Arbitration & Mediation

How to Make Your Opponent Do What You Want Him to Do: Public Dialogue

By Victoria Pynchon

"Even if your intention is to bring people together, you have to let them decide whether they want to be together."  Ken Cloke

You already know the answer to the question posed in this series of posts but I'll say it anyway. 

You can't possibly know what you want your opponent to do until you have the opportunity to sit down together to determine what would benefit the two of you the most.  

With that in mind, I give you three questions and one process suggested by Ken Cloke at the MBB Conference in a break-out section this past weekend.

FIRST QUESTION: What life experiences have  led you to feel so passionately about this issue?

• telling life stories induces empathy
• the story-teller reveals the person behind the spokesperson
• the story reveals the secret meanings underlying the public positions as well as the motivations directing and informing behavior that might otherwise appear evil or irrational

SECOND QUESTION: Is there anything about the position you've taken that you're not 100% certain of and that you'd be open and willing to have a conversation about?

THIRD QUESTION:  Is there anything you have in common with your conversational partner or anything that you both believe in?

PROCESS: 

• send each side out of the room to list all of the things their side did in their last exchange that undermined communication and partnership.
• when they return, ask whether they are willing to commit to not doing that again 

Full post as published by Settle It Now Negotiation Blog on February 19, 2008 (boomark / email).