NCJ Number
99627
Date Published
1984
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This paper describes a model for training groups in negotiation and mediation skills that covers the dynamics of the negotiation process, the roles of team members and a third-party mediator, and determining parties' true intentions.
Abstract
After discussing common misunderstandings about the negotiation process, the author addresses the differing values, attitudes, and goals of members of a negotiating team. The model categorizes team members as stabilizers who will settle at any cost, nonstabilizers who do not like the negotiation process, and quasi-mediators, individuals in the middle who act as mediators between the other factions. The internal dynamics of the negotiating team and its relationship with a larger constituency are explored, as is the internal negotiation process among the stabilizers, nonstabilizers, and quasi-mediators. The paper examines differences between two and multiparty negotiation and the key task of a neutral third-party mediator to obtain the parties' trust and transfer it to the mediation process. Also discussed are the mediator's capacity to raise and maintain doubts by raising questions about alternatives and implications that the negotiators may not have considered or fully appreciated. Other aspects of the model address evaluating a negotiating team's real intent in entering into negotiations and the mediator's objectivity.