Thinking of pension scheme negotiations ahead, I was taken by this article from Harvard Business Review (HBR) (Professor Adil Najam) on how to avoid key pitfalls.

 This includes:

- At times of crisis we focus on securing the immediate. What can we get from the shop – have they got eggs?

- However negotiations in a crisis must of course also focus on the long term, including the unintended consequences of what we decide today, the notion of the "shadow of the future".

- One potential fix is not to seek an option that has to choose between short term or long term gains. Rather than agreeing digital, single topic agreements - Conditional Measures may be the key to success. These are multi layered agreements that deal with the now but also have numerous eventualities built in, for example what if the covid virus were to fundamentally impact business for 3 months, a year, more?

- Also Professor Najal comments that at a time of crisis negotiations people instinctively move from seeking the best common outcome to seeking to avoid the worst outcome. Whilst this approach has its merits, there can be some danger of sub-optimal agreements, with focus drawn away from any opportunities. HBR comments that a further possible fix, even if counterintuitive, is in a crisis to move from partisan negotiations to Collaborative Decision Making. Such an approach might seem at odds with the norm but “The situation is already stressful, adding doubt, distrust and distance does not help anyone”.