Transformations and Critical Moments in Negotiations

Scholars in conflict management acknowledge the importance of changing both the framing and the nature of conflict situations. These changes, often called transformations, form the foundation of a particular approach to mediation (Baruch Bush and Folger 1994; Winslade and Monk 2001), international conflicts (Kriesberg, Northrup, and Thorson 1989), and public dialogues (Pearce and Littlejohn 1997; LeBaron 2002). Feminist scholars have also embraced transformation as an outcome for negotiation as well as a way to change institutional practices rooted in patriarchy (Kolb and Putnam 1997; Putnam and Kolb 2000).

Although negotiation scholars acknowledge transformation (Jacobs 1992; Putnam 1994), this topic has not received critical treatment in the bargaining literature. Negotiation scholars typically center their work on the give-and-take exchanges among parties and the search for mutually satisfactory settlements (Lewicki, Saunders, and Minton 1999). The process of mutual exchange, shaped by persuasion and influence, stands at odds with communication patterns that typify conflict transformations (Littlejohn and Domenici 2001). Although tensions exist between negotiation scholars and supporters of transformative conflict, they share a concern for building interdependence and common ground among disputants.

Transformation refers to moments in the conflict process in which parties reach new understandings of their situation, ones that redefine the nature of the conflict, the relationship among the parties, or the problems they face. New understandings are marked by different meanings or interpretations of events. The parties involved have a fundamentally different view of what is happening than they did when they entered the negotiation. Some folks describe these new understandings as the “ah-ha moments” or the points when a light bulb goes on and illuminates a situation in an entirely different way (Galtung 1996). Transformation involves alterations in “the rules of the game [and] the patterns that define internal relations of the various pieces to each other,” according to Wilber (1983).

New understandings of a situation can occur on multiple levels, including the substance of a negotiation, the affiliation among the parties, or the ways that the parties view their identities. Parties can gain new insights about the content or issues in a dispute through reexamining the problems that they face (Putnam and Holmer 1992). New interpretations of relationships might stem from enhanced learning, connecting to each other in different ways, and building different types of interdependencies. Parties can also uncover background information, constraints, and reasons for needs and interests that lead to new interpretations about the identities of self and others in the negotiation.

Moreover, transformation is both a process and a product of conflict interaction. As a process, transformation arises from within the communication between disputants as they coordinate the negotiation. That is, transformation stems from the patterns of actions–reactions, moves–countermoves, and reciprocal sharing of information. In effect, parties engage in dialogue as opposed to debate; thereby, listening and responding to each other in ways that break conflict spirals, reframe issues, and lead to new understandings. In doing so, they alter the nature of the dispute, their ways of working with each other, and what they think of one another. Thus, transformation entails a shift in the patterns of operating and the relationships among elements of a conflict scenario (Wilber, Enger, and Brown 1986; Ford and Backoff 1988).

Transformation is also a product of conflict management. Just as win–win and win–lose form outcomes for bargaining, some scholars see transformation as the ultimate goal of conflict management (Vayrynen 1991). Outcomes refer to the aspects of the conflict that become changed through enacting the dispute. The literature on conflict transformation highlights four different but interrelated types of outcomes: (1) changes in the attitudes, cognitions, and orientations of individuals; (2) changes in relationships among parties; (3) changes in group process due to shifts in the internal or external climate of the conflict; and (4) changes in society and political institutions. Some approaches to conflict management target individuals through helping them alter attitudes, behaviors, and cognitive representations of problems (Baruch Bush and Folger 1994). In particular, conflict management aims to empower the parties and to enhance the positive recognition that each has for the other person.

Altering relationships constitutes the second outcome of conflict transformation. It centers on restoring harmony and finding common ground for parties to converge on their positions (Littlejohn and Domenici 2001). For groups, transformation emerges through change in the political atmosphere that raises consciousness among members, reduces intractability, and makes bargaining possible (Kelman 1979 and 1995; LeBaron and Carstarphen 1997). Changes in economic trends, the political scene, or institutional control could alter the way groups deal with each other. For example, in the Quincy Library conflict, transformation occurred when two adversarial groups, loggers and environmentalists, realized that they could save the economic base of their historical community by forming a new collective identity (Bryan and Wondolleck 2003). Changes in the political climate at both the state and federal level facilitated this transformation of relationships.

The fourth general outcome of transformation focuses on macrolevel institutions and the society at large (Dukes 1996). This work targets structural changes through equalizing power, addressing issues of alienation, and invigorating institutions (Kriesberg 1989; Kriesberg, Northrup, and Thorson 1989; Jacobs 1992). These outcomes obviously overlap such that changes in one aspect of the conflict could address other levels simultaneously. Although the work on transformation as outcome is germane to negotiation, this essay concentrates on transformation as a process and on the role of critical moments in this process.

