What We Have Learned About Teaching Multiparty Negotiation

This article grows out of our experience over the three years we spent researching, designing, redesigning, and teaching an advanced course on multiparty negotiation at Harvard Law School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.¹ Because we intended it to be an advanced course, we assumed that the participants would already be familiar with the most important two‐party negotiation concepts. In practice, this meant that a two‐party negotiation course was a prerequisite. We focused on the key differences between two‐party and multiparty negotiation. We concluded that: (1) coalition formation; (2) problems of process management; and (3) the constantly shifting or kaleidoscopic nature of each party's best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA) were three crucial differences between multiparty and two‐party negotiation around which the course should be organized.

Coalitions, defined as subsets of actors who coordinate their actions to achieve common desired goals, provide negotiators an opportunity to marshal influence that does not exist in two‐party negotiations (Sebenius 1991). Parties often seek to create “winning coalitions” that maximize the chances of making an advantageous deal for coalition members. In other cases, they may seek “blocking coalitions” to protect gains or interests that may be threatened by emerging deals. At different times in the same negotiation, parties may find themselves members of different coalitions, depending on the issue under discussion — they may even be members in both winning and blocking coalitions simultaneously. (In fact, we have suggested in our course that negotiators in multiparty negotiations should look to create both types of coalitions simultaneously.)

Where there are coalitions, outsider parties may be excluded or outvoted. The question of how many and which parties need to be in agreement before a decision is binding is just one of many interesting process problems that must be solved by those involved in multiparty negotiations.² Other common process‐management problems include how to promote effective communication in large‐scale plenary negotiations, what kinds of parties may be required (experts, neutrals, chairs, staff, observers), and how the contributions of all parties will be coordinated and integrated (working groups, steering committees, staff groups, etc.).

Finally, the negotiators’ decisions about coalitions and process management can have dramatic impacts on the parties’ BATNAs (the best outcome that a party can expect if no agreement is reached) as well as on the zone of possible agreement or ZOPA (the set of all possible agreements that could be reached among parties). For example, a decision rule that only requires a majority for a binding decision raises the possibility that some parties may be bound to a decision even if the outcome is worse than what their BATNA would have been in a two‐party negotiation (where they could have vetoed the agreement). Similarly, by creating coalitions with other parties, negotiators can improve their BATNAs and lower those of others — of course, there is always the danger that their favor may be returned!

The class comprised twenty‐four graduate students. Most were from Harvard Law School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, although a few came from other Harvard graduate schools. The course met twenty‐two times, each time for ninety minutes. Students were also required to participate in a one‐and‐a‐half‐day weekend workshop during which a very elaborate multiparty game was played and debriefed.

The course was roughly divided into two parts (see Table One). The first, including eight classes and the weekend workshop, emphasized the theory of multiparty negotiations and provided an initial framework for analyzing their intricacies. The course began with a brief review of basic two‐party negotiation concepts including the “three tensions” (Mnookin, Peppet, and Tulumello 2000), the “seven elements” framework (Fisher, Ury, and Patton 1991), the basic “negotiator's dilemma” (Lax and Sebenius 1986), and “the mutual gains model of negotiation” (Susskind and Field 1996). This review ensured that students, who may have taken different first‐level courses, were reminded of what they had learned and that they shared the same grounding in two‐party negotiation theory.

The next six classes were devoted to the development of an analytic framework for preparing and conducting multiparty negotiation. This framework assumed that we were talking to multiparty negotiators trying to formulate a strategy before negotiations begin, as well as to those considering their next tactical moves during an actual negotiation. We also assumed that our audience included potential designers (i.e., neutrals) of multiparty negotiation arrangements.

As mentioned earlier, we emphasized: (1) the formation and dissolution of coalitions; (2) the difficulties of process management when there are many parties around the table; and (3) the need for each party to continuously reassess his or her next best option (away from the table) in multiparty situations. We urged students to formulate a personal set of testable propositions that they could examine during the second part of the course. In order to determine whether this had occurred, we asked them to write an essay on the key theoretical differences between two‐party and multiparty negotiations. Apart from our review of the assigned readings and class discussion, simulations were vital components of this part of the course; they were used not only to strengthen the students’ theoretical understanding but also to teach skills relevant in a multiparty context.³ We feel that it was crucial that among these simulations, there was at least one that took a full day (i.e., eight hours of negotiation followed by a comprehensive debriefing the next day).

