The Win-Win Solution: Guaranteeing Fair Shares to Everybody

Rating:
Summary: Advance in Dispute Resolution
Review: In a broad perspective, we see a strong desire in society to understand dispute and simplify the process of closure. In one camp, there have always been those who have worked toward addressing the underlying reality of disputes through logic and wisdom (Solomon for example). In another camp, there have always been those who have arbitrarily simplified dispute resolution leading to forced, bureaucratic solutions, which more often than not led to a more intense conflict.

In this reviewer's opinion, it is critical to understand which camp ideas on dealing with disputes belong to. Win-Win does not present a variation of a one-size-fits-all solution or conjure up a quick fix by slight of hand. By recognizing that disputing parties have different needs and priorities, they developed an efficient process that offers the opportunity for all parties to assert, and perhaps win what they think best for themselves. Their idea is nothing less than an addition to the science of fairness in the Western philosophical tradition.

Fair division is not a complete solution to every dispute. Solomon might have been confused if confronted by two parents with equal rights, responsibilities, and motivation. In such complex situations as divorce with children, much can be gained however by partially stripping away disputed issues and focusing a new wave of effort on those that remain. Judging from what is presented in Win-Win, I believe the authors would be satisfied with a recommendation that their ideas deserve to be part of the general toolkit for dispute resolution. I would go farther in suggesting it as part of a basic scientific understanding of fairness that every culture needs.

Many books attempt to address a broad class of problems and eventually end up in the dusty stack of fads with Hoola Hoops. In Win-Win, Brams and Taylor have presented a valid idea with mathematical precision that adds to our understanding of fairness and is not likely to go out of fashion. But it doesn't stop there. They provide systematic processes for applying the knowledge in real life. I could not possibly imagine the full list of professionals and non-professionals, scientists, politicians, negotiators, and den mothers, who can find value in Win-Win.

Roger F. Gay, Project Leader Project for the Improvement of Child Support Litigation Technology http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5910/index.html

Rating:
Summary: Advance in Dispute Resolution
Review: In a broad perspective, we see a strong desire in society to understand dispute and simplify the process of closure. In one camp, there have always been those who have worked toward addressing the underlying reality of disputes through logic and wisdom (Solomon for example). In another camp, there have always been those who have arbitrarily simplified dispute resolution leading to forced, bureaucratic solutions, which more often than not led to a more intense conflict.

In this reviewer's opinion, it is critical to understand which camp ideas on dealing with disputes belong to. Win-Win does not present a variation of a one-size-fits-all solution or conjure up a quick fix by slight of hand. By recognizing that disputing parties have different needs and priorities, they developed an efficient process that offers the opportunity for all parties to assert, and perhaps win what they think best for themselves. Their idea is nothing less than an addition to the science of fairness in the Western philosophical tradition.

Fair division is not a complete solution to every dispute. Solomon might have been confused if confronted by two parents with equal rights, responsibilities, and motivation. In such complex situations as divorce with children, much can be gained however by partially stripping away disputed issues and focusing a new wave of effort on those that remain. Judging from what is presented in Win-Win, I believe the authors would be satisfied with a recommendation that their ideas deserve to be part of the general toolkit for dispute resolution. I would go farther in suggesting it as part of a basic scientific understanding of fairness that every culture needs.

Many books attempt to address a broad class of problems and eventually end up in the dusty stack of fads with Hoola Hoops. In Win-Win, Brams and Taylor have presented a valid idea with mathematical precision that adds to our understanding of fairness and is not likely to go out of fashion. But it doesn't stop there. They provide systematic processes for applying the knowledge in real life. I could not possibly imagine the full list of professionals and non-professionals, scientists, politicians, negotiators, and den mothers, who can find value in Win-Win.

Roger F. Gay, Project Leader Project for the Improvement of Child Support Litigation Technology http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5910/index.html

Rating:
Summary: A Useful Tool, But Not A Panacea
Review: This book introduces only one novel concept, which is okay, because many best-sellers contain no original thought at all.

Brams and Taylor spend the book explaining the concept "adjusted winner" and its implications for dispute resolution. The authors begin by laying the following framework: the dispute involved is a two-party dispute, goods or issues ("items") are being divided, and the division is a voluntary choice.

Within that framework, according to Brams and Taylor, there are four basic ways of dividing items: strict alternation (taking turns); balanced alternation, which adds something to compensate for the disadvantage of going second; one-cuts-the-other- chooses, and "adjusted winner."

The "adjusted winner" situation has three characteristics: it is envy-free, efficient, and equitable. Each of these terms has a specific meaning in this book (the concepts can be hard to keep straight on a first reading).

"Envy-free" means that no party is willing to give up the portion it receives in exchange for the portion someone else receives.

"Equitable" means that both parties think they received the same fraction of the total items to be divided, as they value them.

"Efficient" means that there is no other allocation that is better for some party without being worse for another party.

How is this gold standard of negotiation outcome achieved? Ah, there's the rub. First the parties designation the goods and issues in a dispute. Then, each party indicates how much the value obtaining the different goods, or "getting their way" on the different issues, by distributing 100 points across them. Each item is initially assigned to the person who puts more points on it. Then, an equitable allocation is achieved by transferring items, or fractions thereof, from one party to the other until their point totals are equal.

The book addresses adequately, I think, the problem of one or both parties being insincere about their preferences (it can be demonstrated mathematically to backfire). However, despite the concrete examples offered of the David and Ivana Trump divorce, the Camp David Agreement, the Clinton-Bush debates, and the Spratly Islands dispute, the reader is left wondering, doggone it, how do I actually assign these point thingies in my next negotiation? And is this method just too fancy to get the folks across the table to buy into? I suspect it probably is.

Rating:
Summary: A Useful Tool, But Not A Panacea
Review: This book introduces only one novel concept, which is okay, because many best-sellers contain no original thought at all.

Brams and Taylor spend the book explaining the concept "adjusted winner" and its implications for dispute resolution. The authors begin by laying the following framework: the dispute involved is a two-party dispute, goods or issues ("items") are being divided, and the division is a voluntary choice.

Within that framework, according to Brams and Taylor, there are four basic ways of dividing items: strict alternation (taking turns); balanced alternation, which adds something to compensate for the disadvantage of going second; one-cuts-the-other- chooses, and "adjusted winner."

The "adjusted winner" situation has three characteristics: it is envy-free, efficient, and equitable. Each of these terms has a specific meaning in this book (the concepts can be hard to keep straight on a first reading).

"Envy-free" means that no party is willing to give up the portion it receives in exchange for the portion someone else receives.

"Equitable" means that both parties think they received the same fraction of the total items to be divided, as they value them.

"Efficient" means that there is no other allocation that is better for some party without being worse for another party.

How is this gold standard of negotiation outcome achieved? Ah, there's the rub. First the parties designation the goods and issues in a dispute. Then, each party indicates how much the value obtaining the different goods, or "getting their way" on the different issues, by distributing 100 points across them. Each item is initially assigned to the person who puts more points on it. Then, an equitable allocation is achieved by transferring items, or fractions thereof, from one party to the other until their point totals are equal.

The book addresses adequately, I think, the problem of one or both parties being insincere about their preferences (it can be demonstrated mathematically to backfire). However, despite the concrete examples offered of the David and Ivana Trump divorce, the Camp David Agreement, the Clinton-Bush debates, and the Spratly Islands dispute, the reader is left wondering, doggone it, how do I actually assign these point thingies in my next negotiation? And is this method just too fancy to get the folks across the table to buy into? I suspect it probably is.