Negotiation by David Eaves

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I wanna talk about what are some common mistakes people made when they try to work with others and some very simple hacks that you can engage in to control your behavior and to change the way your behavior when you interact with others to create outcome that are more likely to create alignment or disagreement about how we disagree, and/or agreement _______.

And I designed this talk initially for people who are in open source community. 

I love opening with this remarks because this is real, the first bug I submitted was for Thunderbird. I was very proud, I submitted my bug, and I made a submission and I went to facebook and said "hey, I just made a bug submission.... "

And the first response I got back......"(投影片)Bet you its a duplicate" (laughter)

from a very senior person in the Mozilla community, was this.

And there’re 2 things to realize for the statement. The first is, it’s probably true (laughter) that over 50% of bugs are actually duplicates. So he was ___ correct to be making that assertion. I am proud to tell you that I’ve done my research. My first bug was gonna be a good one, and I have done my research and it’s not a du(plicates?). 

But he was right(指向投影片上的 50%+). So what’s interesting about this is, there is a factual correctness of the statement and there is an emotional impact it has (laughter) while a new contributor such as myself......If your first interaction with an organization when you’re trying to be helpful is being told that you are not helpful, you are probably not going to have second interaction with that organization or with that institution.

Q: Was that someone who knew you? Was that somebody

A: Ya, we were facebook friends.....we were close friends.....

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[2:25:44] And we are trying to talk about in open source community, but I think it’s also true of a movement is that social capital is your capital(投影片). You don’t have a bank account of millions of dollars that you’re trying to keep account of, or huge capital asset you’re trying to track(?). The only thing you have are people. So how you manage that asset is the most important thing you should be thinking about.

[2:26:20] ......people often managing not very well. In fact, my first career is actually as a negotiation consultant, sitting in rooms helping people figure out .....I still do that with [2:26:25]

No matter what happens, the main reason I have a job is that even when people agree they need to agree, they suck at it. So imagine how much harder it is when you have people who aren’t even sure they need to agree, or  when you’re really passionate about the things to do.

So I wanna do a couple of simple exercises. The first is, I want to show you I think this common tension exists that

  

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#2 11:35 - 12:15 主題 Topic: Negotiations

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發表者 Present by: David Eaves (@deaves)

討論內容 Discussions

First experience of contributing to open source, made a bug report, immediate response was "bet its a duplicate" - factually correct but emotionally unwelcoming. Dis-incentivises participation. 

In a movement building like in open source, your social capital is your only capital. Your people are your only asset, and how you manage it will determine your success rate.

Even when people agree that they need to agree, they suck at it.

Substance/relationship tension: binary choice between relationship between people and outcome of conversation (e.g. stronger relationship = less factually correct outcome). 

Different groups stabilise in different quadrants, the aim is to stabilise in the upper right quadrant, where you can be confident that a relationship is strong enough to withstand any substance. When you’re operating in that quadrant, you’d never call it a negotiation. Calling something a ’negotiation’ is a symbol that you have predetermined that it is likely to go wrong. It sets you up for failure. 

Exercise: people pair up, no talking, given partial rules of a game, 10 seconds to earn points. People recognize the game as ’arm wrestling’, but it is never explicitly named, and yet we still bring the default behaviours of arm wrestling with us. 

The same goes for negotiation, we have partial rules and default behaviors. The only solution is to find an effective means of communication. (Consequently power accumulates in those that are most effective communicators.)

A common pattern in conflict resolution is "I did something nice to them last week and they spat on us, now it is all on them to make reparations." It may take 2 or 3 attempts at concession before the notion is effectively transmitted, as the first response you got was just a reflex.

This is why it is so fundamentally important that groups of diverse people getting clear alignment of their goals, because the default behaviours and partial communication problem can very rapidly corrupt the original purpose.

You can come to a negotiation with different assumptions e.g "the other person is stupid/crazy/evil" vs "they are doing what they believe to be in their best interest". Different assumptions can be either debilitating or empowering.

Traditional positional bargaining: start from extreme positions, make small concessions and threats, and eventually make enough concessions to get to a deal. This model is based on lying: ’yesterday I said I can only make this concession, but today I actually can make more concessions.’ If your opponent sees that you are lying, they can rationally assume that your ’final word’ is not the final word. E.g. you can always assume the opening offer is the start of a negotiation position that will eventually result in further concessions.

Interpersonal interaction models don’t scale effectively, but culture can. e.g. When you’re starting an open source project, you can establish a healthy culture in the early days, that can then scale up as the project grows. 

Better model: Interests | Options | Legitimacy

Rather than thinking ’what is the demand’, think about ’what motivates them, what do they care about, what do I care about’ - that is what we’re actually negotiation about: different parties getting their needs met. If you can establish the interests of the other party ("What do you want?"), you’re much more likely to get to a mutually beneficial resolution.

This works well when it is fuelled by a relationship (e.g. a sense of mutual respect) and effective communication. 

Big communities have big interpersonal problems. Need to establish strong relationships and effective communication protocols at the outset of any project. Without it, whenever there’s a negotiation, it will frequently result in people going to alternatives (e.g. I will leave), and much less likely to commit to something constructive (I will stay).

Increasing the frequency of interactions is one way to improve the likelihood of positive negotiations, e.g. I get to learn to trust you over time. 

A mediator’s job is to work on the relationship and communication, to establish a healthy foundation from which to start a productive negotiation of interests.