3rd Module - Principled Negotiation

From Peacebuilding

Harvard Negotiation Project has developed a method that is articulated into four principles – or parts:

1. Separate the people from the problem;
2. Focus on interests, not positions;
3. Generate options for mutual gain;
4. Insist on using objective criteria.

The method in reality is no more than common sense and common experience organised in a way to provide a ready-to-use framework for analysis and action.

Offline

• Fisher, Roger, Ury, William, Patton, Bruce, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, New York: Penguin, 1991, (1981).

Online

• Fast, Larissa, Neufeldt, Reina, Introduction to Principled Negotiation, from Peacebuilding: A Caritas Training Manual, Vatican City: 2002. A very quick lecture providing the essential information to introduce principled negotiation and the concept of Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA).

• Conflict Research Consortium, “Principled Negotiation”, in International Online Training Program on Intractable Conflict, University of Colorado, http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/treatment/pricneg.htm

• Glaser, Tanya, Conflict Research Consortium, “Book Summary: Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In”, in International Online Training Program on Intractable Conflict, University of Colorado, http://crci.crinfo.org/booksummary/10204/

• Spangler, Brad. "Integrative or Interest-Based Bargaining", in Beyond Intractability, Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess, Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: June 2003, http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/interest-based_bargaining/

• Wertheim, E., Negotiations and Resolving Conflicts: An Overview, http://web.cba.neu.edu/~ewertheim/interper/negot3.htm

Activities you can use when working on this content include

• Role Sketches. Quick role-plays involving negotiation skills. Participants are provided with essential profiles of their characters so that much is left to their improvisation. Debriefing can be focused on different aspects of negotiation.

• Negotiation Role Play. A role-play reproducing a two-party negotiation between a Caritas representative and a local association. Players’ profiles are more detailed than in Role Sketches, resulting in participants needing a little more time to learn their profiles before role-playing. The situation created allows for different outcomes, there is no right solution.

• Role Play: Smith vs. Patel. A negotiation role play, taken from Peacebuilding: A Caritas Training Manual. It elaborates on a classic scenario used in conflict resolution training: there is one orange, two persons want that orange. They struggle to get it. Eventually they might come to realise the one needs only the orange's peel and the other needs the flesh.

• Workers' Payoff. This simulation game provides a framework to practice two-party negotiation between groups and focuses on how participants with different BATNAs act in negotiation. It needs some preparation and participants need to be introduced well to the rules for the play. It can be a lot of fun and provides experience for a substantial debriefing.

• Too Many People To Deal With? A negotiation role-play with five different parties. The framework of the activity provides a system to measure participants’ outcomes and a bottom line (BATNA) for each participant. A hard play, but it can be a lot of fun.

• Preparing Your Negotiation. It provides participants with a framework that they can use for preparing their negotiations and helps them focus on the importance of preparation for effective negotiation.

• Designing a Negotiation Scenario. It is not easy to find scenarios for negotiation role-play. When available hardly these materials are free-of-charge. Besides, it might be difficult to adapt pre-packaged scenarios to participants’ realities. Thus, it might be convenient for a facilitator to help participants to design their own scenarios and then use it during the workshop. Both the creation and use of scenarios can provide useful learning insights for participants. This activity provides a template for this purpose.