Complexity of Negotiation and Negotiation of Complexity, Final Paper

7/31/2019 Complexity of Negotiation and Negotiation of Complexity, Final Paper

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Complexity of Negotiation and Negotiation of Complexity

Getting to trust

Qeis Kamran, BA, MBA-GM, MBA-PPM

Kamran Management GmbH

Pfraundorfer Weg 33

83026 Rosenheim,Germany

Phone: +49-17666814739email: [email protected] , [email protected]

Ph.D Scholar University of Latvia and University of Applied Sciences Kufstein Ausrtia

Abstract

Negotiation is back and forth communication. [1, p. 279]. Communication is ubiquitous, wecommunicate even if we do not want to or do not intend to communicate. Thus communicationis unavoidable, so why not communicate successfully and achieve the managerial objective. Wenegotiate not only with other individuals on daily basis, but we negotiate with ourselves as well,shou ld I?, or should I not? How will it benefit me ? Should I eat that ice cream? Hmm,only if I promise to run 10 minutes longer tomorrow., Should I ask her for date? What if she

says no. ? What do I have to loose, if she says no, I will be still at the same position as I amtoday But negotiation is more complex than that. We can also observe negotiation as managingcomplexity. However, complexity is more than the buzzword understanding and usage of it inour common language and observation. To reduce the complexity of complexity, the authorsuggests the following description and hypothesis:Complexity is an adoptive-, self-organizing-, emergent-, unpredictable (and complexsystem (s)s or ) a gent (s)s number of possible states, parts, behaviours, interactions,variables, varieties, and choices, which need to be attenuated, absorbed and observed forthe system to be under control or for the objective to be of mutual satisfactory resultbetween the agent agents interaction, agent machines interaction or agent andenvironments interaction. In negotiation, information is critical. Agents (managers) often have information they do notneed and want; they get information that they do not need, but above all information they wantis information they do not need. The challenge is to obtain information that an agent actuallyneeds and they are more than he wants to pay for or the situation he will be in, if he tries toobtain them, thus obtaining information is giving information. [2. p. 229]Interaction of any form is communication; only through communication control 1 is maintained,executed and possible. Knowing The Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA) [3. p. 97] of one selfs and/ or an opposed agents may reduce a vast amount of variety 2 for thenegotiation system, thus it requires precise assumptions, which also must have the capacity to bequestioned as assumptions for computing the best alternative possible. However, negotiation isabout a win-win game and agents are better served if their interaction is about increasing theirnumber of choices mutually for better agreements and results.

1

Used as a cybernetic term, means; navigating and steering an organization2 Used as a cybernetic term, means; number of possible states for a system to be under control.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Purpose- The purpose of the author is to underpin and substantiate the claim that in order to navigateorganizations for success and survival, we must negotiate since we manage and control throughcommunication and communication requires negotiation.Findings- Negotiation is a complex but necessary task. Agents, mangers, politicians and mediators mustnegotiate for survival and control. There are some essential, critical and necessary steps and information,

which bring agents in a situation of absorbed complexity. These steps are trust, computing and relayingon environmental regularity and all agents BATNA. The author would apply these methods to test themin one of his managerial tasks as an entrepreneur, how these findings can be put as a best practice formanagers.Originality/value- There is almost no Ivey League University in the Western world, which does not offera program for successful negotiation. This research from a cybernetic and systemic lens is among the verydynamic and fresh approach to negotiationKey terms- Complexity, negotiation, cybernetics, agents and trust

Science has explored the microcosmos and the macrocosmos; we have a good sense of the lay of the land.The great unexplored frontier is complexity.

Heinz Pagels, The Dreams of Reason Introduction

The title of the paper in itself establishes the link that managerial objectives are complex issuesand must be negotiated and bargained via complex steps and alternatives. Many authors andinstitutes have applied behavioural, psychological, diplomatical, militarilial (threat) and legalinsights and sciences to achieve the best possible outcome in a negotiation. However, as thecomplexity and conflicts of the current era increase additional sciences and insights need to beintroduced to the field of professional negotiation to give the manager of today and tomorrow aviable and applicable method and understanding to succeed. This highly effective and muchpromising but forgotten science is called; the science of cybernetics. Cybernetics or the scienceof control and communication in the animal and the machine (Wiener, 1948) was introducedand coined by its founder Norbert Wiener one of the most influential MIT mathematician. Incontrary to the reductionist trained view of our world the science of cybernetics is holistic .In managing business affaires marketers vary between four to eight Ps 3 of marketing toposition and to push their products , administrators of business have their four Ms to get their task accomplished. These Ms are:

Men Materials Machinery The world of business administration 4 has been busy with Money 5 easy calculable phenomenon.

