98.7% Of all customers recommend us, we're so confident about our results we publish all reviews and stats
View Live Stats View ReviewsPrevious article Next article Negotiating Skills articles
Positional Bargaining: The Soft Or Hard Approach?
Fri 23rd September 2011
My latest television-prompted idea came from a less obvious source, however; I was watching a rerun of an episode from series one of House, the American medical drama, starring our own Hugh Laurie.
In this episode, the meticulous misanthrope, Dr House, observed a slight change in the behaviour of one of his staff. He gauged by her attempts to manipulate her colleagues that she had recently had her nose in a book on how to brush up on your negotiating skills. He informed her colleagues that they had been duped by 'soft positional bargaining'. This was a new term to me, and so I decided to look into it. Here's what I found.
Positional bargaining involves adhering to a set position and negotiating for that single target, regardless of other factors.
By way of example, I give you a couple who are negotiating over their preferences for a pizza delivery. One party is a vegetarian, however, and that person adopts a stance of positional bargaining. She states that they can either order separate pizzas according to their dietary preferences, or a large vegetarian option to be shared, but a single pizza with a meat-based topping is not an option. The immovable goal of the vegetarian, her positional standpoint, is that she has a meat-free pizza.
The other party agrees to share a vegetarian pizza on the condition that they have chilli peppers on it. The vegetarian allows this concession because it does not affect her ultimate goal.
This is a rather simplistic example, although it does demonstrate the point. But this is simply positional bargaining; where does the soft part come in?
Soft bargaining is a negotiating technique that is probably best described by contrasting it against the more commonly used term, hard bargaining.
The fundamental difference between soft and hard bargaining is that with the former, the goal is agreement, where the goal of the latter is victory. While the soft bargainer will allow concessions, his hard counterpart will demand them. Soft bargaining has no problem in disclosing the bottom line, where the hard bargainer will play those cards close to his chest. While soft bargaining allows flexibility to change position, hard bargainers will dig in on their position.
These positional differences throw up one obvious conclusion: in negotiations between inflexible hard bargainers and more vulnerable soft bargainers, the hard option will always come out with the better deal. This is true to a great extent, so is there any room in negotiations for soft bargaining?
The answer is yes, but a lot of thought should be applied before the decision to adopt a soft negotiating stance is adopted. So in what kind of situation would soft bargaining be useful?
If you know what the goal of your opposite number is, and you are happy to concede to it, then soft bargaining can bring about a satisfactory outcome for both parties, without placing any strain on the relationship.
There are many different approaches to negotiating, some more effective than others, but they all have their uses in certain circumstances. Learning which method to apply based on the information you possess is a step on the road to becoming an expert negotiator.
Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on negotiation skills training london onsite, please visit https://www.stl-training.co.uk
Original article appears here:
https://www.stl-training.co.uk/article-1975-positional-bargaining-soft-or-hard-approach.html
London's widest choice in
dates, venues, and prices
Public Schedule:
On-site / Closed company:
TestimonialsHealth Research Authority NHS
Member Recruitment Adminitrator Flora White Excel Intermediate Great session, I feel I have learnt a great lot even with areas I thought I knew quite well. Really useful and have definitely have taken away lots of new skills to use. Park Plaza Westminster Bridge
Finance Director Karen Linforth Excel Advanced Cannot think of any improvements, possibly to have been aware I could have brought data with me may have helped however I know my work so could visualise the applicability to what I do each day. I have found the training, support and course content are exactly what I was looking for is exactly as marketed and promised on the website. Well done to Richard. I am going to book a next course for myself in forecasting and also for my team who are getting used to excel as the quality is so high. Towerview Care
Group Finance Director William Wright Power BI Modelling, Visualisation and Publishing I said pacing was too slow, but that was very close between just right and too slow. Just felt that some other attendees could have been cajoled along a little quicker. |
PUBLICATION GUIDELINES