Environmental Leadership Program: ELP News: Summer 2002-Activity Fund Updates: Environmental Negotiation by David Cash

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newsletter Summer 2002

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ELP News:

Activity Fund Updates

Environmental Negotiation

by David Cash, ELP Fellow 2001-2003

One weekend in April, over the course of 72 hours, 20 ELP fellows (plus a staff member and a board member) solved a major transboundary accidental chemical release problem, diffused an international dispute about the allocation of fisheries resources, made considerable headway in the contentious siting of an asphalt manufacturing plant, and concluded trade negotiations between Pluto, Neptune and Jupiter. The setting for this intense conflict resolution work was the Environmental Negotiations Workshop that I developed with support from the ELP Activity Fund.

During the August 2001 ELP Fellowship retreat, many fellows had discussed the complex environmental negotiations in which they were engaged between their organizations or clients and other organizations (e.g. tribes and state or federal governments, different interests involved in city planning, firms and NGOs, etc.). They also reflected on interpersonal challenges associated with running an organization and dealing with supervisors, supervisees, and collaborators. These sets of challenges demand ways to communicate, mediate, and negotiate, skills that many of the fellows already have. However, fellows articulated the desire to learn better and more systematic ways to negotiate, mediate or resolve conflicts within their organizations or between collaborators. The conflict resolution sessions at the August 2001 retreat gave a taste for what such systematic skill-building would look like, but did not go in depth, or allow for much practice. I designed the April 2002 Environmental Negotiations Workshop to provide more systematic skill-building and ways of thinking about how to approach and plan for complicated negotiations.

Participants at the Environmental Negotiation Workshop in April 2002.

I developed the workshop with Doug Stone, a teacher of negotiation at Harvard Law School and founder of a consulting firm that mediates a range of disputes and helps individuals and organizations develop expertise in negotiation and mediation. He brought to the table a wealth of experience in real-world, though not environmental, negotiations (from dealing with racial issues in the Springfield, Massachusetts police department, to helping diffuse tensions in Cyprus between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots); enormous skill as a teacher; and a wonderful sense of humor. Doug invited another Harvard Law professor, John Richardson, an expert on multi-party negotiations, to facilitate one session. I contributed my experience in environmental and natural resource problem solving and negotiation.

By using and adapting existing role play/simulations (including one written by ELP fellow Jason Corburn), we structured activities to build analytic and practical skills in mutual gains negotiation. The exercises focused on ways to reach agreements that satisfy the interests of multiple parties, while not sacrificing one's own interests; to search for and create win-win situations; to diffuse tensions; and to build trust and lasting relationships. These simulations, often based on real situations, provided an engaging and thought-provoking way to delve into the challenges and strategies in complicated negotiations.

The participants' mix of experience, insight, wisdom, and willingness to take risks helped make the workshop a success. With participants ranging from EPA regulators, scientists, community organizers, nonprofit managers, academics, and consultants, there was an abundance of expertise, and many examples of successes and failures that sparked discussion, provided new insights, and gave a real-world context to our framework for planning, strategizing, and conducting negotiations.

As many participants noted in their evaluations, simulations, while stimulating and useful, are not a substitute for real-world situations. The challenge for all of us is to practice -- and put into practice -- the skills that might contribute to more satisfying results in complex and contentious situations characterized by multiple perspectives, interests and desires for different outcomes.

David Cash is a fellow in Harvard University's Global Environmental Assessment Project and Sustainability Systems Project.

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