Clarity in Communications – Sensemaking and Negotiations

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At its core the collective bargaining process is about effective communication. It is not about volume or intensity, although those strategies can be necessary when carefully used in the right moment. Rather, collective bargaining is about making persuasive, well-researched and thoughtful arguments that support your interests, or challenge positions taken by the other negotiator. And while meticulous preparation, rehearsal and perfect delivery may empower you with the sense that you are making your case, we often underestimate the impediments to the listener’s understanding of what you are saying. Organizational psychologists call the process of message delivery and interpretation “sensemaking.” In the research on organizational behavior the concept of sensemaking is vast and far from uniform; therefore, for our purpose here we will narrow its scope to the question of negotiator awareness and the cognitive limits that can influence interpretation and decision making. And, like all of our collective bargaining newsletters, we will conclude by identifying strategies and techniques you can use to enhance delivery and interpretation.

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Simply put, sensemaking is the way people rely on environmental clues to “make sense” of ambiguous, uncertain, or new experiences. It is how people “organize” their interpretations to determine their reaction or response.

To consider the sensemaking process in the context of collective bargaining it is necessary to understand that listeners do not generally “hear” everything that you say, and if they do, what they hear will not always be interpreted with the same meaning as you intended. Often the interpretation of your negotiation point may be filtered through the listener’s personal biases, or their default assumptions – therefore your supporting argument for a normative wage proposal may be interpreted as an unsustainable or unjustifiable concession by the other side. Likewise, your detailed proposal to have a vacancy posting process may be ignored and interpreted as an irritating intrusion into management’s rights. These default assumptions result from a “blindness” within the  interpretive process where the listener ignores your message content and substitutes their own pre-determined assumptions.

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Complex messages can result in similar interpretative obstacles. If message content is not clear and delivered in an orderly fashion, listeners will often take “mental shortcuts” to break down the complexity. These shortcuts simplify message content and organize the listener’s reaction at the cost of hearing your justifications. Often these shortcuts are influenced by an “anchoring” to a position – therefore a proposed promotional system may be summarily dismissed as an infringement on the “boss’s right to pick his team.” 

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One of the most troublesome impediments to sensemaking and reaching decisions is the self-serving evaluation of potential outcomes – something that influences both sides of the bargaining table. Negotiators often focus too much on a particular outcome, giving too much weight to a certain set of supportive facts while ignoring other facts that may negatively influence an outcome. This is the result of the competitive nature of negotiations, the imperfection of information, and a need for more thorough research.

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Sensemaking Strategies

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We have identified several cognitive impediments that impact on the quality of interpretation and decision making in the negotiation process. Mental shortcuts create situations where listeners substitute the details of your argument with their own predetermined or biased interpretations. How do we overcome this?

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Anyone who has participated in our advance negotiation programs will hardly be surprised when I mention that one of the key steps to enhancing your message quality and delivery is research. Let’s face it – research is at the heart of all negotiations. Negotiators should be aware of the collective bargaining landscape – what are others negotiating, are negotiations in your sector robust or modest? Is your proposal common in the sector or are you dealing with a potentially breakthrough item? Each of these considerations shapes your negotiation frame – the way you structure your argument. Proposals that are common, or normative, are best framed with an appeal to the superordinate goal of fairness. It is difficult for a negotiator to ignore a “fairness” argument – so framing your argument in this fashion should overcome bias (with that however, you may have a preliminary issue about defining fairness on the basis of sector relevancy).

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Rehearse your negotiation content and understand that your workplace has its own language. Do not assume that everyone on the other side of the table has a full understanding of the workplace environment – so shape your arguments in a way that a non-paramedic person would understand. In doing so, remember that you are not just speaking to their negotiator – a person who may have considerable negotiation experience in the sector. You are speaking to the rest of the committee who are often the decision makers in their room. In a recent negotiation, for example, we had an employer committee who were persistently demanding benefit concessions that were not found anywhere in comparator collective agreements (let alone the collective agreements for the other municipal unions). We addressed these concessionary demands by laying out, in great detail, the bargaining landscape as well as the decision-making process at interest arbitration. We made it clear that their demands were unachievable in any alternative to a negotiated agreement. This brought clarity but also spoke directly to the decision makers in the room. The concessions were dropped, and a settlement was achieved.

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Be certain that the quality of your conversation is high. This is achieved through asking layered questions – who, what, why, when, where and how. Be sure that you drill deeply into the other’s reasons for a proposal – you will be surprised how often their arguments are unsound. Before doing so, however, spend time with your own team determining what the potential employer answers may be, so as to predetermine your question strategy, and whether you want to pursue the line of questions in the first place.

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Likewise, in the preparation stages appoint one member of your team to function as the “Devil’s Advocate” – to challenge you to make sure that your dialogue is complete and accessible to the less experienced persons in the room. Frame your arguments in super-ordinate terms – “safety” or “equity” – those larger themes that are difficult for other negotiators to ignore.

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Tell the stories. This is a function of research, but putting member experiences to a bargaining demand helps to personalize a proposal and appeals to a negotiator’s sense of fairness, thus limiting their mental shortcuts.

Be aware that the imperfect sharing of information in negotiations also presents the opportunity to apply anchoring to impact on the range of settlements. While we deal with anchoring more fully in a future newsletter, for today’s purposes we can characterize anchoring as the process where the negotiator who makes the first full settlement proposal establishes the base on which the ultimate terms of settlement will be based. Done correctly, you can take advantage of the listeners’ decision shortcuts to create a more favourable negotiation outcome.

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Conclusion

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Early research considered negotiator dynamics as if they took place in a perfect world. The information in negotiations was presumed to be complete and fully exchanged, and negotiators would consider optimal measurement of outcomes and risks. But those “game theorist” or “rational choice theory” approaches to negotiations were unrealistic. They were not at all reflective of the real world and the complex dynamics of interpersonal, and often competitive exchanges (and often over perceived limited resources or power in the workplace).  People “construct” their realities to retrospectively “make sense” by perceiving clues that engage their self-serving default bias or decision-making short-cuts, which they then interpret to form a reaction. 

 

As negotiators we want to control the environment, understanding that despite our meticulous preparation and articulate delivery, there are always things that get in the way. We want to be aware of those things, prepare for and account for them.

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What Our Clients Say

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With the bargaining climate rapidly becoming ever more complex in Ontario, our local sought the professional assistance of Bill Cole at COLE LABOUR. Bill assisted us with exhaustive research, data collection and bargaining advice. This provided us with a tailored bargaining strategy which addressed our wants and needs, which were ideosyncratic to our local and the paramedic sector. In large unions getting the guidance and expertise necessary to achieve favourable outcomes, particularly for our profession, can be difficult. Having Bill as our spokesperson at the table, with the necessary preparation, resulted in one of our best collective agreements to date and sets the groundwork to build further at our next negotiations. 

 

Ted Stein

President

CUPE, Loc. 1484

Cochrane Paramedics 

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Cole Labour Newsletters

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Is this the first newsletter you have received? If you are interested in or other newsletters, please email info@colelabour.ca. Subscribers to our emails also receive our newsletters on interest arbitration and leader-member engagement.

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For more information on negotiations check out the website here. 

If you are interested in interest arbitration, a link to the newsletter if found here. 

Finally, I write a lot about building engagement within the union - you will find more information here. 

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If you have any questions, please email us at info@colelabour.ca or visit our website at www.colelabour.ca.

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