This issue of Negotiation Journal is dedicated to the theme of critical moments (CMs) in negotiation and related conflict management and resolution processes. It sprang from a Program on Negotiation workshop of the same name held on September 27–28, 2019 at Harvard Law School. It is the second conference and special issue on this topic. The first workshop was held in November 2003 and led to a special issue of the Journal that appeared in April 2004. Our goal for the most recent workshop and this special issue was to revisit the concept of CMs reviewing developments in research and practice that have occurred during the ensuing sixteen years.
Kimberlyn Leary’s introduction to the 2004 special issue on CMs summarized a number of key ideas discussed by the authors in that issue. She tackled the fundamental problem of how to capture the meaning of CMs, noting that they are critical because they “carry urgency and are associated with a subjective sense that ordinary controls or rules no longer seem to be in play” (2004: 143). They are moments in time because they have a fleeting quality and, therefore, are easy to miss. She noted that CMs have consequences that result from the way negotiators react to them. These working definitions set the stage for a wide‐ranging exploration of CMs as they occur in many contexts and at several levels of analysis. The earlier authors discussed how CMs narrow a negotiator’s focus, how they often occur under the conditions of uncertainty, their elements of anxiety and surprise, their transformative potential, the importance of synchronicity in CMs, and their actionable feature. Many of these ideas reappear in the second rendition of the project. In addition, a number of new ideas surface in the articles to follow. These ideas come from some who participated in the first workshop and special issue as well as new participants in the project.
The concept of CMs resonates in both the research and practice communities. For researchers, the value of CMs resides in analyzing the conditions under which they occur and their consequences for the future course of a negotiation. The primary goal of researchers is to explain and analyze CMs in the service of theory development. For practitioners, the value of the concept lay primarily in its contribution to clinical or other applied practices such as mediation. The identification or creation of these vivid moments is often regarded as an opportunity for revealing insights or resolving impasses. For both researchers and practitioners, CMs provide windows of understanding that broaden our appreciation for how negotiation processes unfold and culminate in satisfying agreements.
The current set of articles extends our understanding of CMs in several directions. One direction is toward appreciating the plasticity of the concept. Just as a negotiator or analyst thinks he or she grasps the moment, it disappears in a flurry of conversations or events. This ever‐changing feature is a problem in the analyst’s quest for achieving construct validity essential for theory development. As David Laws illuminates, it is also a problem for the clinician’s attempts at diagnosis. One piece of advice for catching this fleeting moment is to be vigilant. Monitoring the moves and turns that unfold increases the chances that emergent opportunities will not be missed. The other possible glitch in this process is the way the vigilant negotiator adjusts to the change. Daniel Druckman shows that responses to these moments can have escalatory or de‐escalatory consequences depending on whether tough or soft moves are matched. Either consequence can be realized by the way conversations are structured, often by third parties. As Chet Harding shows, even simple words can turn difficult interactions around. But it is also the case, as Carrie Menkel‐Meadow argues, that “just saying no” may be the preferred response when further negotiation is likely to be harmful.
Moving outward, another direction is toward appreciating a larger context within which negotiating interactions occur. A variety of organizational actors have a stake in negotiation outcomes. Understanding how these networks work helps to navigate them. These can take the form of nurturing relationships by connecting with key actors, interlocutors, or stakeholders. Easier said than done of course, but Deborah Kolb provides compelling examples of how it can work. Joel Cutcher‐Gershenfeld also considers CMs within the larger context, analyzing how CMs become pivotal events, that, in turn, can result in larger organizational transformations. Expanding our analyses of CMs in these directions also moves us into the realms of organization behavior and systems analysis. They change our purview from the unresolvable quality of infinite games to more resolvable finite games, following William Donohue’s distinction.
Another direction suggested by these articles is the skills needed to shift the frame of a negotiation from confrontation to collaboration. This shift, regarded as a CM, is particularly challenging for mediators dealing with intractable conflicts. It is also challenging in social settings where a person is making unwanted overtures or perpetrating violence. The articles by Susskind, Sharpe, and Forester, respectively, describe these skills and make a strong case that they can be learned. One of these learned skills is perspective taking where, as Harborne Stewart shows, calibrating both one’s own and the counterpart’s options in a CM can be highly impactful.
