Felicity Steadman and John Brand reflected in a conversation with Marion Shaer on the founding and evolution of Conflict Dynamics over 30 years, from its origins in the Independent Mediation Service of South Africa (IMSSA) labour dispute resolution training to becoming a leading commercial mediation training and mediator provider.

Conflict Dynamics training is grounded in practice, and all its trainers are practicing mediators or conflict management consultants. Over the years their practice has informed their training. Here are some examples, some of which are drawn from their years as mediators, faciltiators and arbitrators.

 

Bargaining council negotiations transformed

• Three consecutive years of industry-wide strikes over 17 issues, with only wages settled each year through mediation.
• Intervention: 3-day joint union-management training (86 participants from two employer organizations and five trade unions) in Fisher-Ury interest-based negotiation.
• Outcome: Within three months, all 16 outstanding complex issues (training, health and safety, working conditions) settled through facilitated negotiations; seven consecutive years without strikes.
• The lesson: Joint union management negotiation skills training gave management and the unions the opportunity to get to know one another, to build a mutually understood negotiation vocabulary, to develop the capacity to negotiate in ways that enabled them to achieve a jointly beneficial outcome to their dispute and thereby avoid industrial action.

 

The bakkie story (ARB-MED Innovation)

• Senior shop steward dismissed for refusing safety instruction; union claimed victimization and sought full reinstatement with back pay.
• Arbitration decision (sealed): final written warning plus modest payment—would have satisfied neither party.
• Mediation outcome through interest exploration: employer provided second-hand bakkie (small truck) from closing construction site, early retirement status preserving pension, and some back pay—fully meeting the dismissed worker's actual need to transport vegetables for his new hawking business.
• Demonstrated South African innovation in ARB-MED (arbitrate first, seal decision, then mediate). Failing settlement in mediation open the sealed decision. This ensures that both the arbitration and the mediation process are safe.
• The lesson: Consensus based outcomes are generally superior to adjudicated ones.

 

BATNA and WATNA: the VW story

• Flo had a 1966 VW Beetle in her yard. She had been meaning to remove it to the dump for years but has never got around to doing so.
• Mo, a collector of vintage VWs was passing her yard when he saw the Beetle. He approached Flo and offered her 1000 Crowns for the vehicle.
• Flo was delighted and was tempted to accept the offer there and then, but she told Mo that she would like to think about his offer, and she asked him to return on the following day.
• Overnight Flo placed an advertisement on the internet “For Sale 1966 VW Beetle – any offers”.
• She received one response from a museum who said that they were developing a transport section and would dearly like to have the Beetle in their collection. They told her that if she donated the vehicle to the museum, she would be able to claim a tax rebate for making the donation.
• Finally, Flo sent out an internet query as follows “Wanted, 1966 VW Beetle for vintage collection” and she received a response from a person who offered her an un-reconditioned 1966 VW Beetle for 8000 Crowns.
• After some bargaining with Mo she agreed to an offer of 7000 Crowns.
• The lesson: In every negotiation one can come up with several possible alternatives (not all of them may be attractive, but it is important to know that they exist).  The best of these is what is called  BATNA – Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement. For the outcome of a negotiation to be truly considered a success, one should come up with an option that is better than one’s BATNA, or one should walk away. 
• Negotiators make two common preparation mistakes regarding their BATNA.  Some negotiators walk into a negotiation without knowing what they will do if they cannot reach agreement.  That tends to make them insecure and unsure of when they should keep negotiating and when they should start heading for the door.  Without knowing what your BATNA is, a whole negotiation may come down to bluster and a roll of the dice.
• The other common mistake negotiators make is to assume they know their BATNA, without first thinking more creatively about other ways to satisfy their interests.  In labour negotiations, for example, unions have traditionally viewed the strike as their BATNA, but, under some circumstances, other alternatives like work-to-rule or job-slowdowns may be more effective, less costly, or both.   
• Negotiators who know their BATNA have greater confidence during the negotiation and this stops them  from accepting a sub-BATNA  deal. Investing time to think about not just one alternative, but several ways to satisfy interests, and determine which alternative is best, pays off. 
• It also helps to consider how one could improve one’s BATNA, as that strengthens one’s bargaining power in the negotiations.

 

Oliver and Robert – much like the ‘two sisters and an orange’ story by Mary Parker Follett and then Fisher and Ury

• Back in the 1990’s – one TV and one video cassette recorder (VCR) in the house.
• Oliver and Robert were fighting about who’s video would be played first. It was a Friday night and the videos had been hired for the weekend.
• Their mother, Felicity, told them that if they didn’t stop fighting she would return their videos to the video store.
• Oliver aged 6 asked Robert aged 3 why he wanted his video played first.
• Robert explained that he loved pressing the button to start the VCR and seeing the lights go on, pushing the video into the VCR and hearing the whoosh of the video, pressing start and seeing the images come up on the screen.
• Oliver simply wanted to watch his video first because he needed to see it before his Saturday morning cricket practice to be able to tell his friends about it.
• Outcome: Robert operated the VCR for both videos; Oliver’s video went first and Robert played his video the next day.
• The lesson: Classic mutual gains outcomes are only possible after exploring needs and interests.

