Cove

Commitment

COMMITMENTS may be made during the course of a negotiation or may be embodied in an agreement.

Ideally reached at the end of the negotiation. In general, an agreement will be better to the extent that the promises madehave been well planned and well crafted so that they will be practical, durable, easily understood by those who are to carry them out, and verifiable if necessary.

Statements about what a party will or won’t do

Working Assumption

Abstaining from commitments on substance until the end of the process improves the efficiency of negotiations and the quality of outcomes.

Problem

People often get locked-in to commitments during negotiations.

Negotiations often resemble bargaining in a bazaar. Each party commits to a position and then haggles for concessions. Each adopts extreme opening positions and concedes slowly.

Consequently, parties spend most of their time and effort determining if any agreement is possible, rather than inventing the best possible agreement.

The pressure each party puts on the other to abandon its positions tends to foster resentment and damage the working relationship. When too much attention is paid to positions, underlying interests get ignored. The final agreement, if it materializes, is less likely to be well crafted.

Cause

People tend to focus on the one element of commitment. You may assume that, because the purpose of negotiations is to make commitments, you should focus on that first.

Yet you would pursue few commitments that you knew to be ineffective, impractical, unclear or suboptimal. It is the quality of the commitment that counts most, and that quality can rarely be judged early in a negotiation.

New issues appear, requiring new commitments. Reasonable ideas may not be operational. Often, premature commitments turn out to be poor ones.

Approach

On matters of substance, postpone commitment to the end. The best time for crafting commitments on issues of substance is after interests are understood, options are on the table, and criteria for selecting fair terms have been agreed upon. When preparing for a meeting, determine whether or not the parties have reached the stage for commitment.

If, earlier in the process, certain agreements seem necessary or desirable, consider less binding types of agreement. Often, preliminary or conditional agreements are most appropriate. By viewing commitment as a simple either/or activity, you cripple your ability to utilize this element of negotiation to your advantage.

Consider the following guidelines

  • Clarify your thinking on commitments with colleagues.

    It is important to know and to let other parties know when you are making commitments and when you are asking for them to be made. Meetings move more efficiently when everyone knows what they are supposed to be producing. Whenever possible, test your assumptions about what types of commitments are desirable.

  • Try drafting potential commitments in advance.

    It helps to have one or more actual drafts to focus discussion or to present when participants decide to seek agreement. These drafts are best viewed as possible options open to criticism rather than as set goals. Other participants will want to contribute more than just their seal of approval.

  • Commit early to a process that defers substantive commitments to the end.

    Propose that no binding commitments be made on matters of substance until all parties agree that the negotiation has reached the commitment stage. Statements of intent made earlier would be considered tentative.