Inspiring Leadership in Immigrant Communities - ILRC

7. Use the negotiating style that suits your personality.Inspiring Leadership in Immigrant CommunitiesJanuary 2003Some people find it works best to be distant and formal when negotiating. Others like to be morefriendly and casual. Some people naturally use reason and others tend to be more threatening.With practice you will find what is most comfortable for you. The important things to rememberare not to let the other side intimidate you, not to make the fight personal, bear in mind what isright and, whenever you can, rely on what is right and the law.§ 7.5 Small Group Negotiation Exercise (70 minutes)1. Introduction to Exercise (10 minutes)Start by telling the participants that during the next hour they will be practicing negotiations witheach other. Then give them this brief introduction to the exercise:a. There are many possible ways families, community members, neighbors, tenants,clients and others can be negotiators. Some of the things we do to negotiate are writingletters, making phone calls, meeting with the an institution or person face-to-face andgoing to community meetings to build community support to negotiate.b. This exercise will allow all of you to practice at a negotiation by having a mockcommunity meeting with the INS Border Patrol. The meeting is really a groupnegotiation around an abuse of the rights of people. The Border Patrol has been stoppingand questioning people on street corners near schools in San Jose, Calif., for the last fourweeks. Community members have complained that several undocumented children werepicked up by the Border Patrol on the way home from school. The Border Patrol does nothave a history of conducting enforcement actions near schools and this makes theseevents in San Jose even more outrageous in the eyes of the community. The Border Patrolis concerned about getting a lot of negative publicity around this issue, especially becauseit has affected children and schools.c. Each of you will be assigned a role in the role-play. You’ll have about 20 minutes toprepare for a negotiation. We will split into small groups of about seven people for eachgroup. Two-three people in each group will play INS Border Patrol officials, and theothers will play community members outraged at the Border Patrol’s recent action.Everyone must make a presentation of at least two minutes during the negotiationexercise. The team of “community members” must determine the order and focus of eachperson’s presentation.Please Note: Tell the participants that even though the Border Patrol activity happenedover 500 miles from the border, it is based on a real Border Patrol action and the BorderPatrol has offices throughout many parts of the interior of the United States, includingnear San Jose, California.7-9