Expert Speak: Negotiation, The Principle-Centered Way

Like it or not, you are a negotiator! Negotiation is a fact of life. More and more occasions require negotiation which often leave us dissatisfied, worn out or alienated - and frequently, all three! So, then, how should you negotiate - hard (and risk being seen as a bully) or soft (and be taken advantage of)? Our expert, Mr Parikshit Bhardwaj, says there is a better way - neither hard nor soft - from which both parties emerge as winners! It's called Principle-Centered Negotiation. Let's find out more.

Negotiation

Negotiation is a fact of life. You discuss your pay packet during a job interview. You try to agree with a stranger on a price for his house. A group of oil companies plan a joint venture exploring for offshore oil. Indian bureaucrats sit down with their counterparts in Pakistan to reach an agreement on the Kashmir dispute.

More and more occasions require negotiation; conflict is a growth industry! People differ and they use negotiation to handle their differences. Whether in business, government, or the family, people reach most decisions through negotiation. Even when they go to court, they almost always negotiate a settlement before trial.

Although negotiation takes place every day, it is not easy to do well. Standard strategies for negotiation often leave people dissatisfied, worn out, or alienated – and frequently all three!

People find themselves in a predicament. They see two ways to negotiate: soft or hard. The soft bargainer wants to avoid personal conflict and so makes concessions readily in order to reach agreement. He wants an amicable resolution; yet he often ends up exploited and feeling bitter.

The hard negotiator sees any situation as a contest of wills in which the side that takes the more extreme positions and holds out longer fares better. He wants to win; yet he often ends up producing an equally hard response which exhausts him and his resources and harms his relationship with the other side.

One is likely to think that if both the above approaches have inherent drawbacks then is there any better method of conflict resolution?

Actually, there is! There is a third way to negotiate, a way neither hard nor soft, but rather both hard and soft. The method of Principled Negotiation developed at the Harvard Negotiation Project is to decide issues on their merits rather than through a haggling process focused on what each side says it will and won’t do.

Principled Negotiation employs no tricks and no posturing. It shows you how to obtain what you are entitled to and still be decent. It enables you to be fair while protecting you against those who would take advantage of your fairness.

It is an all-purpose strategy. Unlike almost all other strategies, if the other side learns this one, it does not become more difficult to use; it becomes easier. If they read this article, all the better!

The problem with positional bargaining is: Which game should you play?

Soft? Which entails the following:

Participants are friends. The goal is agreement. Make concessions to cultivate the relationship. Be soft on the people and the problem. Trust others. Change your position easily. Make offers. Disclose your bottom line. Accept one-sided losses to reach agreement. Search for the single answer: the one they will accept. Insist on agreement. Try to avoid a contest of will. Yield to pressure.

Or hard? Which says:

Participants are adversaries. The goal is victory. Demand concessions as a condition of the relationship. Be hard on the problem and the people. Distrust others. Dig in to your position. Make threats. Mislead as to your bottom line. Demand one-sided gains as the price of agreement. Search for the single answer: the one you will accept. Insist on your position. Try to win a contest of will. Apply pressure.

The solution that Principled Negotiation offers is: Change the game! Negotiate on merits. An approach that states:

Participants are problem-solvers. The goal is a wise outcome reached efficiently and amicably. Separate the people from the problem. Be soft on the people, hard on the problem. Proceed independent of trust. Focus on interests, not positions. Explore interests. Avoid having a bottom line. Invent options for mutual gain. Develop multiple options to choose from; decide later. Insist on using objective criteria. Try to reach a result based on standards independent of will. Reason and be open to reason; yield to principle, not pressure.

The four points in boldface type are the foundations on which Principle Centered Negotiation stands tall.

In any negotiation, there exist realities that are hard to change. No method can guarantee success if all the leverage lies on the other side. If the other side has big guns, you do not want to turn a negotiation into a gunfight. The stronger they appear in terms of physical or economic power, the more you benefit by negotiating on the merits. To the extent that they have muscle and you have principle, the larger a role you can establish for principle the better off you are.

