Tough Love - Power, Culture and Diversity In Negotiations, Mediation & Conflict Resolution

Allan Bonner

Description

Barter with the author on the Great Wall of China, do a business deal over lunch in the Eagle's Nest in the Hong Kong Hilton and mediate among millionaire developers in the office of the longest-serving mayor in the world.

Join the author in his recounting of cases he's handled over the past twenty years including same-sex sexual harassment, oil spill simulations after the Exxon Valdez spill and on the green line with peacekeepers in Cyprus.

These entertaining case studies are recounted using proven and ethical techniques. Some cases are funny; others involve life and death. All contain valuable lessons.

Academics will benefit from the appendices which contain a glossary of terms and guidance for ethnographers. A 19 page bibliography and more than 140 endnotes will guide readers to further study.

Sujets

• Vente
• Techniques de vente
• Negotiating
• Gestion et management
• Economics
• Business
• Gestion d'équipe
• Commerce électronique
• Electronic commerce
• E-commerce
• E-Commerce
• E-Commerce
• E-Commerce
• E-commerce
• E-Commerce

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 03 novembre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781926755120
• Langue: English

Extrait

Tough Love
at the Table
 
Power, Culture and Diversity in
Negotiations, Mediation & Conflict Resolution
 
 
By Dr. Allan Bonner
 
Tough Love at the Table
 
First printing, January, 2008
 
Published by Sextant Publishing, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
 
© 2014 Dr. Allan Bonner, MA, MSC, LLM
 
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior consent of the publisher is an infringement of the copyright law and is forbidden.
 
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com
 
ISBN- 13: 978-1-9267-5512-0
 
For educational or institutional discounts or for information
about seminars and speeches, please contact:
Sextant Publishing, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada or
www.allanbonner.com
1-877-484-1667

 
 

 
Also by the author:
 
 
Doing and Saying the Right Thing:
Professional Risk and Crisis Management
 
Media Relations
 
An Ounce of Prevention
Damage Control and Crisis Response
 
Speaking, Writing and Presenting in SOCKOs ®
Strategic Overriding Communications & Knowledge Objectives
 
Political Columns
Behind the Scenes with Powerful People
INTRODUCTION
BY KEN CHAPMAN
W hen we published Allan’s second book, I wrote about our perspective on the public discussion of important issues. I said, “We concern ourselves with the design and development of effective public policy and law making in an increasingly complex world.”
 
Public policy happens in a fishbowl at high speed, so clear communication and effective management techniques are essential. Allan’s first two books allow readers to master those topics in new ways. His advocacy of hard work, research, rehearsal and thoroughness shouldn’t be unique, but it is. We’ve reviewed hundreds of articles from academic and legal journals through to high-quality magazines and business books. We just don’t find anything nearly as clear and accessible as the management and communication system Allan has invented. We’re pleased that his first two books with us are now required or recommended reading in some of the leading legal and professional schools in North America. They’re also found on the desks of senior executives in business and government.
 
Allan has now tackled negotiation and dispute resolution. He’s well qualified. For twenty years, he’s been helping his clients handle some of the most difficult issues of our times. His work with the military has ranged from the Cold War, cruise missiles, peacekeeping and both Gulf Wars through to the post 9/11 world. H e’s worked both with diplomats and with UN delegations on the European Union, G8 meetings, Aboriginal land-claims and free trade negotiations. In the private sector the issues have included mergers and acquisitions, the downsizing of thousands of work ers, strikes, sabotage, sexual harassment and major criminal acts. In oil, gas, chemicals and mining, Allan has conducted major simulations and written crisis plans to keep people and the environment safer.
 
Allan has had success coaching mediators in small claims court and in disputes worth hundreds of millions of dollars in front of the US Justice Department and retired Supreme Court Judges. He’s worked on some of the largest and most difficult lawsuits of the last two decades and on some of the most intellectually challenging issues— the Harvard Mouse case, patent protection and other intellectual property matters.
 
The title Tough Love at the Table reflects Allan’s clear and powerful thinking about negotiation and dispute resolution. He’s still advocating hard work and research in the development of an I Quit position before negotiations begin. He’s tough on organizations that don’t have policies and procedures in place that would prevent disputes. You’ll read how he was tough on the CEOs who wanted research instead of action or meetings with powerful politicians instead of clear communication with workers and neighbours.
 
But Allan is also creative. You’ll read his new perspective on distributive bargaining and how to satisfy two dozen people in a two-party negotiation. You’ll chuckle when you read about his work with the world’s longest-serving and most colourful mayor. In these pages, you’ll negotiate on the Great Wall of China, dine in Hong Kong’s Eagle’s Nest, try to catch a spy in a bar and walk the Green Line with peacekeepers—as Allan has done.
 