This, to some extend very world of calculable metaphors, compartmentalization and the socalled resources allocation on which the system of business administration and its productivityrelies has only functioned through the lenses of reductionism 6 or the dismantlement of theworlds systems, organizations and organisms to understand and manage them due to us beingblessed with the times of continuity and operating in environment of calculability and

predictability. Above all our basic definition of organizational success has been defined based

3 The Ps in market ing are: Products, Price policy, place, promotion, positioning, packaging, planning andpeople4 Business Administration and management are not the same (see also Malik, (Management), 2007, p. 22)5 Beer, (Heart),1979-1994, p.316 Reductionism according to (Carnap, 1928/1967, p. 6) is; An object (or concept) is said to be reducible

to one or more objects if all statements about it can be transformed into statements about these other objects.

}


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on reductionistic short-sightedness, quick outcome and gain, and false doctrine and businessmodel called the shareholder value [4, p.9] . The spectrum of a Multinational Corporations(MNC) success, the prominence of the monetarist manager [5, p.2] and fitness as large as abusiness even countrys economy is defined in quarterly compartments backwards. Our wholefinancial economy is based on unethical (Dianu , Vranceanu, 2005, false (Beattie, 2009),exploitation (Frieden, Lake, 2000), easy made money (Norberg, 2009) and unreal economy(Zalloum, 199) instead of real productivity.Reductionism began with Descartes, Galileo, Newton, and Laplace and has continued its 353year reign. Although reductionistic physics is responsible for us understanding the world withits riches it still leaves us with limitations of having meaningless facts without values [6, p. 2).The paradigm the whole of science has had for the last 200 years has been based onreductionism. [7, p. 2] However, real problems (Beer, 2002), challenges, changes, turbulences(Ramirez, et al , 2008), wars, conflicts, and disruptions (Anthony, 2009) do not respect thedisciplines and chunkization of academia, the departmentalization of fields in business schoolsand the separatistic character and nature of Galilean and Newtonian view of scientificdeclarations and methods. According to the latter, a manager dealing with managerial problems,

an organization based in a turbulent environment, two or more parties (countries) negotiating toavoid a war and two couples in love are merely particles in space, time and motion. Aneconomic system, a society, country and nation, our eco- system, the financial markets, alanguage, culture, an ideology and business enterprise can not be understood and managed byus reducing them to lower level entities and parts, since here we would need to dismantle asystem, a living being (organism) or an organization. Biologists observe that, most of thehuman body 65-90% is made up of water (H 2O). We therefore understand that most of a humanbody's mass consists of oxygen. In addition carbon is the basic unit for organic molecules,which comes in as number two. That 99% of the mass of the human body is made up of just sixbasic elements as oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus is surprising. 7 Knowing these elements via the notion and argumentation of reductio ad absurdum still doesnot explain the human behavior, action, consciousness, cognition, communication, coordination,

and cooperation of its parts with each other for a common and larger goal and how they aremanaged and controlled. Reductio ad absurdum is a way of arguing to establish a notion byderiving an absurdity from its denial, thus arguing that a thesis must be accepted because itsrejection would be indefensible. It is a style of reasoning that has been applied throughout thehistory in mathematics, physics and philosophy up until today. The author therefore proposesthat we take a different approach to solve our complex problems. These approach as emphasizedis via the lens of cybernetics and bionical cybernetics. Bionics or biomimicry is the art, to solvetechnical and holistic problems of communication via insights from natural systems. The authorobserves that cybernetics and bionics have not yet been applied in pursuit of achieving preciselynegotiatinal objectives. But these sciences are highly powerful and may transform the future of negotiation. Negotiation is a human activity. Agreements and precisely prerequisites that canbring forth agreement and satisfaction on which both agents and parties become what they needto be successful can be designed and mobilized. This task is complex therefore we need toolsand models that reduce complexities, so we can achieve our objectives.

