On Friday the ESD Leadership Training group finished the training on co-operation and stakeholder management by completing the second and last stage of the negotiations. As discussed in yesterdays blog, the group took on roles in a fictional scenario where two conflicting sides in a community needed to negotiate terms with the input of the countries Ministries. Today the participants started the session by preparing for the second meeting (which had the same set up), but this time taking into account different options and the ‘next best alternative’, which are two aspects of the Harvard method of negotiating.  After discussions from all sides of the debate and with excellent facilitation by Nadine, (not to mention non-biased) an agreement was reached.

Feedback from the group is extremely positive

Afterwards the groups came together for the debriefing and to discuss the strategies used by those involved and  how they felt about the results of the negotiations. They then took this further by discussing what happened in relation to the Harvard method. Then continuing on with this method Fabian discussed with the group the issue of dirty tricks used in negotiation situations which includes false information and acting uninterested etc. The participants then got together to analyze and present methods of getting passed these tricks.

The next task was to put the issue of negotiations in the context of different cultures. The participants were placed in groups of their own countrymen/women and asked to read information from a book called, ‘Negotiating International Business’ and prepare a presentation based on the situation in their country.

The remainder of the day was set aside for a summary of what has been learned during the week, as well as the usual feedback from the group. A lot of this conversation was formed around the issues of the Harvard method and how the group felt about this. The facilitators reminded the participants of the expectations and objectives from the week to discuss whether these had been reached and also used the ‘dartboard’ method of presenting the groups feedback. Judging from this the participants were very happy with the weeks training.