There is a point in some negotiations when a party will decide that this is the hill on which they will fight the final battle.  They may have reached agreement on a myriad of issues but this one is “a principle” or “so unjust” that they are willing to walk away from the whole agreement if they do not get what they want on this one issue.
 
Often these parties have worked extremely hard and are at the end of their energy and endurance.  It is critical at this stage for parties to take a moment and consider the entirety of the negotiation.  It is helpful for parties to remember: 
 

• what has been gained, 
• to list the items which meet their self-identified needs
• to highlight what the alternative to a negotiated agreement will look like e.g. next steps / process

 
For me, this proverb rings true when I see parties who have overcome significant challenges and have climbed the mountain, only to trip over a stone in the path. Staying focused at this stage can help parties to keep sight of their goals and to side step that last stone.

I think this one speaks for itself.

​What could this mean in the context of conflict?  Just as in any fabric where threads must go in two directions, the warp and the weft, a negotiation cannot just achieve one person’s positions.  A durable solution, a negotiated agreement will have threads going in both directions.  
 
Mediators are seeking to work with parties to find a solution that provides enough of what each party needs to make an agreement work.  The warp and the weft are both needed to make the agreement sustainable.

Welcome to the last day of the decade. In order to celebrate the turning of the year and the decade, I am starting a new series next week based on Asian proverbs. Each week, I'll look at a proverb from around Asia which illuminates something for people in conflict or for conflict resolvers, or both. In the new year there is time for old wisdom.

It was inevitable that Bill Eddy would make the list.  He has previously written a book called "It's All Your Fault" which deals with general conflict.  However, this book translates those ideas to the workplace, "It's All Your Fault: at Work".

I know that when I worked in banking there were days when I felt that I was being blamed for everything including the tax regimes / short selling regulations / market disruptions of Asian markets. 

Those familiar with Eddy will know that he has dedicated his life's work to understanding high conflict people and coming up with strategies for how to manage your interactions with them.

Whilst, it is not helpful or appropriate for anyone to use the book to diagnose a personality disorder, it is helpful to consider whether the behaviours are something you are experiencing in the workplace.

For example, if you are working with someone who has inflexible thinking, who is constantly seeking a target of blame, who never takes responsibility for anything, then you may need some help in working with that person. What will be noticeable is that this person will have a history of negative interactions with others. You won't be the only person with whom they have conflict.

Eddy suggests some tools which mediators have been using for years to try and help to manage conflict with someone who may be a high conflict person. One of my favourite strategies is BIFF. If you have a difficult email that you need to respond to, keep your response: Brief, Informative, Friendly, Firm. There are many days when I have used BIFF as a mantra to keep me on track.  I think everyone who has ever worked in a large office could benefit from reading this work.

A campaign group in Finland has decided to crowdsource a forgiveness emoji.  Their website, Forgivemoji shows the submissions so far which they intend to submit to the Unicode Consortium and request the creation of a new emoji.

Looking at the emojis is an interesting way of seeing how people think about forgiveness.  The emojis focus on healing (.e.g a heart with bandaids).  However, many of the emojis show an exchange between one person and another.  They use clasped hands and hearts being exchanged.  

However regular readers will know that Dr Fred Luskin has a fundamentally different view of forgiveness.  From his perspective it is a choice we make for ourselves.  Forgiveness may be a group activity but it does not have to be.  These emojis communicate that forgiveness is part of an exchange between the wronged and the offender. However, this traps us in a bind.  If they do not apologise, if we are not in contact how do we ensure release from pain?

Forgiving someone else is a gift we give ourselves.  Dr Luskin gives examples of forgiving people who are dead, who we have lost touch with or who we do not wish to communicate with.  Forgiving in these circumstances highlights that forgiveness is a release we can control. Rather than being absolution for the other person, forgiveness frees us to move on.  

In life, I find this concept of forgiveness very comforting.  It restores power to the wronged person.  Even if the other person does not apologise or seek forgiveness, we can still be free.  We can choose to focus on our own health and not on the offender. Dr Luskin gives clear steps as to how to achieve this forgiveness.  It is not an instantaneous process, however, he manages to show the benefits for everyone in learning these skills. 

• Dogs know a surprising amount about conflict resolution.  One of my dogs is a zen master at conflict resolution.  He has no attachment to past and blame.  He approaches everyone - canine and human with an open heart and mind.


• My other dog is good at conflict resolution most of the time, but she does hold on to one or two seemingly never-ending, epic feuds. The sight of the arch-nemesis is enough for the red mist to descend.  After a good trash barking, she quite happily moves on wagging her tail, vindicated in her belief that the other dog is 'no good'. 

Together both dogs have valuable lessons for humans in conflict: 

