Negotiating for a Super-Win

We explained earlier that the RDC philosophy is centered on business ethics and a principled approach to negotiation that seeks to maximize the value of the outcomes for both parties. We have described how to build trust so that the parties can be honest about their underlying interests and seek a “win-win” resolution. Rather than locking the parties into a set of confrontational stances, this principled approach to negotiation avoids a personalized joust. It seeks a fair deal for both parties but one that they can both be motivated toward because it maximizes their own payoff. This approach can be extended to create additional value above and beyond the value that either of the parties involved in the negotiation could find in isolation—what has been called a “super-win.” We have also cautioned that negotiation involves compromise and therefore should be avoided if possible in preference to straightforward buying and selling. It’s now time to dig a bit deeper into these concepts and find a way of expressing the ideas so the relationship between them is clearer. Figure 8-1 shows the negotiation “bow tie” that can be used to plot the relationship between the horizontal scale, which shows the value rising from left to right, and the vertical scale, which simply indicates how the total value of the deal is shared between the parties.