The Latest Updates from David B. Morse
Negotiators and conversationalists adapt to each other’s needs, reflecting mutual consideration (if they desire a successful outcome). Negotiation is a conversation, and the manner of engagement varies by person. Our involvement changes the context. It is easy to focus on the person in front of us and their age, nationality, or language. A person’s sex is the most basic of our classifications. But using that approach is deceptive.
Negotiation includes a ‘chicken or the egg’ dilemma similar to the geodynamo at the heart of our planet. As magnetic and electric fields are intertwined, we teach preparation precedes and accompanies engagement. But only encounters deliver results. Is one possible without the other, and where do they start?
We transmit information using language and work to understand that information with culture, all on the way to finding solutions. Our perception highly influences our understanding, meaning the view you have of the situation can and will differ from others'. Moreover, perception creates expectations.
At the end of July 2020, 27 EU nations with hundreds of individual participants negotiated for more than 90 hours, emerging with a 7-year budget, approval for billions in pandemic recovery funds financed by the first-ever collective debt, measures to enhance the rule of law, and steps to ensure economic reforms. Unprecedented; seemingly of another world.
