The original, essential principled (Win-Win) negotiation book. Why positional negotiation wins battles and loses wars. Reading it will change your vision of trade, competition, and winning. Compares Win-Win, Win-Lose, and even Lose-Lose negotiation, and shows how to achieve Win-Win for long term relationship loyalty vs. enraged vendettas.
Recommended.
--BobLee August, 2002
The interests vs. positions distinction here is vaguely analogous to needs vs. strategies in NonviolentCommunication. --JohnAbbe
I found it to be really useful on a strategy level and with lots of great stuff, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in dealing with negotiations in a principled way. I felt uncomfortable reading some things, though:
When to reveal your BATNA (Best Alternative To A Negotiated Agreement): According to the authors, don't reveal it if you suspect that the other party has an inflated sense of your bargaining position, but do reveal it if it looks better than what they might thing; likewise, imagine sitting at their side of the table, and point out their BATNA if it is less optimistic than they seem (but not if it is more). Which would indicate that you would, by omission, make a deal with them which is worse for them than they could get elsewhere. Practically, I imagine that if you made a habit of that, it would come back to bite you. (And the authors do mention this sort of situation when talking about what happens if they make an offer which is much better than you'd been hoping for.)
With regard to appealing to external standards: Perhaps it is my practice of NonviolentCommunication nagging me here, but it appears to be a rather indirect way of achieving what you'd like. I would expect that which standards you trust and which you would appeal to would be largely a function of what values you hold and what you'd like to accomplish, so haven't we just moved the disagreement into the area of standards? If we get someone to first agree to standards which later do not support his position, have we not just damaged the relationship in the same way we would have had we used positional or power bargaining?
See also GettingPastNo
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