Category Archives: negotiation

Collaboration – a dirty word rescued by connectivity

Col·lab·o·ra·tion
n.

1. The act of working together; united labor.

2. the act of willingly cooperating with an enemy, especially an enemy nation occupying one’s own country.

During a conversation over breakfast yesterday I was asked to talk about my experience in open source public policy (through Canada25) which led me to talk about the differences between cooperation and collaboration I’ve ruminated upon before here.

After outlining the idea my friend stopped me and said

“You know, it is interesting, for people in my generation (re: boomers) collaboration was a dirty word.”

He went to explain that he’d talked with young people in his organization and had discovered that they had largely abandoned the word’s negative connotations, but he was again struck by how easily I embraced and used the term. For boomers – he explained – “collaboration” brings forward notions of Vichy France or narcs, people who sold out or who betrayed their origins in some way, often for gain or even to work (usually on behalf of) of a new (usually alien and/or evil) outsider.

What a difference a generation makes. Today I see more and more of my friends using the term. Which begs the question…

Why?

One hypothesis I have relates to the changing nature of our economy and how we work.

I don’t know if people have to work in teams more frequently then they use to, but i feel fairly confident that even if the frequency of teamwork has remained consistent, the emergent, or self-organizing, or even self-directed nature of those teams has probably increased. Thanks to the telecommunication revolution, and even just the rise of the knowledge economy, we are increasingly being asked to work together as we exchange, mix, re-mix and mash up ideas.

As a result, I think ours is a generation that is grasping for more nuanced and complex ways to describe working with others. No where is this more important than in the online world where the opportunities for both communicating, and miscommunicating, have never been easier. And within the online world nowhere is this more important than in the open source space where whole new models of how people can work together on large complex problems are emerging. With so much going on, is it any surprise our vocabulary is adjusting?

I say great. We need a more sophisticated and nuanced vocabulary to describe how we work together. The fact is people can work together in lots of different ways, conflating that variation with a single term is likely to make success harder to repeat.

Now… the revival of the word evangilism among non-religious coders is also interesting. I’ve done research as to where that came from and would be curious how it started getting used. The resistance to that word – especially given the culture wars in the US – is likely to be much greater. Outside the technology geek world that word still triggers LOTS of people.

Negotiation Workshop for NGOs in Vancouver

Negotiating with the Lord's resistance army (redux)

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Some of you may remember the post I wrote after doing a workshop with some Ugandans who’ve been negotiating with the Lord’s Resistance Army for the release of kidnapped children.

I forgot to mention that the Canadian Consortium on Human Security published a slightly revamped version as the lead piece in last month’s edition of the Human Security Bulletin.

Critical Negotiations in social change movements

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Recently I had the good fortune of sharing a tea with Andrea Reimer of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. Our conversation focused on critical negotiations in social change movements – and more specifically, environmental movements.

Andrea pointed me to The Movement Action Plan, an article by social activist Bill Moyer. The article outlines both the 8 stages (graphed below) a social movement often goes through – as well as the opportunities and pitfalls that exist along this path.

I’ve identified and mapped out (see slideshare presentation below) the 3 points where I believe there are critical and predictable negotiations. This is by no means meant to be an exhaustive, nor an absolute list. But based on a number of recent conversations I suspect this simple list of negotiations are both likely as well some of the most difficult for any movement to engage in. That said, I could be wrong and would love for critical perspective or countering data. This would be helpful as this is helping me frame my thinking for the negotiation workshop I’ll be giving on behalf of the Hollyhock Leadership Institute to members of the Environmental NGO community in late April.