7 According to (Harper, Rodwell, Mayes 1977) the human body is made of Oxygen (65%), Carbon(18%), Hydrogen (10%), Nitrogen (3%), Calcium (1.5%), Phosphorus (1.0%), Potassium (0.35%), Sulfur(0.25%), Sodium (0.15%), Magnesium (0.05%), Copper, Zinc, Selenium, Molybdenum, Fluorine,Chlorine, Iodine, Manganese, Cobalt, Iron (0.70%), Lithium, Strontium, Aluminum, Silicon, Lead,

Vanadium, Arsenic, Bromine (trace amounts)
http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&sa=G&tbo=1&tbm=bks&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Daniel+D%C4%83ianu%22&ei=-_FoTq_vN4aQ4gSblvzEDA&ved=0CDQQ9Aghttp://www.google.de/search?hl=de&sa=G&tbo=1&tbm=bks&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Daniel+D%C4%83ianu%22&ei=-_FoTq_vN4aQ4gSblvzEDA&ved=0CDQQ9Aghttp://www.google.de/search?hl=de&sa=G&tbo=1&tbm=bks&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Daniel+D%C4%83ianu%22&ei=-_FoTq_vN4aQ4gSblvzEDA&ved=0CDQQ9Aghttp://www.google.de/search?hl=de&sa=G&tbo=1&tbm=bks&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Daniel+D%C4%83ianu%22&q=inauthor:%22Radu+Vranceanu%22&ei=-_FoTq_vN4aQ4gSblvzEDA&ved=0CDUQ9Aghttp://www.google.de/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Jeffry+A.+Frieden%22http://www.google.de/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22David+A.+Lake%22http://www.google.de/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22David+A.+Lake%22http://www.google.de/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Jeffry+A.+Frieden%22http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&sa=G&tbo=1&tbm=bks&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Daniel+D%C4%83ianu%22&q=inauthor:%22Radu+Vranceanu%22&ei=-_FoTq_vN4aQ4gSblvzEDA&ved=0CDUQ9Aghttp://www.google.de/search?hl=de&sa=G&tbo=1&tbm=bks&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Daniel+D%C4%83ianu%22&ei=-_FoTq_vN4aQ4gSblvzEDA&ved=0CDQQ9Ag


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Complexity

This very world of us and its problems are and work systemic [7, p. 2] they are not solved andresolved if we do not understand this fact. Trying to explain Holism and Systemism in terms of reductionism is impossible and if we are trying to discuss Holism and begin to describe it bylooking at it from just two sides, that is insufficient and meaningless [7, p. 2]. There are systemsand subsystems, systems and other systems, which combined give a larger whole in our world.As sufficiently described above after we have understood that the worlds problems are holistic,we have to understand that not only understanding the whole spectrum of a separate entity, aviable system [8, p. 157] or a problem is essential but moreover its relation(s) andinterrelation(s) is (are) essential and vital as well. It is precisely through these relations,cooperation and coordination that our world actually works. Therefore, its high time that weunderstand and apply these insights to our problems and challenges for a better communicationand results.

Variety and Ashby s law of requisite variety

Variety is the number and possible states of system . Fig. 1 describes the interrelationship of an agent (manager) with its environment. This relationship can only exist and be maintained if the variety of the environment, in which the business is embedded is creating and forwardingvia disturbance to the agent is less or equal to the variety that the agent s system is capable of absorbing or coping with. To better understand this very law of management cybernetics, weneed to understand Ashbys law of requisite variety . In the mid 50s Ashby emphasized that thefundamental processes of regulation and control in biology (Ashby, 1956) has revealed theimportance of a certain quantitative relation called the law of requisite variety [9, p.1]. The lawof requisite variety; variety can destroy variety , [10, p. 207] as explained below is:

the amount of appropriate selection that can be performed is limited by the amount of information available.

for appropriat e regulation the variety in the regulator must be equal to or greater thanthe variety in the system being regulated. Or, the greater the variety within a system, thegreater its ability to reduce variety in its environment through regulation. Only variety(in the regulator) can destroy variety (in the system being regulated). [11, pespmc1.vub.ac.be]

After this relation was discovered, it was related to a theorem in a world far ignorant from thebiological that of Shannon on the quantity of noise or error that could be removed through acorrection-channel (9, p.1 ). Shannons theorem # 10 describes: If the correction channel has acapacity equal to H y (x) it is possible to so encode the correction data as to send it over thischannel an d correct all but an arbitrarily small fraction of errors. This is not possible if thechannel capacity is less than H y (x) [12, p.68].

