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Notes Critics of principled negotiation say it’s too soft. Negotiation, after all, is usually about conflict
and competition. Particularly in a zero-sum, distributive situation, someone must come out
ahead. For these reasons, some people say that principled negotiation isn’t the best strategy in
certain situations. Authors Lax and Sebenius came up with one way to think about strategy in
what they call the Negotiator’s Dilemma, which is comparable to the famous Prisoner’s Dilemma.
If you know anything about Game Theory, you’ve heard of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. In this
scenario, two prisoners who are isolated from each other must decide whether to confess to their
captors or keep quiet. If one prisoner confesses and the other doesn’t, the confessor gets freedom
and the other gets 20 years imprisonment. On the other hand, if both confess, each of them gets
10 years behind bars. Finally, if both decide to keep quiet, each gets only 5 years of hard time.
Each prisoner must choose between two options, but can’t create a good decision without knowing
what his cohort will do?
Negotiators face such a decision when choosing whether to cooperate or compete. Cooperating
in this sense involves staying soft and creating value — enlarging the pie — whereas competing
involves staying hard and claiming value. When you apply this theory to the Prisoner’s Dilemma
scenario, cooperating means to keeping quiet, and competing means to confess.
The Negotiator’s Dilemma states four different scenarios:
1. Terrible: If you decide to cooperate, while the other decides to compete, you will have a
terrible outcome while the other gets a great outcome (the worst result for you). In
Prisoner’s Dilemma, this happens if you keep quiet, but the other person confesses.
2. If you compete and the other cooperates, you will have a great outcome, and the other will
have a terrible outcome (the best result for you). In Prisoner’s Dilemma, this happens if
you confess and the other person keeps quiet.

3. Mediocre: If both you and your adversary take the offensive and compete, both will
receive a mediocre outcome (the third best result for you). In Prisoner’s Dilemma, this
happens if both of you confess.
4. Good: If both you and the other side decide to lay all cards on the table and cooperate, both
will have a good outcome (the second best result for you). In Prisoner’s Dilemma, this
happens if both of you keep quiet.
Using this logic, your best strategy is to compete stay hard and claim value so that you end up
with either a great or mediocre outcome. On the other hand, if both you and the other party
realize that this is the best strategy for yourselves individually, you’ll get a mediocre outcome.
This way, both of you miss out on the better opportunity the good outcome which you’d get if
both of you had cooperated by staying soft and creative value to enlarge the pie. No wonder
they call it a dilemma.
Faced with this problem, theorists use computer models to try to come up with the best practical
solution. The tit-for-tat strategy proves more steadily successful than others. This process involves
starting out with a cooperative approach. As the negotiations go on, the strategy adapts by
immediately responding to what the other side does. This means that it responds to competitive
moves with a competitive move and responds to a cooperative move with a cooperative move.
On the other hand, some people take issue with this strategy, saying it should be used only in the
absence of misperceptions and fear.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:
10. A soft approach to ........................ refers to being generally more willing to give in, make
concessions, trust the other, and stay honest and forthright with one’s situation.

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