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negotiation and consensus-finding styles

2015-12-14 07:04:34

This caught my eye (and some other people’s eye too, got some
people asking about it):

   "This simple negotiation tactic brought 195 countries to consensus"
   http://tinyurl.com/qb4oyq9

It is about the climate change negotiations. Government negotiations
are not my thing in general :-) but this article points to a specific
negotiation style, Indaba:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indaba

  "Instead of repeating stated positions, each party is encouraged
   to speak personally and state their “red lines,” which are
   thresholds that they don’t want to cross. But while telling others
   their hard limits, they are also asked to provide solutions to find
   a common ground.”

I’ve never heard of this particular technique before, have
other people run into it? Any experiences? Any more detailed
information? The reason that I’m asking is that it kind of sounds
like the way people should be voicing their opinions in an IETF
discussion, when that discussion is run in an optimal way.
Along with our rough consensus concepts, of course, and
drive to understand other people's positions.

Just wondering if this is essential what our rough consensus
process already is, or if there are further details that we could
consider learning from as well.

(And: as always, any process can by misused if the participants
do not care enough about the common good. I’m sure this
never happens in government negotiations :-) but in the
rest of the world… one example that I’ve seen in the IETF
is overstating hard requirements, e.g., making particular
solutions part of the requirements. Next time you discuss
something in the IETF, please take a moment to reflect
what your true needs are and what are just solution
space options. Take also a moment to understand
what the other people are saying, and try to build
that into what you are suggesting, finding ways for
other people’s needs to be also met.)

Jari

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