The Power of Nice, Revised and Updated

Chapter 2I Win–You Lose Negotiation—An Exercise in Flawed Logic

The winning team, like the conquering army, claims everything in its path and seems to say that only winning is important. Yet, like getting into the college of your choice or winning an election or marrying a beautiful mate, victory is fraught with as much danger as glory. Victory has very narrow meanings and, if exaggerated or misused, can become a destructive force.

—Bill Bradley, Life on the Run

Enemies and Entrenched Positions

I Win–You Lose is probably the most common (and least productive) approach to negotiation. Victory, not the achievement of goals, is the only acceptable outcome. And the counterpart of victory is defeat. In order for one side to gain what it wants, the other side must give up what it wants. There is no winner unless there's a loser. This is negotiation as war. The other side is the enemy. The success rate is about as good as that of war—seldom and rarely long-lasting—the opposite of the Power of Nice.

I love the smell of napalm in the morning—it smells like victory.

—Lt. Col. Kilgore, Apocalypse Now

Enemies

In I Win–You Lose negotiation, one side assumes the other is an adversary. Sometimes both sides assume so. They couldn't possibly each be business people or neighbors or siblings or even fellow human beings. They couldn't share wants or needs or fears or hopes. They have nothing in common. They're enemies.

And as enemies, there's no goodwill, no open-mindedness, no willingness ...