Three kinds of negotiations (human interactions) || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2013)

Speaker: The first kind of negotiation is based on interest, self-interest. Self-interest based negotiations. What am I trying to do in this kind of negotiations? I’m trying to maximize my perceived payoff; I’m trying to maximize my benefit. Here am I an employer or an employee and I’m thinking of myself as totally separate from the other party and I’m saying that there is something to be had for which both the parties are vying and only one party can get it and I want to be the one who can get it.

Have you heard of something called as zero-sum game? What is a zero-sum game? A zero-sum game is a game in which if I win a unit then the other party loses a unit. So the total payoff is always zero. I get one and you lose one. This is a zero-sum game. A self-interest based negotiation is always a zero-sum game and hence it is always violent. It says that I get something only if the other party loses something. So, I’m trying to snatch something away from you and you are trying to snatch something away from me. It is as if there is a limited resource for which both the parties are struggling, competing. Are you getting it? This is commonly the type of negotiation that we witness not only between an employer and employee but also between a person and another person and the persons could be anybody. A husband and a wife, a father and a son, a mother and a daughter

Listener: A teacher and a student.

Speaker: A student and a teacher obviously; a seller and a buyer. You want to sell it to me for 30 rupees but if I get it for 25, then I gain 5 rupees extra. But you..