Like many people, since July this year, I have had a new Member of Parliament and, in my case, she represents a different party from the previous MP, but I live in a marginal constituency so a change of party is not unusual. I tell you this because I will come back to it.
Now a change of direction. For almost three years now, I have been thinking about how the way we all naturally behave has an effect on the way we negotiate and whether, if we understood that better, we could improve our individual negotiated outcomes. I believe that behaviour is substantially influenced by our assessment of how well it works for us. So, if presenting facts and arguing our position from data tends to get people to agree with us, then that is what we will choose to do. You may be interested to know that Scotwork will shortly be able to provide people with a profile of how their behaviour is likely to affect their negotiating in what I believe is a unique step for any negotiating consultancy. The profile focuses on eight behavioural “styles”.
Now back to my MP.
She is relatively young and, judging from her CV, has limited experience outside of Westminster where she was an aide to an MP who is now a minister, before standing successfully for Parliament herself. Shortly after being elected with a decent majority, she was attacked on social media by many of her constituents for her support in Parliament of the government’s decision to remove the winter fuel allowances from most pensioners. Her response was pretty bland. But if you have had the carpet pulled from under you in that way, there is not a lot you can say, I guess: whatever you might think of the justification for it, I have yet to hear anyone hailing its strategic brilliance.
This week, Jade (that is my MP’s name) has reappeared on social media to comment on a local transport problem. One of the local privately-owned bus companies has, from what I read in the press, indicated that they may have difficulty providing services across parts of this area including our parliamentary constituency. The problem, they say, is one of recruiting drivers. They claim to be 80 drivers short of the complement required to service their timetable despite also claiming to have added 200 new drivers this year. They have said that their services will be reviewed and the press and two local MPs have suggested that this review will result in people not being able to make medical appointments and will make children late for school. One MP, not Jade, has accused the bus company of a “contempt for constituents” and a “shameless running down of services”. The bus company concerned has been voted the worst of the 55 in the UK by its passengers. Jade has responded with a social media post which accuses them of “Throwing the community under a bus” and demanding that they “reverse this decision and provide the bus services our community need (sic)”. It may be important to point out here that the bus company concerned have not yet, so they say, made any decision reversible or otherwise. Jade has linked her post to a petition which, I assume she will send to them to try to demonstrate that she is right using, I am sure she hopes, weight of numbers to support her.
I don’t go on buses out of choice but I understand that many will feel badly let down if services are curtailed and it will have social consequences which are not to be wished for. However, it is not this that concerns me here. It is the tone of Jade’s social media post. One of the types of behaviour we use in our descriptions of negotiating approaches is what we call “Driving Dominance”. I was reminded of that when I saw my MP’s post. We describe driving dominance behaviour as, amongst other features, “assertive in stating a negotiating position that avoids ambiguity”. Jade is certainly that. We also list one of the limitations of this as including “unwilling to spend time seeking common ground”; and a risk as being “insensitivity to the needs, priorities and concerns of other people to which the counterparty has little commitment”.
I wait to see whether this kind of undoubtedly assertive behaviour (I suppose calling people names and being economical with the truth can be assertive) has the desired effect and the bus company concedes somehow – getting Severus Snape to cast a spell which creates bus drivers? I wrote to Jade and suggested to her that it might be the case that she could use her considerable leverage as an MP in a perhaps more effective way – trying to help establish an “Agreeable Accommodation” (another of our eight behaviours) perhaps? But that’s for another blog!
