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- Business Negotiations
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- Conflict Resolution and Negotiation Across Cultures
- “Confronting Evil” Panel Videos Now Available Online
- Conflict Resolution Lessons from the Home: How Conflict Management Skills Transform Discord Into Harmony
- Working with Your Agent – and Someone Else’s – In Negotiation
- Confronting Evil: Interdisciplinary Perspectives Conference underway
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- PON co-sponsored conference addresses the challenges of “Confronting Evil”
- Finding the Right Process in India
- The Fiscal Cliff and the Debt Ceiling: Program on Negotiation Chair Robert Mnookin Discusses Recent and Future Negotiations Between Congressional Republicans and the White House
- Robert Mnookin Joins Panel to Discuss the Fiscal Cliff Negotiations on NPR’s Forum
- BATNA for the Holidays? Program on Negotiation Co-Founders Bruce Patton and William Ury Discuss the ‘Fiscal Cliff’ with NPR
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- Tips for Navigating Negotiations in China
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- An International Negotiation for an All-American Brand
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- What’s Wrong with Traditional Arbitration?
- Hiring a Mediator: A Checklist
- Social Perceptions at the Crossroads: Why Sex (Still) Impacts the Perception and Evaluation of Other Status-Linked Identities
- Dispute Resolution Using Online Mediation
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- Register Now for the Program on Negotiation’s Negotiation and Dispute Resolution Seminar!
- Negotiate Relationships
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- For Better Negotiation Training, Study the U.S. Government’s Mistakes
- Negotiating for Continuous Improvement: Use a Negotiation Preparation Worksheet
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Lester Rennard /
This story demonstrates the power of interest-based collaboration over what I call, "positional myopia." In an organizational context, leaders who take a rigid adversarial position and either fail or out-rightly refuse to listen to their opponents can surely guarantee to saddle their stakeholders with missed opportunities and economic setbacks. How much further ahead, and dollars saved, would their respective organizations be, had their leaders captured the vision sooner that their individual interests could very well be advanced by seeking a common ground for mutual cooperation; than by becoming entrenched in defending positions. The good news however is that they finally caught the vision and made amends to the benefit of their stakeholders. When two parties are at odds with conflicting interests, there is wisdom in at least making a good faith effort to explore the basis of the interests of the other. The legitimacy of one's own interests should provide the confidence to engage the other in a collaborative effort of interest exploration without fearing the loss of their individual positions. The worse that can happen is discovering that their interests and positions are so incompatible that they allow for no common ground for mutual cooperation. Whether Congress responds in similar fashion will depend on whether each member thinks that their personal political interests might be served or harmed by their support of the proposed rules. The Pacelle-Gregory alliance could very well make it easier to gain such support by applying the lessons they have learned in interest-based collaboration to find a common ground of mutual interest with each member of Congress, and then demonstrate how their individual political interests could be served by supporting the new rules.