Q & A Table of Contents
Using Experts to Resolve Disagreements
From: Industrial Relations Officer, Singapore
Question: Please advise how to utilise expert or information power.
Response: One of the problems that can drive negotiators crazy arises when it is 'my word against yours'. Even if the parties have hired outside consultants to study a particular problem, it can still boil down to 'my expert's word against your expert's word'.
Once I was mediating a dispute in the United States between two parties who spoke virtually no English and who kept all their records in Chinese. Each offered to hire a translator to interpret both the written and spoken information. The judge in the local court who had assigned me to undertake this mediation was not convinced this would shed a great deal of light on the facts in dispute. I suggested that Party A pay the fee of the person who would interpret the verbal and written utterances of Party B and that Party B would pay for Party A's interpreter. Thus, neither interpreter would be viewed as 'owned' by the party whose information she or he was explaining to the English-speaking mediator or judge. Interestingly enough, once this suggestion was made, the parties were a lot more forthcoming with information 'voluntarily'.
Getting the parties to agree on an outside, disinterested source of information or set of standards is often a first, confidence-building step that can be taken toward reaching agreement. Whether the parties rely on a dictionary, an encyclopedia, an expert they all agree is the best available, or some other source of expertise, their use of this approach gives each a mechanism for saving face on an otherwise contentious issue. It is no longer 'my word against yours', it becomes an opportunity for the parties to work together in framing the question and working with the expert to reach agreement.
Good luck and good negotiating, Steve.
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