All these principles and stories are valuable and a good read. What also comes through is how much fun Allan is still having in his varied practice on five continents.
 
At Sextant Publishing, and at our parent company Cambridge Strategies, we’ve always hoped the books we publish influence the public discussion on important issues. We want to challenge the thinking of senior executives, politicians and administrators. Allan’s books have received high praise in national newspapers and magazines. He’s been interviewed on CNBC Europe, BBC Radio, CBC TV, NBC Nightly News, National Public Radio, CBC Radio’s Ideas, New York 1, Radio New Zealand, BBC.uk, Global TV, L’Agence France Presse and PBS.
 
Distinguished reviewers have lent their names to the covers of Allan’s books. You can see a partial list in these pages. We were especially happy to receive gracious letters from President Bill Clinton and US Under Secretary of State Nicholas N. Burns. Their comments are about the book Political Columns , which will be updated after the next election. I decided to include the short chapters on President Clinton and Under Secretary Burns in this book. Their theme is consistent with the value of hard work and rehearsal.
 
K.J. (Ken) Chapman
 
Cambridge Strategies
PREFACE
F or some time I’ve been wanting to codify the principles I’ve learned in my practice. In many respects, all practitioners do this every day. When we handle cases, we recount past events to current clients as object lessons. We instruct juniors on how to handle events and we use anecdotes in speeches to bar associations and boards of trade. Over 20 years I’ve developed a half-dozen or so war stories that I’ve translated into short articles and simulations for use in formal classes, in speeches and with clients.
 
But by codification, I also mean I wanted to take a step back from travelling 150 days a year and handling cases by long distance in hotel rooms. What were the lessons of the case? What really happened? Was my analysis or even my memory correct?
 
A unique opportunity to take that step back occurred at one of the world’s leading law schools—Osgoode Hall in Toronto. I undertook two years of part-time study leading to a Master of Laws (LLM) degree. In addition to law, I studied gender, race, power, teaching concepts and process design. The legal perspective made for an explosion of information and a rich, new perspective on my practice.
 
What was going to be a book of war stories has turned into a little more. It begins with short chapters on the perspectives I gained at Osgoode Hall. The war stories follow these introductory chapters. There are endnotes for those who want to delve deeper into the theoretical concepts I draw upon. Finally, I’ve included terminology and advice for those who want to conduct their own ethnographic studies of past cases and events.
 
If you like to graze, you can read the war stories in any order and then go back to the introductory theoretical concepts that are most relevant to your practice or area of study. It’s your choice.
 
Allan Bonner
 
Gibson’s, British Columbia
PROCESS DESIGN
D isputes are thieves. They rob us of time, energy and money. Disputes can even lead to death. Preventing disputes and resolving them quickly is imperative.
 
Many disputes are of the kind we tell stories about over coffee in the workplace. A misunderstanding with one’s spouse, an argument with teenage children, and a difficult conversation at parent-teacher night are all mainstays. The workplace itself provides fodder for similar stories. The bombastic boss, the controlling colleague, co-workers not pulling their weight and so on are subject matter for conversation during coffee breaks at work and dinner at home.
 
Many of these disputes seem inconsequential, with their main value being entertainment or object lessons in human pettiness. But disputes also have serious consequences. In the US, 135,000 children “take handguns to school each day, …every fourteen hours a child under the age of five is murdered, and homicide has replaced automobile accidents as the leading cause of death in children under the age of one….” 1 Similarly, the statistics on divorce rates and domestic violence may be examples of poor dispute resolution. 2
 
In the workplace, disputes cause personal and organizational turmoil. Productivity is known to decline during all periods of disruption and uncertainty in corporate life. An organization may lose staff and productivity may fall “to less than an hour” per day. 3 At least seventy per cent of all mergers and acquisitions fail to produce a net increase in value. 4 At least one distinguished observer questions whether any American corporations have been profitable since World War II. 5
 
Large organizations have formal, written policies and procedures designed to manage disputes. In organizations of all sizes, cultural norms augment the formal process. 6 6 Culture is an important part of this discussion because more formal processes and written procedures may be ignored, gathering dust on the shelf. So, workers may turn away from the dusty shelf and to informal policies to alleviate disputes. Some of the stories that follow capture both formal and informal dispute-resolution mechanisms. The overriding theme is that better dispute-resolution mechanisms yield fewer debilitating disputes.
CULTURE, GENDER, RACE AND POWER
W he