In the second part of the course, students were asked to test and revise their theoretical assumptions and to apply their analytical frameworks to the complexity of real‐life situations. We focused on a mixture of actual case studies, such as the Congressional tobacco negotiations, as well as on generic cases, such as global treaty negotiations. In 2002, this list included:

1. Public Disputes: Land Use and Facility Siting;

2. Complex Coalitions: Congressional Tobacco Negotiations;

3. Class Action and Mass Torts: Asbestos;

4. International Treaty Negotiation;

5. Intractable Ethnic Conflict: Role of Neutrals; and

6. Compensation Schemes for September 11 Victims.

To teach this course, we made a number of pedagogical assumptions and used simulations, case studies, homework assignments, and presentations by guest speakers. An additional tool that we used that is not described at length in this article was the Harvard Law School's electronic blackboard, an online teaching tool that we used to facilitate communication, receive assignments, post additional reading materials, and host some discussions.

We used simulations primarily in the first part of the course. They were especially useful for transmitting specific lessons linked to our theory‐ building efforts. We considered simulations less appropriate for testing and refining the students’ theoretical frameworks (second part of the course). More complex real‐life situations (i.e., case studies) better suited this objective.

We sequenced the simulations so that each one would be more complex than its predecessor and would also introduce new theoretical elements. Parking Spaces, the first simulation, is a relatively simple scorable game used to review two‐party negotiation theory. The second, the Three‐Party Coalition Exercise,⁴ highlights several initial lessons regarding coalitions and the dynamic nature of multiparty dialogue, including the impact of different decision rules. Harborco⁵ provides a more complex six‐party setting in which students can explore the impacts of blocking coalitions, including the potential of drawing people into coalitions that might be less than optimal for meeting their interests.

The final simulation, Pablo‐Burford,⁶ lasts eight hours. It was played during the first day of the weekend workshop, with a debriefing the following day. This complex ten‐party negotiation game highlights: (1) the difficulties of managing a multiparty negotiation; (2) the importance of ground and decision rules; (3) the difficulty of managing an overwhelming amount of information and scientific uncertainty; and (4) the use of small task‐oriented groups, including caucuses.

As noted earlier, much of the second part of our course used complex, real‐life multiparty situations to explore the theoretical frameworks students developed during the first part of the course.

The topic of Public Disputes: Land Use and Facility Siting was used to raise questions about how multiparty processes might be organized when issues are contentious, and there is not normally an opportunity to convene the stakeholders in a face‐to‐face problem‐solving dialogue. More specifically, we asked how a public policymaking process should be convened, one in which stakeholders with strongly opposing views can participate, and what else is necessary for a politically legitimate dialogue to occur. We also used this case to introduce students to the characteristics of public disputes in general.

We followed with the Congressional Tobacco Negotiations. Our prime focus here was on coalitional dynamics. These negotiations also introduced students to the challenges of negotiating “in the shadow of the law.”Class Action and Mass Torts: Asbestos, the third topic introduced, highlights coalitional issues in a situation where the stakeholders, often individual claimants, are too many to easily represent except through lawyers who speak on behalf of thousands of clients. Consequently, this is a good case for studying the role of agents. In 2003, our focus shifted to the bankruptcy negotiations in which asbestos litigation is now being resolved. This topic also offers a good vehicle for looking at process design issues, especially the management of scale.

International Treaty Negotiations was the next multiparty situation studied by the class. We used this topic to continue our exploration of the interaction of coalitions and the issue of process management, including convening, dealing with an overwhelming amount of information, coping with scientific uncertainty, managing coalitions, and issues of implementation when traditional means of enforcement do not apply.

The next topic was Intractable Ethnic Conflict: Role of Neutrals. In 2002, we studied the conflicts in both Northern Ireland and Bosnia. These highlight how mediators can help negotiators move beyond rigid group interaction to problem solving. These cases also provided two contrasting examples of how mediators intervene. In 2003, we dropped Bosnia and instead focused on the Israeli–Palestinian dispute. With the help of a distinguished guest speaker, we examined the possibility of negotiation on the difficult issue of dismantling Jewish settlements in contested areas of the West Bank.

