The Bargain Exercise. (My Favorite Assignment)‪.‬

NEGOTIATION OR BARGAINING is a common communication activity in which we all engage. In business there are a number of situations in which bargaining takes place, for example, contract negotiations, wage bargaining, customer complaints, or negotiating with staff to do overtime, to name just a few. Negotiation is not limited to the business arena, as everyday in our private lives we are called on to bargain or negotiate with others, whether it is buying a second hand car, buying a house, or simply bargaining with our partner and children about where to take our next vacation or what television show to watch. How we negotiate or bargain with others will have an impact on the working, financial aspects of our lives as well as on our relationships with others. Yet when people come to negotiate, especially for those larger financial items like the house or car, "people often find themselves in a dilemma. They see two ways to negotiate: soft or hard" (Fisher & Ury, 1991, p. xiv). These choices are very often uncons cious with the "soft" negotiator wanting to avoid interpersonal conflict and, therefore, readily making concessions and the hard negotiator wanting to win at all costs and, therefore, risking the ongoing relationships with the other parties (Fisher & Ury, 1991). A third way, called "principled negotiation," was developed at the Harvard Negotiation Project. Principled negotiation attempts to find mutual benefit or a win/win for all parties, ensuring the dispute is subject to fair standards. This approach has been demonstrated to be more efficient and less costly to human relationships than positional bargaining (Fisher & Ury, 1991; Covey, 1989).