Negotiation and Persuasion: In a time of polarization, learning to navigate differences in perspective can lead to positive change for communities.

• Author: Harward, Brian
• Position: RETHINKING BUDGETING

As finance officers work with senior administrators and elected officials to make public finance decision-making fairer, they will need to influence how government functions. Improving the way government functions depends on changing the perspectives of those involved. To achieve improvements in a budgeting process, enhance public opinion/participation, or similar goals, individuals involved will need to adapt their position on certain issues or understand new perspectives. This involves persuasion and/or negotiation. In this article, we will show you how to persuade people of the merits of making a process fairer or of the need for fairer outcomes. When the finance officer works to make financial decision-making processes feel fairer to participants and ensure people feel fairly treated, the finance officer is honoring democratic values and their professional ethics. * How resources are distributed is ultimately a matter for politics to decide, but the finance officer can set up systems to help decision-makers consider the fairness of their decisions. ([dagger])

One way to change minds is understanding humans' need for consistency. (1,2) People do not want to be viewed as inconsistent, hypocritical, or worst of all--having been on the wrong side of an issue. They fear that this reduces their credibility. They will even disguise changes in their thinking to protect their image, which can obscure progress that has been made. Also, we usually don't see rapid or complete changes in people's attitudes often because people hold a network of interrelated beliefs and attitudes. These attitudes and beliefs support each other, so efforts to change one belief may be partially counteracted by this preexisting network. This is not to say that persuasion is impossible. Rather, we need to think of persuasion less like an on/of f switch [you are persuaded or not] and more like a dimmer switch [there is a spectrum of persuasion that can occur].

Now bring this example into the workplace. Perhaps you are advocating for new policies and processes that you believe will lead to greater fairness and justice. However, a challenge with any change to how decisions are made is that it may imply that the decision-makers and their decisions have been flawed in some way. If decision-makers perceive that the finance officer is criticizing their past decisions, the finance officer will likely find themselves short of support for new policies or processes! To avoid this problem, and knowing about the need for consistency, you can highlight how the world has changed or the emerging evidence that now necessitates these changes. With this frame, decision-makers can take comfort that the old ways made sense at that time, and they now have...