Key Negotiation in Moyer’s Movement Action Plan from David Eaves

The first key negotiation is in stage 2 through 4 where the movement’s component groups and individuals need to negotiate with one another about how to best advance their cause. This is, in short, a large alliance management problem where the benefits of collaboration could be increased public awareness and activism.
The second is in stage 5. Here the movement has to transition from being purely activist drive to long term focused. Here the movement is confronted again with an internal negotiation – the “take-off junkies” need to be persuaded to either adopt a long-term strategy or take on a new challenge. Alternatively, the movement could attempt to marginalize them.
The third is in stage 6 and 7. Here the movement may find it is negotiation – implicitly or explicitly – with the powerholders. Here the option is to reach agreement to establish a new status quo or, should negotiations collapse, to return to either activism or pressure building. This is where I believe many (but not all) Environmental NGO’s in British Columbia currently find themsleves. They are negotiation with the Provincial government over standards, policies and plans where they can either reach agreement or retreat to protest politics. In a sense their ultimate BATNA (and nightmare scenario for the government) is to threaten to engage in another round of the 1993 Clayoquot Sound protests. The question is, can the NGO community negotiate effectively, both with among themselves over their strategy, and with the government over the standards, policies and plans?

Choice Analysis Case Study: Negotiating with the Lord’s Resistance Army

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Before Christmas I was fortunate enough to be invited to the Liu Institute to give a negotiation workshop to a group of visiting Ugandans. As some people know, but many do not, Uganda has had a large rebel force – called the L ord’s Resistance Army (LRA) – operating in the country’s north for over 20 years.

What makes this conflict particularly troubling has been the LRA’s strategy of kidnapping and indoctrinating and ultimately converting children into soldiers and supporters of the movement. To give you a sense of the scale and scope of the problem Wikipedia talks of the sadly named “night commuters” who: “between the ages of 3 and 17… would walk up to 20 kilometers from IDP camps to larger towns, especially Gulu, in search of safety.”(Photo on the right is of such a safe haven.)

I met with tribal leaders who were attempting to negotiate the release of their women and children who, over the course of the conflict, had been kidnapped, indoctrinated and ultimately integrated into the LRA community (many to a degree that, even if their release were secured it is unclear that they would wish to leave their newly adopted home). In addition to running through some negotiation advice I decided to conduct a choice analysis. This is something I often do with clients – it is an ideal tool for understanding why someone you are negotiating with keeps saying “no.”

A choice analysis rests on a two simple assumptions:

People do what they believe is in their self-interest
We can’t influence people unless we understand how they see the situation

To conduct it you need to determine:

Who is the decision-maker?
What question does the decision-maker hear? (not, what question are you asking – there is a difference!)
What are the likely consequences for the decision-maker saying a) yes; b) no?

In the case of the Ugandans I was working with – the Choice Analysis looked like as follows:

Decision-maker: Kony (leader of the LRA)

The question they hear: Shall I today bow to the pressure of these weak and powerless tribal leaders and give up one of my best forms of protection? [One should always frame the question in the most negative way possible]

+ I keep my human shields and help ensure my safety

+ I keep wives close to me

+ I protect my own children

+ I assert my authority

+ My soldiers and followers see I am a tough negotiator

+ I demonstrate I’m more powerful than those who are asking

+ I can always say yes tomorrow

– The women and children are more likely to be caught in war zone

– I may be seen as conceding that I held people against their will and violated international law

– I lose future soldiers and supporters for my army

– I no longer directly protect the released members of my own and my soldiers families

– It may be perceived as a sign of weakness

– My subordinates may believe that I no longer have confidence in our future

– Undermines central abduction ‘doctrine’ of LRA

– People may think I believe others can take better care of these people than me

– I disappoint (and possibly betray) those women and children who are released but who don’t want to go

– I create expectations among other women and children that they too may get released if they would like

+ I gain credibility as negotiator and allow

peace talks to continue

+ My reputation among local and international actors improves

You know you’ve done the analysis effectively when, if looking at it, you tell yourself – “Looking at it from this perspective I can see why they are saying no.”

So what does this analysis give us? It gives us a window into the interests and concerns that we have to address in order to craft a proposal that our target is more likely to say “yes” to.

