By Dr Judith Morrison Negotiators in today’s complex decision-making and planning environments need more than natural, intuitive ability and good intentions. They need specialised training and skills to anticipate, and hopefully avoid, some of the communication traps that undermine problem-solving processes involving a range of stakeholders. The area of sustainability is particularly subject to differing views.
While there are many courses that teach how to develop policy around sustainability work practices, none address how to manage these inherently differing viewpoints. This course improves capacity to communicate ideas about sustainability back and forth between people who look at problems from very different perspectives.
Attempts by stakeholders to find consensus often fail because those who participate have little or no formal training in negotiation skills, particularly the crucial mix of skills required to deal with sustainability issues. Stakeholders who cannot work through issues together often find themselves at an impasse, which paralyses their capacity for collective, collaborative decision-making. Training that prepares people, both practically and psychologically, to negotiate through complex sustainability issues helps avoid the high and often counter-productive time, money, reputation and trust costs of stalemate.
Negotiations that don’t deliver mutually satisfactory outcomes leave communities, organisations and businesses cynical and unconvinced about the possibility of working together when sustainable solutions are needed. The skills that provide direct benefit to participants as they learn to negotiate a sustainable way forward include:
* a better understanding of the principles and ethos of sustainability
* the capacity to make informed sustainability assessments in workplaces and other situations
* the capacity to plan for participation in collaborative multi-party decision-making or problem
solving processes
* the capacity to predict and alleviate the risk of pitfalls that often undermine cross-sectoral
negotiations
* the capacity to engender an interest in maintaining sustainable relationships even when
contention threatens to erode goodwill.
This course brings home the point that cross-sectoral and cross-cultural consultations and negotiations require competencies and skills well beyond those required for day-to-day engagement within one particular work sector or industry, or within one particular cultural context. A general framework is established through which to assess what skills are most crucial in a particular type of negotiation scenario and how they might be utilised. Delivered online, face-to-face or in workplace setting. Contact hours equivalent to four days of training, plus time to complete reading and assessment activities
Developed and delivered by Dr Judith Morrison: www.sustainabilitytraining.net.au
