If you were to construct a word cloud of the most popular terms in the media post-Brexit, “negotiation” would no doubt stand out prominently in bold letters. With “everything” negotiable, and with so much at stake for so many different parties, it is hard to imagine a moment in the future when discussion of postreferendum negotiations will not form part of our daily news agenda.
Like politicians, most of us negotiate in some form or other every day, whether it’s about who walks the dog, who puts the rubbish out or when to visit the in-laws. As all heads know, an ability to negotiate comes with the territory, yet I wonder whether we are so hung up on negotiation techniques and tactics and “doing it by the book” that we are at risk of losing the person in all of this.
When I completed a master’s degree in educational management, I was eager to put my newly learned negotiating theory into practice. However, long before that, in my first job as a wet-behind-the-ears director of music, I had learned a few sharp lessons in the school of reality.
From the word go, I found myself coping with musicians, some of whom could be rather, ahem, idiosyncratic, endeavouring to craft timetables around colleagues who found them intrusive, and battling against the conflicting forces of daily school life. As a result, I developed the necessary skills pretty quickly, but it was probably another five years before I really found my negotiating feet; some encounters still bring a flutter to the tummy.
Instinct, intuition, emotional intelligence - call it what you may, but ignore it at your peril
Now, Quakers are past masters of negotiation - in fact they could be said to have invented it as we know it today. So, as an erstwhile head of a Quaker school, I discovered everything was about discussion and compromise. If you wanted something to happen, it was fundamental that you had to take your staff with you. In contrast, five weeks into my current headship, a colleague came to me and said: “For God’s sake, Sue, just tell us what to do!”
I have spent the intervening decade or so striving for a meaningful balance between negotiating on the one hand and telling people how it is on the other.
In studying the techniques of negotiation, you learn many devices and tricks: but I can’t throw off a niggling concern around whether we want our leaders to be arch manipulators. In many cases, getting one’s way is not as important as feeling that one has been heard. Decision-making should be about reconciliation and consensus; something learned mainly through finding out what works for the personalities involved.
Talk of emotional intelligence, so fashionable a few years back, has now fallen out of fashion, which is a shame. It is often the unquantifiable that makes the outcome of an encounter with somebody satisfactory. It’s about human engagement and sensitivity to emotional response, not just intellectual manoeuvring. There is no point in using the same technique with an eager-to-please, compliant new teacher as you would with an agitated parent. With the first, the aim is to build confidence. With the second, a new raft of complex considerations come into play.
As in any performance, negotiation must take account of the context, the audience and the desired outcome. You need some skills to be able to do it, but once you’re there, the message has to be authentic; if it is not actually “of you” then you have got nothing to say. As for instinct, intuition, emotional intelligence - call it what you may, but ignore it at your peril.
Sue Freestone is headteacher of King’s Ely in Cambridgeshire
