NEGOTIATIONS

Negotiation is a dialogue between two or more people or parties, intended to reach an understanding, resolve point of difference, or gain advantage in outcome of dialogue, to produce an agreement upon courses of action, to bargain for individual or collective advantage, to craft outcomes to satisfy various interests of two people/parties involved in negotiation process. Negotiation is a process where each party involved in negotiating tries to gain an advantage for themselves by the end of the process. Negotiation is intended to aim at compromise.

Negotiation occurs in business, non-profit organizations, government branches, legal proceedings, among nations and in personal situations such as marriage, divorce, parenting, and everyday life. The study of the subject is called negotiation theory.

TYPES OF NEGOTIATIONS

DISTRIBUTIVE NEGOTIATIONS

Distributive negotiation is also sometimes called positional or hard-bargaining negotiation. It tends to approach negotiation on the model of haggling in a market. In a distributive negotiation, each side often adopts an extreme position, knowing that it will not be accepted, and then employs a combination of guile, bluffing, and brinkmanship in order to cede as little as possible before reaching a deal. Distributive bargainers conceive of negotiation as a process of distributing a fixed amount of value.     The term distributive implies that there is a finite amount of the thing being distributed or divided among the people involved. A distributive negotiation often involves people who have never had a previous interactive relationship, nor are they likely to do so again in the near future. Simple everyday examples would be buying a car or a house.

INTEGRATIVE NEGOTIATIONS

            Integrative negotiation is also sometimes called interest-based or principled negotiation. It is a set of techniques that attempts to improve the quality and likelihood of negotiated agreement by providing an alternative to traditional distributive negotiation techniques. It focuses on the underlying interests of the parties rather than their arbitrary starting positions, approaches negotiation as a shared problem rather than a personalized battle, and insists upon adherence to objective, principled criteria as the basis for agreement. Integrative negotiation often involves a higher degree of trust and the forming of a relationship. It can also involve creative problem-solving that aims to achieve mutual gains. It is also sometimes called win-win negotiation.

STRATEGIC OF NEGOTATIONS

Some of the different strategies for negotiation include:

      Problem solving - both parties committing to examining and discussing issues closely when entering into long-term agreements that warrant careful research.

      Contending - persuading your negotiating party to concede to your outcome if you are bargaining in one-off negotiations or over major 'wins'.

      Yielding - release a point that is not vital to you but is important to the other party valuable in ongoing negotiations.

      Compromising - both parties for going their ideal outcomes, settling for an outcome that is moderately satisfactory to each participant.

      Inaction - buying time to think about the proposal, gather more information or decide your next tactics.