In the above case Kony has legitimate concerns about the safety of these women and children should he release them back to their communities (in an effort to seek revenge against him an aggrieved individual might try to attack someone who is believed to be one of his wives or children). More importantly, life at the head of a rebel army in the African bush is fraught with danger – Kony can never show any sign of weakness lest he be overthrown. As such he can only say yes to a proposal that affirms his power and does not weaken him in the eyes of his soldiers and subordinates. Also important is the fact that “releasing” these women and children would be a tacit acknowledgment that they had been kidnapped in the first place – something he is unlikely to want to do since that would strengthen the legal and political case against him.

There are of course, some who will argue that Kony is not a rational actor – that he is a murderer and a sociopath. The problem here is that if you adopt these as starting points where do you go…? How do you negotiate with him? Kony himself is alleged to have said “I’m not evil. I’m not stupid, I’ve built this whole army.” We can debate whether or not Kony is evil, but one doesn’t survive for 20 odd years as the head of a successful rebel army without a) being extremely smart; and b) possessing a finely (even ruthlessly) honed sense of self-interest. As difficult as it is to negotiate with someone like this we must appeal to these traits to be successful. Your odds will be better than negotiating with someone who is truly crazy.

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The unwritten story of the Vancouver Municipal Strike

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With the strike now months over I’ve been looking for a story about the total costs of the Vancouver municipal strike and have yet to see one.

Most critically, I’ve been hearing from a number of sources that the strike to a heavy toll on the city’s staff. In short, many staff were unable survive for several months on strike pay along and ended up quitting their jobs and taking employment elsewhere. While no one has been specific about the numbers – they suggest they are large enough to represent several % points of the workforce. Indeed it would be interesting to learn how many staff got poached by the neighboring municipalities.
The costs of recruiting and training staff are significant (I’m frequently told it generally takes 6-9 months for someone to get up to speed on job) and these costs often don’t not even take into account the lost tacit knowledge and institutional memory held by employees who left. It’s possible that the real damage of the Vancouver strike hasn’t even been felt or noticed yet by the Vancouver’s citizens.

Worse still, neither the union nor the city appear to care much about this issue. In their stand off against each other, these workers were probably seen as expendable. The Mayor’s aggressive behaviour was in an effort to recast the next election along pro vs. anti union lines. When you are as unpopular as he is, it is possibly the only remaining strategy that will attract traditional NPA voters. As a result having a large swath of the public service quit conformed nicely with this tactic.

On the union’s side, the retention of any given member was probably not of consequence as the assumption was that some new face will simply jump in and pay union dues once the strike ends. As long as the number of jobs is unchanged, who fills them may not matter to the leadership.

With both the Union and Sam claiming victory (how I don’t know). It seems everyone won, except of course, the citizens of Vancouver, along with the current and past employees of the city.

I’d love to see the Vancouver Sun cover this…

Steve Young on Negotiation

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For those interested in negotiation I might suggest watching this video or downloading the podcast.

Steve Young was the Quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers and in this lecture he talks about his experience negotiating.

I have to confess I had some really low expectations coming in, but was blown away by how classy, humble, funny and smart, Steve Young is. It’s a fun listen and is packed with the types of lessons that guide my negotiation consulting.

How to make $240M of Microsoft equity disappear

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Last week a few press articles described how Google apparently lost to Microsoft in a bidding war to invest in Facebook. (MS won – investing $240M in Facebook)

Did Google lose? I’m not so sure… by “losing” it may have just pulled off one of the savviest negotiations I’ve ever seen. Google may never have been interested in Facebook, only in pumping up its value to ensure Microsoft overpaid.

Why?

Because Google is planning to destroy Facebook’s value.