Fig. 1 shows the relationship between the two theorems, and to indicate something of theirimplications for regulation, in a cybernetic sense, when the system to be regulated is extremelycomplex. Since the law of requisite variety uses concepts more primitive than those used byentropy.
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/REGULATION.htmlhttp://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/VARIETY.htmlhttp://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/VARIETY.htmlhttp://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/VARIETY.htmlhttp://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/VARIETY.htmlhttp://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/REGULATION.html


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Fig. 1 Difference of varieties between an agent and its environment and agent and environment relationvia Ashbys law of requisite variety. Source: (Schwaninger, 2000)

Fig.2 How organizations and their managements cope with complexity. Manager as amplifier of environmental complexity. Source: (Schwaninger, 2000)

The main objective and challenge of the manager is to balance the varieties of the interactingsystems through both attenuation and amplification (see Fig. 1). Beer (1979) coined the term Variety- engineering in this context [13, p. 211]

Beers Viable System Model (VSM)

The VSM is a management model and organizational theory developed by Stafford Beer, thefounder of Management Cybernetics (Beer, 1979, 1981, 1985, 1989). But before we understandthe whole spectrum of this powerful organizational theory (Schwaninger, 2006), the authorfinds it necessary that some terms of cybernetics origin be precisely defined and explained theyare more than the notion of words. These terms are Viability , which is the feature andcharacteristic of a system or a being , able to maintain a separate existence. A Being is anorganism (organization and a system) with the ability of identity transformation andpreservation. Living systems are able of self-repair, autopoises (self-reproduction) in a changingcomplex world. The fundamental feature that characterizes living- and viable, systems andbeings are autonomy [14 p. 149]. Speaking of VSM as a theory, it is distinctive in severalrespects, in particular in view of the claim it makes (Schwaninger, 2006). This theoretical claimis as follows: A viable social system is viable if its structure fulfils a number of requirements,


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which the theory specifies in five managerial sub-systems (Schwaninger, 2006). These systemsare:

(1) System 1. Management of a basic subsystem or operations(2) System 2. Coordination of subsystems, attenuation of oscillations between them(Schwaniniger, 2006)(3) System 3. Operative general management of a collective of subsystems(4) System 3*. Auditing and monitoring channel(5) System 4. Management for the long term organizational perspective, relationships andcoping with the overall environment(6) System 5. Normative management, meta- management and corporate ethos 8 Any deficit in this structure will inevitably limit and endanger the viability of the organization.

Fig. 3 Stafford Beers The Viable System Model, an overview

Source: (Schwaninger, 2000)

Negotiation

Negotiation is the act of communication, giving and receiving information and benefitsthat meet and maintain the larger objective of an agent s (s) system (s) to be undercontrol (acceptable and viable reach).Disputes and conflicts can and will only arouse, if the description above is not respected andmaintained or not actively sought. Countries, organizations and agents do not generally seek negotiation, when there BATNA promises better results or when their overall grand- strategywants to achieve a larger or other objective. To understand why conflicts arouse we canexamine the following case. The former US president George W. Bush did not want to negotiatewith the Taliban, because negotiating with them did not met the larger objective (see, fig.5.meta-system) of the US foreign policy at that time. The Taliban and the civilized world askedfor evidence, which the world is still awaiting, but nothing was delivered. Noam Chomsky of MIT the nester among public intellectuals and scholars told Press TV : "The explicit and declared motive of the [Afghanistan] war was to compel the Taliban to turn over to the United States, the people who they accused of having been involved in World Trade Center and

Pentagon terrorist acts. The Talibanthey requested evidenceand the Bush administrationrefused to provide any. We later discovered one of the reasons why they did not bring evidence:they did not have any ."[15, http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com]. Prof. Chomsky also statedthat nonexistence of such evidence was confirmed by FBI eight months later. To understand theproblem we should understand the Talibans and their beliefs beyond their ultra religious

8 Ethos mean organizational Identiy
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/149520.htmlhttp://www.presstv.ir/detail/149520.html


