The Three R’s of Negotiation

We teach the three R’s: Results, Relationship and Rules. Negotiators are always balancing whether the Result or the Relationship is more important at each particular stage.

Principled negotiation as an ethos informs our approach to training and developing people who might only negotiate or whose whole job is negotiation. We know all the tricks and tactics and show people how to recognise them in action and how to counter them if they are being used in a destructive or malevolent way. We differentiate negotiating from simple positional bargaining where you say one price they say another and the answer’s halfway between. That’s an example of a negotiating ritual that really only occurs in the simple, one-dimensional versions of negotiation. Bargaining on price is straightforward. Real negotiation is more complex because there are so many more aspects and dimensions to consider.

Positional bargaining or arguing on price is just about the result. You may never have to work together again or even meet each other again, so if one party feels aggrieved or bullied into accepting a lower price it doesn’t really matter – there’s no relationship that will be affected.

The rules are the rules – except they’re not universal and can vary between cultures, so what seems unfair rule-breaking in one culture may be the way normal business happens in another. Even when the rules are understood and accepted by both sides, there might be a decision on where the rules could be bent or even broken to suit the situation. Professional negotiators rarely work with a “we never…” mindset when approaching a negotiation. A rule may have been appropriate in a particular situation, but this situation could mean it’s inappropriate or damaging to the outcome.

We’re not naïve enough to go with the win-win idea, nor to believe that the objective of negotiation is to reach an agreement. In reality, there will be winners and losers in some situations – trying to find a way where everybody walks away with something (even if it’s only their pride) is part of the job, but that does not mean finding a way to make everyone a winner.

Ury and Fisher in their seminal work “Getting to Yes”, talked about wise outcomes rather than agreements as the objective of negotiation…And a wise outcome could be the recognition that you are unable to work together, live together or agree on anything and parting company is the best result. Paradoxically this may be better for the relationship than sticking with it and trying to make it work.

Our recommendation to negotiators is to learn the rules of the road but to remember it is a competitive sport. Skilled and consistently successful drivers value their own and others’ safety and thus do not engage in reckless behaviour – and neither should negotiators. These then are our guidelines for safely negotiating the course.