Facebook – like all social network sites – is a walled garden. It’s like a cellphone company that only allows its users to call people on the same network – for example if you were a Rogers cellphone user, you wouldn’t be allowed to call your friend who is a Bell cellphone user. In Facebook’s case you can only send notes, play games (like my favourite, scrabblelicious) and share info with other people on Facebook. Want to join a group on Friendster? To bad.

Social networking sites do this for two reasons. First, if a number of your friends are on Facebook, you’ll also be inclined to join. Once a critical mass of people join, network effects kick in, and pretty soon everybody wants to join.

This is important for reason number two. The more people who join and spend time on their site, the more money they make on advertising and the higher the fees they can charge developers for accessing their user base. But this also means Facebook has to keep its users captive. If Facebook users could join groups on any social networking site, they might start spending more time on other sites – meaning less revenue for Facebook. Facebook’s capacity to generate revenue, and thus its value, therefor depends in large part on two variables: a) the size of its user base; and b) its capacity to keep users captive within your site’s walled garden.

This is why Google’s negotiation strategy was potentially devastating.

MicroSoft just paid $240M for a 1.6% stake in Facebook. The valuation was likely based in part, on the size of Facebook’s user base and the assumption that these users could be kept within the site’s walled garden.

Let’s go back to our cell phone example for a moment. Imagine if a bunch of cellphone companies suddenly decided to let their users call one another. People would quickly start gravitating to those cellphone companies because they could call more of their friends – regardless of which network they were on.

This is precisely the idea behind Google’s major announcement earlier this week. Google launched OpenSocial – a set of common APIs that let developers create applications that work on any social networks that choose to participate. In short, social networks that participate will be able to let their users share information with each other and join each other’s groups. Still more interesting MySpace has just announced it will participate in the scheme.

This is a lose-lose story for Facebook. If other social networking sites allow their users to connect with one another then Facebook’s users will probably drift over to one of these competitors – eroding Facebook’s value. If Facebook decides to jump on the bandwagon and also use the OpenSocial API’s then its userbase will no longer be as captive – also eroding its value.

Either way Google has just thrown a wrench into Facebook’s business model, a week after Microsoft paid top dollar for it.

As such, this could be a strategically brilliant move. In short, Google:

Saves spending $240M – $1B investing in Facebook
Creates a platform that, by eroding Facebook’s business model, makes Microsoft’s investment much riskier
Limit their exposure to an anti-trust case by not dominating yet another online service
Creates an open standard in the social network space, making it easier for Google to create its own social networking site later, once a clear successful business model emerges

Nice move.

Why relationship management matters – even in the NHL

the strike that never was…?

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Job actions just aren’t what they used to be.

Here we are in the middle of summer and the pools and library’s are all closed, plus the garbage isn’t being picked up. Interestingly I haven’t read about throngs of Vancouverites complaining (are they? has anybody heard?). Indeed, many businesses and condo associations seem to have private garbage pick up which may explain why.

So far it Vancouverites appear to be blaming neither the union nor city hall. Rather, most Vancouverites simply don’t seem to care. Perhaps what the strike reveals more than anything is that, aside from Police, Fire Department and Public Transport (none of whom are involved in this strike) municipal government services don’t seem to touch the day to day lives of most Vancouverites. That’s a sobering thought for the state of “public services” It certainly isn’t a winning outcome for either City Hall or the union.

That said, the union had better be careful. Mayor Sullivan appears to finally be under lock and key, so the union can no longer rely on his public blunders to boost their case. Indeed, the news stories seem increasingly focused on their blunders: First they expressed outrage at volunteers who pick up the trash after public events. Then they blocked cars from entering a private members club, because that club was offering to dispose of their garbage for $5 a bag. As picket boy documents quite well, what could have been a positive story quickly turned ugly.

If the emerging narrative becomes the union against the city’s citizens, it’s the union that will come out looking bad.

Either way, the optics aren’t good when 240 lb men are pushing around private citizens… regardless of how wealthy they may be.

eaves.ca

if writing is a muscle, this is my gym