The Age today has an excellent note by an Irish member of the team that negotiated the Good Friday Agreement.  There is some great advice to those who might be involved in major corporate or community settlements.

A successful negotiation calls for strong leadership all round.  There is an absence of trust on both sides.  A strong leader is called on to bring doubters on side and take the risk of compromising with a sworn enemy.  F W de Kerk said that the toughest discussions are not with your adversary, but within your own side.  It is in your own private room that the real hard work takes place, but you must try to avoid splitting your delegation. 

You have to be able to sell the agreement on both sides.  ‘You have to let the other person get up from the table with their trousers on.’  But if you drive too hard a bargain, the settlement may not hold.  It may be necessary, therefore, to leave some elastic so that each side has something to offer to its own. 

A basic rule in the Northern Ireland discussions was that nothing was agreed until everything was agreed.  (A mediator can stipulate that no deal is binding in law until there are some signed terms on the table.)  Additionally, the talks were fully inclusive, and no major group with popular support was excluded.  And they agreed that no atrocity outside the talks would be allowed to derail them.

I have encountered those difficulties in big bust-ups, but this is the background to one of the most difficult settlements in history.