Tactics to Communicate Firm Flexibility

1. Use competitive tactics to establish and defend basic interests rather than to demand a particular position or solution to the dispute. State what you want clearly.

2. Send signals of flexibility and concern about your willingness to address the other party’s interests. Openly express concern for the other’s welfare and “acknowledge their interests as part of the problem” (Fisher, Ury, and Patton, 1991, p. 55). In doing so, you communicate that you have your own interests at stake but are willing to try to address the other’s as well.

3. Indicate a willingness to change your proposals if a way can be found to bridge both negotiators’ interests.

4. Demonstrate problem-solving capacity. For example, use experts on a negotiating team or bring them in as consultants based on their expertise at generating new ideas.

5. Maintain open communication channels. Do not eliminate opportunities to communicate and work together, if only to demonstrate continually that you are willing to work with the other party.

6. Reaffirm what is most important to you through the use of clear statements – for example, “I need to attain this; this is a must; this cannot be touched or changed.” These statements communicate to the other party that a particular interest is fundamental to you, but it does not necessarily mean that the other’s interests can’t be satisfied as well.

7. Reexamine any aspect of your interests that are clearly unacceptable to the other party and determine if they are still essential to you. It is rare that negotiators will find that they truly disagree on basic interests.

8. Separate and isolate contentious tactics from problem-solving behavior to manage the contentious behavior. This may be accomplished by clearly specifying a change in the negotiation process, by separating the two processes with a break or recess, or, in team negotiations, by having one party act contentiously and then having a second negotiator offer to engage in problem solving.