Creative Methods to solve Negotiation Problems

Creative people are able to keep their mind open long enough to make mental leaps, whereas less creative persons tend to prematurely leap to conclusions. Since negotiators’ ability to create alternatives is inherently linked to successful negotiations, we propose that negotiation outcomes will significantly relate to negotiators’ creativity.

Techniques and Strategies for facilitating Creative Performance

1. Brainstorming

This is one of the earliest techniques for a structured approach to the enhancement of creativity developed researchers. This technique, deigned specifically for use by groups, involves attempting to evoke ideas by providing a social context that gives free reign to imagination and reinforce the use of it. The rules encourage participants to express ideas, no matter how strange or wild they may seem and forbid criticism during the brainstorming session. It is assumed that people’s imagination will be stimulated by the ideas express by other and that they, in turn, will be able to express their own in relatively uninhibited fashion.

2. Brainwriting

This is another form of Brainstorming. Brainwriting works like this: at various key points in time during a brainstorming session, group members will cease all talking and write down their own ideas silently. Writing ideas instead of speaking them eliminates the problem of production blocking, since group members don’t have to wait their turn to generate ideas. It may also reduce conformity, since the written format eliminates the need for public speaking. Then the written ideas can be subsequently shared by the group in a round-robin fashion and summarized on a blackboard or flipchart.

3. Nominal Group Technique

In the nominal group technique, negotiators must start with the problem as defined; each one then individually prepares a written list of possible solutions. Participants are encouraged to list as many solutions as they can. Then they meet in small groups and read their solutions aloud while a recorder writes them on flip charts or a blackboard. Particularly in a large group, this approach can generate a great number of possible options in a short period of time. All those working on the problem later on can examine these solutions then.

4. The Delphi technique

In this technique, group members do not interact in a face-to-face fashion at any point. This technique requires a leader or facilitator. The entire process proceeds through questionnaires followed by feedback, which can be computerized. The leader distributes a topic or question to members and asks for responses from each team member. The leader then aggregates the responses, sends them back out to the team, and solicits feedback. This process is repeated until the issue in question is resolved.

5. Analogical reasoning

This is the act of applying a concept or idea from a particular domain to another domain. To the extent that teams can recognize when a particular known concept might be useful for solving a new problem, creativity can be enhanced. The problem is that it is not easy to transfer relevant information from one domain to another; people almost always tend to solve problems based on their surface-level similarity to other situations, rather than on their deep, or structural, similarity.