Transformation as a process traces its roots to different types of conflict management often seen in transformative facilitation (Maser 1996), transformational mediation (Baruch Bush and Folger 1994), narrative mediation (Winslade and Monk 2001), transcendent discourse and eloquence (Pearce and Littlejohn 1997), and public dialogues (LaBaron and Carstarphen 1997). Taken together, these approaches posit different forms of social interaction that are not usually present in negotiation, such as dialogue, sharing healing stories, and engaging in creative and abstract thinking.

A common feature of these approaches is the way in which participants transcend or move away from the present and alter the rules of the game. Even though what is transcended is different across disputes, conflict interaction moves to a metalevel, a shift, or a qualitatively different plane of abstraction. Parties shift levels of abstraction to talk with each other on fundamentally different dimensions. Thus, the discourse breaks free from old patterns of communication, moves away from polarized debate, and develops new categories that have potential to foster collaboration (Littlejohn and Domenici 2001).

Levels of abstraction refers to the way words are categorized or exist in relationships to other concepts. For example, researchers in general semantics observe that a language system exhibits patterns of broad categories. For instance, animal can be further defined through such terms as dog or cat, then delineated by classification terms such as German shepherd or pure bred collie and even further distinguished by particular names, such as Spot, Missy, or Dusty (Hayakawa 1964; Haney 1973). These terms differ in vertical levels of abstraction. A controversy on what to do about Spot’s health might shift to a discussion about dogs in general, Spot’s breed or pedigree, or even the aging process of animals. These shifts in abstraction provide another plane or dimension in which a conflict could be engaged.

Researchers and practitioners who describe how transformation occurs uncover shifts in abstract thinking — ones that lead to new understandings (Maser 1996; Pearce and Littlejohn 1997). Thus, transformation as a critical moment may evolve from shifts in levels of language use that lead to new meanings and interpretations of events. These shifts in levels of abstraction, could serve as critical moments for acquiring new meanings and potentially transforming the nature of a negotiation.

A review of the conflict literature reveals at least five types of shifts that may function as critical moments in negotiation — specific to general, concrete to abstract, part to whole, individual to system, and literal to symbolic. Negotiators could shift dimensions in either direction, so that a critical moment could occur through moving from specific to general or general to specific (although the literature offers few examples through the reverse directions).

In each of these areas, transformations hinge on discourse patterns that alter the naming, blaming, claiming, or explaining of the dispute (Mather and Yngvesson 1980–81; Putnam 2001) and that transcend the opposition between parties in some way. Thus, for transformation to occur, shifts in levels of abstraction must hold opposite pairs in tension simultaneously and create space for a new mode of action that no longer makes them in contradiction (Pearce and Littlejohn 1997). This space stems from acquiring a new understanding or developing different meanings and interpretations about the conflict. For instance, the concepts of “fast” and “slow” are no longer in tension with each other when they are cast into the category of movement. The discourse shifts to a new plane in which the process is named differently and new insights alter the way conflict is understood. This approach aims for a common language or a new vocabulary that subsumes the “rightness” or “wrongness” of antithetical positions (Pearce and Littlejohn 1997).

A movement from specific to general occurs when parties shift negotiation from the details of particular positions to the broader common goals that both parties share. The development of a super ordinate goal is a classic example of this type of critical moment. This shift to a general level subsumes both parties’ specific needs and interests into one overarching goal. For instance, managers of a small company that experienced a $500,000 drop in revenue may propose to save funds by cutting personnel while labor prefers to cut the salaries of managers at the top of the organization. Once both sides shift away from their respective positions to the superordinate goal of saving the company, they can alter their understandings of the situation and rename the conflict. For example, they might name the situation “rethinking the cost of production” or “cutting the product line” rather than reducing personnel or salaries. Thus, critical moments can occur in negotiations when parties rename a situation by shifting from specific details to common goals.

At a relational level, a mediator might intervene in a divorce case between a husband and wife over joint custody of the children. As the disputants argue about who is the better parent and how parenting quality affects custody arrangements, the mediator shifts the interaction from the specifics of parenting to the general welfare of the children. If the parents adopt this general frame of reference, they break from old patterns of communication and foster new modes of collaboration to help the children (Littlejohn and Domenici 2001).

In their book Negotiation, Lewicki, Saunders, and Minton (1999) provide another example of a critical moment when parties “move from [specific] ground rules to [general] ‘higher ground.’” Creating a group covenant or a process for how to proceed also moves the negotiation away from detailed ground rules to sharing expectations about a new procedural process. Shifting the interaction from the specific to the general, then, is a critical moment that occurs in negotiations and opens the door to transform the dispute as parties acquire new insights and alter their fundamental understandings of the conflict.

