Principled Negotiation

• Difficulty: Intermediate
• Estimated effectiveness: Very high
• Implementation time: A structuring framework, applicable from the preparation stage onwards
• Fields of application: Negotiation theory, Mediation, Diplomacy, Management, Law
• Synonyms: Principled negotiation, Negotiation on the merits, Harvard method, Interest-based negotiation
• Tags: principled negotiation, Fisher-Ury, Harvard, interests, objective criteria

Principled negotiation offers a reproducible framework that escapes the false choice between aggression and compliance: hard on the substance, respectful in form. By reasoning on interests and objective criteria, it produces sturdier agreements and preserves the relationship. Its limit: it assumes parties willing to reason and acting in good faith; against pure force or manipulation, it must be complemented by the BATNA.

To be adopted as the default framework in any negotiation where the relationship and the quality of the agreement matter. Particularly suited to long-lasting disputes (partners, collective bargaining, diplomacy). To be complemented by a solid BATNA when facing a counterpart acting in bad faith. To be culturally adapted where separating person from problem is not self-evident.

Recognise it: the other side refuses positional bargaining and keeps bringing you back to 'objective criteria' and 'interests'. Neutralise it: accept the ground of criteria but negotiate the choice of the criteria themselves, often the real stake. Turn it around: bring your own legitimate references and surface the interests that their position conceals.

The method presupposes a rationality and good faith that are not always present: facing an opponent operating on pure power logic, it can be exploited as naivety. The choice of objective criteria is itself negotiable and open to manipulation. Its assumptions are culturally situated (separating person and task is not universal). Ethically neutral in itself, it remains vulnerable to anyone who feigns to play the game of merit.

A matrix framework from which the BATNA, interest mapping and the mutual-gains approach (its extended version) derive. Close to trade-union Interest-Based Bargaining. It stands in opposition to positional bargaining (hard or soft) which it was designed to transcend.

• Roger Fisher & William Ury, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, 1981.
• William Ury, Getting Past No: Negotiating in Difficult Situations, 1991.
• Jeswald Salacuse, The Global Negotiator, 2003.

• Separate the people from the problem so as to preserve the relationship while remaining firm on the substance
• Negotiate on the parties' underlying interests rather than on their stated positions
• Invent several mutually beneficial options before deciding, to enlarge the pie instead of dividing it
• Ground the agreement on objective, verifiable criteria (market price, precedents, expertise, law) rather than on a power balance
• Prepare and know your BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement) so as to know when to accept and when to walk away

Diplomatic · Camp David 1978: the Sinai returned but demilitarised: A case cited by Fisher and Ury themselves in Getting to Yes. In 1978, Egypt demanded full sovereignty over the Sinai, occupied by Israel since 1967; Israel wanted to keep part of it. The positions were incompatible: no dividing line drawn on the maps satisfied both camps. By moving up to the interests, the solution emerged: Israel's interest was security (no Egyptian tanks on its border), Egypt's was sovereignty (the Sinai has been Egyptian since the pharaohs). The agreement returned the entire Sinai to Egypt, but largely demilitarised. Each party obtained what truly mattered to it, whereas positional bargaining had reached deadlock.

Commercial · Supplier renegotiation: from a pricing tug-of-war to a broadened agreement (representative scenario): Representative scenario. A manufacturer asks its component supplier for an 8% reduction; the supplier, squeezed by its material costs, refuses. Rather than dig in on positions (-8% against 0%), the two teams explore the interests: the buyer above all needs to secure its cash flow and continuity of supply; the supplier is looking for visibility to recoup its investments. They invent several options: a 3-year volume commitment in exchange for a 4% discount, shortened payment terms in exchange for an early-payment rebate, transparent indexation to a published materials index (objective criterion). The final agreement combines these options: each side gains more than it would from a simple split-the-difference compromise on price.

• Confusing principled negotiation with kindness: the method is soft on the people but hard on the problem; giving way on the substance to preserve the relationship is a misreading
• Claiming to seek interests while in reality staying dug in on one's initial position, turning the discussion into disguised positional bargaining
• Entering a negotiation without having prepared your BATNA: you then know neither when to accept nor when to walk away, and you are at the mercy of pressure
• Evaluating and judging options at the very moment you invent them, which kills creativity; the invention phase must be kept separate from the decision phase
• Applying the method naively to a counterpart acting in bad faith or purely positionally, with no counter (negotiation jujitsu, recourse to criteria, BATNA) planned for that case

• Roger Fisher, William Ury (with Bruce Patton for the 2nd ed.) (1981) Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In Houghton Mifflin (Harvard Negotiation Project)
• William Ury (1991) Getting Past No: Negotiating with Difficult People Bantam Books
• Richard E. Walton, Robert B. McKersie (1965) A Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations: An Analysis of a Social Interaction System McGraw-Hill