Having a good BATNA (Best alternative to a negotiated agreement) can help you negotiate on the merits. In simple terms, BATNA refers to the results you can obtain without negotiating. What are those results? What is that alternative? Generating possible BATNAs requires three distinct operations: I. Inventing a list of actions you might conceivably take if no agreement is reached. II. Improving some of the more promising idea and converting them into practical alternatives. III. Selecting, tentatively, the one alternative that seems best.

Think for a moment about how you would feel walking into a job interview with no other job offers. Think how the talk about salary would go. Now contrast that with how you would feel walking in with two other job offers.

Thus, developing your BATNA is perhaps the most effective course of action you can take in dealing with a seemingly more powerful negotiator.

Good question! Principled negotiation is all very well, but what if the other negotiator deceives you or tries to throw you off balance? There are many tactics and tricks people can use to try to take advantage of you. Everyone knows some of them. They range from deliberate deception and psychological abuse to various forms of positional pressure tactics. They may be illegal, unethical, or simply unpleasant. Such tactics may be called tricky bargaining.

They are designed to be used by only one side; the other side is not supposed to know the tactics or is expected to tolerate them knowingly. There are three steps in negotiating the rules of the negotiating game where the other side seems to be using a tricky tactic: recognize the tactic, raise the issue explicitly, and question the tactic’s legitimacy and desirability – negotiate over it.

Often just recognizing the tactic will neutralize it. Realizing, for example, that the other side is attacking you personally in order to impair your judgment may well frustrate the effort.

After recognizing the tactic, bring it up with the other side. Say, “Gentlemen, I may be totally mistaken, but is there a theory behind having me sit in the low chair with my back to the open door?” Try out the principle of reciprocity on them. “I assume that you will sit in this chair tomorrow morning?”

The most important purpose of bringing the tactic up explicitly, however, is to give you an opportunity to negotiate about the rules of the game. This negotiation focuses on procedure instead of substance, but the goal remains to produce a wise agreement (this time about procedure) efficiently and amicably. Not surprisingly, the method remains the same.

As a last resort, turn to your BATNA and walk out. “It’s my impression that you’re not interested in negotiating in a way that we both think will produce results. Here’s my phone number. If I’m mistaken, I’m ready anytime you are.”

If you are walking out on clearly legitimate grounds, as when they have deliberately deceived you, and if they are genuinely interested in an agreement, they are likely to call you back to the table. Whatever you do, be prepared to fight dirty bargaining tactics. It is easier to defend principle than an illegitimate tactic. Don’t be a victim.

Remember how in the movie “The Matrix”, whenever Neo needed to learn a new skill they would simply “upload” the program into his head… and he would wake up a "master"? Wouldn’t it be great if everything in life was that easy?

Alas! A theory can point you in a promising direction. By making you aware of ideas and aware of what you are doing, it can help you learn. No one, however, can make you skillful but yourself. Reading a pamphlet on the Royal Canadian Air Force exercises will not make you physically fit. Studying books on tennis, swimming, boxing, or riding a horse will not make you an expert.

Negotiation is no different!

In most instances, to ask a negotiator, “Who’s winning?” is as inappropriate as to ask who’s winning a marriage. If you ask that question about your marriage, you have already lost the more important negotiation –the one about what kind of game to play, about the way you deal with each other and your shared and differing interests.

Principle Centered Negotiation is all about how to “win” that important game – how to achieve a better process for dealing with your differences. Both theory and experience suggest that this method of negotiation will produce over the long run substantive outcomes as good as or better than you are likely to obtain using any other negotiation strategy. In addition, it should prove more efficient and less costly to human relationships. I find this method comfortable to use and hope you will too!

From time to time you may want to remind yourself that the first thing you are trying to win is a better way to negotiate – a way that avoids your having to choose between the satisfactions of getting what you deserve and of being decent. You can have both.

About the Author

Parikshit Bhardwaj is a prolific writer, thought leader and media professional with 20+ years of rich experience in creating content for academic and professional audiences. He was chosen by the United States Department of State for its flagship International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) fellowship in 2023. He has spearheaded Content & Strategy functions across industries such as Online Media, Academic Books & Journals Publishing & Study Abroad and has worked with brands such as SAGE Publishing, John Wiley & Sons, and NIIT Ltd. He can be reached at parikshitbhardwaj7@gmail.com