Thus far, you have how critically important it is to maintain mutual respect right through conflict resolution conversations. We also explored the first marker, Create a safe, respectful environment conducive to mutual dialogue in detail in the previous lesson.
Let’s now move on to the second of the six conversation markers essential for successful collaborative outcomes.
Take the lesson below to learn why it’s important to Agree on Goals (The Big Picture).
Please take the accompanying quiz at the end of the lesson too. Happy Learning!
Phases of a Negotiation – III
This far, you have how critically important it is to maintain mutual respect right through conflict resolution conversations.
We also explored the first marker, Create a safe, respectful environment conducive to mutual dialogue in detail in the previous lesson.
Let’s now move on to the second of the six conversation markers essential for successful collaborative outcomes.
2. Agree on Goals (The Big Picture):
People rarely stop to consider the long-term implications of their behaviour or action. Most of the time, they do what they believe to be is right or required. In a situation involving conflict, it could be beneficial if everyone knew why it is so important to collaborate. You must agree to agree. And seeing the BIG PICTURE sometimes makes this easy to do.
Exploring the big picture to agree on goals involves looking at:
- The overall goal – whether personal/ business/ organisational – that you are both trying to achieve.
- Restating the purpose of the conversation and why you’re both in it (in this case, that would be to satisfy both sets of needs as much as possible)
- The benefits of collaborating (for everyone – individual, team, organisation etc.)
- The consequences of failure to collaborate (if appropriate and relevant)
For e.g.
In that video we’ve been referencing all through, here’s how Sanjana navigated this marker.
Insert clip.
03:25 So let us first agree on what it is exactly that our bosses have assigned us to work on together
Right up to
03:52: Sanjana: Yes, it is understood. And since we are both in agreement to what it is that we are working on, I’d like to understand as to what you believe the process and criteria should be.
In such a case, to agree goals and bring the big-picture into focus, one might say something like this:
Sanjana has taken a moment to restate the purpose of the conversation and to bring the big picture into focus. The conversation didn’t go that way, but if needed, Sanjana could also mention the fact that both of them were neutral parties, which put them in the best position to have this discussion, and standardize the vendor selection process for everyone, so as to state the benefits of collaborating. And how failure to collaborate might mean working with a broken process, causing a huge waste of time and money, so as to clarify the consequences.”
Back to you. You’ll find it easier to move on to the next phase of the conversation if everyone is on the same page. Moreover, agreeing goals and bringing the big-picture into focus has the effect of anchoring the whole conversation. This particular segment is something that parties can revisit in order to realign their discussions, especially if the conversation ever regresses into an impasse at any point.
In Summary
A successful outcome of any conflict resolution conversation depends upon one’s ability to lead such conversations through six markers. The first marker we looked at was:
Create a safe, respectful environment conducive to mutual dialogue: where we looked at ‘contrasting’, a carefully crafted do/don’t statement, that lets people know that your intentions are not malicious, and that you hold them in high regard.
The second marker was Agree on Goals (The Big Picture) which involves bring all parties involved on the same page in terms of:
- The overall goal that needs to be achieved
- Restating the objective of the conversation
- 3. The benefits of collaborating on a resolution, and
- The consequences of failure to collaborate
In the next lesson, we’ll examine the next markers in detail. For now, please take the accompanying quiz.