic dream. Rather, the focus should be on managing the conflict and providing tools and methods for employees to effectively engage in conflict.

Conflict costs businesses an excessive amount of time, money, and energy. In order to manage the conflict, your focus should be on developing employees’ abilities and providing methodology to raise and address conflict efficiently, effectively, and respectfully.

You should be creating a Conflict Management System that focuses on three major components:

• Skills – Providing training that improves basic communication, interpersonal, and conflict management skills.
• Structure – A set of procedures that establish methods for reporting conflict, for investigating a complaint, and for discovering solutions.
• Support – The business or organization needs to provide support for the system by modeling and mentoring conflict management skills as well as following the procedures fairly and completely.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114068612

The Chanukah candles are to remind us that we are to spread light as far as we can. I recently read a suggestion from Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook that we should each look at ourselves as a living Chanukah candle capable of spreading our own inner light in the world.

Each night of Chanukah I’ll be posting one of my favorite Chanukah songs as a reminder that we each have the ability to spread our inner light and be a hero to someone else in the world.