Similar to the shift from specific to general, the movement from concrete to abstract alters levels of meaning. But, rather than shifting from specific details to common goals, this shift creates a language system that differentiates concrete practices from abstract definitions. In effect, it parallels moving across terms within the same category, such as referencing Dusty the dog and then shifting to the breed of German shepherds. When negotiators create a level of meaning together, they can redefine issues and alter the naming of a conflict.

Geist and I demonstrated how teachers and administrators experienced a critical moment during their negotiation of teachers’ files and performance evaluations (Putnam and Geist 1985). The teachers took a strong stand that no administrator should place notes in their permanent files (e.g., Tom was late for lunch room duty) nor use those notes in performance evaluations without union approval. The administrators wanted to maintain flexibility and allow principals to place reminder notes in a designated file.

Discussion on topics such as how files differed from notes led to an awareness of categories of files — administrator files, building files, and personnel files. The movement back and forth between the term file and categories of filing systems served as a critical moment to redefine what a file was and to create a system of types of files, what they should contain, and how they should be used. This shift in abstraction from concrete to abstract (and vice versa) served as a critical moment because it enabled the parties to refocus the problem away from labels like “unfair and harmful,”“disrespectful,” and “administrative prerogative,” to redefining what the file system was and how the different files should or should not be used to further the collective goals of both teachers and administrators. The negotiation was transformed when both parties began to own the conflict collectively and to avoid blaming each other for the way that files were used or abused.

A part–whole or whole–part shift focuses on how bargainers reach an agreement, thus it centers on the crafting of solutions rather than on the substance or content of negotiation. Zartman (1977) identifies a period of negotiation in which bargainers set forth a formula with broad objectives and principles. Then the parties draw out a number of detailed points for an agreement within the broader framework (Ikle 1964). Rather than pursuing incremental concession making, negotiators work through a whole–part, two-stage process from framework to detail.

Movement to the formula occurs through a jump in which one party lays out the parameters of an agreement followed by a detail phase in which specific issues are packaged and an exact settlement is constructed (Ikle 1964). The agreement is then crafted from a metalevel or framework that works from the whole down to the parts. The critical moment occurs when both parties develop this framework to shift the nature of the negotiation away from small-scale concessions and compromises. The Paris negotiations at the end of the Vietnam War illustrate this process of discovering a formula and developing details to fit it rather than making partial concessions to a midpoint.

At the relational level, part–whole shifts can occur when parties ask broad questions about the circumstances of their relationship and how these circumstances influence the negotiation. Kolb and I present an example in which Karen, a representative from an information technology institute, and Sam, a marketing consultant, worked very effectively in the past to develop and market a basic course (Putnam and Kolb 2000). As they met to negotiate revenue sharing for an advanced course, Karen was shocked by Sam’s proposal and saw him as taking advantage of her company. Sam felt that he took all the risks in their business dealings and decided to hold firm on his proposal for the advanced course.

The opportunity to shift the level of abstraction in their discussion occurred when Karen moved the conversation from hints about Sam’s business (the parts) to the full picture of what risk meant in his work (the whole) and how it would function for the advanced course. When Sam sensed that Karen was sympathetic, he disclosed the whole picture of how he believed that their arrangement had made him take all the risks in their joint endeavors. This discussion led both parties to new understandings and interpretations about their negotiations, ones that shifted the nature of their interdependence and allowed them to construct a creative solution for the revenue sharing as well as for the distribution of risks. This example illustrates a critical moment in which the parties moved from negotiating the parts of their arrangement to discussing the whole of their relationship, a shift that was necessary for Karen to discover why Sam’s offer seemed extreme and atypical of past negotiations.

Conflict facilitators in public disputes often shift specific issue debates to a system level by raising concerns about moral responsibility, the role of future generations, and the nature of community life (Dukes 1993; Maser 1996). Thus, the shift from the individual to system level frames the discussion within a different context. Maser’s (1996) practice of introducing abstract thinking in environmental conflicts involves getting disputants to situate the conflict at the group or societal level through thinking about future generations. Fostering a societal outcome recasts disputed issues, such as zoning or private property rights, into concerns for community and social justice that move the conflict from a local to a system level.

As an example of a managerial negotiation, in my earlier work, I show how a department chair recasts a graduate student grade dispute by moving it from an interpersonal squabble between professors to open deliberations and policy formation at the system level (Putnam 2001). The shift in the level in which to enact the conflict alters the naming of the dispute, mitigates the rightness or wrongness debate, and allows parties to claim the problem as a need for a new system-wide policy rather than determining which disputant is right or wrong.

