Chapter 10

Align Multiple Parties

Avoid inefficiency and chaos.

The Problem

Many negotiations involve more than two parties, all of whom need to subscribe to a final agreement. These are situations in which there aren’t just multiple stakeholders behind the scenes, but also multiple parties sitting at the table: Perhaps you’re negotiating the details of a go-to-market strategy with multiple channel partners; maybe you work for a research institution that is collaborating with several others on a government contract; or perhaps you’re working on a complex services sale that involves a number of individuals from both the customer’s and your organizations. When you have more than two parties that want to agree on a final solution, the circle of value approach becomes more complicated.

Why It Happens

There are two primary reasons that these negotiations are more complex:

• People overload. Getting the parties to commit to an option or agreement typically takes longer simply because there are more individuals involved. Start by discussing agenda items and ground rules at the beginning of the negotiation. You can also try to make things easier by identifying who the decision makers are and leaving everyone else out of the mix, but that can backfire if you find out later that there are others who need to have a voice as well.
• Process complexity. Negotiating with multiple parties means you have more interests to meet, more options to sort through, and more alternatives to consider.

Balancing the need to include and consult many different parties with the reality of how long it may take to consider all the options that satisfy their interests is not easy.

What to Do About It

There are ways to accelerate the process and still make sure that all points of view are considered.

Make it clear who decides

You can work through complex decisions more efficiently—and avoid confusion and frustration—by establishing expectations up front about who gets to decide what.

People have different interests in the negotiation, so they should play different roles in making a final decision. Those roles fall into three categories:

• Inform. Those who need to know about a decision and its rationale but don’t need to (and likely, when pressed, don’t really want to) be involved in the negotiation itself. This broad category of people includes those who have to implement the agreement or are otherwise affected by it, but don’t have particular expertise or viewpoints needed in the discussion itself. For example, the vast majority of end users of a new product or service being purchased would fall into this category.
• Consult. Those whose input should inform the decision. These are the advisers to the decision makers. Consider their needs or advice before making a decision, though ultimately they don’t need or get a vote. These participants typically have a unique perspective or expertise that you want to draw upon.
• Negotiate. Those who are ultimately responsible for all or key parts of the final agreement. These are people who need to make the decision because of their position, roles, responsibilities, or authority. It can be helpful to subdivide this group into those who have veto power (the agreement cannot go forward without their consent) and those who can simply vote on an issue (the group can proceed without their approval if necessary).

It’s best to formally establish these roles early in the negotiation, ideally in advance of sitting down together or when you first get in the room. At the very least, you want to have a discussion about roles before you begin refining options.

To decide who goes in which category:

1. List each decision that will need to be made. When you were preparing for the negotiation, you laid out the various issues that needed to be addressed in a negotiation. Using those, make a list of the specific decisions that need to be made.
2. Assign each person a role for each decision. Identify all the parties who have a stake in each decision and place them in one of the three buckets: Inform, Consult, or Negotiate (veto/vote). Keep in mind that the same person might be in different buckets for different decisions; your boss might have veto rights on the decision about pricing but needs to be consulted only about the length of the service contract. Use a chart like the one in table 10-1 to capture this work.
       You may be tempted to put most people in the “Negotiate” category, but that’s not realistic, and many of them don’t actually need or want to be that closely involved. Instead, aim to put each person in the bucket as far to the left side as possible, limiting those in this crucial group to those who really must be there.
3. Share and get feedback. Be clear with everyone about the role you expect them to play and why. Ask for their input. Negotiate as necessary with people over their roles, and get their commitment to honor them during the negotiation.
       Sometimes people will easily fall into these roles, and other times it will take some discussion. If there is disagreement, discuss why the person feels she needs to be in the role she’s requesting. Is she truly prepared to put in the effort and time necessary? Can a different role meet her interests? For example, you might say something like, “You had said you want to be in the Negotiate role because you want to share your opinion on the risks here. Could that be achieved in the Consult role, especially since your boss is already in the Negotiate role?”

This process can add work to your negotiation, but it will also help streamline the decision-making process, ultimately saving time.

TABLE 10-1

Assigning negotiation roles

Copyright © 2013 Vantage Partners, LLC. All rights reserved.

Get people on the same page—literally

Even with agreed-upon responsibilities, it can be difficult to get everyone in a multiparty situation to agree to a solution.

Often each party will simply present their ideal solution and wait for the other parties to react or add more detail. This can jump-start a long, unproductive game of positional bargaining that leads to a lowest-common-denominator solution. Even if you don’t fall into these traps and manage to draft a single proposal and circulate it to others for feedback, sorting through their reactions can descend into chaos.

Instead, use what we call the one-text procedure. As its name suggests, this process forces everyone to focus on one draft of an agreement. The parties work together on that single shared document, seeking to improve it along the way by offering criticism (not suggestions), allowing the drafter to creatively edit the draft from one round of feedback to the next.

