Good Example Of Essay On Agreement Without Giving In, 1981

Introduction

Getting to yes is a book written by members of the Harvard Negotiation Project, Fisher, and Ury. The authors are focused on psychology of negotiating especially in their method of “Principled Negotiation”. Authors of this book tend to find acceptable solutions by determining fixed needs and the ones that can be available and flexible for negotiating. The book best helps students to understand bargaining that is non-adversarial. The principled negotiation that matters so much in this book has been based on five prepositions according to the authors, Fisher, and Ury. What I like most about this book is that it focuses on psychology of negotiation. This book helps me to learn the basic prepositions of principled negotiation and steps that are important in handling conflicts. Some of the noted prepositions are separating people from problems that occur, giving a focus on interests during conflict, invention of options that can help in mutual gain and knowing of best alternatives that can negotiate agreements. My opinion about this book is most positive because it deals with all levels of negotiation and forms of solving conflicts. This book, getting to yes is important to everyone and not only students because it gives a concise strategy that is proven the step by step to come mutually to acceptable agreements. Every sort of conflict can be solved with knowledge from this book despite whoever is involved.

Thesis

This paper aims at exploring the book, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving In, 1981. Further, the paper will identify the golden nuggets about the paper, contributions of the book to the society, importance of the book and its strengths. This paper also has an aim to expound on the weaknesses of the book, its relevance and give a conclusion.

Golden Nuggets Quotes

“People Problems” is quoted in the book and the authors identify problems that people face (pg 26). This quote suggests that people are problems and people are the ones who harbor and face problems. “Dare to love yourself as if you were a rainbow” quotes why people should love themselves and solve conflicts with the right means by Aberjhani (pg 466). “All that is gold dose, not glitter” is quoted by Tolkien and he identifies that not all that wander are bad (pg, 173). Even the conflicts can look bad but are at a position to get solved. “If gold rusts, what can the iron do” is also a nugget of wisdom that applies to this conflict issue. It was quoted by Chaucer, and it ensures that humans are gold, so it is good to solve conflict issues (pg, 54).

Contributions

Getting to yes as a book contributes to principled negotiation when it comes to handling conflicts whether domestic or involving a group. The book ensures that interest-based approach to solving conflicts through negotiation is well understood. A principle of separating people from their problem in the book separates issues of relationships and people from their problems. When it comes to solving conflicts, it is important that people are separated from the substantive issues, and they are dealt with independently. Fisher and Ury point out that “people problems” and they involve Patton in observing this. The quote involves problems of perception, communication, and emotion. When it comes to defining the problem and its solutions, perceptions are most important. Different perceptions frame problems and the authors of this book further suggest seven strategies that are basic for handling perception problems.

Importance

Fisher, Ury, and Patton do consider problems of communication to be problems of people. The book becomes even more important because it gives communication problems including not talking to each other, not listening to each other and misunderstandings and misinterpretations. Getting to yes has contributed to giving good information about good communication among partners in conflict and how to understand each other. When partners in conflict focus their interests, they can easily fulfill invention of options that lead to mutual gains. Another important contribution of the book, getting to yes is that it insists on objective criteria when it comes to decision-making. Objectivity further contributes to fairness and simplification of the process of negotiation.

Strengths

Strengths of the book, getting to yes define and explain principled negotiation in a manner of interest-based approach. The book is best and can be considered to be of strength because it primarily focuses on management and resolution of conflict. Further, the strengths of the book come when it uses an integrative approach to solving conflicts. It is uncommon to find good approaches that solve conflicts and the book are best and mostly known to be discussing issues of conflict with an interest based on negotiating conflict. The integrative approaches are strengths in the book of Getting to yes, and it helps to find a mutually shared outcome. Strength of winning is evidenced when a major phrase is used in the book. This nugget quote is “win-win” and the book just aims at winning conflicts and doing away with them. This book gets to explain and give evidences that principled negotiation is mostly popular among mediators and academics as compared to in business. Negotiating with professional buyers, however, comes in to argue how academics can handle conflicts more that business does.

Weaknesses

Weaknesses of this book, getting to Yes are noticed despite it having several advantages. A major weakness is generalization, and this book generalizes the conflict resolution aspects of everybody is equal. It does not consider the other side of exceptions and that other people may not be same with others. When applying conflict resolution strategies, there should be the individualization with consideration that people are different. A second weakness is the distinction between interests and positions. The two are same and work together thus must at all times operate equally. A third weakness is the distributional bargaining together with games that are zero-sum. Bargaining put in the distribution is more of generalization, and this is not accepted. Other weaknesses are basing on the hard bargainer, power imbalances, objective criteria, perception, and cognitive based biases. The book has its greatest misunderstanding about the process of negotiation. The book is adversarial in nature and does not entirely gives options for solving conflicts. The book is not designed for people with a debate and trial mentality. Negotiation process is a process of problem-solving whereby each party gets to look across the table. Further, parties get to regard its counterparts as advocates who can be potential in the solution of problems but this book does not consider this. Getting to yes as a book fails to mention that decision-making is a process that moves groups and individuals towards common goals. People are not alike in values and beliefs because there are huge differences among people in an organization.

Relevance

Getting to Yes as a book is relevant in today’s life because it promotes norm-forming negotiation. Negotiation is adversarial and essential when it comes to real life situations. This book is thus of great relevance in real life, and negotiators do see the processes as win or lose. Authors in this book argue that the major problems in most negotiations are either softness or hardness of positions. These authors further argue that instead of being hard on people and problems or soft on both it is better to be hard on the problem and soft on the people. Separating people from problems is relevant to recognizing emotions and egos during conflict handling. Focusing on interests is relevant to exploration of true interests of both sides. Generating options for purposes of mutual gain is relevant in making it possible for mutual gain to existing. The objective criteria are relevant in creating openness and decreasing pressure. The entire book is thus relevant to a few cases of its irrelevance. The principles applied in this book make it more of conflict resolution and relevant to be referred to when issues of conflict arise. Besides, the book is among the few books if not the only book that talks about negotiation to solve conflicts.

Conclusion

In concluding, getting to yes is a straightforward method that is universally applicable to negotiation. Negotiation involves both the professional and personal disputes, and it should occur without being taken. This book is best when it comes to issues of conflict, and any person who would love to handle conflict without straining should apply the book’s steps. The step-to-step approaches are proven strategies that come to mutual acceptance and agreements in every conflict that occurs.

References

Fisher, R., Ury, W., & Patton, B. (2011).Getting to yes: Negotiating agreement without giving in. New York: Penguin.