To return to the teacher’s negotiation example, a shift from system-wide or global level to local level served to alter a conflict about teacher preparation time. Although bargaining on this issue began with pro and con debate on the increase in number of different course preparations, the overload for instructors of specialized classes, and the lack of special preparation time, the interaction shifted when one of the teachers introduced a possible connection between prep time and course scheduling. Through comparing and contrasting practices across the different schools in the district, both teams discovered that what appeared to be a system-wide problem of preparation was actually a local problem of scheduling at particular schools. By moving the conflict across multiple levels from global to local (system-wide to particular schools) as well as from part to whole (preparation time to scheduling), they experienced a critical moment in which they could address the problems on a different plane without altering the broad policy for the entire district.

Another shift in levels of abstraction that appears in the literature is a move from literal to symbolic discourse. Literal discourse refers to the discussion of specific issues, policies, and positions on the table — the substance or content of interaction. These discussions are typically cast in expressive rather than symbolic language. Symbolic language refers to the use of images such as metaphors and narratives to talk symbolically about issues. Introducing new metaphors that transcend the polarizing and stereotyping of parties illustrates a shift from the literal to the symbolic levels.

As an example, LeBaron and Carstarphen (1997) employ the visual metaphor of an interlocking circle to urge pro-choice and anti-abortion advocates to search for common beliefs and values that go unrecognized in polarized conflicts. Facilitators use the metaphor to frame issues as both convergent (sharing experiences and common ground) and divergent (holding antithetical values and beliefs) and to sort through differences and commonalities. Thus, movement from literal to symbolic levels helped parties reach new understandings without compromising or changing deep-seated values.

Narrative approaches to mediation represent another arena in which facilitators help disputants move a conflict from literal to symbolic levels. Winsdale and Monk (2001) ask disputants to share their experiences through story-based accounts. The stories contain symbolic elements such as villains, heroines, plot lines, and scenes. Through questioning and probing the stories, disputants reveal social context issues, concerns for entitlement, and cultural constraints. Facilitators then help disputants deconstruct taken-for-granted assumptions, expose gaps and inconsistencies, and develop a new system of meaning to tell the story differently by depersonalizing the conflict, adding missing elements to the first story, and naming the problem differently. Even though the new narratives contain features of the original ones, the elements are aligned in different ways to remove blame from the parties and to introduce alternative ways of understanding their situation.

Specifically, the ways that the parties share their stories often bring about narrative closure that seals off meanings and assigns the role of victim and hero in the conflict (Cobb 1994). The politics of storytelling, then, indicates that some stories become dominant and others marginal (Cobb and Rifkin 1991). So just telling stories does not necessarily lead to new narratives or to transformation. It raises the discourse to a symbolic level of abstraction to question the completeness of each narrative, the meanings of competing stories, and to help parties reconstruct each account. Moving interactions to a symbolic level allows disputants to explore story composition in ways less threatening than direct confrontations on the literal, substantive issues.

As another illustration, I tracked the development of elaborated examples in a teachers’ negotiation and noted how characters, scene, plot, theme, values, motives, and time frame of the same story evolved throughout the negotiation (Putnam 1992). I focused on fifteen stories that were referenced more than once during the bargaining. Of these fifteen, the telling of five narratives changed as the bargaining progressed. The most interesting feature in these changes was a shift in time frame from past to future projections. As accounts were referenced and retold, parties projected into the future and coconstructed new hypothetical narratives, filling in what was not said in past stories and embracing new meanings for past events. These alterations in storytelling formed critical moments that led to new understandings and alternative meanings for the negotiation relationship.

Overall, opportunities for critical moments to occur in negotiations stem from shifts in five types of levels of abstraction: from specific to general, concrete to abstract, part to whole, individual to system, and literal to symbolic (or vice versa). The notion of moving the discourse to a different plane is the common theme that unites these five shifts and depicts moments in which conflicts can be transformed. These categories are not mutually exclusive, however, as discourse clearly operates at multiple levels and the same interactions can function simultaneously as movement from specific to general and from individual to system levels.

These five types of shifts serve as critical moments to create opportunities for conflict transformation. If the shifts hold opposites in tension simultaneously and develop new meanings for issues, relationships, and/or identities, disputants can use these movements to create space for new understandings and alternative modes of action. Thus, not all language shifts necessarily lead to transformation. The shift in discourse must hold the opposites together as one and create space that no longer makes them contradictory. In effect, there must be “a coherent dialogue across incommensurate worldviews” (Littlejohn and Domenici 2001). Moving from critical moments to transformation is more likely to occur if certain features of negotiation are present.

Certain internal conditions of negotiations make it easier for transformation to occur from these critical moments. One such condition is a frustration with the process and a desire to break from repetitive and unproductive patterns (LeBaron 2002). This frustration differs from ripeness or readiness in that it centers on an emotional state or an openness to pursue alternatives rather than on an impending catastrophe, a mutually enticing opportunity, or a perceived way out (Zartman 1989 and 1997; Pruitt 1997). Feelings of frustration may help the disputants reflect on the situation and open the process to change.

