Last week the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, cancelled a meeting with the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis. The reason was due to a disagreement over the Parthenon Sculptures, also known as the “Elgin Marbles” which were sequestered by the British in the early 1800’s. Greece wants them back, the British prefer to avoid the subject. In responding to the cancellation, Mr. Mitsotakis said:
"Those who firmly believe in the correctness and justice of their positions are never hesitant to engage in constructive argumentation and debate."
It is this comment I would like to focus on in today’s blog, and not the politics of the Elgin Marbles!
A lack of willingness to debate an issue risks the impression of being at fault in the matter at hand unless we take steps to manage perception. Avoidance in its own right does not imply fault, but it can be interpreted as such, giving the other party momentum.
In negotiation theory, the avoidance strategy can be justified on several grounds. When we are not yet prepared to enter a discussion, we should avoid doing so until we have sufficient information. To quote Benjamin Franklin, “By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail”. There is a high correlation between being well prepared and having superior information to your counterpart, and achieving better negotiated outcomes.
The corollary of this is that you should not force someone else to negotiate when they are not prepared otherwise they are likely to adopt a hard, inflexible negotiation position if they feel the other side will take advantage of them.
Other reasons why avoidance may be an acceptable strategy include when the money on the table or the time required to engage are not justified by the outcome. Every action has an opportunity cost; we should allocate our time and resource to those where the opportunity cost is less than the expected benefit of action. (see blog #56: The Performance Mind Set).
None of these validations for avoidance are acceptable for Prime Minister Sunak, however. It has been over 200 years since Lord Elgin appropriated the Parthenon Sculptures, so lack of preparedness is unlikely to be accepted as a valid reason!
I would suggest an alternative approach...
Any time we are facing an uphill debate, where the other side has the moral high ground, we need to reframe the discussion by redirecting the conversation. In linguistics, the ‘redirection frame’ is a technique that changes the path of the conversation by introducing a new variable or direction.
For example, “It’s not the Elgin Marbles that we should be discussing, but all the artefacts in all the world’s museums that have claims against them, and whether a global repatriation is in the best interests of educating our children on world culture and history”.
By redirecting the discussion to the larger issue (and in so doing introducing the position that any action should be multi-lateral and not unilateral) and questioning the wisdom of each nation hoarding its own antiquities and thereby reducing their cultures exposure to the world, we retake control of the dialogue.
I appreciate that this approach oversimplifies a complex situation however, avoiding dialogue is not the solution either. As leaders we can do better by both having constructive debate and directing it in a way that serves a larger purpose.
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A lack of willingness to debate an issue risks the impression of being at fault in the matter at hand unless we take steps to manage perception. Avoidance in its own right does not imply fault, but it can be interpreted as such, giving the other party momentum.
In negotiation theory, the avoidance strategy can be used justified on several grounds. When we are not yet prepared to enter a discussion, we should avoid doing so until we have sufficient information. To quote Benjamin Franklin, “By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail”. There is a high correlation between being well prepared and having superior information to your counterparty and achieving better negotiated outcomes.
The coronary of this is that you also should not force someone else to negotiate when they are not prepared otherwise, they are likely to adopt a hard, inflexible negotiation position if they feel the other side will take advantage of them.
Other reasons why avoidance may be an acceptable strategy include when the money on the table or the time required to engage are not justified by the outcome. Every action has an opportunity cost, and we need to always allocate our time and resource to those where the opportunity cost is less than the expected benefit of action. (see blog #56: The Performance Mind Set).
None of these validations for avoidance are acceptable for Prime Minister Sunak, however. It has been over 200 years since Lord Elgin appropriated the Parthenon Sculptures, so lack of preparedness is likely to be accepted as a valid reason! I would suggest an alternative approach...
Any time we are facing an uphill debate, where the other side has the moral high ground, we need to reframe the discussion by redirecting the conversation. In linguistics, the ‘redirection frame’ is a technique that changes the path of the conversation by introducing a new variable or direction.
For example, “It’s not the Elgin Marbles that we should be discussing, but all the artefacts in all the world’s museums that have claims against them, and whether a global repatriation is in the best interests of educating our children on world culture and history”.
By redirecting the discussion to the larger issue (and the position that any action should be multi-lateral and not unilateral) and questioning the wisdom of each nation hording its own antiquities and thereby reducing their cultures exposure to the world, we retake control of the dialogue.
I appreciate that this approach oversimplifies a complex situation however, avoiding dialogue is not the solution either. As leaders we can do better by both having constructive debate and directing it in a way that serves a larger purpose.
If you found this blog useful, please click ‘like’ below and forward to friends and colleagues to subscribe. If you disagree or have anything to add, please comment!
For short form videos, quick tips, useful quotations and other items related to soft skills. Please follow me on the following link! https://instagram.com/softskillsexpert?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
To catch up on previous blogs and make sure you’re not missing out on some great insights, check out the archives here.