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identity. Speaking of the larger objective, the Taliban have mainly a Pashtun origin, whichconstitute 50% population of Afghans [16, p.621] and their identity. Knowledge about theimportant factors in play when indigenous populations are making decisions regarding their support for government-sponsored counterinsurgency efforts, for example, can lead to better strategies for communication and decision framing on the part of the counterinsurgents toimprove the relative attractiveness of the propositions they present to indigenous members inenvironments where counterinsurgent forces wish to expand their influence. [17. p. v] Forinstance, the Pashtun Code and doctrine encompasses the generous hospitality to guests and onemust revenge and thus to fight to the death for a person who has taken refuge with a Pashtun nomatter what his lineage [18, p. 40]). Would the knowing of this fact by the Bush administrationhave not made the world a safer and better place than it is today? If this $ 4 Trillion spending onmilitary means in the last decade would have been spend on seeing the problem from a holsticlens, making peace, ensuring security to the world and real justice to the terrorist, a much moresuccessful Afghanistan, Iraq, US and Western world would have been the result. But as weclearly can observe the objective of Bush and the NewCons, it was not to make peace or tobring justice; it was the grand strategy of total domination of the world s Eu rasia and Middle

East and its resource and to achieve the opposite of a negotiation. Lets examine another case:Two organizations want to negotiate, they want to have gains by mutual agreement throughnegotiation.

B

A

What would be the best approach in dealing with the problem? To analyze the situationprecisely, we should first define the primarily objective of the joint-venture. Mostly its either toenter a foreign market, get- in into a market niche mainly reserved for the locals (for instance inChina some line of products are restricted and cannot be entered by foreigners), or get acompetitive advantage. Now what the objective of each agent or party is, may defer but thecertain point is that coming together is of mutual benefit for both of the parties. Disputing overwho should run the show as long as the determined objectives at reach, is not onlycounterproductive but will not bring the desired out come into place. Therefore it is necessary togo beyond the dominating the competitor and concentrate on the objective. Whatever the maininterests are should be also pursuit. Interests are commonly referred to as basic needs, wants,goals, and objectives. [1, p.280] Interests and positions defer from each other. A position seeksthe objective to be resolved in a certain manner. Interests only seek the achievement of what is

essential and/ or at stake. To apply cybernetics here it would give the situation a much morestability and promise of mutual satisfaction. In cybernetics as stated not only the agent, withwhom we are negotiating, is essential but knowing the agents objectives are essential as well.But we can go a bit further and find out not only what his interests are but what drives thisagent, what are the larger objectives, in which environment is he embedded, who are his maincompetitors and what is the general bottleneck to his or his firm s objectives. And above allwhat are and could be the main constrains to our mutual agreement. As natural system isdesigned of many parts to function for a larger whole cybernetics can design many systems toserve a larger whole. A pilot and a plane are one system as are a car and his driver. The same iswith a company and its manager. They all give one larger system and can only function togetherto fly, to drive and to produce goods and services. In designing the man-machine system the lawAshbys law must be ubiquitously applied. If the variety of the plane is higher than what the

pilot can handle his systems would be in crises and would bring a crush as a result. The same is

Organization A wants to be the leader inthe joint project, but B wants the same.Both are convinced that they can make abetter job as the other one.

Fig. 4 Two agents (VSMs) in negotiation


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with the driver and the car, since he would not be able to handle the car. If the manager lacks thetraining his firms system would fail eventually, since the variety, which needs to be absorbedby the manager is higher than he can handle. The same would happen, if the variety of theenvironment with its disturbances, in which the firm is embedded, is higher than the manager-

firm system can handle.To apply bionics to the problem, we need to understand what the secrets of the interrelation of mans body are, and how the different parts are communicating with each other. The body is acombination of different parts working in unison to give a larger whole, which is the humanbeing. The secret of the man being able to move his hands and legs are via a flawlesscommunication. A patient visiting his doctor in a neurological clinic can move his legs or arms,but he suffers from a severe disability, he walks with a peculiar uncertain gait with eyes downdowncast on the ground and on his legs and starts each step with a kick, throwing each leg insuccession in front of him [19, p. 95]. What is the matter with him and if we blind fold the manhe might not even be able to walk one step? Another patient if you give him a glass of water heis not able to drink, his hand will swing and will empty the glass, before he has drunk one singlesip. The problem is known as ataxia [19, p. 95]. The patients muscles, arms and legs are

healthy but can not organize their action to achieve the objective. Here the way and line of communication is disturbed. The brain s stimulus for the body to move the arms and legs has adisturbance in communication. In order for the arms and legs to function the prerequisite iscommunication and trust. The brain will never question as long as the communication ismaintained that the arms would do something else or question the brains stimuli, nor will doother parts of the body which are under an active control of the brain (legitimacy). Two peopleas a system of negotiation not bringing the prerequisites of proper communication and trust mayachieve something, but it will be far less than what they can bargain for. They will achieve whatthey author would like to coin as ataxia of negotiation . Professional negotiators can applycybernetics and design the act and process of negotiation in a way that brings the outmostoutcome to the parties. The prerequisites are: 1) interests (the larger whole), 2) legitimacy, 3)trust (relationship), 4) communication, 5) commitments, and 6) options.

