Seeking arrangements that benefit both parties is claimed to be more effective than competing, because most situations are not fixed-sum.
Covey's principle depends entirely on a prior judgement about the situation, which the principle itself does not help make. Distributive bargaining over a fixed sum exists, and a negotiator who assumes otherwise concedes. The useful discipline is checking whether the pie is fixed before assuming it is not.
In practice
- Two parties who discover complementary priorities trade them and both do better than splitting the difference.
- A buyer committed to win-win facing a seller committed to winning gets the outcome that predicts.
- Possible explanations
- The explanation is that most negotiations contain differences in what each side values, so trades exist that leave both better off, and searching for them beats dividing a fixed sum.
- In its favour
- Integrative bargaining is well supported in negotiation research, where parties who exchange information about priorities reach better joint outcomes than those who only concede.
- Against it
- It depends on a prior judgement about the situation that the principle itself does not help make, and prescribed universally it disarms the party that adopts it against one that does not, since distributive bargaining over a fixed sum is real.
- Standing
- Sound where the situation is genuinely positive-sum and misleading where it is not. Prescribed universally, it disarms the party that adopts it against one that has not. Compare zero-sum versus positive-sum framing.
- Subject
- Games & Strategic Interaction
- Essay
- The recurring shapes of conflict and cooperation