Getting Movement on Stalled Negotiations

Option 1: Summarise

The easiest way to move forward is to go back! Summarise the last point of agreement and seek a (different) way forward from there.

Option 2: State the Agreed Process

Sometimes stalling can occur because the parties have lost track – re-state the approach that was agreed at the outset and try again.

Option 3: Ask for Their Help

If you believe that a negotiation is stalling, ask the other parties to help you address it.

Option 4: Common Ground

Discuss the common ground or common success criteria; perhaps by re-emphasising why the parties were entering a negotiation in the first place (their WIIFM).

Option 5: Conflicting vs. Complimentary Ground

Conflicting ground (i.e. conflicting success criteria) can cause a negotiation to stall. For instance, in a customer and supplier negotiation, one wants to buy at the cheapest possible price, the other to sell at the highest. However, the same scenario can look at the complimentary ground to move things along – each party wants to make profit from the exchange.

Presenting complimentary rather than conflicting information will help the parties to seek a mutually beneficial way forward.

Option 6: Separate the People, the Issues and Solutions

Stalling can occur because one party does not want to accept another’s idea – however good it might be.

If you think this is the reason for the difficulty, write everyone’s ideas on, for instance, a whiteboard. By mixing up everyone’s ideas, the ownership attached to each should diminish.

Option 7: Unreasonable Intransigence

This can be a tactic and warrant challenging. However, it may be appropriate to adjourn to give time for reflection and/or consultation with the people represented by the negotiating parties.

Option 8: Refusing a Great Deal

Yes, it happens. You believe the perfect deal has been worked out and yet one or more parties can’t bring themselves to agree. This suggests that not all that party’s needs and wants to have been adequately responded to, so return to the discovery phase to check your information. This will also be necessary if the ‘goalposts’ appear to have moved.

Option 9: It Costs Nothing …

An apology costs nothing – even when you see no reason to offer one. But if it can diffuse a stalemate, allow the parties to move on.

Option 10: Give them Trophies

Encourage parties to believe they are being successful, perhaps with a little exaggeration. Such awarding of ‘trophies’ minimises the likelihood of a failed agreement because, after receiving trophies, few of us would like to have to give them up!

Option 11: High Tensions

If tensions – and tempers – rise, call a time-out for reflection.

Option 12: Off the Record

In exceptional circumstances, and with great care, you could consider off-the-record chats to seek to identify why a negotiation has stalled. There’s a reality here, however: Rarely does off-the-record stay that way. It has a habit of coming out at a later stage. So, whatever you say in such circumstances is prepared to have to stand by it later.

Option 13: Change the Range of Negotiables

One of the options available is to change the parameters within which the negotiation is taking place. For instance:

• If a company cannot agree the sale price of a piece of equipment, try leasing it instead, perhaps with the involvement of a third party that could buy the equipment and then lease it.
• If the family cannot agree (because of different needs) on what to do for the weekend, perhaps they should consider what to do over the next need.

Option 14: Change the Negotiators

The negotiators could be changed – especially if there is a breakdown in rapport and/or trust. This should be perhaps something of a last resort since any new negotiator would have to start the process afresh.

Option 15: Trial Agreements

Negotiations can stall because there is some form of doubt by one or more of the parties. Perhaps they doubt whether time-scales or quality goals can be met.

A trial agreement could be reached here – agree to a small part of the exchange and, subject to a satisfactory outcome, the whole deal will automatically be agreed. However, it is vital to:

Closely define what is meant by a ‘satisfactory outcome’. If this is at all vague, the full agreement may never be implemented.

Option 16: Introduce Mediation

While negotiations are both a routine method of doing business and a process to settle disputes or conflicts, at the international level mediation is usually contained to situations involving conflict. As described in the previous two sections, negotiations involve many complex tasks and often require skill and experience to manage them successfully. Sometimes primary parties to a conflict accept the mediation assistance of a third-party who can help them manage the tasks of negotiations and perform special intermediary functions that would not be possible if the parties were negotiating unassisted. Mediation assistance is particularly valuable when there are many issues on the table, multiple stakeholders and when addressing problems arising out of intractable, deep-rooted conflicts.

Facilitate communication and the flow of information. In the initial stages of the process, the mediator can perform a conciliation function. By serving as a discreet communication channel, preliminary terms can be discussed, and issues defined. Once face to face talks have begun, the mediator can facilitate communication and keep it from breaking down in the face of hostility. Communication can be enhanced by the mediator re-framing statements so that they can be understood by the other party without engaging their defences and by pointing out commonalities or divergences in their respective statements. If hostilities threaten the talks, the mediator can suggest a change in the issue, call for a break or otherwise redirect discussions.

Design confidence-building measures. By the time disputants come to mediation, they have usually reached a high point of distrust. Through ingenuity and persuasion, the mediator can encourage them to take steps that demonstrate their good faith to the other parties. By arranging confidence-building measures early, good will can be generated for the difficult process ahead.

Arrange the agenda. While the topics ‘on the table’ are usually set during the pre-negotiation phase, the mediator often designs the actual process of the talks and how those issues will be discussed. The mediator can structure the flow of dialogue, in part by controlling the agenda. For instance, the mediator can initiate with a session to reach a joint definition of the problem and then facilitate a problem-solving process of generating alternatives.

Structure discussions. The mediator plays a valuable role by designing and monitoring these strategies, thus allowing the parties to concentrate on their internal tasks. Facilitated negotiations, especially those with high levels of hostility, often fail because no one is performing this process management role.

Call for caucuses. When talks are stuck, the mediator can call for a private caucus with each of the parties to get information about how they perceive the problem and to try to work through it. The mediator can then reconvene the session with strategies to meet these obstacles. The mediator should be sensitive to the concerns of parties – that he or she may be betraying their confidence while meeting with the other party separately – an should take steps to work in a trustworthy way and to assure the concerned party that sensitive information will not be revealed to opponents.

Coordinate the involvement of secondary stakeholders and other third parties. Wise mediators know that they are taking a risk if actors capable of sabotaging either the process or the agreement are left out of the process completely. Yet it is both difficult and inappropriate to include every stakeholder at the table. The mediator can therefore play an important consultation role to maintain information, often in confidence, about the interests of these often-powerful stakeholders so that ideally, an agreement can be reached that everyone can tolerate.