We concluded by looking at a particularly topical issue, the Compensation Schemes for September 11 Victims. This case did not involve a negotiation per se but provided rich background material and a challenging setting to consider how funds allocated by Congress ought to be distributed. In effect, we tried to imagine a possible multiparty process for allocating the victim compensation funds.

We believe that interacting with notable guest speakers who have first‐hand experience in particular cases was essential in helping students understand the process of multiparty negotiation. These presentations, filled with details known only to “insiders,” challenged students to delve more deeply into their analyses of the cases. Guest speakers both enriched student understanding of the dynamics at play and also gave students the opportunity to examine how outcomes might have been different if one or more negotiators had tried a different approach or if the process had been conducted somewhat differently. Table Two provides a list of the guest speakers who joined us during the 2002 and 2003 courses.

In both years, we asked the students to write an individual essay after the first part of the course was completed summarizing their ideas about the key differences between multiparty and two‐party negotiations. In this essay, we asked them to integrate both the readings and their experiences in the simulations. For the second assignment in 2002, students organized themselves into groups of two to four students to help lead the case study discussions. In the same year, students were asked to submit a joint memorandum on the topic they had covered, and, for the final assignment, they wrote papers exploring one aspect of multiparty negotiation in more depth.

In 2003, we made some changes to the assignments. For the second assignment, the students prepared a PowerPoint^® presentation on one of the contexts we covered instead of the paper. For the final assignment, we introduced an all‐day simulation‐based exam. (The reasoning behind these changes in assignments is explained below.)

We believe that the overall structure of the course, beginning with theory building and ending with the testing and refining of proposed theories against real‐life multiparty situations, worked well. Because of the complex nature of multiparty negotiations, we found that it was important to build up the students’ theoretical framework gradually, using simulations to isolate particular features of multiparty negotiation. Once the basic framework is in place, students enjoy testing propositions in real‐life multiparty situations to see how they work across contexts. A combination of simulations and real‐life cases seems to be the right way of teaching both theory and practice‐related skills.

We remain committed to our theoretical assumptions about the three key differences between two‐party and multiparty negotiating: coalitions, process management, and the kaleidoscopic nature of BATNA analysis. Students referred back to these key differences throughout the course and were satisfied that this list encompassed the important distinguishing features of multiparty negotiations.

However, we also discovered that we needed to bolster our theoretical framework by considering more explicitly how two‐party theory needs to be adjusted in multiparty settings. For example, how should negotiators manage the “three tensions” given the presence of one or more additional parties observing the two‐party communications? How should the “negotiator's dilemma” be understood in multiparty situations in which a negotiator must consider the risk that any information disclosed to one party might find its way to other parties?

Finally, if we expect students to tackle complex multiparty negotiations, we need to teach them how to analyze and prepare for such negotiations more systematically. We have encouraged students to develop a sequential checklist of questions that they can use in preparing for and thinking about multiparty negotiations, such as:

• Which parties will be represented at the table as it stands now? Which parties might I want to invite or exclude?

• Who is representing the parties?

• What are the interests of the parties and their representatives, and how might they diverge?

• What are the relationships among parties?

• Is it always desirable to build both winning and blocking coalitions?

Although there is probably no perfect checklist, we believe that a default set of sequential questions (and a method of answering them) would guide students when they approach future multiparty negotiations.

Two important but contrasting perspectives useful in analyzing multiparty negotiation contexts are the “interested party perspective” (the perspective of an actual party to the negotiation) and the “process manager's perspective” (the perspective of someone who is facilitating the negotiation but who is not actually an interested party). In the first year of teaching our course, we tended to focus on both, first in building the theoretical framework and then in applying that framework to multiparty contexts. However, while the process manager perspective is fascinating, we found that students would sometimes confuse the two, which is not helpful. Because our main goal is to produce competent multiparty negotiators, not process managers, we will try in the future to more effectively keep the two perspectives separate. Our theoretical framework will continue to concentrate more on those questions that students need to ask in developing strategies and tactics as participants in multiparty negotiation, rather than as mediators. This will not reduce our concern about process management, because a good multiparty negotiator must understand and seek to influence his or her own process choices and those of others by, for example, suggesting changes in decision rules, ground rules about caucusing, and even decisions like the order in which people are allowed to speak.

