Following last week’s local elections, the post-mortem for the governing Labour Party has been somewhat brutal. Incumbent governments invariably face losses in local votes (and indeed that tends to be the first port of call for explaining losses for politicians of all stripes) but my interest is focused on one of the policies being held up as a key driver of Labour’s diminished vote share – the withdrawl of the winter fuel allowance.
As a policy, the cuts to this allowance drew a great deal of negative attention from within and outside the Labour Party – to call it controversial is no exaggeration. A universal benefit, paid irrespective of personal means, was being universally withdrawn. Condemnation followed, as did a set of very poor election results for Labour. In the short term this has led to a series of stories floating the idea that Labour may re-examine the allowance with a view to reintroducing it, if not as a universal benefit then at least one targeted to those most in need. The Prime Minister has denied this. But the politics and rights and wrongs of the situation aren’t what I’m focusing on today – it’s the insights we can draw from the scenario as negotiators that I’m interested in.
When we negotiate, it’s most frequently because we hold a different position to our counter-party and there is distance between us that we need to address in order to come to agreement. One of the (many) obstacles that can stand in the way of trading towards that agreement is a sense of face, integrity, credibility – call it what you will. For many, if they’ve spent a long time maintaining and justifying a certain position, moving from that position can represent a challenge in itself. How do you move without looking foolish, or admitting you were wrong, or otherwise undermining your general sense of self-respect?
For skilled negotiators, recognising this reluctance and considering how to deal with it is important. If you are the party feeling inhibited from moving your position our advice would be that trading against that movement and getting value in return for it will reward your flexibility, and a sense of emotional detachment – realising that without movement, a deal is nigh on impossible – will help you trade to the best available deal. Equally, and perhaps more importantly, where you are negotiating with a counterparty who has steadfastly held to a position for some time, I think it’s very much in your interests to think how you might help them move with dignity intact. Avoid the temptations of the moral high ground (“I was right all along” and so forth). Don’t criticise movement (“If only you’d done this weeks ago we could have saved time/resources”). If you do punish flexibility, it’s likely to be withdrawn and a deal will be harder to achieve. Instead, if it’s in your interests for your counter-party to move, think creatively about how you might encourage that movement and frame it as a positive and constructive move (because in the context of reaching agreement, it is – no matter your inner frustrations!).
Whether or not the Labour Party change their Winter Fuel policy we don’t yet know, but one very predictable outcome of them doing that would be the torrent of criticism that would follow such a change – flip-flopping, U-Turning, dithering, no spine – all sorts of insults would be hurled in the direction of the Prime Minister from the very people who had been urging the change they would now be criticising. In a commercial negotiation, this behaviour will only diminish your chances of progressing towards a workable agreement, so where flexibility from your counter-party is needed, it may be useful to think in terms of doing the exact opposite of what most rival politicians would do in such a situation.
