All Africa

World renown negotiation professor Dr. Michael Benoliel has been to Uganda and in this interview with Charles Etukuri offers an insight into the art of cutting peace deals.

What prompted you into writing this book?

When you look at negotiation literature, there are many accounts. James Baker - the politics of diplomacy, Jimmy Carter, Clinton, etc. Most of it is biography. In a 700-page book, you find only 20-30 pages on negotiations from the single perspective of the writer.

You find academic stuff not useful to the average person.

Nobody has ever in one book, asked highly experienced negotiators how they do it in diplomacy, law, business, politics, labour and sports.

What are some of the common problems in negotiation?

As a negotiation professor, I see that many people are poor negotiators.

They do not know what they want in a full, precise, concise and specific way.

They come with a fixed mindset- that the reserves are limited and we have to divide them. If you win, I lose.

The larger my pie, the smaller yours and vice versa.

But the question is, are we smart enough to enlarge the pie and create a gain-gain negotiation? You have to be smart in inventing options to creating creative trade-offs.

But in order to do that one has to be open.

In an airplane, you could get a window seat yet you really prefer the aisle one, and the chap in the aisle wants the window.

None of you knows the other's needs. But if you express yourself, you could negotiate for an exchange and both of you end up happy.

We have seen situations where during the course of negotiations violence increases, instead of decreasing - what causes this?

Often, conflict escalates and negotiations fail because one party fails to recognise the interests of the other side.

We need to come to the negotiating table knowing fully and clearly what we want, what our interests are, but at the same time knowing precisely what interests of the other side are. Only then can we start talking.

What happens is that often we know what our interests are but we do not pay enough attention to what the other side wants.

A good negotiator is one who negotiates from both sides of the table. Poor negotiators negotiate from one side of the table as if the other side is not there- failing to listen to what the other side wants.

One common mistake is that they do not listen fully to what the other side is saying.

Therefore listening is very strategic and each negotiator must develop that capacity.

Could you give examples of what you would regard as some of the most perfect negotiations?

I do not know of any perfect negotiation. In Camp David 2000, between Israel and Palestine, a lot of mistakes were made by major players.

The Palestinians showed up at Camp David not to have a deal but because they were pressured to show up.

Mistakes are part of the game. Question is, are you aware of you own mistakes? And how do you correct them? Often, negotiators are not aware of their own mistakes because they are so deeply and so passionately involved in the problem that they fail to see the process. They do not take a moment, step out of it and try to understand it.

I argue that management of the negotiation process is the most critical. Of course you have to care, develop relationship and trust, develop structure of negotiation- what are the issues, how to sequence the issues, build negotiation team, venue, timing.

All these are important structural issues.

But nothing is more important than management of the process because you have to deal with the real things and respond to issues in a short time. You do not have the luxury of planning for events as they are rapidly unfolding.

You have to understand them quickly and make a decision on what to do.

Suppose an ultimatum has been given, you do not have the luxury to plan for it in advance. It is here and now. How do you respond in an effective way?

What would you regard as the best way for Uganda's negotiators to follow in striking a deal with the Lord's Resistance Army?

Uganda's case is very complex. It is hard for me to comment on it because I know little about it. Maybe at the moment there is no deal - and you cannot sign an agreement when there is nothing you have agreed on in the first place. So maybe it is important at the moment to ask questions. Often, negotiators are one big pretence. There are some indicators we can examine.

- High entry barriers- a party makes enormous demands before agreeing to enter negotiations.

This is in order to sabotage negotiations before it begins. Where you have unrealistic preconditions, of course you cannot agree.

- Low exit barrier during negotiations. This means refusing to agree on the simplest things, and for every little thing one party threatens to withdraw and walk out.

- Ripeness. Sometimes, the moment may not be ripe yet for resolution because ultimately, it will be resolved only when it is ripe for resolution.

Of course you can induce ripeness. That is very central. In negotiation, no one can measure ripeness or know that right moment.

However, one should always look at specific situations and ask how should we induce ripeness- what kind of intervention will work in this case. Some people induce ripeness by inflicting more pain on the other side or having attractive incentives, or both at the same time or bringing enormous international pressure.

What point in time do you regard situations of a conflict as ripe for negotiation settlement?

Escalation of violence is a necessity in the build-up to a negotiation table. The cost and price of conflict ultimately brings people to their knees.

They crowd the negotiation table when they both know that conflict has a very heavy price.

People engage in conflict because they believe they can win. When they realise they cannot win, they come to table.

Parties have legitimate interests. Question is, do you recognise the legitimacy or not.

Harmonising interests and some level of accommodation of interests of parties is crucial.

A win-win situation is often possible when interests are not in direct conflict with each other.

Look at a bottle of soda. Instead of fighting to take everything, we can listen to each other. I may want the bottle, not the soda. So you take the soda, I take the bottle.

That is a trade off.

If one wants the soda, straw and bottle, then you have to be very creative in trying to articulate some trade offs. One thing negotiations fail to do is being creative in the art of making trade offs.