Fig.5. the Meta system of a VSMSource: (Schwaninger, 2006, p. 964)

The Meta system of a VSM as fig. 5 describes is responsible for the internal stability of thesystem, the future, and the preser vation of the systems ethos. Professional mediators beforebringing the parties together to negotiate, applies the six described prerequisites to achieve theobjectives. He/she asks: what are the real objective of each individual and party and what arenot the objectives? He/she than seeks to find a common ground of legitimacy for both party,where respect and saving the face of the parties are maintained. Since both accepted thelegitimacy of each other and know the mediator they can start to trust each other. By creating

trust and maintaining it, superb communication is possible and so can other options be applied,


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which will bring more benefits to the both parties. Understanding how the Meta-system fig. 5.works gives the negotiating partner additional tools of professionalism at hand. If in negotiationthe objectives, which benefit the internal system of the party (system 3), the future benefits(system 4), and identity preserving (system 5) are understood and respected, these facts willpave the way for much better understanding and better gains for both parties. No system willever knowingly act contrary to the requirements of the viable meta-system.

Conclusion

Negotiation as described through the paper is communication, giving and receiving information,one of the basic forms of interaction (Patton, 2005) and it is ubiquitous and unavoidable. But foreverything what we want or our organization wants, we must negotiate. Being a good and solidnegotiator enhances the possibilities of success for all agents and managers. Therefore, muchless energy drain is the result and vital organizational resources as time, partnership, money,cooperation, growth and coordination can be saved and preserved.The author suggests a holistic approach to negotiation and to make use of all possible resources,

steps and parts with harmony to each other, which in cybernetics also has been described asrecursion for a better and successful outcome. Trust and superb communication are the keys tonegotiation. They are vital and cannot be excluded if one wants to preserve relations and tocreate larger partnership- systems . This fact will be of use to mangers of today but moreover tothe managers of tomorrow. As the globalized world increases and out-sourcing, out- tasking andJV s or foreign market entries are necessary to survive the world needs able and professionalnegotiators. In the future the ability to negotiate would be an essential competitiveadvantage of a firm, but moreover it can be handled as a commodity and as firm s assets.The main obstacle to any organizational communication is the lack of trust. As describedthrough out the paper before we can negotiate we must insure that: 1) a flawless communicationbetween parties is ubiquitously possible; 2) trust as the fundamental part of a negotiation isensured; 3) and, the grand objective (ethos) of the negotiation as a system is maintained. Thismeans the whole negotiation system must follow a constructive rule of creating the idealsituation for all parties. Before we go any further the author needs to explain how negotiatorscan achieve these three states. 1) Communication: can be achieved if language barriers, culturaldifferences, personal issues as ego or need to display ones power, etc are resolved. 2) Trust canbe insured if an experienced, just, candid and unbiased mediator or observer that both partiescan accept as the negotiation systems conscious , is designed. 9 3) The larger objectives areonly maintained if honesty, humanity and high moral order is a part of the negotiation system.As an example we can take the case of Israel and Palestine. Using public relations 10, force,economical resources, pressuring global politicians, violations of human rights and internationallaws as a substitute to the authors men tioned three points will never solve the crises.Additionally having a mediator, who is loosing its creditability of honesty, non-partisanship andfair-mindedness, will certainly endanger the achievement of the overall objective, create othercrises and the conscious system is dismantled. Thus, the main objective is getting lost and theconflict will never be resolved. What are the real objectives? 1) Securing the state of Israel in ahostile environment; and 2) Creating a viable and self-determining Palestinian state. We canapply Stafford Beers celebrated dictum (Beer, 1979): The purpose of a system is what it does , therefore before designing this negotiation system, the purpose of the whole system mustbe the objective of achievement of the system. To apply Ashbys law both parties must be givensufficient variety, this will ensure that the designed negotiation system is stable and can copewith the large amount of complexity that the larger objective requires to cope with. This means

9 Designed is used as a cybernetic term means: creating of a subsystem to support the objectives of alarger whole or system.10

Public relation was coined by Edward Bernays the author of the book Propaganda as a respectablesubstitute for it.


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Complexity of Negotiation and Negotiation of Complexity, Final Paper