Here’s how it works:

1. Choose a drafter. Work together to select one individual who will be solely responsible for all writing and editing. Find someone who is known to be respected and trusted, a good listener, and creative. Look for a person who has built enough credibility with everyone at the table to be considered neutral. Ideally, he’ll have no direct stake in the decision but understand the context and the issues. If everyone can’t agree on who should play this role, create a small team composed of representatives from each party. You can also use an uninvolved outsider.
       If you’re unable to find someone for this role, you may decide that you are the best person to draft the agreement. If this is the case, be very clear throughout the process which hat you’re wearing when; at times, you will be the balanced facilitator soliciting and capturing feedback from others, while at other times, you will play the role of critiquing your own draft. No matter what, you’ll need to take a fair, balanced approach to the discussion and to the drafting, understanding that you can’t just focus on your own interests.
2. Listen to each party’s views. The drafter then elicits interests from each party. He may do this in separate interviews or while everyone is together in the room. Each side is likely to make the case for what the solution should be, but it’s the drafter’s responsibility to ask questions that get at the interests underlying the preferred solutions and current positions. The drafter will want to probe deeply, asking, “Why?” “For what purpose?” and “What are you trying to achieve (or avoid)?”
3. Create a rough draft. The drafter then creates a rough solution that is impartial and responsive to what he’s heard. It should be clear that this is a draft and not final in any way. Driving that point home can be as simple as writing “draft for discussion only” on each page.
4. Ask for criticism. The drafter shares the one text, asking each party in what ways the current draft does not meet their interests. Usually in this first round, he asks them as a group, as it is helpful for each participant to hear the others’ answers. The drafter should not defend or explain the draft. Instead, he asks questions like, “What would be wrong with something like this?” “Which interests of yours are not reasonably met with this proposal?” If he gets back a suggestion (“You should just change that term, and I will be set”), he should always ask about the interests behind it (“Why might that make more sense than what is there?”). His tone should not be defensive, but inquisitive.
       Capitalizing on people’s natural willingness to criticize, this approach further exposes their underlying interests. Ideally, the drafter will record all of those new interests heard in a place where everyone can see them. (See the box “Questions to Ask in the One-Text Procedure.”)
5. Make revisions. The drafter then refines the text. He looks for new creative solutions, ideas that reconcile differences, and ways to create joint gains. If he believes certain interests are still not being shared, he might even put in a controversial idea or a few to spur criticism in the next round. The drafter should do this transparently, by noting what he has done and why. He again marks it as a “draft” and brings it back to the negotiators.
6. Repeat. The drafter once again asks all parties for their criticism, probing for interests, testing them, recording them, and digging more deeply for what is driving any proposed change. Most often this is done in live sessions, but if necessary, he might send out a draft with numbered lines and ask the negotiating parties to write up their feedback in a separate document. Some individuals might beg to mark their changes directly on the draft, but the drafter should not give in. The result would be too many unreconciled versions, and all those productive steps toward one organized solution would be lost.
       In this next round, the drafter gathers up the criticism, shares his appreciation with the negotiators, and goes back to improve the draft on his own. He then continues to alternate between soliciting criticism and revising. He continues iterating this way until he believes he cannot make the draft any better, the benefits of further improvement seem not worth the cost in time and effort, or he runs out of time.
7. Present a choice. At this point, the drafter presents all parties with a stark choice: Accept the draft as is or accept the consequences of not coming to an agreement. He might say something like:
       “I have done the very best I can. I can’t promise everyone will be 100% happy, but I’ve listened to all of you and tried hard to meet many of your underlying interests. This is a final proposal. I don’t think we can make it any better. If you all say yes, then we have ourselves an agreement. If you say no, we may all have to revert to our best alternative. I now need a simple yes or no from each of you.”

QUESTIONS TO ASK IN THE ONE-TEXT PROCEDURE

• What is wrong with this draft as it is presented now?
• Do you have important interests that this draft does not adequately address? Which ones? Why are they important?
• What else seems wrong or is missing from the draft? Why are these things important?
• Do you have other ideas for improvement? What are your reasons for suggesting these items? What key unmet interests do they address?
• Do you have other ideas for how conflicting interests might be creatively and fairly resolved?
• Understanding why you would like this particular interest met, but given that it has become clear that it is in direct conflict with others’ interests, why should meeting your interest here take priority over meeting theirs? What standards or fair process might we apply to deciding this?

My colleagues and I have used the one-text procedure in complex multiparty situations, such as peace negotiations, complex sales, mergers and acquisitions, and large-scale organizational change initiatives, and seemingly straightforward discussions, such as who gets which office, how a new policy should read, how to set budgets for the next fiscal year, and even where to go on vacation with the extended family.

The process leads to much better outcomes and builds relationships. Despite the number of people involved, people have a voice, they feel heard, and they begin to view crafting an agreement as a joint problem.

While the process as a whole may seem like it would take longer than putting everyone in a room and letting them fight it out, that approach usually just leads to deadlock or forced compromises that themselves often lead to unworkable agreements that can’t be implemented properly. In the end, the one-text approach often saves time.

This process works very well for situations in which there are multiple parties at the table, but it can also be helpful for one-on-one negotiations in which you know your counterpart is going to have to vet the agreement with an array of internal constituents. You might develop a rough draft together, and then she can run the one-text procedure inside her organization. Of course, you have interests that need to be met, too, so remain involved to ensure your interests are taken into account in future drafts.

Negotiating with many individuals who have widely disparate interests can be daunting, but clarifying decision-making roles and using the one-text procedure is a disciplined way to bring all those voices together to reach one solution.