[From Rick Marken (2000.10.21.1830)]
Me:
It challenges my PCT informed belief that a negotiated settlement
to an interpersonal conflict must involve compromise on the part
of one or all parties to the conflict.
Bill Curry (2000.10.20.1000 EDT)
Rick, please define the terms "compromise" and "giving in"
in PCTspeak.
As you note, I did so in a later part of my post: Compromise
occurs when some or all parties to the conflict are willing to
get something less than exactly the perceptions they wanted at
the start of the negotiation.
...then I would take issue with your phrase "less than" because
it depicts conflict negotiation as an inevitable win-lose process.
Actually, it depicts conflict negotiation as an inevitable lose-
lose proposition. A successful negotiation is one where both
parties end up with an acceptable level of net loss ("net loss"
being, in PCT terms, the average level of error experienced by
each party to the conflict after the negotiation).
Substituting the word "different" would avoid the unscientific
and pejorative value-laden spin of "less than".
I think you are right, but not for the reason you give. In PCT,
controlled perceptions are represented as scalar variables. When
there is a conflict between control systems, neither system is able
to keep a mutually controlled variable _quantitatively_ at its
reference. The controlled variable might be less than the reference
for one system and greater than the reference for another. So the
problem for both systems is that the controlled perception is
quantitatively "different than" what each system wants -- being
_less than_ or _greater than_ the wanted level of perception for
either system. For example, one system might want the perception
at 10; the other might want it at 20. The actual perception may
be 15. So the perception is less than one system's reference (20)
and greater than the other system's reference (10). But there is
a _difference_ (error) in both cases (5).
What the parties to the conflict want is _no difference_ (0)
between what they want (reference) and what they are getting
(current state of the perception). That is, they want _zero
absolute error_. Compromise occurs when some or all parties to
the conflict are willing to accept perceptions that are _different
than_ exactly the perceptions that wanted at the start of the
negotiation.
Speaking from my own extensive negotiating experience, I recall
many times where I didn't get "less than" my initial perceptions
but I frequently ended up equally satisfied with different
perceptions than where I started.
This is a different meaning of "different" than I have in mind.
People go into negotiations controlling many perceptions simultaneously.
Only one or two of these perceptions may be
identified as the focus of the negotiations. I think what you have
experienced as being "satisfied with different perceptions" is a
reduction in the error in other controlled perceptions than the
ones that were the original focus of the negotiations. For example,
the focus of the labor/management negotiations may be raises. The
labor target (reference) raise might be 7%; the management target raise
might be 2%. The agreement (compromise) might a raise of
4% _with child care benefits_ to families who need it. So both
parties end up with error for the raise perception but both also
end up with offsetting error for other variables, such as child
care, which were not part of the original focus of the negotiation,
like child care.
Finding the solution to a negotiation is like finding an acceptable
solution to a set of simultaneous equations. Each equation includes
as many perceptions as can be thought of that are controlled by
all parties to the negotiation and their references for these
perceptions. For example, here are a set of equations describing
the total error experienced by 3 parties to a negotiation who are
controlling n different perceptions, p1, p2...pn:
(1) te1 = (r11-p1)+(r12-p2)...(r1n-pn)
(2) te2 = (r21-p1)+(r22-p2)...(r2n-p3)
(3) te3 = (r31-p1)+(r32-p2)...(r3n-p3)
where te1, te2, and te3 are the total error experienced by party 1,
2 and 3 respectively; r11, r12...r1n are references for perceptions
1, 2...n respectively for party 1; r21, r22...r2n are references
for perceptions 1, 2...n respectively for party 2, and so on. A
negotiation involving parties 1, 2 and 3 involves finding values for
p1, p2...pn that result in acceptably low levels of total error for
all parties to the negotiation.
"Win-win" suggests to me that there are settings of p1, p2...pn that
bring te1, te2 and te3 to 0. If this were true -- if there were
settings of these 3 perceptions that allowed all three parties to
control the perceptions at issue with zero error-- then it would be
more appropriate to call the negotiation a "problem solving" session
because there actually is a solution (in terms of settings of p1,
p2...pn) that solves the problem of getting te1, te2 and te3 = 0
A shift between controlled variables is usually at the heart of a
successful negotiation
I think it's not so much a shift in controlled variables as finding
the perceptions (out of the n total perceptions involved in the
negotiation) which, when adjusted appropriately, reduce the total
error in all parties to the negotiation.
An open minded, exploratory negotiating process, creates and allows
new variables (options) to develop which give participants the
means to slip the lockage of conflict by agreeing to control
different but acceptable perceptions.
I agree. I think what you are doing is finding _existing_ perceptions
that are being controlled by all parties and adding them to the set
of perceptions that are already in the simultaneous equations;. Some
of these perceptions (say, pn+1), when added to the simultaneous set,
could allow the readjustment of all existing perceptions to get to
an acceptable total error level for all parties. For example,
adding "day care" as a perception up for negotiation is taking a
perception that is already controlled by both labor and management
(labor controls it by sending their kids to private day care if they
can; management controls it as a labor expense, possibly keeping it
at zero) and adding it to the set up simultaneous equations that
define the negotiation.
Are you negotiable on substituting "different" for "less than"
in your statement above?
I hope I have answered that. I could accept substituting "different"
for "less than" as long as it's clear that "different" means
"different from the reference level". A successful negotiation
is one that minimizes (or brings to an acceptably low level) the
difference between all perceptions and their reference levels for
all parties. This seems consistent with your second definition of
"win-win", which I would rewrite slightly as: the parties win because
they are all satisfied with the outcome (level of total error) even
though they all have different references for the set of perceptions
involved in the negotiation.
Best
Rick
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Richard S. Marken Phone or Fax: 310 474-0313
Life Learning Associates e-mail: marken@mindreadings.com
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