• Focus on the here and now: yesterday may have been a disappointment.  Perhaps in the past there were mistakes made by other people, and there is hurt and blame. Dogs know that if you want to move forward you need to focus on the present.  By focusing on the past and blame, you will stay there and not be able to move on. Dogs are expert at letting things go and moving to a new and possible future.  Yes terrible things may have happened in the past, if you remain in the past there is no hope of changing the future. Creating structures to move ahead is a difficult choice, but the alternative is to remain in the past.
• Never-ending battles take their toll on you: we may comfort ourselves if we continue to fight that we are 'right' and that we are defending a 'principle'.  However, as my dog has found out, she is always on leash downstairs because I need to know that if the arch nemesis appears my dog will be under control. By contrast her brother, who was bitten by the arch nemesis has moved on and is free to amble as we walk and greet the neighbours. Sometimes, as humans we feel that it is 'right' to keep fighting, we need to understand that continuing a battle comes at a price.  We may pay in our emotional well-being, psychological well-being, legal costs, and opportunity costs. There may be others who suffer as collateral damage from our campaign. 
• Forgiveness is a gift, we give ourselves: a long time ago, one of my dogs bit the other by accident. Whilst the blood was gushing from his ear, his sister demonstrated instant remorse. He forgave her immediately.  As humans we mistakenly believe that forgiveness is a gift we give other people. In fact, there is significant research to show that forgiveness has health benefits for the person giving it.  Dr Fred Luskin from the Stanford Forgiveness Project encourages people to forgive those who wrong them.  This is not because the person being forgiven deserves forgiveness, they may never know they have been forgiven. Forgiveness frees us from the hurt and allows us to move on and heal. We stop trying to enforce the unenforceable rule and allow ourselves to focus on our own healing.

What do dogs know about negotiation? I would argue that dogs understand a lot about negotiation.  On a daily basis, I enjoy watching my dogs negotiate with me to achieve their goals. They are stealth negotiators, clothed in fur.  On an instinctual basis, dogs can teach humans some great lessons about negotiation. 

The question is - are we clever enough to learn from them?

• ​Focus on your priorities: understand what your goal is in the negotiation?  you may have many needs / wants e.g. cheesy biscuit / salmon chew / squeaky toy.  Identify the priority, reflect on what it is you really need to achieve and what would be nice to have. Once you have done this - remember it.
• Focus on the wins. As humans we are wired to respond to perceived losses more than to focus on wins. In the midst of a mediation, when someone has been able to achieve their priority goals, I often hear, "but what about ....?".  My role requires me to remind parties that in negotiation, there will be wins and losses. Dogs know this instinctively.  If a dogs "wins' the salmon chew, they will not be complaining about the loss of the cheesy biscuit.  A dog will devote their attention and focus to the win.  As humans, we could learn this lesson about how to focus on the wins and accept that the losses were part of the compromise to achieve resolution.
• Focus on giving what you can to get what you need: dogs know that in order to get what they want they will need to give something. This may be a paw, or a sit or an adorable head tilt. As humans in negotiation, we sometimes forget this easy lesson.  We repeat out demand, perhaps louder and more insistently.  We are disappointed when the other person does not give us what we want.  Dogs understand the basic negotiation principle of "you need to give, to get".  The key in negotiation is understanding what is easy for you to give and valuable for the other party to receive.

Next week, what do dogs know about conflict?

What is canine assisted mediation? the question may be more easily answered by asking why canine assisted mediation? David A. Paul wrote a fascinating article about Canine Assisted Mediation which highlights the research around the benefits of dogs.

Paul considers the well-documented psychological and physiological impacts of dogs on humans.  These include:

• decreased blood pressure and heart rate
• increased arterial oxygen saturation
• decreased emotional pain
• decreased cortisol levels
• increased oxytocin
• decreased stress, depression, anger and anxiety

For anyone considering mediation, parties are likely to experience, stress, emotional pain, anger and anxiety.  As a mediator, the thought that the presence of a dog may help to reduce these negative impacts on parties is particularly enticing.

Paul suggests the use of therapy dogs who are trained to work with people in pain and who are monitored to ensure that the dogs are not experiencing stress themselves.  Rather than being responsible for the technical aspects of the process, the canine assistant would be present in the mediation to help parties to self-regulate and to improve the atmosphere in the mediation.  

The presence of the canine assistant would allow parties the opportunity to increase their ability to regulate and self-soothe. In mediation, parties are sometimes so focused on their emotional reaction to the other party that they are unable to negotiate effectively. They may continue to argue about the past / blame rather than trying to problem solve the future. If dogs can help to calm parties this would be a significant benefit to the overall negotiation process.

He does caution that mediators and dogs need to be specially trained to participate in canine assisted mediation. Without doubt bringing any living creature into a conflict situation needs to be done sensitively and ethically.  As a dog lover, I can see the promise of canine assisted mediation.  Dogs have many lessons to teach us about negotiation and conflict.

Next week what can dogs teach us about negotiation?

Every day my dogs have taught me something about life or myself.  In the next few weeks, I will share some thoughts about the gurus in our homes and what they can teach us about conflict and negotiation.

Back at mediator school, we would brave the small claims court and attempt "guerrilla mediation".  It was a challenging space to work in and often we were in the corridor outside the court room.  One day I turned up at Santa Monica's court house to be told that the generator was down and therefore court was cancelled.  The clerk for Court Room 4, Dwight was outside on the grass with the parties and was explaining that they would need to reschedule for court or they could mediate right away.  

Within a few minutes I was mediating an employment dispute about termination. As the former employee started explaining her position, a golden retriever walked a few feet away from us heading for the trees. A few steps further on and the dog rolled over as his delighted dog walker exclaimed "tummy tickle time".  It was distracting to say the least. We all gazed over and smiled at the happy dog and owner.  A shift came over the conversation. I think that everyone had realised that maybe life held other possibilities. We continued to mediate and they were able to reach agreement.

In mediation, it can be a struggle to shift parties from their positions to a negotiating posture. The golden retriever was able to assist the parties to shift just by rolling over.

Without realising it, I had just seen the benefits of canine assisted mediation.  There is a a lot of research to suggest that just seeing a dog can help to lower cortisol levels and lower blood pressure.  Next week, what is canine assisted mediation?