Navigating Wickedness: A New Frontier in Teaching Negotiation

Abstract

In October 2009, more than 50 of the world’s leading negotiation scholars gathered in Istanbul, Turkey for the second in a series of three international conferences designed to critically examine what is taught in contemporary negotiation courses and how we teach them, with special emphasis on how best to “translate” teaching methodology to succeed with diverse, global audiences. The resulting rich collection of scholarship is gathered in VENTURING BEYOND THE CLASSROOM: VOLUME 2 IN THE RETHINKING NEGOTIATION TEACHING SERIES (DRI Press 2010). This chapter introduces a section of the book where authors travel far beyond the classroom indeed, into the world of “wicked problems” – those ill-defined, ambiguous challenges for which even defining a solution is elusive, much less attaining it. “Negotiation 1.0” principles, the authors argue, are designed with more technical problems in mind – i.e., where the problem definition is clear (e.g., A claims B owes A money, and B denies it) and/or a range of solutions can be objectively identified and evaluated. No surprise, then, that “Negotiation 1.0” practitioners are ill-equipped to attack wicked problems.

Keywords: negotiation, wicked problems, worldview, multi-cultural