Like it or not, you are a negotiator.

Negotiation is a fact of life. Everyone negotiates something every day.

Negotiation is a part of everyday life - business life and personal life. People negotiate with their spouses, employers, partners, landlords, salespeople and even themselves. Whether it's with an employer, family member or business, we all negotiate for things each day like a business deal, higher salary, better service or solving a dispute with a co-worker or family member. Today's people want to participate in decisions that affect them; fewer and fewer people will accept decisions dictated by someone else. People differ, and they use negotiation to handle their differences. Whether in business, government, or the family, people reach most decisions through negotiation.

Although negotiation takes place every day, it is not easy to do well. Standard strategies for negotiation often leave people dissatisfied, worn out, or alienated – and frequently all three. People find themselves in a dilemma. They see two ways to negotiate – soft or hard. This workshop explores a third – a way neither hard nor soft, but rather hard and soft.

Fundamental to the analysis and conduct of negotiation is the recognition of the presence of two opposing forces and interconnected elements: competition and cooperation. The presence of these two elements create the Negotiator Dilemma: the inescapable tension between cooperation in order to create mutual benefit and competition with a view to individual advantage. It is rightly said, in acknowledgment of the tension, that “the effective negotiator is as much concerned with finding an outcome that the other party can agree with as she or he is with promoting or protecting a preferred solution”.