Establishing ground rules for negotiation behavior can help deal with differing skill levels. Ground rules make clear to all parties what sort of behavior is expected and what actions are unacceptable. It may also be necessary to have conflict management training sessions for the participants before the negotiations begin. When skill levels differ the manger should be especially careful in pacing negotiations. The manger must allow the less skilled party sufficient time to consider issues and proposals.
Inexperienced parties are likely to have inexperienced constituencies also.
The conflict manager should also take care to insure that the inexperienced constituency is educated and kept informed. Keeping Parties in Negotiations Even though parties have decided to try negotiation, they may still decide to quit at some later point. They may be concerned that discussions are moving too fast, and fear that important issues will be overlooked. Parties may feel that they are being treated poorly. Or they may simply be so trapped in old, negative views of the other side and unproductive ways of interacting that they cannot have productive discussions.