Negotiation

Negotiation is a dialogue between two or more people or parties, intended to reach an understanding, resolve point of difference, or gain advantage in outcome of dialogue, to produce an agreement upon courses of action, to bargain for individual or collective advantage, to craft outcomes to satisfy various interests of two people/parties involved in negotiation process. Negotiation is a process where each party involved tries to gain an advantage for themselves by the end of the process.
Types of Negotiations: Positional/Hard-bargaining/Distributive Negotiation Each side often adopts an extreme position, knowing that it will not be accepted, and then employs a combination of guile, bluffing, and brinksmanship in order to cede as little as possible before reaching a deal. Principled/Integrative/interest based Negotiation It is a set of techniques that attempts to improve the quality and likelihood of negotiated agreement by providing an alternative to traditional distributive negotiation techniques.

Principled Negotiation
Defined as ways of dealing with negotiation from a cooperative and interest based perspective. It rests on four assumptions or principles: People: Separate people from the problem Interests: Focus on interests and not the position Options: Generate a variety of possibilities before deciding what to do Criteria: Insists that results can be based on some objective standards

People
Separate people from the problem Emotions cloud objective merits Egos become identified with positions Create cognitive dissonance

Interests
A position is a tangible outcome that someone argues for. An interest is a reason why that outcome is desired and an underlying concern about the problem.
Focus on Interests and not positions A position may obscure what you really want Ask why? Ask why not ?

Options
Searching for one right solution inhibits creativity. Invent options for mutual gain BRAINSTORM This is a process of creating as many solutions as possible BEFORE you evaluate them to decide which are the best options. Basic steps in Inventing Options
1. 2. 3. 4. Problem Analysis Approaches Action Ideas

Criteria
Choosing a good solution or solutions depends on making sure that the criteria for solutions are considered legitimate by the parties. The criteria comes from
Interests already identified by the parties, especially common interests shared by all parties. External rules or policies that must be followed.

ex. Market value, expert opinion, custom, precedence or law. Both parties can defer to a fair solution without giving into each other.

Stages of Principled Negotiation

The four propositions of principled negotiation are relevant from the time you begin to think about negotiating until the time either an agreement is reached or you decide to break off the effort. This period can be divided into three stages:
Analysis Planning Discussion

Reference
Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher