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International Online Training Program On Intractable Conflict |
Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, USA |
In their best-selling book on negotiation, Getting to Yes, Fisher, Ury, and Patton compare three kinds of negotiation or bargaining: soft, hard, and principled. Like hard bargaining, soft bargaining involves the negotiation of positions, rather than interests. However, to avoid the common problems associated with bargaining over positions, the negotiators will take a "soft" approach: treating the participants as friends, seeking agreement at almost any cost, and offering concessions easily in the interests of preserving (or creating) a good relationship with the other side. Soft bargainers will trust the other side, and will be open and honest about their bottom line. This leaves them vulnerable to hard bargainers who will act competitivelyoffering few, if any concessions, concealing their bottom line, even making threats. In a negotiation between a hard bargainer and a soft bargainer, the hard bargainer will almost always emerge with a substantially better deal. (Yet two hard bargainers competing against each other may end up both losinghence the advice to bargain hard in all cases is not wise.) Fisher, Ury, and Patton suggest that principled negotiationwhich negotiates interests rather than positions is the best alternative to either hard or soft bargaining.
Links to Examples of Soft Bargaining
Links to Related Approaches
Links to Related Problems
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