One theme running throughout the articles is the elusive and expansive nature of CMs. They are elusive in the sense of being difficult to pin down in analysis or practice. Missed moments are almost impossible to recapture. Indeed, we only know what was missed in retrospect. But these may also be learning moments in a manner similar to the way we perform counter‐factual analyses. Although troubling, knowing what could have been can be used as a teaching lesson valuable for future encounters. Better yet is anticipating the prospects of CMs during the process of negotiating. Here is where the practice skills discussed by some of the issue’s contributors come in handy along with the research findings from laboratory experiments. Experiments may be regarded as tools for discovering the conditions or precipitants that lead to CMs.
With regard to expansiveness, the articles cover a variety of settings and are written by authors from a number of social science fields. The settings include several types of international negotiation, a large unionized organization (Ford Motor Company and the United Automobile Workers Union), US–China trade talks, community development clinics, and improvisation workshops. The disciplines include social psychology, political science and international relations, communication, labor relations, game theory, education, political philosophy, and law. The authors include both practitioners and theorists; most contributions combine theory with practice. This variety suggests that CMs are to be found here, there, and most everywhere. Surely, they are fundamental to a broad construal of social interaction processes. The study of negotiation, as a type of social interaction, produces insights that have implications for understanding the flows and rhythms of other processes. CMs are the punctuations that mark transitions in conversations and social relationships. They are also the “aha” experiences that provide meaning to both casual and long‐term encounters. With this in mind, we invite our readers from many walks of life to join us in the endeavor to learn more about CMs.
Articles in this Issue
The issue begins with an article by Daniel Druckman, who spearheaded the project. His article reviews research conducted on turning points over the course of more than three decades. Of particular interest are his search for a theory and his focus on identifying and filling gaps in research. Building on his article for the earlier special issue on CMs, he develops theoretical insights at each of three levels of analysis. Monitoring and adjustment processes are the focus of individual‐level analysis. The idea of synchronicity is offered as a way of understanding how negotiating interactions occur. Systems or institutional contexts are the focus for multilateral and global negotiations. The levels‐of‐analysis approach also provides a way of organizing future research and connects to the tiered analysis discussed in the Cutcher‐Gershenfeld article.
The article by David Laws provides a look at many faces of CMs. He situates the occurrence of CMs in various research‐in‐practice situations. Central to his own practice is creating stories from diagnostic interviews. The CMs come into play during transitions in the interactive story‐telling process. These moments provide a kind of sequencing and structuring to the story. Laws’ work has shown him that CMs are plastic—they “have no fixed scale.” Although he is ambitious in advancing a variety of roles and functions played by CMs in these contexts, he alerts us to the need for vigilance at times when we might least expect them to occur. While emphasizing the positive functions of CMs, the author is aware that story creation may have critical pitfalls.
Joel Cutcher‐Gershenfeld’s article introduces a three‐fold distinction among CMs, pivotal events, and transformations. This contribution brings two new concepts to the CM literature. These ideas add scope to the CM concept by expanding the ramifications of events. A pivotal event places CMs in organizational contexts, where consequences may include positive or negative shake‐ups in organizational life. When a number of pivots occur they have the potential to add up to an organizational transformation. Of particular interest is the idea of levels of complexity, moving from micro CMs through meso pivots to macro transformations. This is similar to Druckman’s analysis of turning points as moving up or down ladders of complexity.
Larry Susskind lifts up the role of CMs in fostering “breakthrough collaboration.” Susskind goes beyond his contribution to the 2004 issue, which included an inquiry into the causes and consequences of CMs. Here he focuses on the effective use of CMs in the case of deep, protracted conflicts, including the importance of conveners, mediators, low‐key joint activities, relationship building, and surfacing underlying root causes of conflict. In contrast to traditional mediation that occurs when a dispute is “ripe” for intervention, these are actions that have the potential to be CMs that shift the intractable conflict toward a path of collaborative problem solving.
