Tales of the Bazaar: Interest-Based Negotiation Across Cultures
In Practice Tales of the Bazaar: Interest-Based Negotiation Across Cultures Jeffrey M. Senger Interest-based negotiation, as popularized by Fisher, Ury, and Patton (1991), is a favored negotiation style of many people in the United States and other parts of the developed world. The author, an American attorney who has traveled widely, assesses how that approach works in different cul- tural contexts. Using illustrations from his own experiences, the author shows how interest-based techniques work successfully, as well as the limi- tations of this approach in some situations. An American traveling abroad can experience negotiation in a vast array of cultures, some of which approach a state of nature. Particularly in devel- oping countries, many people negotiate for just about everything. While the fixed price system of commerce is typical in the U.S. and Western Europe, it simply does not exist in many other parts of the world. Even the simplest things we take for granted, such as a meter in a taxicab, are nowhere to be found, and negotiation is forced into almost every transaction. As a teacher of negotiation, as well as a lifelong student of it, I have found overseas travel to provide an amazing education in the field. Both my background and my current practice center largely on “interest-based negoti- ation” (Fisher, Ury, and Patton, 1991). My formal training is in the legal profession, where I first studied negotiation under Roger Fisher. I now con- duct negotiation and mediation training programs for the U.S. Justice Jeffrey M. Senger is Deputy Senior Counsel for Dispute Resolution for the United States Depart- ment of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Ave.
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