Three additional internal conditions appear in the literature: (1) developing a stance of curiosity; (2) connecting with the other party; and (3) building recognition and trust. Particular communicative practices within each foster these conditions and make them open to shifting levels of abstraction and pursuing transformation.

A stance of curiosity focuses on probing, comparing, and uncovering assumptions. It aims to explore and learn rather than attack and defend, and thus, differs from bargaining interaction characterized by persuasion or debate (Pearce and Littlejohn 2001). Negotiators promote a stance of curiosity by asking open-ended, exploratory questions, ones that look into the other person’s mind, gauge how the other person feels, and invite the other person’s thinking (Lewicki, Saunders, and Minton 1999). In actuality, bargainers rarely use open-ended questions, that is, ones that are not leading or loaded. Most of the questions raised during a negotiation focus on information seeking or making demands from the other party (Donohue and Diez 1985; Weingart et al. 1990). Argumentation in bargaining also fosters the use of critical and rhetorical questions that assert a position rather than promote learning and exploration (Littlejohn and Domenici 2001). Alternative approaches to questioning elicit details, open up issues, and create a stance of curiosity for developing multiple views of the conflict situation. A stance of curiosity is also fostered through the use of systematic and circular questions.

Systematic questions are designed to enlarge the problem and make connections with issues in the larger system. They focus on the ways that actions elicit other actions and how events are linked together over time. For example, the use of questions like, “How do administrators schedule home room and preparation time?”“Is it different now than it was in the past?”“What determines how many preparations are assigned?” These questions probe for deeper understanding of the time, place, set of circumstances, and relationship among people in the conflict.

Hypothetical questions that project into the future reveal insights and promote learning. They search for ways to raise the conflict to a different level of abstraction through moving from whole to part or from the individual to the system level. In a similar way, a story question adds in-depth information to the issues and events in the conflict. An example of a story question would be: “You have said that many teachers in the schools are talking about the need for additional preparation time. Could you give some examples of these needs and illustrate what folks are saying? Is this true for all schools?” Systematic, hypothetical, and story questions are ways to move the discussion away from patterns of attack and defense in conflict and to explore the larger context in which the conflict occurs.

The use of circular questions also helps disputants explore the situational and relational context in which the conflict occurs. Circular questions are a series of interconnected queries that probe further and further into the broad arena that underlies the problem. They explore new connections and foster potential links between events and circumstances that seem removed from the conflict (Fleuridas, Nelson, and Rosenthal 1986; Cobb 1993). They facilitate shifts and the occurrence of critical moments by removing blame from the people involved and placing it on the conflict situation. For example, in the issue with preparation time, the teachers initially blamed the administrators for taking advantage of them and not rewarding them for their additional preparations. Administrators saw the issue as being that teachers were not using their time properly (“after all, any professional job requires putting in time after work hours”) hence, both parties engaged in implicit accusations of blame.

The use of circular question moved the interaction to a new plane and by doing so, dispelled presumptions of blame. For instance, circular questions to the administrators included: “When and how did preparation time begin?”“How has it developed?”“How is it handled throughout the system?”“How does it relate to number of preparations?” Circular questions to the teachers were: “How do teachers handle multiple preparations?”“How do they use the preparation and homeroom times that are part of their schedule?”“Does it matter when preparation times are given and how they are linked to sequences of courses taught in a given day?”

As with systematic questions, these inquiries break up the traditional structure of negotiation and open it up to dialogue about the larger organizational problem and how this larger problem fits into the specific contract issues. Circular questions aid in keeping each person’s story open to alternative interpretations and in coconstructing a different narrative, one that blames the system as a whole or the conflict itself, and not each other (Putnam and Kolb 2000; Winsdale and Monk 2001).

Another internal condition that develops a stance of curiosity is suspending judgment and entertaining multiple interpretations. When parties realize that they may not have all the facts and background information, they can move away from advocacy and open up the negotiation to multiple viewpoints. Suspending judgment can stem from exploring the underlying issues of the problem or shifting the talk to another level, such as part to whole, or discussing the way that the negotiation is going.

Commenting on the progress of the negotiation, posing new procedures, and presenting new approaches for conducting bargaining places interaction in a liminal space or a state in which the negotiation does not clearly belong to the past or to the future. It is a state of transition, one that is disorienting and typically disrupts recurring and predictable patterns. Mark Aakus (2003) demonstrates how divorce mediators shape this liminal space during an impasse by engaging disputants in a dialogue about procedures and planning. This activity creates a language game that all disputants can play, one that helps them invent a plausible dialogue.

Thus, breakpoints, departures, and turning points that mark the passage between states of a negotiation also provide opportunities for suspending action and considering other interpretations for how and why the conflict situation occurred (Druckman, Husbands, and Johnston 1991; Druckman 2001).

