I've been exchanging e-mail with Pablo Restrepo on a subject in which we'd be interested in hearing other perspectives. Pablo is using a conflict resolution process with OS at each stage. My belief is doing an OS with sufficient time and an appropriate theme will lead to similar results with less effort and less overall time. What are your thoughts?
Here are the details of our exchange. Peggy ----- Original Message ----- From: Pablo Restrepo <mailto:[email protected]> To: Peggy Holman, Open Space Institute (US) <mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 12:26 PM Subject: First experience with OST Here we are well, we are happy with the election's process, and hope the new president govern this country intelligently, he is a capable man, but we are all concern about his lenience towards the right. This makes our project to involve the civil society in the search for solution much more relevant. The reason I am writing to you is because I wanted to share our first OST experience. I remember hearing Harry Owen in his CD making a reference to his ?conflict resolution colleagues?, I may venture to guess that he is concern about our tendency to control the conflict resolution processes, it is true we do. One of the first values, if not the most important one, that I found in OST had to do with this: loosing control of the process and having faith in the capacity of the agents involved. I still think that the process in Conflict Resolution makes a lot of sense: 1.. Preparation 2.. Building the relationship 3.. Building the information 4.. Defining the process 5.. Creating options 6.. Designing the agreement 7.. Follow-up I also believe there are best practices in each phase that help create value, claim value, and build better long term relationships. What we have found of incredible value in OST is to complement our process with the events. In Bellsouth we have proposed a mix of OST with our conflict resolution process to negotiate a new contract with their distributors. What we think is that OST can be use in each phase to improve relations, increase creativity and participation, and build information (among many other things that we are discovering as we go along). In practice we did our first OST to help prepare Bellsouth´s counterpart to negotiate with them. I have to underscore that this was done after training all parties in depth in conflict resolution through workshops, so they are very knowledgeable in the techniques and have applied them in the events. The event was a success, it help the distributors negotiate among them, build more trust among them, identify the issues they want to negotiate with Bellsouth, propose a negotiating process to Bellsouth, and design a few proposals. Now, on Thursday, we are using OST again to help Bellsouth prepare ?multiple proposals? (a very effective negotiating technique) to present them next week to the distributors; then we will do another OST, in two weeks with the distributors, again, to help them prepare their counterproposals. Following this, we will bring both sides of the negotiations together in an OST to negotiate there proposals to each other and design the final agreement. As a closure, we will do a final OST to have them jointly think how they will ready themselves for the new competition of PCS´s that will be appearing next year in Ecuador. This with the purpose of emphasizing the joint future and to strengthen there relationship. What I believe is very interesting about what we are doing is to integrate a process which in our experience is very valuable, our conflict resolution process, with a process that brings about fundamental things to a negotiation: participation, creativity, commitment with the outcomes, trust, exchange of information, creation of additional issues, prioritization, identification of interests and underlying interests, etc. We believe that, as needed, OST could be use to construct each of the phases. I would underscore that something that has been fundamental is the previous training in negotiation that all the parties have had, they have integrated the techniques, strategies and best practices iin the OST´s actively. Well, thank you again for your interest and unconditional support. Best regards, Pablo Pablo Restrepo TANDEM Alternative Dispute Resolution Pablo Restrepo Sáenz Tel: (571) 296 7080 & 635 6330 Fax: (571) 296 7081 Email: [email protected] Webpage: http://www.tandemadr.com ************************************************************************************************* Pablo, Thank you for the update. The election made the news here and I thought about you, wondering if you were pleased with the outcome. I'm delighted to hear your first OS was successful. Congratulations! I'll look forward to hearing how it unfolds as you proceed. You are very right about the need in OS to let go of control and have faith. I literally sat on my hands in the back of the room when I did my first OS meeting. There was only one session posted during the first time period. I was worried about what those not interested in the topic would do. It turned out there was only one session because it was such an important topic and NO ONE was going to miss that session. I was awestruck as I watched the group hold a dialogue. These were mostly blue collar workers with no formal training in any sort of conflict or communications processes. They were intense, respectful, and voiced many different and conflicting perspectives. Over the 2 days, they solved their issues themselves. I have a suspicion about your mixing OST with the conflict resolution process. This is based upon my own experience with OST. The longer you work with it, the less you will feel the need to mix the processes. I think this is because OST allows a natural flow of interaction to emerge and the conflict resolution process works because it is a natural flow. Given the appropriate theme and at least 2 days in Open Space, you would find people going through the conflict resolution process without the explicit steps. This is even more likely to happen given participants are trained in conflict resolution. Thank you again for keeping me informed, Peggy ************************************************************************************************************************************ From: Pablo Restrepo <mailto:[email protected]> To: Peggy Holman, Open Space Institute (US) <mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 3:54 PM Subject: Re: First experience with OST Peggy, Thanks for your comments and support. Your description of what happened to you in the first OST is the same of what happened to us. There were several proposals, in our case but just one session. We trusted the process and everything worked out fine. With regard to the mixing of OST and the negotiation process, it is possible that I did not explain what we did clearly. We are not asking people to