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Positional Bargaining
Along with its counterpart, hard negotiation, soft negotiation is one of the two common strategies that people tend to use in their everyday conflicts. Soft negotiators care more about avoiding conflict and preserving their relationship with the other side, so they often give up on fulfilling their interests (especially when the other side uses hard negotiation) in order to keep the peace. However, soft negotiators end up losing out on their goals and becoming justifiably resentful as a result, especially when they are in a long-term personal or professional relationship with a hard negotiator. In fact, relationships of any sort between hard and soft negotiators tend to degrade over time because the hard negotiator tramples on the soft negotiator in order to get their way. This dynamic shows how positional bargaining fails to separate personal issues from the substance of a negotiation and thereby forces negotiators to choose between maintaining their relationships (which soft negotiators choose) and winning the negotiation (which hard negotiators choose). Principled negotiation is far more effective: it combines soft negotiators’ emphasis on preserving relationships with hard negotiators’ emphasis on getting what they deserve.
Soft Negotiation Quotes in Getting to Yes
The Getting to Yes quotes below are all either spoken by Soft Negotiation or refer to Soft Negotiation. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Introduction
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There is a third way to negotiate, a way neither hard nor soft, but rather both hard and soft. The method of principled negotiation developed at the Harvard Negotiation Project is to decide issues on their merits rather than through a haggling process focused on what each side says it will and won't do. It suggests that you look for mutual gains whenever possible, and that where your interests conflict, you should insist that the result be based on some fair standards independent of the will of either side. The method of principled negotiation is hard on the merits, soft on the people. It employs no tricks and no posturing. Principled negotiation shows you how to obtain what you are entitled to and still be decent. It enables you to be fair while protecting you against those who would take advantage of your fairness.
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Chapter 3
Quotes
Be hard on the problem, soft on the people. You can be just as hard in talking about your interests as any negotiator can be in talking about their position. In fact, it is usually advisable to be hard. It may not be wise to commit yourself to your position, but it is wise to commit yourself to your interests. This is the place in a negotiation to spend your aggressive energies. The other side, being concerned with their own interests, will tend to have overly optimistic expectations of the range of possible agreements. Often the wisest solutions, those that produce the maximum gain for you at the minimum cost to the other side, are produced only by strongly advocating your interests. Two negotiators, each pushing hard for their interests, will often stimulate each other's creativity in thinking up mutually advantageous solutions.
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Soft Negotiation Term Timeline in Getting to Yes
The timeline below shows where the term Soft Negotiation appears in Getting to Yes. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Introduction
...difficult to negotiate well without becoming “dissatisfied, worn out, or alienated.” Generally, people are either soft or hard negotiators. Soft negotiators want to avoid conflict, but this often leads them to...
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...Ury, and Patton propose a theory of principled negotiation that combines aspects of hard and soft negotiation. This strategy requires identifying shared goals and evaluating competing interests based on fair, independent...
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Chapter 1: Don’t Bargain Over Positions
...answer” to the difficulties posed by positional bargaining. In a table, they contrast hard and soft negotiation. Hard negotiators treat other parties as enemies to defeat through demands, threats, and lies....
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...negotiation also affects the very rules of the negotiation—for instance, whether it is hard or soft. Negotiators can choose hard or soft negotiating principles, but they can always also choose to...
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As an alternative to soft and hard negotiation, the authors have developed the principled negotiation method (also called “negotiation on...
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