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{{A|negotiation|{{image|Onworld and Offworld Comms|png|A quadrant, yesterday. I’m no happier about it that you are, believe me.}}}}Some time in the last decade, negotiators lost the art — the ''joy'' — of the spontaneous two-way conversation. We | {{A|negotiation|{{image|Onworld and Offworld Comms|png|A quadrant, yesterday. I’m no happier about it that you are, believe me.}}}}Some time in the last decade, negotiators lost the art — the ''joy'' — of the spontaneous two-way conversation. We traded it for the utilitarian transmission of electronic letters, flung like percussive grenades between barricaded trenches. | ||
This is a shame. The [[JC]] has his theories, as usual, why this happened: | If we talk at all, we do so by pre-arrangement, in formal, minuted, stage-managed, all-hands conferences. | ||
This is a shame. The [[JC]] has his theories, as usual, why this happened: for negotiation has been ''formalised'': given parameters, set out in pre-printed instructions, and delegated into greener, cheaper, remoter hands. Negotiation has been transformed from an elaborate, skilful display of tactical swordsmanship to a utilitarian process of mechanically twisting a battery of dials dials until the numbers match. | |||
The [[JC]] feels we have either lost something important — if there must be a negotiation, then it should keep alive that spirit of Erroll Flynn — or put in something stupid — if the oracular art of negotiation,as a [[commitment signal]] is ''not'' important and all that is required is mechanical onboarding, this process of discovery by dial twisting is just ''[[waste]]'': we should long since have solved this problem and mechanised the process altogether. | |||
Of course, we are in a dun netherworld between the two states: we don’t have the fortitude to set our controls at a point where clients will just accept them, and clients in any case rather like being shown the attention of a joust. | |||
===On [[swordcraft]]=== | |||
Here, some [[swordcraft]] comes in handy. It is hard to practice swordcraft by the exchange of letters. | |||
But if process efficiency is your goal — and the goal of [[Juniorisation|juniorising]] and the [[Playbook|playbookification]] of negotiation is, without question, process efficiency — then this tendency is [[Sod’s law]] at work. Consider the difference between '''emailing''' the [[credit]] officer with your question, and waiting 24 hours for her to pick it up, think about it, and send you an elliptical reply (as likely as not kicking off a [[circle of escalation]]) — it never quite answers the question you had first time, does it? — or just [[calling]] her up and asking her there and then? | But if process efficiency is your goal — and the goal of [[Juniorisation|juniorising]] and the [[Playbook|playbookification]] of negotiation is, without question, process efficiency — then this tendency is [[Sod’s law]] at work. Consider the difference between '''emailing''' the [[credit]] officer with your question, and waiting 24 hours for her to pick it up, think about it, and send you an elliptical reply (as likely as not kicking off a [[circle of escalation]]) — it never quite answers the question you had first time, does it? — or just [[calling]] her up and asking her there and then? | ||