Page 93 - DMGT519_Conflict Management and Negotiation Skills

Unit 4: Negotiation

and devise a means of satisfying each party’s most important interests while inducing them to Notes
make concessions on lower-priority issues. Another example: the war over Colorado River
water pitted cities against farmers, fomented tensions among seven states, and dominated the
attention of Native American Indian tribes, environmentalists, federal officials, and Mexico

4.17.2 Strategies that Work

1. Build trust and share information: Negotiators who build a trusting relationship and
share information greatly increase the probability that a win-win outcome will be reached
(Bazerman & Neale). It is important to realise that the information that negotiators need
to share is not information about their BATNAs, but rather, information about their
preferences and priorities across the negotiation issues.

2. Ask diagnostic questions: A negotiator could ask the other party in a negotiation any
number of questions.
3. Provide information: It is a fallacy to believe that negotiators should never provide
information to their opponent (Bazerman & Neale, 1992). Negotiations would not go
anywhere if negotiators did not communicate their interests to the other party. Remember,
you should negotiate as you would with your fraternal twin; if you do not provide
information, neither will the other party. A negotiator should never ask the other party a
question that he or she is not willing to answer truthfully. The important question, then,
is not whether to reveal information, but what information to reveal.
4. Unbundle the issue: One reason why negotiations fail is because negotiators haggle over
a single issue, such as price. By definition, if negotiations contain only one issue, they are
purely distributive. Skilled negotiators are adept at expanding the set of negotiable issues.
Adding issues, unbundling issues, and creating new issue can transform a single-issue,
fixed-pie negotiation into an integrative, multi-issue negotiation with win-win potential
(Lax & Sebenius, 1986). Integrative agreements require at least two issues and, in the case
of negotiation more the issues (not parties), the more the merrier.
5. Make package deals, not single issue offers: Most negotiators make the mistake of
negotiating each issue one by one. This approach is a mistake for several reasons: First and
foremost, negotiating each issue separately does not allow negotiators to make trade-offs
between issues. To capitalise on different strengths of preference, negotiators need to
compare and contrast issues and trade them off. Second, it may mean that impasses is
more likely, especially if the bargaining zone is narrow and trade-offs are necessary to
reach a mutually profitable outcome. Finally, single-issue offers lure negotiators into
compromise agreements, which as we have seen, are usually not the best approach for
win-win negotiations.
6. Make multiple offers simultaneously: In some cases, negotiators are disappointed and
frustrated to find that their attempts to provide and seek information are not effective. It
happens most commonly in the face of high distrust and less than amicable relations. Now
what? Is all hope lost? Can the negotiator do anything to change the situation? Fortunately,
the answer is yes. The strategy of multiple simultaneous offer can be effective even with
the most uncooperative parties. (Bazerman & Neale, 1992; Kelley & Schenitzki, 1972;
Kelley, 1966).
7. Make the offers all at the same time: This last point is the hardest for most people to do
because they negotiate like playing tennis. They make one offer and then wait for the
other party to “return” a single offer; then they make a concession, and so on and so forth.
In the multiple-offer strategy, a negotiator presents a “dessert tray” of offers to the other

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