The Harvard Principles of Negotiation

As I said before, this Harvard

negotiation

model is based on four

principles

. Before we get into these

principles

, maybe we want to reflect for a second on why principles, why not rules, and it's very interesting that people at Harvard opt for principles and not rules because if you have rules like those of the in-laws, it's very likely that that's too linear and too strict and people just think that if they follow these kinds of rules everything will be fine, whereas if you have principles it's much more organic, it's much broader because there are many ways of adhere to those principles, so it's important to realize that people at Harvard choose principles for cooperation and not rules, so since cooperation needs freedom and creativity, let's go with these four principles.

Remember we talked about when we talked about the five ways of how to deal in a

negotiation

and we said, "Okay, we have a high or low interest in the relationship and we have a high or low interest in the issue that you want to have." and let's say for a second that you are negotiating with someone you like and find very understanding, then it could be that you have a tendency to give in and accommodate the other person, so you tend to play losing and winning. At the other extreme, you don't actually like the other person, you might even hate the other person and then you might have a tendency to play when you're lazy because you don't like the person you don't care about. relationship, then the people at Harvard said okay, to avoid these risks of the quality of the relationship interfering with your interest in the topic, you have to separate them completely, so the first principle is, and that's easy to establish and difficult to achieve, separating the person from the issue in In real life, that would mean that you can negotiate very hard, but you should never be hard on the hostile person, etc., because it is in your best interest to understand the other people's interests and, therefore, the other partner is not your enemy. is actually your partner otherwise you don't get what you want and because otherwise if you could just order what you want you wouldn't negotiate so the other party is your partner so the first principle is to separate the person of the problem.

In fact, to live the second principle that we already heard when we illustrated with the example of the pumpkin, if you remember, three people had a position, they all wanted the pumpkin, since there was only one pumpkin, it was not possible to give the pumpkin to everyone, There were two limited resources. The solution that was found was not found based on the position and focused on the position, but was geared towards the interests of the people you remember, one wanted the shell for a Halloween mask, the other wanted the soup, so needed to meet and the third person. simply the seats, the interest, at the level of interest, it was possible to find a solution that made everyone happy, a solution in which everyone wins, the second principle of cooperation of the Harvard people is that you should not negotiate centered on the position, but in the interest. oriented and later, when we get to the model you, I'll show you what kind of questions you have to ask to examine the interest of the people who are negotiating the third principle now is that, and that is if you are really looking for a win-win trick you can find it here the people at Harvard discovered that sometimes cooperation is not possible because the people who are negotiating move too quickly towards solutions you hear a problem and immediately suggest a solution and if all parties are doing there is a good chance that then Just negotiate these types of positions and end with a compromise in the best words to achieve a win-win situation.

Now they suggest a different approach, they said, based on how interested you should be. First, develop the criteria that a solution that you might say yes to must meet, or in other words, what conditions a good solution that you might say yes to must meet. Just to illustrate this principle a little, just assume that You want to ask someone out. dinner at a restaurant and you want to make sure that the person you invite really likes the restaurant, then you can ask this other person how do you know that the restaurant is a good restaurant for you and then immediately the person will tell you some conditions.

That must be fulfilled by a good restaurant, for example a small menu, because a small menu for this person suggests that it is actually freshly cooked or I could say a certain quality of light, then what type of light could be elaborated a little more. the person wants to say candle lights or whatever or that there is a certain quality of hygiene and so on music and so on, then you would get a whole set of criteria that have to be met and the interesting thing about the criteria is there There are many more restaurants that a single restaurant that would meet the criteria, so working with types of criteria opens up a world of many options and while the positions are just should be, let's go to Chez Felix, for example, yes, so the third principle is before to create a solution agree on certain principles that must be met by a solution that you could say yes to, so at that stage of the negotiation we would have a set of criteria for poly A and we would have a set of criteria for part B and you find a win-win solution at that moment when you find an option that meets all the criteria of party A and/or party B.

This is how we get a win-win solution and the strength of a principle is and this is. Based on the research that people like to choose, Harvard people suggest that before choosing a solution, you should have different options to choose from, so they suggest not developing just one option, which will then be the best solution, but such time three or four. options and then take the criteria and evaluate their options against the criteria to find the best option, so that by doing so the solution found by the parties is much more sustainable because they also have the feeling that they really had a choice.

Just to repeat these four principles of the Harvard negotiation model, it is to separate the person from the problem to negotiate, not to focus on the position, but to be oriented towards the interests, to develop the first criteria that a good solution must meet and deviate, to develop several options to choose from, so if you follow these four principles, the chances that you will actually choose cooperation and avoid competition are very high and in the next chapter I will guide you through a path through conflicts, how to actually do this and how to apply this type of reports.