Developing NEGOTIATING skills

The current interest in Industrial Relations has created a demand for training in the skills of negotiation; the training world has responded to this demand with an astonishing spectrum of activity. Old human relations case studies have been lovingly dusted and refurbished, role‐playing has come back into its own and HMSO has made a creditable little fortune for the tax‐payer from its timely booklets at 15p each. All sorts of people, including some of my legal acquaintances who this time last year had never even heard of industry, let alone industrial relations, have been sucked in to meet the demand. This article testifies to my own involvement, although initially without real conviction. Working in the industrial relations field with the late Bill Allen had convinced me that nothing short of major cultural change could significantly improve the negotiating climate in Britain. But this sounds like stealthy autobiography and I shall spare you the tediousness of my history and thinking in this area. Instead, let me indulge in that most deplorable characteristic of British industrial relations practice and do some bashing of the other side. The current crop of industrial relations and negotiating skills training courses gives plenty of scope for such bashing. Of the many practices which merit criticism, two stand out as being irresistibly obnoxious.