Connecting combines both the substantive and relational aspects of negotiation by joining with the other party to create a unique experience. Thus, it unites issues and people rather than separating people from the problem (Fisher, Ury, and Patton 1991). Connecting creates a shared web of knowledge by finding links between experiences, thoughts, and feelings (Fletcher 1998). Connecting occurs not just by sharing information, but by learning about the other side’s story, their problems and concerns, and their worldviews on the situation.

Connecting also promotes interdependence that forms the bonds for building a different relationship instead of one centered on exchanging positions and issues. Connecting allows parties to see the other person differently and to build collaboration. Each bond enhances the capacity for joint action.

A critical way to connect with the other party is through appreciative inquiry. Appreciative inquiry refers to statements or questions that express appreciation for the other party’s actions (Cooperrider and Srivastva 1990; Littlejohn and Domenici 2001). For example, in the negotiation between the teachers and administrators, one of the administrators initiated appreciative questions aimed at dispelling the suspicion that teachers are not prepared. This process of positive inquiry changed the context of discussion from negative attributions to appreciation.

The administrator shifted the talk from the need for additional prep time and the cost of it to a positive regard for teachers who do extra work. He told several stories of how art and math teachers provided enrichment for accelerated students through special courses. He then switched to circular questioning by asking how these arrangements were made at the local level, if these efforts were recognized and appreciated, and what could be done to provide opportunities to reward these efforts. This appreciative stance reframed the negative tones that administrators had conveyed into positive regard for the teachers who agreed to take on extra preparations.

One of the goals in connecting is to join the “I” of self with the “we” of common welfare (LeBaron 2002). Through connecting, use of appreciative inquiry, and use of circular questions, negotiators can raise a dispute to a different level of discussion, one aimed at new understandings and codeveloping alternative narratives.

Use of appreciative questions also builds recognition and trust in negotiation. Parties create an internal atmosphere conducive to transformations through changing cognitive representations of the problem, engaging in new learning, and altering attitudes and behaviors of disputants (Kelman 1995; d’Estree et al. 2001). Drawing from Galtung’s (1996) theory, Bodtker and Jameson (2001) contend that a key path to conflict transformation is bringing the attitudes, emotions, and behaviors that underlie a conflict into conscious awareness. They refer to this process as conscientization, or helping the actors to recognize, analyze, and develop alternative modes of addressing underlying differences.

Baruch Bush and Folger (1994) adopt an individualistic orientation to transformation by centering on raising awareness, reframing orientations, and recasting judgments about self and the other party. Increasing empowerment refers to regaining strength to encounter and grapple with adverse circumstances. Giving recognition centers on moving beyond self to recognize the other (Baruch Bush and Folger 1994). These two processes involve enhancing self-determination and self-discovery through human growth, tolerance, and empathy. Mediators help disputants identify opportunities to build recognition, find potential for acknowledgement, and allow parties to take ownership of the dispute.

Opportunities to enhance empowerment and recognition occur in the microstatements or interactions during negotiations. They arise when parties see moments to introduce the other party’s perspective, to discuss different interpretations of the past, and to question how the other party understands the situation. In this approach, recognition is enhanced through a continual process in which mediators question how the disputants see each other and how they could respond in a sympathetic way.

They also occur through reconciliation when parties build mutual acceptance, acknowledge pain, and seek forgiveness (LeBaron 2002). Disputes that are morally rooted, overheated in hatred, and firmly embedded in escalation and polarization may need to build recognition and trust through emotional healing and enhancing empathy before negotiations can move forward. Although reconciliation may be difficult without third party intervention, some of its principles and practices could set the stage for critical moments in negotiation. Reconciliation entails sharing stories of suffering and hurt, acknowledging injustices, and providing mutual recognition. This type of self-disclosure may be rare in formal negotiations, but bargainers can admit mistakes, apologize for miscommunication, and recognize the suffering of others.

In one of the teachers’ negotiations I observed, both sides pursued a dialogue of reconciliation about a past grievance regarding a pregnancy leave. The teachers felt very bitter about the way it was handled, the suffering that the young mother experienced, and the lack of communication that occurred in the process. But as they recalled this experience a year after the fact, the administrators finally understood why the teachers felt like victims and the teachers finally became aware of how the administrators had also suffered. This retrospective sharing of an incident, mutual recognition of suffering, and subsequent apologies became a reconciling moment that helped the negotiations move past an impasse on the issue of reduction in force. Interestingly, the story shared had very little relevance to the issue on the table, but it served to build trust, form empathy between the sides, and renew their mutual commitment to handle leave policies in a more humane way than they had done in the past. As the interaction shifted from an individual to a system level, it served as a critical moment to move the negotiations forward.

