The European Business Review - July-August 2019

http://www.europeanbusinessreview.com 73

should be thrown away, a toddler who

thinksthattheorangeis a ballandwants

toplaywithit, andanelderbrotherwho

wantstheorangesimplysothatnobody

elsecanhaveit. That’sa multipartynego-

tiation foryou. Itisfrequentlydifficultto

identifywhowantswhatandhowtoget

whatwewantin sucha dynamicsitua-

tion.Let’strytounderstandwhatsome

of the biggest challenges are in multi-

partynegotiations.

Oneof thereasonswhyweneedto

understandmultipartynegotiationswell

is thattheyarelotmorefrequentthanwe

realise.Inournegotiationprogrammes,

we frequently ask participants what

kind of negotiations they participate

in themost:individual,team, ormulti-

party negotiations?Rarely do we find

exercise.However,whenweconduct the

negotiationsimulations,quiteoften the

samenegotiatorsconfessthatthey had

notrealisedhowoftentheyengaged in

multipartynegotiation situations. Many

internal negotiations are varieties of

multiparty negotiations: for example,

departmental meetings, family meet-

ingstodiscusspropertyissues, business

or interpersonal conflicts, meetings of

neighbours to sort out neighbourhood

problems,orevena meetingbetween a

groupoffriendsto discusswhere should

theygoonvacationtogether.

IdentifyingOtherPeople’sInterests

Oneofthebiggestchallengesin a multi-

party negotiation is to ascertain the

interestsof everyoneatthenegotiation

table.Atthesame time,it is important

to beableto conveyourowninterests to

everyoneelse.Quiteofteninour nego-

tiation workshops, when we organise

multipartynegotiation exercises, partic-

ipants complain that their voices were

drownedoutorthattheywere not able

Negotiation

HOW TO NEGOTIATE EFFECTIVELY

WITH MULTIPLE PARTIES?

One of the biggest

challenges in a multiparty

negotiation is to ascertain

the interests of everyone

at the negotiation table.

Soft skills, like negotiating, have

become increasingly important in

creating personal relationships and

fostering opportunities for your

business’ long-term success. While

it is easier to formulate agreements

between parties, diffusing differ-

ences and managing cooperation

from multiple parties are far more

complex, yet the most common in

today’s business world, even in the

daily transaction of our lives. In this

article, the authors discuss the tech-

niques on managing and leading

multiparty negotiations.

T

wo sisters are fighting over an

orange. Their mother intervenes

and discovers that one sister wants

to have juice while the other needs the

peel to make a pie. The mother appropri-

ately shares the two parts of the orange

between the two sisters and both are very

happy. You have read this kind of story in

many negotiation books. However, to this

scenario add another sister who wants

the peel for cosmetic use, a grandmother

who thinks that the orange is rotten and

BY: KANDARP MEHTA AND GUIDO STEIN