We need to think further about how to teach students about process management. As mentioned earlier, we believe that knowledge about process management choices, whether made by interested parties, including chairs, or neutrals, is an indispensable feature of a multiparty course. It is important that students experience first‐hand the impacts that process‐management decisions can have on negotiations, especially as they increase in complexity. However, providing students with this experience is very time consuming. We found that we had to resort to elaborate exercises and efforts to draw out even simple lessons about process management, and only a few students actually had the opportunity to play the role of process manager. We are currently exploring new methods of conveying this material. Two options we are considering are: (1) hold a few simultaneous iterations of the same simulation, but with half of the groups mediated and then compare the students’ experiences across mediated and nonmediated groups; and (2) hold mediated simulations, but have these managed by experienced neutrals so that students can get a feel of how such processes are handled most effectively.

In the first year, we introduced students to a wide variety of multiparty situations. We did so because of uncertainty about which universal characteristics apply across many or all multiparty negotiating contexts. Based on our experiences, the use of a great many different cases was sometimes overwhelming for both students and instructors. First, the large number of different cases required each of us to learn a lot about many different and unfamiliar contexts in a short time. Second, each context is complex, with enough material to occupy its own course. As a result, students and instructors often found it difficult to isolate take‐away lessons. For that reason, in the second year of teaching, we decided to cut down the number of contexts and reduce the number of readings regarding each factual situation. So, for example, in 2003, we eliminated the tobacco negotiations case and used only one intractable ethnic conflict (Israeli– Palestinian resettlements). This allowed students to spend more time thinking deeply about how they would prepare for and act in such cases. On the other hand, we still believe that we must let students experience the complexity of multiparty situations — and even the most complex simulation cannot replicate a real‐life context.

We found that one of the weaknesses of our 2002 course was that the second and third assignments (group project and detailed analysis of a case) did not allow us to easily evaluate how much students had really learned. We also found these assignments to be too similar. Consequently, in 2003, we decided to ask the students to prepare a PowerPoint presentation on one of the contexts we covered instead of a paper, and we introduced an all‐day simulation‐based exam instead of the third paper, in which the previous year's students had been asked to analyze one of the contexts in more detail.

Our decision in 2003 to build a final exam around a simulation in which students can test their cumulative skills turned out to be a good one.⁷ Our goal, besides testing how the students used in a multiparty negotiation what they had learned in class, was to create an incentive for them to spend time integrating everything that we had covered. The prior year, because the students knew that there would be no final exam, there was less incentive for them to spend time mastering the materials on all the special topics for which they had no responsibility. The eight‐hour exam structure (with three memos to write in real time, one before and two after a ninety‐minute simulation) was in lieu of a one‐day take‐home style examination.

Briefly, this experimental exam consisted of four assignments:

1. Preparatory memorandum: two hours (students received general instructions about the case and confidential instructions for their role);

2. Negotiating a six‐party case: two hours;

3. Personal description of their preparation and negotiation: ninety minutes;

4. Analytical memorandum about the negotiation: two‐and‐a‐half hours. For this part of the exam, students were given all the information for the simulation, including the confidential instructions from all other parties.

We think that this type of exam successfully accomplished several objectives. It emphasized preparation; students knew one week in advance what the main tasks would be, which allowed them to review the material and prepare to write personal and analytical papers. As a result, the students’ performance levels were very high. Further, this exam allowed us to test their preparation techniques, their actual negotiation skills, and their analytical capabilities under the kind of stress and time pressure they would be confronted with in a real‐life negotiation.

In May 2003, the Program on Negotiation convened a small conference on “Teaching Multiparty Negotiation” attended by thirty of our peers who teach negotiation at law, business, and urban planning/public policy schools. This conference was organized around four questions related to the teaching of multiparty negotiation:

1. What should be taught?

2. How should it be taught?

3. How should students and instructors be evaluated?

4. How can a discussion about multiparty negotiation instruction be sustained?

Below are some conclusions that arose from our discussions with colleagues:

• Participants agree that multiparty negotiations are not only more complex than two‐party negotiations, but they are also different in kind because multiparty negotiations have unique dynamics (e.g., coalition formation and management).

