COMMENTARIES 2A (ON CASE 2, THE NEW OXFORD COUNTY COALITION: FOUR MAINE TOWNS TACKLE A PUBLIC HEALTH MYSTERY )

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1 MAX BAZERMAN Harvard Business School Morgan Hall 133, Soldiers Field Road Boston, MA Tel: COMMENTARIES 2A (ON CASE 2, THE NEW OXFORD COUNTY COALITION: FOUR MAINE TOWNS TACKLE A PUBLIC HEALTH MYSTERY ) Disciplinary Perspective: Social Psychologist Max Bazerman

2 BAZERMAN 2 Commentary # 1: PAGE 7, FOLLOWING With few other potential sources of help, the group agreed to give CBI a try. As CBI entered the picture, how did you manage the expectations of the parties? Many parties had expectations for solutions and clear scientific results. Yet, the problems to be studied are not easy ones. Part of the role of the facilitator should be to manage expectations of the process of the front-end. Commentary # 2: PAGE 8, We found that both across and withing... other kinds of cancer. A critical issue facing CBI appears to be divergent expectations on the part of the differing parties to the dispute about the facts: did the mill cause increased rates of cancer? The consensus builders appear to have approached the problem by trying to get all the parties on board in terms of process, hoping that outcomes would follow. In contrast, Raiffa (1982) and others (Lax and Sebenius, 1986; Gillespie and Bazerman, 1999) have argued that the use of contingent contracts can be used to take advantage of differing expectations. At the risk of oversimplification, if the mill claims that it is not creating cancer, and a citizens group claims it is, if the parties can agree on an independent scientific assessment, each side should be willing to bet on their apriori beliefs about the outcome of the scientific assessment. Many such bets are possible. The use of contingent contracts offers a very different approach to resolving disputes under uncertainty. The focus is on a process that fixes the outcome based on a contingency that is learned after the agreement is reached. I offer this idea as an alternative, one that builds a process around outcomes, in comparison to the current model, where consensus building was the core goal, with an assumption that a good process leads to a good outcome.

3 BAZERMAN 3 Contingent contracts can be an excellent mechanism for using negotiator differences to build integrative agreements. Instead of arguing over differences concerning the likelihood of some future event taking place, parties can make a contingent contract. In the Northern Oxford case, the bet could have been based on the independent scientific assessment. Commentary # 3: PAGE 16, In the end, we recommended that the NOCC launch its work with a study on cancer incidence... I think that the decision to develop the study with NOCC members as part of the scientific team is an interesting decision. It is certainly consistent with the spirit of consensus building. Yet, it runs against the notion of using comparative advantage in getting a task done. Why would NOCC members be doing the work, rather than overseeing the work of a university based team? On the other hand, it is interesting to think about the process advantages of having the NOCC directly involved. COMMENTARY # 4 PAGE 17, The plan was too ambitious... to spend on NOCC projects. The time passage is interesting. It is common for projects that are projected to take a fixed amount of time to take two, three, and four times as long. Yet, why? In this case, lives were potentially at stake. I would argue that many consensus building initiatives take substantially more time than predicted, and that this creates process and outcome problems. It is fascinating that we all know that it takes longer to build a house than planned, longer to complete a project than scheduled, and longer to write a paper than promised to an editor. So, why do we not adjust over time? Psychological research shows that we have a bias toward optimistic illusions. Unrealistic optimism is the tendency to believe

4 BAZERMAN 4 that their futures will be better and brighter than those of other people (Taylor, 1989). Taylor reports that people expect that they are more likely to graduate at the top of the class, get a good job, obtain a high salary, enjoy their first job, get written up in the newspaper, and give birth to a gifted child than reality suggests. We also estimate that we are less likely to have a drinking problem, get fired, get divorced, become depressed, or suffer physical problems. Taylor notes that we persist in believing that we can accomplish more in a day than is humanly possible, and that we seem immune to the continued feedback that the world provides on our limitations. We see the same pattern in the domain of negotiations. Rod Kramer (1991) found that 68 percent of the MBA students in a negotiation class predicted that their bargaining outcomes would be in the upper 25 percent of the class. These students also expected that they would learn more than their classmates, with more unique results, and that they would contribute more to the class experience. The net result of this unrealistic optimism is poor planning and failed expectations. COMMENTARY # 5: PAGE 19, The NOCC launched its study of cancer incidence without really knowing... It is interesting to see this successful consensus building process in an environment where the process was created without really knowing where it was headed. This is very counterintuitive to a management school professor. If you do not know what the goal is, how can you know if you were successful? Yet, the authors provide some good answers. If the process creates a better community dialogue, more publicly acceptable data, and a better environment for future discussion, it is clear that much success was achieved. At the same time, the issue of specifying objectives on the front end remains an interesting issue for consensus builders.

5 BAZERMAN 5 COMMENTARY # 6: PAGE 20/21, Since this was at a very early stage of the Coalition s work... the mill was concerned about Dr. Barnes neutrality. Barnes lack of full disclosure is certainly shocking to this reader. The authors are self-critical for not asking. Yet, professionals have certain obligations, and my view is that Barnes failed his. COMMENTARY # 7: PAGE 25, FOLLOWING And still others argued that the TSC should just present the numbers and let the readers decide. The argument over criteria level is interesting, and the result of the consensus building process. Again, it raises the question of specifying more of the task on the frontend. Perhaps the community could better agree on levels that warrant action if they were specified before the data was in? COMMENTARY # 8: PAGE 26, FOLLOWING Some members of the subcommittee were disappointed that they failed to reach unanimity, but they also recognized that everyone had worked hard to improve it as much as possible from the standpoint of each member. 9 out of 10 raises the issue of defining consensus. This topic is explicitly treated in the introductory document to this Handbook. Once again, it is interesting to think about specifying necessary agreement levels on the front-end.

6 BAZERMAN 6 COMMENTARY # 9: END OF TEXT (PG. 36) In summary, this is a fascinating case describing an interesting consensus process. It certainly provides much useful guidance, and yet highlights central issues that need to be debated on the consensus building field develops. REFERENCES Bazerman, M.H. & Neale, M.A. (1992). Negotiating rationally. New York: Free Press. Gillespie, J. & Bazerman, M.H. (1999). Bets. Working paper. Kramer, R.M. (1994). Self-enhancing cognitions and organizational conflict. Working paper. Lax, D., & Sebenius, J. (1986). The manager as negotiator. New York: Free Press. Raiffa, H. (1982). The art and science of negotiation. Cambridge, MA: Belknap. Taylor, S.E. (1989). Positive illusions. New York: Basic Books.