Neither Brexit nor Grexit: The EU needs a new protocol for negotiations

Although no real comparison can be made between the Greek and the British case, the British prime minister, David Cameron, and his Greek counterpart, Alexis Tsipras, are on the same collision course with the European Union. Both represent a domestic feeling that their countries are victims of the bloc and its policies and both are seeking broad reforms that will be good for the EU as a whole.

One thing is certain: Britain, just like Greece, has entered another round of lengthy EU negotiations with an uncertain – if any – outcome. Europe’s leaders should by now have learnt their lesson: The old ways of negotiating and decision making are obsolete and bound to fail. A new approach is needed that can lead to maximum consensus rather than short-lived, minimum compromises.

Both Cameron and Tsipras could have been the initiators of a much needed reform of the European Union both in spirit and in substance. The “old” continent is in desperate need of reform and with the right approach Europe’s leaders could transform Obama’s “Yes we can” from a highly effective, emotional but nevertheless empty promise into an even stronger message with credibility and justification. The key to success lies in substantially changing the protocol for negotiation. The current one has past its prime. In a European Union of 28 member-states – and possibly more in the future – the old methods and tools for discussing and problem-solving are not effective anymore. We now have a completely different situation within the EU than we did 50 years ago. The protocol, however, has barely changed. Every sovereign state sits at the table and voices a standpoint. The clashes and conflicts are inevitable as everyone holds firm to their position dictated by national interests and has minimum power of negotiation. Also the current way of negotiating seems to be trapped in the same old solutions (higher taxes and other means to extract money from taxpayers) without looking at the broader picture. What if we changed this protocol? A new protocol would translate into new solutions and change things around.

The right start is not by listing the changes that should be made to treaties, optouts etc. It is important to agree on what needs to be changed, but it is equally important to agree on how this change will be achieved, and which groups are able to bring about this change.

This is a crucial point that people tend to forget: The real solutions, the real breakthroughs do not happen with diplomatic discussions at the level of governments. Rather it is behind the cameras, at a lower level, that of the technocrats as well as heads of public and private organizations, where the real decisions are made. And it is precisely these people who implement and communicate the results to voters. A successful approach should focus on those groups as well. The private sector, which has a major impact on governments and the wider public, especially needs to be engaged. And this should take place simultaneously with diplomatic talks, using new methods of communication, methods that can simultaneously engage large numbers of people and can bring about four key results in a short period of time:

1.Opinion formation and consensus building reaching a maximum level of consent instead of a minimal compromise,

2.Fast decision-making and formation of a concrete action plan within 3.5 to maximum 4 days,

3.A democratic process with equal participation for all,

4.Simultaneous engagement of all important actors and maximum possible use of their knowledge and expertise.

Such methods exist and have been applied in the private and public sectors for almost 20 years with more than 90 percent success rates. Based on a sophisticated systemic communication process deriving from the sciences of complexity, namely systemics, cybernetics and bionics, those methods guarantee a successful result in complex negotiations. The key to their success lies in their ability to bridge the gap between a compact and efficient team and large, mostly ineffective meetings and conferences, which are usually unable to cope with complex and dynamic matters and end up in utter disorientation and helplessness. Their public credibility is lost simply because the conventional conference format does not provide the right methods and tools to cope with dynamic complexity.

What opinion makers have failed to grasp is the way to handle the exploding complexity of today’s world and to turn difficulties into opportunities for viability and success. Old methods and tools that to a great extent led to today’s problems cannot be part of the solution. Apart from so-called political will and diplomacy, today’s leaders need to be effective managers more than ever, because management is the very function that makes everything else function. Management transforms society’s resources into results, into value for society.

It is an almost historic opportunity for the European Union and the eurozone in particular to live up to expectations as the world’s most successful economic project. With the right management approach and by revolutionizing the rules and procedures of a currently fragmented and paralyzed EU, Europe’s leaders can set the foundations for a renewed and truly functioning Union. What is needed is courage and decisiveness, living up to Schuman’s legacy of true and effective leadership.

* Professor Fredmund Malik, founder of the Malik Institute in St. Gallen, Switzerland, is an award-winning author in complexity management, specializing in fast and effective decision making in complex systems (multinational corporations, intergovernmental organizations).