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Free The People

This response paper discusses the author's experience with conflict negotiation and their discovery of principled negotiation. The author grew up in a household with conflict and married someone in the military who embraced a "might makes right" approach. Through counseling and education, the author learned about validating feelings but still felt they lacked conflict resolution skills. In a class, the author discovered principled negotiation from Getting to Yes. This approach of separating people from problems, focusing on interests not positions, finding multiple options, and being objective helped the author resolve conflicts in their family in a way where both sides felt heard and good about the resolution.

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36 views

Free The People

This response paper discusses the author's experience with conflict negotiation and their discovery of principled negotiation. The author grew up in a household with conflict and married someone in the military who embraced a "might makes right" approach. Through counseling and education, the author learned about validating feelings but still felt they lacked conflict resolution skills. In a class, the author discovered principled negotiation from Getting to Yes. This approach of separating people from problems, focusing on interests not positions, finding multiple options, and being objective helped the author resolve conflicts in their family in a way where both sides felt heard and good about the resolution.

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Jayel Kirby

Prof. Jodie Jones


COMM 1080-400-F15
November 22, 2015

Response Paper #3: Free the People!


Using Principled Negotiation
Having been raised in a home where my mother, who has Borderline Personality
Disorder, married and divorced a number of times, I wasnt taught how to appropriately negotiate
conflict. As an adult, I married a good man, but one who entered the military and often embraced
the might makes right philosophy. Over the years, we have occasionally sought out
professional help as we have tried to learn how to work through issues together. Through these
avenues, we were introduced to a valuable principle that I believe was responsible for saving our
marriage: validating each others feelings. Still, I felt that I lacked the ability to properly respond
to various conflicts between all family members. When working my way toward an associates
degree, I learned that I would need a Social Science course and a Diversity course. Seeing that
this course, Conflict Management and Diversity, would satisfy those requirements, I registered
for it, hoping I would gain the problem-solving skills I desired. As I read through Getting To YES
(Fisher et al, 1991), I felt that I had finally found the skill I was looking for: principled
negotiation.
Fisher teaches that standard strategies for negotiation often leave people dissatisfied,
worn out, or alienated (1991, 6). This was the dilemma I had been experiencing all of my life,
so I learned to avoid conflict like the plague. I would often play the role of the soft negotiator
[who] wants to avoid personal conflict and so makes concessions readily in order to reach

agreement. [S]he wants an amicable resolution; yet [s]he often ends up exploited and feeling
bitter (1991, 6). I hated making concessions to give others what they wanted, but I would often
do it to avoid further conflict. I hated this; it made me feel inferior, and I knew I deserved better.
So, when I was tired of feeling completely manipulated and mistreated, I would resort to the role
of the hard negotiator [who] sees any situation as a contest of wills in which the side that takes
the more extreme positions and holds out longer fares better (1991, 6). Engaging this tactic left
me feeling selfish and guilty. I knew it wasnt allowing my loved-ones a fair chance. I felt that no
matter what I did, I would lose - and so would the relationship. I felt stuck under a cloud of
frustration; was there no way to work through differences of opinion that could make both parties
feel valued and powerful?
Imagine the relief I felt when the veil of confusion lifted as Fisher explained the concept
of principled negation: being hard on the merits, soft on the people (1991, 6). This was exactly
what I had been looking for. The four points of principled negotiation helped clear the fog, as I
learned to: separate the people from the problem, focus on interests; not positions, generate a
variety of possibilities before deciding what to do, and insist that the result be based on some
objective standard (1991, 10-11).
Having previous experience with validating others feelings, I could relate to Fishers first
category of people problems: perception. He explained that conflict isnt necessarily a concrete
thing; it is simply something they perceive. Its not about right or wrong - or about what is true,
its about a perception of difference between the way two (or more) individuals think about the
situation. The difference itself, says Fisher, exists because it exists in their thinking. Fears,
even if ill-founded, are real fears and need to be dealt with. Hopes, even if unrealistic, may cause
a war (1991, 15-16). Such feelings, as irrational as they might be, must be given credence

before the actual issues can be addressed. A person must feel that they have been heard and that
their point of view is respected before they will be open to negotiating. So, Fisher explains, If
you want to influence them, you also need to understand empathetically the power of their point
of view and to feel the emotional force with which they believe in it (1991, 16). Comprehending this concept was easy for me. I already knew how to validate others.
Now all I had to do was apply this skill in my process of separating people from the
problem and apply the other three points of principled negotiation. As I considered this, I could
see a number of little conflicts in my life becoming less complicated. I briefly summarized
Fishers four points of principled negotiation to my husband when our individual plans for the
day conflicted with each other, and by using these ideas, we were able to brainstorm possibilities
and arrive at a solution that both of us felt good about. It was so simple. And there was no
residue of the old ill side-effects, namely: manipulation, resentment, or coercion. It felt so good!
I am so excited about this negotiation system that I plan to teach it at our next family
meeting. I even went online and ordered Fishers book. After learning these principles, I cant
imagine why Id choose to revert back to my old ways. Principled negotiation has opened up a
whole new way of interacting with the people I love, free of putting down others or feeling put
down myself. There isnt a single relationship in my life that doesnt deserve the use of this new
negotiating process.
From now on, I will focus on the problem and

. . . free the people!

Citations
Fisher, R., Ury, W., & Patton, B. (1991). Getting to yes: Negotiating agreement without giving in
(2nd ed.). New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books.

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