The Structure of Negotiation: An Alternative Model Roger Fisher

As we seek to understand and de­sign the features of negotiation

that will best help us achieve good outcomes, it may prove useful to look at structure. Currently, I am fo­cusing on the international arena and working on four interrelated but dif­ferent aspects of negotiation:

Relationship Issues. These con­cern the way in which governments deal with each other. An effective working relationship appears to de­pend on the extent of mutual accep­tance, trust, reliability, consultation, understanding, concern, and respect for each other's rights to differ.

Issues of Skill. The quality of a ne­gotiation depends greatly upon the competence of the persons involved, including their experience, training, awareness, sensitivity, and judgment, and the intellectual tools and frame­works available to them.

Issues of Process. Just as Robert's Rules of Order established the pro­cess within which most legislative bodies tend to operate, so working assumptions and standard operating procedures tend to set the agenda and determine the sequence of events in an international negotia­tion. More work needs to be done on devising better rules to guide the pro­cess and procedures of international negotiations.

Negotiation Structure. A fourth per­spective is to look at the institutional arrangements or systems within which international negotiations take place. In this column, I want to look at structure, and outline two con­trasting models of bilateral negotia­tion. These outlines were stimulated by work of Dr. Victor Kremenyuk of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Roger Fisher is Williston Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, 522 Pound Hall, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Mass. 02138. He is co­author (with William Ury) of Getting to YES: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981).

0748-4526/86/0700-0223SOS.OO/O © 1986 Plenum Publishing Corporation Negotiation journal july 1986 233

MODEL T

A TRADITIONAL NEGOTIATION STRUCTURE

Diplomats. Participants

Formality

Preparation

Highly formal; official negotiating sessions; face-to-face across a table.

Internal negotiations and bureaucratic decision making that produce governmental positions.

Relationship Instructions from government to diplomats. with Government

Process

Focus

Bargaining; an exchange of concessions.

On immediate, short-term results.

Duration A one-shot conference.

Product A binding agreement.

First let us look at a classic diplo­matic negotiation in which represen­tatives of governments are sent off with strict instructions. I have called this "Model T" for "traditional."

There are many difficulties with this traditional structure: Each gov­ernment decides on an answer be­fore having the benefit of the other's views; the system severely restricts both learning and creativity; and the adoption of national positions tends to promote adversarial bargaining rather than joint problem solving. Typically, each ambassador has full authority vis-a-vis the other to enter into a binding commitment, but is strictly confined by national instruc­tions.

234 Roger Fisher Alternative Model

An Alternative Model (Model A) rests on the premise that if the nego­tiators in the field have less authority, they will be able to do more. Having no authority to make binding com­mitments, they will be freer to ex­plore interests and to invent a range of options that might advance shared concerns and accommodate those that differ.

For those who think of "negotia­tion'' as necessarily involving posi­tions, concessions, and decisions, the international interchange in Model A might be thought of as "exploratory discussions," "pre-negotiations," or a "preliminary phase." In outline form, this problem-solving structure can be summarized as follows:

MODEL A

AN ALTERNATIVE INTERNATIONAL NEGOTIATION STRUCTURE

Participants

Formality

Preparation

Governmental and nongovernmental experts; standing committees.

A variety of highly informal sessions; side-by-side work.

Learning: About the subject, about interests, precedents, other criteria; collect ideas about possible solutions.

Relationship Recommendations (perhaps joint) from experts to governments. with Government

Process Joint problem solving; brainstorming without commitment; generating possible decisions and agreements.

Focus

Duration

Products

A series of results over time.

Indefinite; an ongoing process of managing differences.

Advice, guidelines, recommendations; non-binding norms.

Granted that if its terms are the same, a binding commitment will tend to be more stable than non­binding norms; governments, after all, find it far easier to respect guidelines than to commit them­selves to continue to do so. And ne­gotiators who are asked to produce joint recommendations are likely to be better problem solvers than those who are instructed to advance positions.

There is an infinite range of pos-

sible structures for a bilateral inter­national negotiation. Simple models may help us focus on the possibil­ities. For most international prob­lems, Model A looks more promising than Model T.

I'd be interested in hearing from readers of Negotiation journal re­garding their opinions of Model A and Model T. You may write to me in care of the Harvard Negotiation Proj­ect, 522 Pound Hall, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Mass. 02138.

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