 

Mining industry wage demands, safety, and flexibility

• Rock drillers in wage dispute with a gap in positions; management needed flexibility around blasting arrangements to blast larger panels more frequently and generate revenue.
• Through separate caucuses exploring interests, the mediator discovered workers’ concerns about safety and management’s proposed flexibility changes.
• Management adjusted blasting methodology to address union safety concerns, unlocking a willingness to provide flexibility and enabling productivity, making possible wage settlement that exceeded initial positions.
• A caveat in this negotiation was that management’s need to settle within industry norms was addressed by agreeing a percentage increase within mandate but backdating the wage increase for a greater overall benefit.
• The lesson: To get beneath positions and explore needs, fears, interests and concerns and then seek mutual gain outcomes.  

 

Reality testing at a coal mine near Witbank

• Mid 1990s in a mediation concerning a wage dispute between the mining union and a large coal mine operation.
• Parties have deadlocked over wages.
• Union tells the mediator that they will go on strike for as long as it takes to get the wage increase that they are demanding, and gives the mediator permission to convey this to management.
• When the mediator conveys this to the management team one of them goes to the window and opens the curtains to reveal the huge stockpile of coal waiting to be sold and loaded for transport. He says that a lengthy strike would be very convenient because the mine can’t sell the coal right now as a result of an unexpected recent price rise.
• When this information is conveyed to the union they soften their demand and settlement is reached.
• The lesson: Testing a deadlock against reality i.e. the best and worst alternative to a negotiated alternative, often focuses the mind when deadlock occurs.

 

Getting past NO: daughter wants to borrow the car

• Go to the balcony - Mandy approached her father Joe and told him, “I am having the car tonight”.  Instead of telling her that she was not having the car that night, Joe paused, took a deep breath and told Mandy that he would like to help her if he could.
• Step to their side – He then asked Mandy, “why do you want the car?” Mandy responded curtly, “because I want to go out’. Joe then continued, calmly, to ask Mandy questions like, why she wanted to go out; where she wanted to go to; what time she wanted to go; who she wanted to meet. He listened carefully and empathetically until he understood her needs, interests, fears and concerns.
• Don’t reject… reframe - Joe then explained that he and Mandy’s mother had a dinner date with friends and needed the car that night. Mandy responded by telling Joe that they could go the next night. Joe said that that was a possibility, but he suggested that they consider all other options to see if they could find one, or a combination of options, which met all of their interests. They generated options like Joe taking Mandy, or Mandy taking Joe and her mother; one or both using Uber; Mandy’s friends or Joe’s friends giving them lifts one or both ways; and various other options.
• Build them a golden bridge - They then evaluated the pros and cons of each option, and Joe then offered to lift Mandy to meet her friends and pay for an Uber for her return. He believed that that option met all of Mandy’s needs.
• Bring them to their senses, not to their knees - To Joe’s frustration, Mandy sighed and asked why he couldn’t keep it simple and give her the car for the night. Joe responded that he thought it was important for both her needs and her parents needs to be met, and that was why he had made the offer he had. He told her that the alternative was that he and her mother had the car and she went out another night.
• She then sighed and said, “Ok I suppose so!”
• These are the five lessons that William Ury, co-author of Getting To Yes, teaches us in Getting Past No – Negotiating with Difficult People: don’t react, step to their side, change the game, make it easy to say yes, make it difficult to say no.

 

Boulder in the road – AK47s in the workplace

• 1989 - Felicity was part of a team of 5 facilitators working on a 5-day Relationship by Objectives (RBO) exercise involving a global vehicle manufacturer and the major union in the sector.
• The RBO had been arranged following protracted strike action concerning the dismissal of shop stewards by the company and a mediation concerning that dismissal.
• Shortly after the opening joint meeting of 85 participants at the RBO management announced that they would not participate in the RBO unless the union agreed to their members refraining from bringing AK47s to work.
• As facilitators we had to decide what to do.
• We had hit ‘a boulder in the road’ i.e. massive, seemingly immovable obstacle or highly contentious issue that is completely blocking progress toward an agreement.
• We, the 5 facilitators, caucused to decide whether we could persuade management to ‘park’ the boulder and push it to later in the facilitation or whether we could persuade the union to ‘unbundle the issue’ now and work through it in an interest-based manner.
• We decided to try to get the upon to agree to work through the issue before the main facilitation started, and they did.
• By uncovering the underlying fears or needs driving the obstacle and listening to the views of both parties we established that because of the apartheid government’s state of emergency in the country employees (black) brought wooden AK47s to work for political protests in the safety of the company premises. Supervisors and managers (white) felt threatened by these weapons. On the other hand supervisors and managers brought real weapons to work because they feared for their safety on their journeys to and from work. Employees said that on occasion managers and supervisors used these weapons to threaten employees who raised complaints or grievances.
• The solution became obvious: there was agreement on a weapons policy whereby all employees and managers would hand their weapons in at the security office at the start of the day. Wooden weapons could be accessed  at lunch time for use in protests during lunch breaks when there was sufficient time to practice military manoeuvres in the gardens. Real weapons could only be taken from security at the end of the day.
• The main facilitation then proceeded.
• The lesson: mediators and facilitators make careful process choices throughout the main process.