Dr Judith Morrison

The crucial role of negotiation skills in addressing sustainability issues

Dr Judith Morrison

By Dr Judith Morrison, Trainer and Honorary Research Associate, Murdoch University, Mr Matthew Coxhill (Aquaculture, Publishing and Education.)

Failed negotiations around complex sustainability issues often involve high and counter-productive costs in time, money, reputation and trust.  Negotiations that don’t deliver mutually satisfactory outcomes leave communities, organisations and businesses cynical and unconvinced about the possibility of working together when sustainable solutions are needed.

Many organisations, public and private, are now required to negotiate around sustainability issues as part of their decision-making processes.  One advantage of open negotiation is its flexibility when stakeholders have to jointly look for solutions to problems in a more integrated way, and give equal consideration to the economic, social and environmental aspects of an issue that ensure ‘triple-bottom-line’ accountability.

However, attempts by stakeholders with widely differing viewpoints to find consensus often needlessly fail.

This presentation will show how this stalemate is often due to a limited understanding of negotiation skills, and that insufficient attention has been given in formal training to the crucial mix of skills required to negotiate through sustainability issues.   This emerging need is met through an accredited course Certificate IV in Understanding and Negotiating Sustainability Issues, which is designed to improve capacity to communicate ideas about sustainability back and forth between people who look at problems from very different perspectives.

The training has evolved from an understanding of processes of conflict resolution but takes a more proactive approach to help people practically and psychologically prepare for negotiations where stakeholders have inherently differing viewpoints.  In today’s complex decision-making and planning environments negotiators need more than natural, intuitive ability and good intentions.

They need specialised training and skills to anticipate, and hopefully avoid, some of the communication traps that undermine problem-solving processes involving a range of stakeholders. Cross-sectoral sustainability issue negotiations require competencies and skills well beyond those required for day-to-day engagement within one particular work sector or industry.

Dr Judith Morrison, Mr Matthew Coxhill
Taking Care of Business: Sustainable Transformation Conference
Radisson Resort, Gold Coast – May 21 & 22,