So we have a hung parliament.
This has already ben posted, but clearly this is what the parties should be thinking about.
The key to who will be the next prime minister and the governing party lies in effective negotiation.
In other words, it will be the negotiation skills of the parties which will key in determining who forms the next government and the way this is done if (and it is an if) no party can form an effective government.
The question is, do the parties have an effective negotiation strategy?
The key to having an effective strategy is in effective preparation.
The best negotiators do not just effective preparation, but a lot of it.
As a mediator and a lawyer, if I was advising one of the three main parties, what would I be focusing upon?
1. Who is going to conduct the negotiations? Just because one is a party leader does not mean that he should be conducting them/fronting them. However, it will be crucial that whoever does conduct the negotiations has sufficient clout to be credible. As a consequence, figures who would have a chance of fronting the negotiations would be Lord Mandelson, Vince Cable or Kenneth Clarke due to their presence of gravitas. Others while being important figures may not have sufficient presence to make the grade.
2. Ensure stakeholders have been managed. Whilst the parties are understandably focused on the election, the last thing that any of the negotiators is going into a negotiation is being overly fearful about what their respective parties memberships will accept. Formally Cameron and Brown have a free hand in negotiations, Clegg does not. He is required by Liberal Democratic rules to get the support of 75% of the Parliamentary Liberal Democrat party, and 75% of the party’s Federal executive if he effectively wants to go into a coalition with another party. This places a significant limitation on his negotiation power.
3. Establish objectives and bottom lines. The parties should be looking at precisely what they are looking at from the negotiations. In the cold light of day, what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. At what point will they walk away? Could there be any circumstances when their walk away point will adjust? (E.g. If public opinion turns on any of the parties for some reason?)
4. Consider venues and use Of mediation. Attention to detail is one variable which sets out the really excellent negotiators from the satisfactory. As a mediator, I am frequently looking to enhance the venue to ensure that it makes the parties as comfortable as possible in the negotiations. Parties are impacted by their surroundings. The parties could consider mediation as well as a way to break deadlock rather than just trying to negotiate them.
5. Manage events. When I am advising/mediating an employee in a negotiation sometimes a quite incredible/unusual event comes out of the blue. For example, a boss can start behaving totally irrationally or a piece of evidence can emerge. By way of example, today we are reading about the Greek financial crisis. What happens if this boils over to a UK financial crisis? How would this play out in any negotiation with a hung parliament?
6. Avoid common negotiation pitfalls. According to the authors of Negotiation Genius, Deepak Malhotra and Max Bazerman, common negotiation pitfalls include:
You make a first offer that was not sufficiently aggressive;
You talk but do not listen;
You try to influence the other party but did not try to learn from them;
You do not challenge your assumptions about the other party;
You make greater concessions than the other party.
Avoid these pitfalls, and then you have a greater chance of doing better within the negotiations.
7. Manage people. We should never neglect the fact that we are dealing with people who have been battle scarred by the conduct of Parliamentary business over a number of years. The parties should be anticipating whether personalities will get in the way of any deal or alternatively, whether there is any rapport between the parties which can be used to enhance a deal.
Justin Patten, Lawyer and Negotiator