follow the process in an OST, we are following the process and using OST to develop each phase of the process. For example, we invited the distributors, the counterpart of our client to prepare for the negotiation with an OST. The question was: What are the issues that should be discussed during the negotiation, what possible proposals should be made to Bellsouth, and how should the process be structured. The next OST we are doing tomorrow is for the preparation of Bellsouth with a similar question. Then we are doing another joint OST to negotiate the proposals. What we think can be done in any process, I will keep you up to date on the results of the experiment, is to use OST through a question to develop each and every phase. Let me exaggerate the idea to make my point: 1.. Preparation: What are the interest, priorities and issues of the parties? What proposals could be make? Etc. (Separate) a.. Building the relationship: How can we improve the relationship between distributors and Bellsouth? (Joint) b.. Building the information: What are the interest of each parties? What are the priorities of each party? What are the issues we want to negotiate? What are the relevant facts? Etc. (Joint) c.. Defining the process: What is the problem or problems we want to solve? If we do not reach agreement, what are the parties alternatives? Etc. (Joint) d.. Creating options: What are the possible solution? What are the packages that could be negotiated? What are the tradeoffs that could be made? Etc. (Joint) e.. Designing the agreement: What is the agreement? (Joint) f.. Follow-up: What are the mechanism to follow up on implementation and the possible ways to improve the agreement? Etc. (Joint) Also training the parties in negotiation before the process is very useful. I would be very interested in your opinion. Saludos, Pablo *************************************************************************************************************************** Pablo, I did understand what you were saying. I have no doubt what you are doing will lead to strong and sustainable solutions. What I am suggesting is that if you invited everyone involved to an OST on a question that encompasses the reason for having a negotiation at all, you would get similar results with less effort. Perhaps the OS theme is something like "Doing great work together." I'm saying that with such a question the participants would be posting sessions that roughly equate to questions of all of the phases, e.g., there would likely be sessions on: Priority xyz (xyz being the actual subject of interest to someone) Improving the relationship between distributors and Bellsouth Solving problem zyx (zyx being the actual problem that someone is experiencing) What do you hear me saying now? Peggy *********************************************************************************************************************************** From: Pablo Restrepo <mailto:[email protected]> To: Peggy Holman, Open Space Institute (US) <mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 9:48 AM Subject: Re: First experience with OST Peggy, hi again. Of course we are just at the beginning of our experience with OST. And it has been surprising. At this point we have done three OST events for different purposes: One with Bellsouth's distributors inviting them to prepare for their negotiation with Bellsouth; another with the Ministry of the Environment inviting them to produce recommendations and proposals for the regulatory project of tariffs for the use of water from natural sources; and one with Bellsouth to prepare proposals for their negotiation with the distributors. So far the most impressive event has been with Bellsouth's executives, a group of 40 people highly trained in negotiation skills. Fortunately will have a chance this year to do a lot of events before approaching the big topic of peace. As I told you it is very important for us to research and analyze the applicability of OST to conflict resolution, this is one of the reasons I value so much the dialogue with you. In general we understand conflict resolution not as a way to contain conflict, but as a way to approach conflict in a constructive and sustainable manner; we know that conflict is chaos and that chaos opens the door to ?accepting people the way they are and challenging them to be everything they can be?. This is where we find that OST is a wonderful tool. From the perspective of ?best practices? in negotiation it automatically does several things: 1.. Makes people understand the others perspective. 2.. Allows them exchange information. 3.. Increases the number of issues to be negotiated. 4.. Invites them to present proposals and react to proposals. 5.. Builds trust and relationships. 6.. Identifies interests and priorities of the parties. 7.. Brings the parties to recognize the legitimacy of the presence and participation of the other parties. 8.. Helps define the ?problem? for all. These are some of the reason why I was fascinated by the OST promises, even before having done the first one. But, and time may prove me a control obsessive, I still strongly believe that the design of the negotiation process is essential and adds incredible value, and that training the parties that are going negotiate makes a difference in the quality of the outcome. My thesis is that OST works better with this than without this. We will have to observe the process and the outcomes a lot more. To our advantage is that the upcoming events will allow us to contrasts both approaches, we have several processes in which OST will be a standalone, as you propose, an others in which we will articulate OST within the negotiation process. Saludos y gracias, Pablo ******************************************************************************* Pablo, Yes! I'm DELIGHTED you are experimenting with using OST in mulitple ways. It will be a great way for all of us to learn what works. May I share some of our exchange on this subject with the OS list? There are people on the list who do mediation and conflict resolution. I'd love to hear their perspectives. Peggy *********************************************************************************************************************************************** ----- Original Message ----- From: Pablo Restrepo To: Peggy Holman, Open Space Institute (US) Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 1:06 PM Subject: Re: First experience with OST Peggy, of course you can share this discussion with others, I am sure they will bring some valuable insights. Pablo *********************************************************************************************************************************************** and so, my friends of the OS list....what do you think? _______________________________ Peggy Holman The Open Circle Company 15347 SE 49th Place Bellevue, WA 98006 425.746.6274 www.opencirclecompany.com
