Interest: the Measure of Negotiation
Interests: The Measure o f Negotiation
D a v i d A. L a x arid J a m e s K. Sebenius
People negotiate to further their interests. And negotiation advisers urge attention to interests--often solemnly, as if the suggestion were original and surprising. Yet Socrates ' admonition to " K n o w Thyself" surety scoops any late twentieth century advice of this sort. So, academic compulsiveness aside, w h y write an article o n interests or, more to the point, w h y read one? The answer, in part, is that negotiators often focus o n interests, but conceive of them too narrowly. We will argue for a more expansive conception o f negotiator 's interests. Moreover, interests often conflict, and simply listing them without understanding the tradeoffs among them is a bit like writing out a recipe without including the proportions. In addition to determining interests, negotiators need ways to assess the relative importance o f those various interests. We will try to clarify the logic of assessing tradeoffs. As hard as it may be to sort out one 's o w n interests, understanding h o w others see theirs--their subjective scheme of values as perceived through their peculiar psychological filters--can be extraordinarily difficult. Obviously, suggesting a stretch "in the other person 's shoes" is g o o d advice; equally obviously, it is only a starting point. In this article we will try to go further.
An Expansive Conception o f a Negotiator 's Interests
In evaluating the interests at stake, a typical negotiator might focus on commodities that can be bought and sold or on concrete terms that can be written into a contract or treaty. And, negotiators definitely have such interests: the crippled plaintiff desperately wants compensation; a sales manager cares intensely about prices, profit margins, return on investment, and personal compensation; managers may derive value from seeing their particular product sweep the market or furthering some vision of the public interest. T h r o
D a v i d A. L a x arid J a m e s K. Sebenius
People negotiate to further their interests. And negotiation advisers urge attention to interests--often solemnly, as if the suggestion were original and surprising. Yet Socrates ' admonition to " K n o w Thyself" surety scoops any late twentieth century advice of this sort. So, academic compulsiveness aside, w h y write an article o n interests or, more to the point, w h y read one? The answer, in part, is that negotiators often focus o n interests, but conceive of them too narrowly. We will argue for a more expansive conception o f negotiator 's interests. Moreover, interests often conflict, and simply listing them without understanding the tradeoffs among them is a bit like writing out a recipe without including the proportions. In addition to determining interests, negotiators need ways to assess the relative importance o f those various interests. We will try to clarify the logic of assessing tradeoffs. As hard as it may be to sort out one 's o w n interests, understanding h o w others see theirs--their subjective scheme of values as perceived through their peculiar psychological filters--can be extraordinarily difficult. Obviously, suggesting a stretch "in the other person 's shoes" is g o o d advice; equally obviously, it is only a starting point. In this article we will try to go further.
An Expansive Conception o f a Negotiator 's Interests
In evaluating the interests at stake, a typical negotiator might focus on commodities that can be bought and sold or on concrete terms that can be written into a contract or treaty. And, negotiators definitely have such interests: the crippled plaintiff desperately wants compensation; a sales manager cares intensely about prices, profit margins, return on investment, and personal compensation; managers may derive value from seeing their particular product sweep the market or furthering some vision of the public interest. T h r o
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