Negotiation & Conflict Resolution

Book — Renegotiating Health Care: Resolving Conflict to Build Collaboration

Leonard J. Marcus

Barry C. Dorn

Phyllis Beck Kritek

Velvet G. Miller

Janice B. Wyatt

Renegotiating Health Care presents pragmatic and effective tools for understanding conflict, negotiating differences, and creating a workable balance among those who deliver, receive, administer, and oversee health care. The authors present practical methods and techniques giving all the players the knowledge and skills they need to put their work in perspective and create workable solutions.

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Article — The Walk in the Woods, A Step-by-step Method to Guide Interest-Based Negotiation and Conflict Resolution

Leonard J. Marcus, Ph.D

Barry C. Dorn, M.D., M.H.C.M.

Abstract: This article introduces a structured analytic process and method for doing just that, the "Walk in the Woods." The model is named for the classic 1982 problem-solving saga of two Cold War nuclear arms reduction negotiators, Paul Nitze, leading the United States delegation, and Yuli Kvitsinsky leading the delegation from the Soviet Union. Facing a desperate impasse in their talks, the two men together left the retreat center located outside Geneva, Switzerland where they were meeting for, literally, a walk in the woods. The scenic stroll resulted in an unauthorized compromise that could have involved significant arms reductions for both countries. During the walk, they discussed shared and divergent concerns, interests, and objectives. They achieved a genuine understanding for what their two countries faced in the escalating arms race, what they might accomplish if they were to reconfigure operating premises and with that, how they might realize significant mutual force reduction.

The Walk in the Woods as presented here is a structured negotiation and conflict resolution exercise—a momentary diversion—that focuses attention on the interests, motives, and objectives of participating stakeholders. Its purpose is to improve the effectiveness and efficiency and then ultimately the satisfaction of the exchange process by expanding the range of interests and objectives that can be incorporated in the effort to reach agreement.

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