William Donohue uses a game metaphor to distinguish between finite and infinite games. A key difference is between the voluntary, rule, and time‐bound features of the finite game compared to the open‐ended, and hence potentially unresolvable, quality of infinite games. A type of CM is the transition from one type of game to the other. When game participants realize that either the contest or the relatively rule‐free interactions are taking a toll on their relationship, they are likely to switch to the other framing. Another kind of transition is from peace negotiations, a finite game, to peace processes, a vaguely defined set of activities construed as an infinite game.
Ken Sharpe’s article is the first of five to consider the video clip of Charlene Barshefsky reflecting on a CM in the US–China trade negotiations when she was the lead negotiator for the United States. Sharpe, a political theorist and philosopher, sees in such a CM evidence of what Aristotle termed “practical wisdom” (phronesis)—that is, wisdom that can only be developed through practice. Negotiators, Sharpe notes, must demonstrate “not just good understanding or good judgment. They need good action. Good practice.” He then holds up a mirror to the many forms of pedagogy in our field, considering the ways in which they develop the capacity for practical wisdom. In any field, it is a welcome contribution when those from other fields and domains look at established practices with fresh eyes, which is what Sharpe does here.
John Forester and Anne Kilgore, in their piece, also examine the Barshefsky video clip and raise questions of learning the associated skills, but they do so through the lens of gender. They raise the key question: How was Barshefsky able to have such presence of mind in the face of physical intimidation? They answer this question by observing that women in our society have far more experience than men in “dancing around male violence.” This, in turn, raises the question of how such a skill can be taught. For many men, Forester and Kilgore note, it likely is a matter of unlearning ways of meeting confrontation with confrontation.
Deborah Kolb focuses attention on how connected moves can lead to turning points in a negotiation. Her analysis of three cases demonstrates the larger social environment’s impact on moves made in negotiation. Like some of the other contributors to this issue, she forges a link between macro and micro‐level processes. She adds to the discussion by exploring the complex logistics involved in making and sustaining relationships with important actors in and around the negotiation. These actors were Chinese trade representatives, Congressional representatives, and farmers. From these cases, she highlights the importance of face, keeping the dialogue going, and connecting in the moment. Although the momentary connections are the CMs, they must be understood in the context of relationship building around the talks.
Harborne W. Stuart brings a game theoretic lens to the Barshefsky video clip. He uses a “game tree” to plot the sequence of moves and countermoves, noting how Barshefsky made moves that opened up options for her counterpart in the negotiation. These moves were possible because of Barshefsky’s skill in taking her counterpart’s perspective—pointing out the value of thinking as much about your counterpart’s options as your own. In doing so, a CM is created for both parties.
In addition to his analysis of finite and infinite games, William Donahue joined in the analysis of the Barshefsky video, and his comments are included here. Donahue considers the role of politeness in negotiation, analyzing the video that is available to readers of Negotiation Journal and another that is not publicly available, but is described in his article. He observes how politeness creates a CM that helps the opposite negotiator to save face and the parties to advance toward agreement.
Chet Harding provides an insider’s look at how improvisational workshops are conducted. His scripts of conversations help the reader to understand how very small differences in the use of four words (Yes, No, but, and) may have large impacts on the way people interact and relate. A CM resides in the transition from “Yes but” to “Yes and.” The former often sets in motion a defensive or competitive posturing that takes the conversation for a dive. The latter, more akin to problem solving, encourages cooperation and often results in improved conversations. It is fascinating to note how so little (a few words here and there) can produce so much (productive outcomes and a pleasant train of interactions). His summary table on patterns of relationships provides a typology that links the articles of speech to the corresponding approaches of conflict, containment, accommodation, and cooperation.
Carrie Menkel‐Meadow reflects on a career of lifting up the complexity of negotiation, embracing the spirit of “and” (paralleling Harding’s recommendations). Against this backdrop, she raises the importance of a firm “no,” particularly at a time of deeply challenging historical developments, as illustrated by Negotiation Journal’s special issue last year on bargaining in the era of Trump, the #Me Too movement, and the presence of evil regimes. It is particularly in the face of large power differences that the “yes and” approach faces limits. In this sense, the ultimate CM is the point at which it makes more sense not to negotiate—not just because there is a better alternative, but because continued interaction poses the risk of imminent harm.
Building on the these articles, we look forward to the next project, Critical Moments III.
