DISCUSSION

Running head: Crisis Negotiation 1

Crisis Negotiation

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During a crisis negotiation, all that may seem to matter is reaching a deal as quickly as possible. The desire to head off a disaster may lead crisis negotiators to forego the usual comforts of life, such as sleep, in their single-minded pursuit of their goal.

Those appear to have been the conditions under which the government of Greece and its European creditors negotiated a definitive new bailout package for the financially troubled nation back in 2015. After Greek voters rejected the deal on the table in a referendum, Greece’s Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, and his team headed back to Brussels for a 17-hour marathon negotiating session to come to a new agreement.

The final deal gave Greece up to $98 billion but little else from its wish list. The crisis leadership, including Euro group president Jeroen Dijsselbloem and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, emerged from their all-night negotiating session looking “weary and red-eyed,” according to The Guardian.

The stress inherent in the typical crisis negotiation tends to exacerbate conflict between parties, as each looks for reasons to deflect the other party for what has gone wrong. This type of blame game has been evident in the Greek financial crisis, with Greeks blaming the Eurozone’s austerity measure for its stagnant economy and European leaders accusing Greek government leaders of failing to steer a clear course out of the crisis.

Emotional stress also leads the average crisis negotiator to fall back on stereotypes, including culturally based snap judgments, Columbia University professor Michael Morris has found in his research. And stress leads negotiators to claim less value than they would when feeling more relaxed, Cornell University professor Kathleen O’Connor and her colleagues have found.Crisis negotiation skills can make or break a negotiator in heated conflicts.

References

Crisis Negotiator Stress. (2011). Psychological Aspects of Crisis Negotiation, Second Edition, 63-76. doi:10.1201/b11305-9

Kingshott, B. F. (2005). Profiling in the Context of Crisis Negotiations. Journal of Police Crisis Negotiations, 5(2), 5-36. doi:10.1300/j173v05n02_02

Strentz, T. (2017). Non-Law Enforcement/Correctional Crisis Negotiators. Psychological Aspects of Crisis Negotiation, 56-65. doi:10.1201/9781315150581-8

https://www.pon.harvard.edu/daily/crisis-negotiations/in-greece-crisis-negotiation-tough-conditions-may-have-affected-the-deal/