I attended a workshop on communication run by social worker Sarah Shatz at the Wisconsin Grassroots Festival. She had some excellent conversation guidelines that I took note of:

Conversational guidelines for meetings

• Share from personal experience
• Listen, be curious, and learn
• Experience discomfort
• Connect with your body
• Be aware of what emotions come up
• Be brief to intentionally share space
• Pass if you want to
• Stay engaged and trust the process
• Be courageous and vulnerable
• We are all learners together
• Expect and accept unfinished business

BATNA

In addition to these conversational guidelines, a participant explained an acronym and concept for negotiating that I appreciated. The term was BATNA, or Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement. It apparently derives from a Harvard Business School negotiation tactic. The idea is to enter a negotiation with an idea of the best outcome that can be reached without agreement between negotiating parties. BATNA was brought up in relation to the idea of being 'coopted' by a stakeholder process into agreeing to reduce citizen demands for accountability, either in a pollution scenario or otherwise. The BATNA lets participants keep in mind that there are alternatives to an unwelcome agreement, and that negotiating isn't the only option.