Solving Disputes: Principled Negotiation

Principled negotiation is a very effective method of resolving disputes, however, there are occasions that may prove too difficult to put principled negotiation into action, such as the times when one party is not interested in a fair outcome.

Developed by the Harvard Negotiation Project principled negotiation is a method designed to find an outcome to a dispute that is fair to both parties. Principled negotiation is not necessarily the easiest form of negotiation; however, it is most likely to result in a ‘fair and mutually satisfying agreement’ . Principled negotiation resolves day to day conflicts both minor and major while being able to ‘lesson anxiety and produce good agreements’ .

Principled negotiation looks into getting all parties involved a good agreement to satisfy all. However, what is a good agreement? As portrayed by Nicole Cutts in her article on Conflict Management, a good agreement is ‘wise, efficient and improves relationships’ . There are however other means of negotiation one of which being positional negotiation. Positional negotiation is the complete opposite to principled negotiation where it is a battle of who has more power within the parties involved and generally leaves one party feeling disadvantaged. Through this method an ‘extreme position’ is used to increase the chance of a win. However, these type of wins lead to ‘adversarial relationships’ as the outcomes lead to win-lose or even lose-lose situations.

Knowing that positional negotiation leads to turmoil between friends, business partners and the like turning to principled negotiation for a fair outcome is surprisingly straight forward. There are four basic points which have defined the straight forward process of principled negotiation. These f...

... middle of paper ...

...) pg 11.

Roger Fisher, William Ury and Bruce Patton, ‘Getting to Yes!’, (2nd Ed, Random House Business Books, 1991) pg 10.

Ibid.

Roger Fisher, William Ury and Bruce Patton, ‘Getting to Yes!’, (2nd Ed, Random House Business Books, 1991) pg 11.

Ibid.

Ibid.

NAW Editory, What is Principled Negotiation? (16th November 2008), MindEdge http://negotiation.atwork-network.com/2008/06/16/what-is-principled-negotiation/

Laurence Boulle, Mediation, Principles, Process, Practice (LexisNexis Butterworths, 3rd Ed, 2011) pp.118.

Roger Fisher, William Ury and Bruce Patton, ‘Getting to Yes!’, (2nd Ed, Random House Business Books, 1991) pg 8.

Roger Fisher, William Ury and Bruce Patton, ‘Getting to Yes!’, (2nd Ed, Random House Business Books, 1991) pg 50.

Roger Fisher, William Ury and Bruce Patton, ‘Getting to Yes!’, (2nd Ed, Random House Business Books, 1991) pg 50.