Collaboration called key to modern management

A recent report from the IBM Center for the Business of Government suggests that public managers adopt a new set of negotiating tactics and ground rules to avoid conflicts and achieve better results.

"It is a challenging time to be a public manager," wrote Lisa Bingham, a professor of public service at Indiana University, and Rosemary O'Leary, a distinguished professor at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. "Many public managers are both unitary leaders of unitary organizations and work with other organizations and with the public through networks…. Collaboration in networks may yield conflict. Conflict within networks is not inevitable, yet is it is predictable if that conflict is not managed."

But despite this dilemma, "many public managers find themselves ill-equipped for managing in a shared-power world," Bingham and O'Leary wrote. "Given the prevalence of networks, the most important skills needed for today's managers are negotiation, bargaining, collaborative problem solving, conflict management and conflict resolution."

The report offers two suggestions for managers who are working in networks and groups to provide solutions for the public.

First, the authors noted, managers should follow an approach called "interest-based negotiation," which focuses not on what the parties to the negotiation want, but why they want it, thus encouraging participants to work for an outcome that will satisfy the most needs.

That may be challenging, the authors said, because "as a leader of a single program or organization, managers often work with independence, setting the rules and calling the shots. As a member of a collaborative network, a manager is typically one of many with numerous intertwining interests that must be met."

The authors said even simple techniques can foster interest-based negotiation, including using neutral facilitators to move discussions along, setting up conference rooms so everyone can see slides or overheads, and encouraging negotiators to identify and communicate their preferred and second-best outcomes to fellow participants.

"A discussion of interests gives negotiators a much more comprehensive understanding of the concerns and needs of all relevant stakeholders than does jumping to a discussion of the solution," the authors wrote.

But they also suggested that managers use a variety of formal ground rules and frameworks to help participants negotiate openly and productively.

"Labor relations provide another useful model," they noted. "In public sector labor relations, there are chief spokespeople, their negotiating committee, their respective constituencies (local union membership and public agency), and, potentially, state and national affiliates. Ground rules help protect the interests of everyone affected by the outcome of negotiation."

Ground rules include banning unilateral press releases, requiring that meetings times and locations be decided by agreement, setting mutual deadlines, and determining mechanisms for ratifying agreements.

The authors also cited an Army Corps of Engineers model, which begins with retreats for interest-based negotiation training and provides participants with an opportunity to agree on ground rules for negotiations.

The authors cautioned, however, that even successful public networks may face criticism for not being open enough or for not recognizing customary power structures.

"Unlike an agency that acts alone in a traditionally bureaucratic way, the network does not present a clear chain of command," Bingham and O'Leary wrote. "Responsibility is dispersed. Network meetings are not always open to the public. And yet, collaborative public management networks often are carrying out the essential missions of governance: They are making, implementing and carrying out public policy."