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priorities of the other side. They assume a conflict of interests between
the parties rather than engaging in a rational pursuit. This is just one of
many errors in negotiator judgment that, left unrecognized, can thwart a
negotiation at the start.

Win/Win vs. Win/Lose
Distributive negotiation, or traditional negotiation, is the style

which is familiar to most people. In this model the objective is to
convince the other side that s/he wants what you have to offer more than
want what s/he has to offer. Negotiation means hard, tough bargaining.
It is a win/lose model whose underlying assumption is the fixed pie.

That is every time you take a slice there is that much left for the other
side. But that is only true, if there is only one issue to decide.
Most people would consider the price for the sale of some object

like a piece of art as one example. However, is there truly only one
issue? Is it possible that the buyer would pay more if terms could be
arranged or a payment plan, so s/he wasn't laying out the full price
immediately? Would the seller take less if the buyer offered cash? Is

delivery an issue that is important to one side? Does timing have an
impact? Are there intangibles that are important to a side?
Whenever there is more than one issue to negotiate there is the

potential for integrative negotiation. Differences in the parties'
preferences make mutual gains possible. Integrative negotiation or
win/win focuses on the parties working together collaboratively to

produce an agreement that provides gain for each side. That each side
does better due to having engaged in the negotiation process than s/he
would have done on their own. See All Things BATNA.

This win/win approach is also called Principled Negotiation or
Mutual Gains Bargaining and was first outlined in the groundbreaking
book, Getting to Yes, by Roger Fisher and William Ury in the 1970's. If
you read no other book on negotiation read this one. You can click on its

link for more information. It is ground breaking because it laid out the
steps negotiators need to follow to apply the win/win approach.