Overall, three types of internal factors foster an atmosphere for shifting levels of abstraction and transforming negotiations. Developing a stance of curiosity makes it possible for parties to suspend judgment and enter into learning through the use of systematic and circular questions. Probing, exploring, and learning lead to developing a web of knowledge about the conflict and forming interdependence between the parties. Engaging in appreciative inquiry, bringing individual attitudes into consciousness, and fostering reconciliation also encourage connectedness as well as increase recognition and empowerment. These factors are linked to levels of abstraction in that moves, such as asking systematic questions, engaging in appreciative inquiry, and seeking reconciliation, also shift the negotiation to a new plane of interaction, one that changes the level of abstraction.

In addition to the internal features, the literature on transformation points to certain external conditions that make conflict transformation possible. Features such as differentiation and a balance of conflict complexity serve as precursors to transformation. Just as adequate differentiation is necessary for constructive conflict management (Walton 1969; Deutsch 1973), differentiation is critical for conflict transformation. Differentiation refers to sharpening or directly contrasting differences in positions. It entails a clear understanding of differences, an acceptance of the other person’s position as legitimate, and a motivation to work on the conflict (Folger, Poole, and Stutman 2001).

Fear of personalization and conflict escalation often lead parties to suppress or disguise opposing positions. In negotiation, parties often strategically camouflage differences to conceal information or to represent their own position in a stronger light (Lewicki, Sanders, and Milton 1999). Effective differentiation about the nature of a conflict, however, underlies the “ah-ha” experience necessary for transformation (Pearce and Littlejohn 1997). Even though differentiation is critical for conflict transformation, it can lead to escalation, avoidance, and rigidity if it is handled ineffectively.

A second external feature of transformation relates to conflict complexity (Dukes 1996). Complexity refers not simply to a linear increase in the number of elements in the conflict (actors, issues, and levels), but also to the nature of the system. Complexity theory focuses on interactivity and learning based on the assumption that adaptive systems like negotiation do not have a fixed equilibrium and that creativity often surfaces at the edge of chaos (Wheeler and Morris 2002).

The more a conflict is unpredictable and complex, the more potential it has for constructive transformation (Galtung 1996). Conflicts that change as they move through an organization become complex through shifts that evolve over time (Mather and Yngvesson 1980–81). In negotiation, this issue of complexity centers on learning through pattern recognition, abstracting complex phenomena, and adaptation (Wheeler and Morris 2002). Overall, some degree of complexity seems essential for conflict transformation and finding a balance between structure and flexibility could raise negotiation to a level conducive to transformation.

Transformation champions different processes and takes different paths than is typically found in integrative bargaining. Integrative bargaining centers on the discovery of commonalities through uncovering each party’s needs and interests in the situation. Rather than shifting levels of abstraction or dimensions in which negotiation occurs, integrative bargaining emphasizes sharing information, engaging in problem solving, and searching for solutions that meet both sides’ objectives. Negotiators define the problem in ways acceptable to both sides, depersonalize it, separate it from the solution, and generate alternatives that fit preset criteria (Lewicki, Saunders, and Minton 1999). The classic integrative alternatives of expanding the pie, logrolling, nonspecific compensation, and cost cutting work within each party’s understandings of their situation. Bridging comes closest to a transformative approach because it focuses on a fundamental reformulation of the problem.

Transformation centers on acquiring new understandings about the conflict, the relationship, and the situation that parties face. In transformation, parties alter the very definition of the issues by holding opposites in tension and finding a new plane of understanding. They fundamentally shift their knowledge about the conflict situation. They talk with each other on a different plane of interaction through shifting levels of abstraction beyond the problem and alternative solutions. They are not simply defining the problem in a way acceptable to both sides; they reconstitute the building blocks on which the problem resides.

Reframing is a process similar to shifting levels of abstraction, but this concept is defined in a variety of ways. Typically, it refers to altering the way that messages are framed or the way disputants express their ideas. Mediators employ reframing to reword phrases loaded with evaluative language, to shift attacking arguments away from the disputants, and to redirect the interaction. Thus, reframing alters the tone of a prior statement from negative to positive and rephrases attacking arguments into neutral descriptions (Moore 1996).

Reframing also refers to establishing a common set of frames to conduct the negotiation. For example, recasting what a bargainer saw as a loss to viewing it as a gain (the classic case of whether the glass of water is half empty or half full). Negotiators can reframe a problem by defining it as “broader or narrower, bigger or smaller, riskier or less risky” as ways to achieve mutual gain (Lewicki et al. 2004) These changes, however, operate on the same plane in which the problem is formulated.