• Many of the problems that negotiators will face will be similar whether they are in two‐party or multiparty negotiations. However, the advice that we would give for each problem would be different depending on whether it was a two‐party or multiparty negotiation.

• Many tools that we use to teach two‐party negotiations could also be used in a multiparty negotiation course. However, many of the traditional tools for teaching negotiation may not capture those dynamics that are unique to multiparty negotiations. These include side communications, role variety (coalition builder, deal blocker, bystander, facilitator, etc.), and the challenge of representing multiparty outcomes in ways that are as compelling as, for example, the pareto‐optimal frontier in two‐party negotiations, in which a more efficient outcome can be defined as one where at least one party is better off and no party is worse off (pareto‐efficiency). When there are more than two parties, such an easy definition of efficiency is harder to come by.

• Instructors need to balance exposing students to the overwhelming complexities often found in large‐scale multiparty negotiations with highlighting powerful lessons, which may be better illustrated by techniques such as microexercises and simpler simulations.

• There are many ways to evaluate the students’ performance. Some of the more innovative suggestions included: use a multiparty negotiation as a focal point for a full‐day exam; establish a set of “hurdles” (as students pass each hurdle, their potential grade is increased); and ask students to write five pages that capture lessons from the whole course, then condense those lessons, first onto one page and finally onto an index card.

To build on and capture our experience in teaching this course (and with input from our peers), we have developed a multiparty negotiation workbook (Susskind et al. 2003). Our goal was to keep this resource as brief as possible; however, it does include all the readings we assigned and examples of student papers and completed exam questions. The workbook includes an overview of what we taught, our underlying pedagogical assumptions, the teaching methods we selected, an assessment of what worked and what did not work as well as expected, and how we intend to improve this course in future years. We conclude with our thoughts on several questions that others teaching multiparty negotiation might want to consider. (Nine appendices to the workbook provide more detailed information, such as assigned readings, sample student work, and overheads and memos used by the instructors during class meetings.).

We have learned a great deal from our experience designing and teaching a course on multiparty negotiation and from discussions with our colleagues. To begin, the overall structure of the course (starting by building a theory base and then testing it against a range of multiparty contexts) worked well. For the theoretical base, we found that overlaying our theoretical framework of three distinguishing characteristics (coalition formation, process management problems, and the kaleidoscopic nature of parties’ BATNAs) on top of two‐party negotiation theory made a sound foundation for analyzing and acting in multiparty negotiations. We also learned, however, that two‐party theory needs to be adjusted in multiparty settings. For example, what effects do the possibilities for coalition building and caucusing have on the “negotiator's dilemma” or the “three tensions?”

We further believe that exercises and simulations are a crucial tool for highlighting theoretical lessons and developing skills. To convey the complexity of the multiparty context, we would recommend that instructors include one long (all‐day) and complex simulation. However, the more complex a simulation, the more likely it is that students and faculty will have to allocate time for it outside of regular class time. In addition, a minimum class size of twenty students would seem to be required to make the use of these simulations logistically feasible.

To complement the use of simulations, we recommend that instructors present cases and situations from multiple contexts that challenge students to consider which lessons about multiparty negotiation can be generalized across all contexts. However, we also suggest that instructors be careful not to use too many contexts, because the course will need to devote additional time for students to learn about the substantive and contextual issues of each.

For student evaluation, we found that a game‐oriented final exam worked well. We felt that it challenged the students to engage with and synthesize the full content of the course. Furthermore, we found that it gave us a good picture of the breadth and depth of what students were taking away from our course.

Finally, we found that an advanced course on multiparty negotiation is a vital addition for any student or professional who wants to better understand and perform in multiparty negotiations. Multiparty negotiations are common phenomena in the world; yet they are also complicated and sometimes overwhelming, especially as the number of issues, people, and interactions grows. To function well in these environments, negotiators require unique skills and analytical tools beyond those provided by two‐party theory. A course like ours will prepare students and professionals alike for both the nuances and overwhelming complexity of these fascinating challenges.