Canadian Consortium on Human Security

David Eaves*

I recently helped walk a group of Ugandans through a negotiations process in an effort to help advance their discussions with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Often, when engaged in a negotiation, one can end up in a situation when one’s counterpart keeps saying no. This type of impasse can be frustrating and even create a sense of disempowerment. In my work as a negotiation consultant it is not unusual to see people become exasperated or dejected – to succumb to the belief that their counterpart is simply unreasonable or illogical – and determine that nothing can be accomplished.

Such a conclusion, while understandable, is unhelpful. It causes us to shift our focus from the substantive issues at hand to the people involved. We become persuaded that changing the actors – e.g. altering the relationship – will enable us to achieve a breakthrough on the deal. Such a belief is dangerous as a) frequently the actors cannot be changed; and b) it presumes that the new actors will respond to the current dynamic in a different – more agreeable – manner. In short, a negotiated outcome now rests on our counterparts’ capacity to reach an agreement, not our own. Such a conclusion truly is disempowering.

When confronted with a negotiation counterpart that consistently says “no” I advise my clients to engage in a choice analysis. This tool, developed by the likes of Roger Fisher at the Harvard Negotiation Project at Harvard Law School rests on a two simple assumptions. First, that people do what they believe is in their self-interest. And second, that we can’t influence people unless we understand how they see and understand the situation.

Conducting a choice analysis is simple, you need to determine:

 

Who is the decision-maker?What question does the decision-maker hear? (There is a difference between this and what question you ask.)What are the likely consequences for the decision-maker saying a) yes; b) no?

As has been widely reported, the LRA regularly engages in a strategy of kidnapping, indoctrinating and ultimately converting children into soldiers and supporters of the movement. The problem is so severe that a new term has been invented - “night commuters” – to describe the children aged of 3 and 17 who walk up to 20 kilometres nightly to locations where they can sleep safe from the LRA’s kidnappers.

The tribal leaders I met with were attempting to negotiate the release of kidnapped women and children. During this process this was the Choice Analysis they developed:

One metric to determine if the analysis is accurate is if, when looking at it, one can say to themselves: “Looking at it from this perspective I can see why they are saying no.”

Why is this analysis important? It gives us a window into the interests and concerns that one needs to address in order to craft a proposal that one’s counterpart is more likely to say “yes” to.

In the above case Kony has legitimate concerns about the safety of these women and children should he release them back to their communities (in an effort to seek revenge against him an aggrieved individual might try to attack someone who is believed to be one of his wives or children). More importantly, life at the head of a rebel army in the African bush is fraught with danger - Kony can never show any sign of weakness lest he be overthrown. As such he can only say yes to a proposal that affirms his power and does not weaken him in the eyes of his soldiers and subordinates. Also important is the fact that “releasing” these women and children would be a tacit acknowledgment that they had been kidnapped in the first place – a concession he is unlikely to make since such an act would strengthen the legal and political case against him.

There are of course, those who will argue that Kony is not a rational actor - that he is a murderer and a sociopath. The problem is that this assumption does not help the Ugandans negotiating with him. Indeed it robs one of any structure, strategy or framework by which to approach a negotiation. Interestingly, Kony himself is alleged to have said “I’m not evil. I’m not stupid, I’ve built this whole army.” Clearly he believes he is rational and that, as a result, he has a set of interests that could, potentially, be satisfied. This is probably a safe assumption – regardless of one’s opinion of Kony – it is worth noting that one doesn’t survive for 20 odd years as the head of a successful rebel army without a) being extremely smart; and b) possessing a finely (even ruthlessly) honed sense of self-interest. While it may be difficult to negotiate with someone like this, a successful negotiator will nonetheless appeal to these traits.

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