In these examples, reframing rarely represents a shift in the fundamental understanding of the conflict. It alters messages and cognitive patterns to aid in managing the dispute, but it does not develop a fundamentally different view of what is happening in the conflict (Bartunek 1988). Only when reframing is aligned with “revaluation” or altering the bargainers’ frames of reference does this concept parallel transformation (Putnam and Holmer 1992). In this sense, reframing is similar to the transformation of disputes (Felstiner, Abel, and Sarat 1980–81) which alters how problems are conceptualized.

Reframing, then, could occur through shifting levels of abstraction to develop a qualitatively different field of vision for understanding the conflict. To be linked to transformation, however, reframing has to hold opposite tension together and cast the conflict in a space in which they are no longer in tension. This notion of reframing parallels a third-order change in which parties transcend schemata and engage in paradoxical thinking by holding opposites together (Bartunek and Moch 1994). Third-order change requires a mode of transconceptual understanding in which parties move from one representation to another without losing their anchor.

In effect, transformation differs from interest-based and integrative bargaining through moving the conflict to a different dimension of discussion rather than focusing on interests and needs. Once disputants have reached new understandings, they might engage in problem solving, but the problems may be fundamentally different from the ones presented in the earlier stages of negotiation. Transformation also differs from reframing, particularly when the latter concept is defined as redirecting messages or shifting elements of a frame. However, it resembles revaluation in that it focuses on altering fields of vision. Shifts in levels of abstraction could be viewed as a type of reframing, one that promotes discovery and learning that is conducive to altering the very nature of the conflict.

This article presumes that transformation is beneficial and contributes to improving conflict management. This presumption, however, overlooks the possibility that new understandings could also lead to destructive and highly escalatory conflicts. Future studies need to explore this relationship between positive transformation and transformation that triggers, rather than reduces, escalation.

Research is clearly needed on the way that disputants employ shifts in levels of abstraction during a negotiation. Studies need to track when and how it occurs in naturalistic settings as well as test the influence of particular types of shifts in laboratory and experimental negotiations. If making shifts in levels of abstraction is a skill, then researchers need to examine when and how this approach could be used in negotiations. Another way to research this topic would be to interview professional negotiators about how they move an interaction away from the “here and now” deliberations to broad-based or general concerns that surround a dispute. Under what conditions would they bring up relationship issues that underlie the conflict and seem to block progress in the negotiation? Are they aware of these “ah-ha” moments and do they see opportunities in the discourse in which a new plane or dimension has developed? Do they see times when opposites are held together to yield totally different understandings — ones that no longer are in tension with each other?

More work is also needed on the types of negotiation open to transformation. For example, would this approach be effective in dealing with hostile parties and difficult negotiations? Given that some degree of trust seems necessary for parties to shift interactions to different planes, transformation may not work effectively in hostile settings. However, these shifts may be effective in situations in which power asymmetries exist. Shifting levels of abstraction might help parties balance asymmetries and put disputants on an even footing.

In traditional bargaining, the goal of the process is to get a settlement or to resolve the conflict. Viewing negotiation from the lens of transformation shifts this focus to changing the definition of a conflict, altering the level of abstraction in which a dispute is managed, and/or recasting how parties view their relationship. Issues of settlement are still present in this model, but they grow out of situating both the process and structures of the conflict in different ways. In the examples noted in the article, bargainers reached mutually satisfactory settlements similar to ones found in integrative negotiations, however, they experienced critical moments that shifted the course of the negotiation in fundamental ways. The agreements that they produced addressed concerns that were much broader than the resource or policy issues on the table.

Contrasting the two processes, one sees that integrative and distributive bargaining involve making a choice and legitimating this choice among preset options while transformation leads to generating and enlarging options by presenting the conflict in an entirely new way (Pearce and Littlejohn 1997). Even though integrative bargaining and the search for mutual gains has always entailed the creation of choices, traditional approaches to negotiation operate with assumptions that may not facilitate transformation (Putnam and Kolb 2000). Applying practices of conflict transformation to negotiation may help us understand critical moments that occur and help us develop techniques and skills to enact these practices.

Using the game metaphor of negotiation, one distinction can be made between disputants who engaging in playing the game versus those who aim to master it (Pearce and Littlejohn 1997). The game player works within the extant system of rules, hence, using transformative practices within this system may not necessarily lead to critical shifts. Game masters understand and recognize the rules, but also change them or even switch the game entirely. They create new categories, not in a vacuum, but from working within the old system to transform its processes. Game mastery, unlike game playing, embraces a trans-system view of strategy and sees an interrelationship between bargaining scripts and the potential to change the conflict process.

Using transformative approaches to negotiation is only one type of approach. It is not the key to all critical moments nor is it necessarily appropriate for all types of negotiations. However, it provides an alternative to traditional negotiations, one marked by shifts in levels of abstraction that function as turning points to alter the direction of negotiation and the nature of conflict situations.