Introduction

The chapter opens by asserting that negotiation is a universal, everyday activity spanning domestic, business, legal, labor, and international settings. Negotiation is defined as back-and-forth communication aimed at agreement where parties have both shared and conflicting interests.

The authors identify a dilemma between two common strategies. The soft negotiator prioritizes harmony, concedes readily, and risks exploitation and resentment. The hard negotiator treats negotiation as a contest of wills, takes extreme positions, and often provokes hardness in return, draining resources and damaging relationships. Hybrids still trade off results against relationships.

As a remedy, the authors introduce principled negotiation from the Harvard Negotiation Project: decide issues on their merits, seek mutual gains when possible, and, where interests conflict, insist on outcomes based on fair, independent standards. This approach is hard on the merits yet soft on people, avoids tricks, enables fairness, and protects against exploitation.

The chapter previews the book: first, problems with positional bargaining; next, four core principles; finally, responses to common challenges—greater power on the other side, refusal to cooperate, and use of dirty tricks. The authors emphasize the method’s broad applicability across numbers of parties and issues, experience levels, and styles, noting it becomes easier when both sides use it.